dinosaurs:

Sun 7.16.23,

You look at the dinosaurs in the lobby of the Museum of Natural History and it gives you pause.  Those fierce looking talons didn’t save them in the end.  Sound like a familiar scenario?  

Some people say that in order to save the planet (they mean us) you have to kill capitalism.  Capitalism is a system that has run riot to its natural end point -- Nothing matters but growth and profit – The problem with growth and profit is that one reaches a finite number, a wall, then what?  A company can only sell so many mayonnaise jars.  If you have the best mayonnaise on the market and everyone’s buying it, end of growth, end of profit too.  You’ve reached your max.  You have to expand to other ventures, pickles maybe, or gourmet mustard, you have to keep producing, regardless of the product’s utility or relevance.  And then you have to entice people into believing they must have your product.  A country’s potential is measured by the amount of people in it; we are a product too. Gotta watch those Chinese, they can produce and consume more than we do.  

Lots of people buy your product.  Unimpressed, some throw it out.  I started this company and made money, you say, I can start another -- end point.  After a while, you see the futility of it all, 90 % of the earth’s population is using the cheap, plastic ball point pens you’ve produced, or maybe you moved on to firearms, a profitable market.  Perhaps you could also expand into selling coffins, get it both ways.  There is no rest, you must expand or be trampled by the competition.

I walk into the African Animals section with its herd of elephants at center.  Why do we have such an affinity for those animals?  The earth shakes, I’m sure when you meet such a group walking by in Africa.  Did you know that elephants now wage war against us?  They act in a concerted way to attack humans whether the specific humans they are attacking have caused them harm or not.  They have an all points bulletin out on humans.  

A quick walk through the mammals and the birds’ dioramas. And I’m amongst the human species, Native Americans from the US, Mexico, and Central America, Africans, Arabs.  I note that the warmer countries have the best art, the most beautiful costumes, weapons, tools, jewelry.  They’re not scraping hides, planting crops; they’re picking fruits and vegetables from nature’s abundance.  Indigenous people live communally and produce only what they need; everything they make is useful and beautifully crafted.  But you know, all those people and their culture died too.  

Carlos Castaneda’s sorcerer, Don Juan talks to him about the human situation and how we seem to be heading to our own destruction as a species.  He didn’t believe that one could will a change in the human race to correct the problem, i.e., let’s all start recycling.  If such a change happened it would have to be a natural occurrence like a volcano exploding, or a river changing its course. Much like the rat, pigeon or cockroach, we are incapable of it.  We could get rid of capitalism, its decomposition has already started and we begin to see the first signs; it’s just a matter of time.  The problem is that we have nothing to replace it with.  We’ve tried everything and always revert to the same madness.

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MANHATTAN SEERESS NOW ON EBOOKS

Eight o'clock Sunday morning, the police arrive at her apartment in Greenwich Village, "How long have you been living here?" The roommate Elizabeth, after having accepted her half of the deposit money and rent for their new apartment, has called the police. 

New York City doesn’t open its arms to welcome her, but she’s arrived and the adventure of her life is about to unfold.  She’s come from Maine with an invitation from Sarah Lawrence College to participate in the graduate writing program.

How one becomes a seeress is what this memoir explores. Stories have been specifically selected to illustrate, from the sublime to the practical, a spiritual journey introduced in each chapter by an atout, the Tarot’s major archetypes.   From the Fool, to The World, our human journey with its risk and folly unfolds. There is also an artist here alive to her new world seeking inspiration among artists on the Lower East side, learning the ways and foods of her Chinese neighbors, falling in love.