Everybody Knows (cover) - Elizabeth & the Catapult

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody knows with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor and the rich get rich

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows the boat is leaking

Everybody knows the captain lied

Everybody has this broken feeling

Like their daddy or their dog just died

Everybody's talking to their pockets

Everybody wants a box of chocolates

And a long stem rose

Everybody knows

Cause everybody knows

Everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Cause everybody knows

Everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that it's now or never

Everybody knows that it's me or you

Everybody knows that you live forever

When you've done a line or two

Everybody knows that the deal is rotten

Old Black Joe's still pickin cotton

For your ribbons and your bows

Everybody knows

Cause everybody knows that you're in trouble

Everybody knows what you've been through

From the bleeding frost of Calgree

To the beach in Malibu

Everybody knows you're coming apart

Take one last look at the sacred heart

Before it blows

Everybody knows

Cause everybody knows

Everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Cause everybody knows

Everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows

Everybody knows

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

<3

During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance.
Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.

-The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr

<3

“Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”

~Eckhart Tolle

It is right it should be so:
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
The babe is more than swaddling bands,
Throughout all these human lands;
Tools were made and born were hands,
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

~William Blake, excerpt from "Auguries of Innocence"

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

-C.S. Lewis

non semper erit aestas

When the going gets tough, this chick apparently cries. For the life of me I can’t figure out why when something entirely shitty happens I miss the chance to expand and instead expend tears upon (sometimes) cleverly worded (mostly elementary) insults. For example, the tow company removes my car from a parking space (devoid of any red stripe or visible No Parking sign) and proceeds to charge $400 for the 45 minute luxurious stay in their creepy and excessively isolated parking lot and how do I react? Well, by sobbing while very loudly labeling the two young men working that Sunday 3am shift as the legalized mafia, of course. In my defense I did at one point apologize to the gentlemen for my rudeness, however structured the apology’s scope to include only those insults that may have been incorrectly perceived as racism due to the two employee’s coincidental Russian (?) accents. By the way, this apology preceded a quick educational lesson on what karma is. Good grief, even I want to punch myself in the face.

I knew when I moved from Texas to California to live without friends or family that I’d be forced to face certain harsh realities of life. That was kind of the entire point of the move, actually: to learn what I knew not before and to grow from it. But I was expecting life lessons on running a household and money, not lessons about myself. I was not expecting to learn that deep down, I’m apparently a spoiled 14 year old girl who throws full out tantrums when denied her way. That’s a reality I don’t exactly know how to handle. Washing my mouth out with soap seems silly when the desired end result is lasting change. I expect all I can do is pray I react graciously the next time I’m faced with any entirely shitty situation and perhaps in the meantime send the tow company in downtown San Diego a basket of muffins. All Russians like muffins, right?

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

-Marianne Williamson

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

~Albert Einstein

"That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my
enemy–all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea, the very fiend himself–that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved–what
then?”

~Carl Jung

"New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but

rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his

problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is

his whole world for the moment."

~Max Planck

"You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will forever remain obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all your experience to highest advantage of others. You and all men are here for the sake of other men."
~R. Buckminster Fuller

Excerpt from Sand and Foam by Kahlil Gibran

They say to me in their awakening, "You and the world you live in are but a grain of sand upon the infinite shore of an infinite sea."
And in my dream I say to them, "I am the infinite sea, and all worlds are but grains of sand upon my shore."

Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"

The first thought of God was an angel.
The first word of God was a man.

We were fluttering, wandering, longing creatures a thousand thousand years before the sea and the wind in the forest gave us words.
Now how can we express the ancient of days in us with only the sounds of our yesterdays?

The Sphinx spoke only once, and the Sphinx said, "A grain of sand is a desert, and a desert is a grain of sand; and now let us all be silent again."
I heard the Sphinx, but I did not understand.

Long did I lie in the dust of Egypt, silent and unaware of the seasons.
Then the sun gave me birth, and I rose and walked upon the banks of the Nile,
Singing with the days and dreaming with the nights.
And now the sun threads upon me with a thousand feet that I may lie again in the dust of Egypt.
But behold a marvel and a riddle!
The very sun that gathered me cannot scatter me.
Still erect am I, and sure of foot do I walk upon the banks of the Nile.

Remembrance is a form of meeting.

Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.

We measure time according to the movement of countless suns; and they measure time by little machines in their little pockets.
Now tell me, how could we ever meet at the same place and the same time?

Space is not space between the earth and the sun to one who looks down from the windows of the Milky Way.

Humanity is a river of light running from the ex-eternity to eternity.

Do not the spirits who dwell in the ether envy man his pain?

On my way to the Holy City I met another pilgrim and I asked him, "Is this indeed the way to the Holy City?"
And he said, "Follow me, and you will reach the Holy City in a day and a night."
And I followed him. And we walked many days and many nights, yet we did not reach the Holy City.
And what was to my surprise he became angry with me because he had misled me.

Make me, oh God, the prey of the lion, ere You make the rabbit my prey.

One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.

My house says to me, "Do not leave me, for here dwells your past."
And the road says to me, "Come and follow me, for I am your future."
And I say to both my house and the road, "I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things."

How can I lose faith in the justice of life, when the dreams of those who sleep upon feathers are not more beautiful than the dreams of those who sleep upon the earth? Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.

Seven times have I despised my soul:
The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height.
The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled.
The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.
The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.
The fifth time when she forbore for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength.
The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.
And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise, and deemed it a virtue.

I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.

There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.

Paradise is there, behind that door, in the next room; but I have lost the key.
Perhaps I have only mislaid it.

You are blind and I am deaf and dumb, so let us touch hands and understand.

The significance of man is not in what he attains, but rather in what he longs to attain.

Some of us are like ink and some like paper.
And if it were not for the blackness of some of us, some of us would be dumb;
And if it were not for the whiteness of some of us, some of us would be blind.

Give me an ear and I will give you a voice.

Our mind is a sponge; our heart is a stream.
Is it not strange that most of us choose sucking rather than running?

When you long for blessings that you may not name, and when you grieve knowing not the cause, then indeed you are growing with all things that grow, and rising toward your greater self.

When one is drunk with a vision, he deems his faint expression of it the very wine.

You drink wine that you may be intoxicated; and I drink that it may sober me from that other wine.

When my cup is empty I resign myself to its emptiness; but when it is half full I resent its half-fulness.

The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you.
Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.

Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.

My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.

When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.

A truth is to be known always, to be uttered sometimes.

The real in us is silent; the acquired is talkative.

The voice of life in me cannot reach the ear of life in you; but let us talk that we may not feel lonely.

When two women talk they say nothing; when one woman speaks she reveals all of life.

It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.
-William of Occam

Eyes the Same by Morning Teleportation

And are our eyes the same
You know the air transforms ya
We're skipping through the haze
We make love in the morning

Through thick airplane windows
I never thought I'd see the day
When seeing your face was as vital as all the suns rays
And all of the dreams that you told me about in the dark
Well I had some crazy ones too but I think they are gone now

Stand still is talking to your cosmic mystery
The mark of your milk from a limb that your senses can't see

And are our eyes the same
You know the air transforms ya
We're skipping through the haze
We make love in the morning

Well whims time lapse is fast and slow
Raw sound pushes air you know
Holy is your art
If it brings you closer to the ones you know

And are our eyes the same
You know the air transforms ya
We're skipping through the haze
We make love in the morning
And are our eyes the same
You know the air transforms ya
We're skipping through the haze
We make love in the morning

Through thick airplane windows
I never thought I'd see the day
When seeing your face was as vital as all the suns rays
And all of the dreams that you told me about in the dark
Well I had some crazy ones too but I think they are gone now

Stand still is talking to your cosmic mystery
The mark of your milk from a limb that your senses can't see

And are our eyes the same
You know the air transforms ya
We're skipping through the haze
We make love in the morning

Well whims time lapse is fast and slow
Raw sound pushes air you know
Holy is your art
If it brings you closer to the ones you know

And are our eyes the same
You know the air transforms ya
We're skipping through the haze
We make love in the morning

Kris Lucas: Why can't I do the things I want to do? There's so much I know I'm capable of that I never actually do. Why is that?
Arlen Faber: The trick is to realize that you're always doing what you want to do... always. Nobody's making you do anything. Once you get that, you see that you're free and that life is really just a series of choices. Nothing happens to you. You choose.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

~Helen Keller

“If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don’t;
If you’d like to win but you think you can’t,
You can almost be certain you won’t.

If you think that you’ll lose, you are lost,
For out in the world you will find
Success begins with a person’s will;
It’s all in the state of the mind.

If you think you’re outclassed you are;
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve just got to be sure of yourself
Before you can win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To a stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the person who wins
Is the person that THINKS they can.”
~Unknown

We’re all the same
Homogenized conglomeration of all things tasteless
Without faces
Marching in line chanting the same fallacious message
Why do we feel so helpless?
Downing sugared caffeine to take the soul-sucking edge off
Mechanical nodding
Force-fed bullshit direction ingested
Forcing plastered smiles through our thinly veiled frustration
How the fuck did I ever get so complacent?
An ugly pattern emerges to stifle silent screaming
For a while for the sake of sanity, we forget
Dressed up distracted with pockets full, we forget
How, why is it so easy to forget?

Low-Anchored Cloud

Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream-drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!

"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer."
Mais toute la nature nous crie qu'il existe; qu'il y a une intelligence suprême, un pouvoir immense, un ordre admirable, et tout nous instruit de notre dépendance.
~Voltaire

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Maybe new love feels so right because in it we live life the way it's meant to be lived: falling in love with one another, with life and with God over and over again.

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Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.~Ralph Waldo Emerson

We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experienced is a narrowing of the imagination.
~David Lynch

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” —Albert Einstein

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is awaiting us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one is to come.” ~Joseph Campbell

“The success of the masterpieces seems to lie not so much in their freedom from faults – indeed we tolerate the grossest errors in them all – but in the immense persuasiveness of a mind which has completely mastered its perspective.”
—Virginia Woolf

You have comfort. You don't have luxury. And don't tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort.
~Jean Cocteau


I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.
~Henry David Thoreau

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou

I would like to explain the meaning of compassion which is often misunderstood. Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop a genuine concern for his or her problems. This is genuine compassion. Usually when we are concerned about a close friend, we call this compassion. This is not compassion; it is attachment. Even in marriage, those marriages that last only a short time, do so because of attachment - although it is generally present - but because there is also compassion. Marriages that last only a short time do so because of a lack of compassion; there is only emotional attachment based on projection and expectation. When the only bond between close friends is attachment, then even a minor issue may cause one´s projections to change. As soon as our projections change, the attachment disappears, because that attachment was based solely on projection and expectation. It is possible to have compassion without attachement, and similarly, to have anger without hatred. Therefore we need to clarify the distinctions between compassion and attachment, and between anger and hatred. Such clarity is useful in our daily life and in our efforts toward world peace. I consider these to be basic spiritual values for the happness of all human beings, regardless of whether one is a believer or a nonbeliever.

~Dalai Lama XIV

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So many fail because they don't get started, they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin.

~W. Clement Stone

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All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who can condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character, or illustrates an existence.
~ Benjamin Disraeli

...Nietzsche with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said that the life we live, we're gonna live over and over again the exact same way as eternity. Great. This means I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. It's not worth it.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy­.
~William Shakespear­e, "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5

"There is another way to think of this whole thing that we are missing. And quantum physics is forcing us down that road. It's forcing us to recognize that we don't choose in our individuality that we call the ego. Instead there is a unity behind us. We are all connected in some place where there is this cosmic consciousness engulfing everything. It's a little subtle. That's why manifestation doesn't always work."

~Dr. Amit Goswami

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

~Albert Einstein

Our country is headed in the wrong direction and it's time to stop placing blame exclusively on elected officials, Hollywood, the media and people with whom we disagree. It's time to stop pointing fingers and take a good, hard look in the mirror. It's time to take that first step and acknowledge our own culpability in the fact that our society, as a whole, is in the wrong paradigm. We wage war on everything we deem dangerous, immoral or generally disagreeable, yet rarely offer meaningful support for any actual solutions to the problems we're so passionately combating. While it's true Americans donate more money to charity than any other country, we less often show up and lend a hand, despite the fact that the majority of us think throwing money at problems rarely solve them, e.g. bailouts, stimulus, etc. It is scary to think we care more about Jersey Shore, what Meghan McCain wrote or Sarah Palin said than we do about the family down the street struggling to afford groceries. All the while we tell ourselves the country has come a long way since the intolerant eras before us. After all, most of us do not see color as vividly as we did 50 years ago- that is, unless it's red or blue. It's not uncommon for people driving cars with bumper stickers to become fair game for all sorts of mockery. A lot of us spend more time online than we do with our kids. As you very well know, this quasi list could go on for twenty pages. And what, we're seriously buying that this is all Hollywood's fault? The government, is it? The soulless corporations? Maybe the rich, the godless or the morally deficient whippersnappers? The right-wing wackos? The Islamic extremists? The birthers? The truthers? The libtard hippies? All of the above? Even though we can't agree on whose fault it is, we all seem to know whose fault it's not: our own. Goodness, the harmless mockery we spew is all in good fun, anyone who can't take a joke should just get thicker skin. Besides, a little good ole fashioned joking around never hurt anyone, right?

ENOUGH. Enough, enough, enough! Boy, that's a weird word once you read it three times, isn't it? Kind of like fork and sprawling. Fork sprawling fork sprawling...wait, where was I? ...oh!! ENOUGH!

It's NOT THEM. It's ME. It's YOU. Yes, you. Sitting right there in front of the screen, graciously reading this blog (thank you kindly) and likely rolling your eyes while moving your mouse closer and closer to that little red X. But isn't it true? Are we not fiercely driven by the negative catalyst to the negative conclusion all in hopes of achieving a positive end? Because that's just good sense if I've ever heard it.
Yes, it is time to realize we are in the wrong paradigm and we must end the cycle of hate, blame and war. If I haven't lost you already, here's where I lose most of the rest, if not all: The time has come to choose love. Not on a grand scale, but on an effective one-YOU. The family is the building block of the country. Our families are falling apart, therefore our country is falling apart. Take the family back, you'll take the country back. Take your family back with love. It starts with you.

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. -Archibald MacLeish

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us, by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines today also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own words and laws and worship.

Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man’s condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth. In like manner, nature is already, in its forms and tendencies, describing its own design. Let us interrogate the great apparition that shines so peacefully around us. Let us inquire, to what end is nature?

~Ralph Waldo Emerson