reawaken

every day
when I awake
I am reborn
newly formed
every breath
that comes in
begins
every day
all mistakes
blown away
after intake
and while inside
trying to shine
or trying to hide
I’m crucified
until the next day
when I awake
reborn with every breath
I take

a poem

is your dream
as quiet as can be
as sleepy as the sea
way down where you can’t see
is it just a dream
a tiny little seed
waiting to be seen
it could be anything

sun lights the inner fire
burns the desire
you will move
if you choose
or drown
in the ground

Tori Amos in Adelaide, complete show!

Tori Amos performed an incredible solo concert in Adelaide, Australia, on November 19, 2009 — watch the entire show below (filmed by cobbercpd) and download it in mp3 format here. This is one of her best solo concerts ever!

Alan Watts says we are in chaos!

Now reading a wonderful book — Myth & Religion by Alan Watts. In the opening quote, he says that the current Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) do not help people realize that we are all God, and we are all one God, connected to everything that exists. What an overlook! This book is good stuff.

“Western civilization is in a state of chaos. It has lost effective knowledge of man’s true nature and destiny. Neither philosophy nor religion as they are known today do much to give man the consciousness that the deepest center or ‘ground’ of his being is to be found in that eternal reality which is in the West called God.”
- Alan Watts

David Bowie says watch your ass

“Jump They Say” is a great David Bowie song, and this is an amazing live performance of it from 1993 (lyrics below)…

“Jump They Say” by David Bowie

When comes the shaking man
A nation in his eyes
Striped with blood and emblazed tattoos
Streaking cathedral spires

They say
he has no brain
They say
he has no mood
They say
he was born again
They say
look at him climb
They say ‘Jump’

They say
he has two gods
They say
he has no fear
They say
he has no eyes
They say
he has no mouth

They say hey that’s really something
That you should get some time
I say he should watch his ass
My friend don’t listen to the crowd
They say ‘Jump’
Got to believe somebody
Got to believe

peace is awake

where can peace be found
is it here is it in me is it someplace
I need to be, just where is peace
when I dream I see just
nothing but then it seems to be
to be to be this thing that comes
to me is it different when it’s a
day dream does it mean another
thing when it comes this way
should I say it’s awake
should I say it’s AWAKE
and know it can be
and know it in peace

Christopher Hitchens says God Is Not Great

I recently read a very interesting book by Christopher Hitchens – God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything – and I must say, it’s good stuff. Here are a few videos I found on youtube that will give you some insight into his point of view…

j elijah – “Follow” (new song demo)

I wrote this song tonight, it’s called “Follow”, and this is the unedited demo. I like it (I don’t like them all, so that’s not weird to say). And of course it’s a free download.

( right-click to save the mp3 )

“Follow” by j elijah

have you let your heart go
have you let your soul go
on to where someone told
you to go

have you let your mind go
have you let it just follow
the words that you were told
they’re not your own, you see

would you just go on
being what you believe
you get stuck in a place
where you can’t leave

you see, everything around you
everything around you is your enemy
what are you gonna do about this one?

(even though I see
I see nothing
I see the ground)

have you looked into your, yourself
have you looked into the world
that you were told was real
have you looked inside
to feel
what’s real
inside
I’m feeling everybody else
even the ones
even the infidels
(this is in all of us)
the heretics
(this is in everyone)
the lunatics
(the voice of god)
the fanatic

you are
the thing that you seek
you are the one
that you fear
that you fear
you are the one
that you hold so dear, yes
look at me
look at them
they are so dear
so dear

if you let your heart go
you will let your soul go

if you let your mind go
are you one to just follow
oh, follow
oh, just follow those

look into yourself
and tell me if this is real
yes, just tell me what you feel
tell me what you feel

(the blind death
the sleepiness
would buy what
we will all be dreaming)

Regina Spektor performs “Eet”

I really enjoyed Regina Spektor’s performance of “Eet” on last night’s episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson…

Adam, Eve and the Serpent

Today I finished reading Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity by Elaine Pagels. It’s a great book about how interpretations of the Genesis creation myth changed during the first 500 years of Christianity to support the social and political views of the interpreter. Dr. Pagels’ research gives fascinating insight into the power of evolving perceptions and how they affect the world.

an excerpt (some paraphrased)…

…After Jesus had called for people to prepare for the coming Kingdom of God, and Paul proclaimed both its imminence and its radical demands, some intensely ascetic Christians in subsequent generations tried to put their teachings into radical practice, while others attempted to accommodate Christian teaching to existing social and political structures.

When state persecution pressed Christians to revere the emperors and the gods, the boldest among them defied government officials in the name of liberty and maintained their loyalty to Jesus, crucified for treason against Rome, as their “divine King,” and others denounced the emperors and all their gods as the panoply of devils. These embattled Christians forged a vision of the new “Christian society,” which was to be marked by freedom from compulsion, voluntary contributions for the welfare of all members, mutual love, and common faith.

As the Christian movement grew, dispite persecution, and increasingly developed its own interal organization, it’s leaders expelled nonconformists from their ranks, including gnostic Christians. They insisted that only orthodox Christians preached the true gospel of Christ — the message of moral freedom, given in creation and restored in baptism.

Some of the most intense Christians refused any compromise with “the world” and sought to realize that liberty through the ascetic life by rejecting familial, social, and political obligations in order to recover the original glory of humankind, created in the “image and likeness of God.” After the persecutions ended, asceticism offered a new path for uncompromising “witness” — a new form of self-chosen martyrdom.

Christian views of freedom changed as Christianity became the religion of the emperors and was no longer a persecuted movement. … From the fifth century on, pessimistic views of sexuality, politics, and human nature [based on Augustine's interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve] would become the dominant influence on western Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, and color all western culture, Christian or not, ever since.