Augureye Express

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Home Alone

I well recall how it was when I first began my spiritual journey. There was nobody to talk to who spoke the language. There was no YouTube with it's virtual archive of spiritual information because there was no internet. It was a time of materialistic expansion when New Age was just another oxymoron. Thank heaven for the library! At first it was just a couple of books at a time, but before long my hunger seemed to double no matter how many books I read. There was so much to learn, on a myriad of diverse yet connected subjects; it was all right there in the books, well, most of it anyway. There's always homework!

So here we are in 2014, the age of Aquarius and enlightenment. Now of course the library is at our fingertips with computers bringing the internet everywhere instantly. Not only are there many thousands of new books on spirituality these days, there is also no shortage of authors & others who travel from city to city on speaking engagements to teach in person, the wisdom of the ages. Owing I'm sure to the age of Aquarius and the end of the Mayan calendar happening simultaneously; there is understandably a great interest in the more advanced concepts involved in our collective evolution, and whether the subject is Astrology, Anasazi, or Ascension there seems now to be not a shortage of information, but a surplus. Maybe we're all over-thinking this whole evolution thing?

We hear and read about ascension into 5D, or fifth dimensional resonance vibration; based almost entirely upon what someone else said or wrote. Where did they come by the information they convey to others; and from what source did such insight originate. Take everything ever said or written about ascension into 5D; then filter out every last nuance of human ego & desire, and then see what you have left. Whatever ascension information that survives the ego/desire purge can therefore be assumed to be in a more pristine, less convoluted state, but still, how accurate is the information? Does this refined input present us with a realistic, accurate "picture" of what the ascension process will look and feel like to those actually experiencing it, and would they even recognize it for what it was when if it happened? I wonder.

All of the ancient mystery schools, guru's and messiahs teach us that all of our answers lie within ourselves; that we really don't need anything from without to teach or complete us. I have always believed this, and it is at the very core of my belief system. I consider all of the outside input from books, teachers etc to be not so much supplying answers; as essentially being the training wheels we need in order to know what the really important questions are to ask ourselves, in the first place. Thank heaven for Ram Dass.

The Universe rearranges itself to accommodate our "picture" of reality

Do we, as individual human beings, not change & grow as we move thru this sojourn called life? Of course we do, and as we change, as we evolve from infancy to childhood thru adolescence and into what passes for maturity ~ our environment changes right along with us, it changes to keep pace with all of our beliefs and expectations. They're calling it the Unified Quantum Field these days, but a rose by any other name, right, so lets endeavor to avoid getting caught in the quicksand of semantics; call it whatever you like as you come to understand that we are inexorably tied and connected to this unified quantum field. We are part of it, and it is a part of us; and its where we get the phrase

"Be careful what you wish for."

It takes us humans a good long while to actually see all this playing out during the course of our lives; but sooner or later we begin to notice all the times something we just spoke of, or secretly wanted just manifested out of thin air as if the universe had been eavesdropping. It was! This is how creation teaches us to create. It patiently, gradually shows us exactly how powerful our words & the thoughts behind them are! Because we are all taking part in a grand 'experiment' to see if consciousness can overcome the illusion of separateness, we don't remember coming from love, or being in unity - that's why the experiment. We must each find our way back home again. Remember, then yearn; for the feeling of one, Unity. Although we do not remember coming here from Unity, to this place; we still have that unspecified emptiness inside us that is homesick nonetheless for something we each search our entire lives for.

OK, so here we all are; doing everything we have learned to do to attain enlightenment, to rise above the petty, mundane illusion of separation; with varying degrees of success as well as the occasional setback. Along the way I wonder if maybe we haven't gotten distracted by the sensory/emotional overload from these times we are living in. Does the global upheaval relate in any way to our spiritual effort to transcend it? Hasn't the world, and our physical environment been steadily changing, keeping pace with our collective spiritual evolution. Yes, that's the answer to that question.

"We have no idea of what we don't know"

As we effort to increase our vibration towards the threshold of enlightenment in order to transcend this dreadful place, doesn't it make a certain kind of sense that If we're going away that Gaia herself will transcend to another state of being, perhaps in accordance with her own destiny? If so, then maybe, just maybe, there are evolutions other than mankind's going on simultaneously that we have absolutely no clue about? What if Gaia destroyed Fukushima with an earthquake/tsunami combination punch because she needs a massive infusion of nuclear radiation to facilitate her own evolutionary shift. If so, why would we for a nanosecond think Gaia would be any more considerate or thoughtful of us, than we have been to her? George Carlin put it best, we're a surface nuisance!

Or perhaps despite the horrendous way we've treated her, Gaia holds all of humanity in unconditional love; and is sacrificing herself as a way to urgently encourage us to quit mucking about and go home, together, in unity. Suppose with me for a minute that in her infinite wisdom our earth mother understood that some of us would refuse to evolve just as long as this decadent playground of free will still existed. Maybe, for reasons we're all too young to understand there's some reason that we must all migrate back home together, in a massive soul migration, and Gaia knows the only way to get everyone out is to burn down the house. Suppose that is what Fukushima is all about! Doesn't every mother sooner or later boot their kids out into the harsh reality of life to make their own way?

Have we not been here in this one "place" for the entirety of this present incarnation; and hasn't the scenery, the environment here changed, and rearranged itself to accommodate our individual and group consensus "picture" of reality? Might we then not extrapolate that it will continue to do so in the same way as we increase our individual frequency vibration? That which we call change is merely the unified quantum field mirroring back to us, the reality construct we create with our thoughts, beliefs, intent and words. When we reach the upper range of this 4th dimensional octave, then transit to the next one, we don't "go" anywhere, we've been here all along; stuck in the illusion of separation. That which goes away isn't our spirit/soul, but rather the slow, muddy resonance vibration; as it morphs into the lower end of the new octave of resonance, everything previous breaks up from frequency incompatibility and ceases to exist. Kinda like a snake shedding it's skin; we out grow the old and leave it behind us.

When you dream at night, you experience a wide variety of things in an endless number of environments, and sometimes it seems as real as real life - yet in the morning are you not still in the same bed, in the same house as when you laid down the night before? What if evolution, & enlightenment are like that as well? Everything happens in the exact same place just with different dominating patterns, like putting up new wallpaper over the old. Maybe it all really is holographic after all!!*

The secret then, to getting "out" of here is simply to increase spiritual vibration, gradually, level by level. There exist many ways to do this, find one that resonates with you, make it part of daily life. Do your Homework! As our understanding increases we eventually learn/remember that as we evolve towards enlightened consciousness we also change the environment around us to match. On the road of life we must each pass through many different neighborhoods on our long homeward journey.

Even though each sovereign spirit must make this spiritual/energetic sojourn alone,

in a very real sense

we're really just walking each other home.

Until Next Time, Remember;

Related Augureye Posts:

http://augureye.blogspot.com/2012/11/soul-searching-at-end-of-time.html
http://augureye.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-archon-hologram.html *

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Thursday, January 9, 2014

Götterdämmerung

Twilight of the Gods

It seems like I've been watching all this happen my entire life. By the time I was fourteen I was pretty much "aware" as they say, that many things in life were not as advertised. I could see that 'daily life' was just a consensus reality facade giving lip service to the moral codes we all claim to live by. That was also the year they killed JFK right in front of everyone. Make a point, set an example. We got it. They are in control.

That event which sent the population into numbed silence and disbelief was the catalyst for me. The Coup D'etat carried out as a public execution was the turning point for America; it marked the end of our innocence and the beginning of our internment in a police state.

The corruption and duplicity were always present in politics before Kennedy, it was just very well concealed from the great unwashed masses who were too busy chasing the American Dream. Back in the days when good men might have been able to stop what was happening, the great shining lie concealed itself like a scorpion at noon. All these long years later, as the endgame unfolds, it has no need to hide, in fact, they have been blatantly throwing it right in our face, and thumbing their nose, ever since 911.

Naturally, when you see so many things going wrong, things that just aren't right by any standard; you seek to tell people, so they might see the same truths...and hopefully tell others. Limping towards that hundredth monkey! I expected it to be difficult all those years ago, and it was; because you first had to dig up evidence, proof...that sort of thing then tie it all together in a convincing manner. Didn't always work.

You'd think that it would be so much easier to convince people these days, but that just isn't the case. With all the evidence and proof they'd ever want literally at their fingertips, people today seem somehow emotionally invested in remaining oblivious to oblivion. I have a hard time even trying to understand why; it just makes my head explode some days. Mammals got their chance at the brass ring of evolution after that big space rock killed off the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, and humans became the highest expression of mammalian life, going on to dominate the planet, as if we were Gods.

Technology isn't Revolutionary ~ It's Evolutionary.

In the age of steam it took 150 years for mankind's collective knowledge to double. Today it takes 2 years. By the year 2020 it will take 72 hours! You might think that would argue in favor of our continued existence and dominance on this planet, yet we have no guarantee whatsoever that we will even make it six more years to see that milestone manifest. Right now there are over seven billion cell phones on the planet, one for every human, and then some. Same with cars, and a lot of other things. Unchecked progress may seem to work well for a while, but that time is long passed, and now we are reaping the whirlwind for our blasé attitude, and trusting our "leaders."

We have conducted ourselves upon this world as if we indeed are Gods, as if someone else would be along to clean up after us. Perhaps the worst and most arrogant sin of all was doing all we did with no thought whatsoever of long term consequences to the planet, or our children. I say we did these things because when you are silent in the face of atrocity you take part in that atrocity...you give it your tacit approval, so you get to share the responsibility, and blame. You don't get to ignore evil your entire life then claim your non-involvement. It doesn't work that way. It's your fault, because your silence made you a shareholder.

Chicago

This new year isn't even 2 weeks old and already we're seeing some very interesting if not frightening realities coming home to roost. I have never heard the term Polar Vortex before this week, and must admit it sounds like one of those cleverly crafted made up phrases designed to instill just enough fear & dread. They are saying these will be the lowest temperatures in this century. Just ask the folks around Chicago and the great lakes how they feel about climate change, this week. Meanwhile, England and parts of Europe are seeing some rather freakish waves hitting their shorelines, just one more warning sign that massive changes are occurring in the planet's ecosystem - changes we really can't afford to ignore any longer.

Frozen Niagara Falls

Foraging for essentials

Just over 1000 days ago the future of this planet was cast in stone, it's future irrevocably predetermined by the events at Fukushima. Naturally, all governments involved went immediately into full on cover-up mode; as the hapless sleeping dreamers of earth dove deeper into the blankets of denial and self-deception. That is a decidedly dangerous and lethal combination. The powers that be decide to do nothing to stop the continuously erupting nuclear volcano, and in fact do many things that make it much, much worse. Almost as if they wanted to spread as much radiation as far and fast as possible.

Tepco and the government (such as it is) of Japan have been dumping extremely radioactive cooling water directly into the pacific ocean for over a thousand days now. Doing so is a direct and flagrant violation of international law, and to my utter amazement, nothing is being done to stop it...not a penalty, fine, or even harsh language. I want you to think about this the next time you watch one of those reality shows about catching crabs, and salmon.

Deadliest Catch, truth in advertising.

Think about how cold and callous an industry is to just continue harvesting and selling seafood it knows is radioactive enough to glow blue in the dark. 80% of the salmon failed to return this year. The herring and sardines which support larger fish, are gone. Dead. The few herring that did show up were seen to be bleeding from the eyes & mouth.

The Pacific ocean is dead, & if you eat seafood, you will be too.

What of the airborne radiation? Well, not only has it now spread around the entire planet, it is, of course, falling to earth and poisoning the rest of our food chain; even as still more deadly radiation spews forth hourly from the source. Is Fukushima our self-inflicted suicide? Have we so totally given up as to actually embrace this insane Kamikaze Karma? We Americans who hold ourselves as so damn exceptional over the rest of the world, should hang our heads in utter shame at what we've allowed to be done to us and this world. We were supposed to be the good guys who always rise up to fight evil, but somewhere along the way we just turned our backs, and abandoned our conscience, and each other altogether.

Disappearances & Extinctions are matters of human perception

The earth had to survive no less than eight threshold events in order to form and sustain life as we know it, including being lucky enough to orbit Sol's Goldilocks zone, allowing liquid water and life sustaining conditions to exist. At least five times, one upheaval or another served up extinction level events on planet earth, and if by now you are not aware we're experiencing the sixth such extinction, then you aren't paying attention, at all! Perhaps world "leaders" are so silent and cavalier about Fukushima because they know something else is gonna happen before the radiation kills and mutates all of us and our progeny.

We could very easily be taken out the way the dinosaurs were. I don't know how many of you notice or remember such things...but in the last 3 years earth has had an awful lot of hits and near misses by asteroids and meteorites. Just last year as we were tracking an object sailing by between earth & the moon, we took a shotgun blast to the face from another one that nobody saw coming, which hit Russia. Since that time we have witnessed a significant increase in these objects, where always before such events were rare. Perhaps something looms closer to us in the darkness of space, and because we can't do anything about it, the public isn't being told, as usual.

Did you know that right now, in the Universe - 90% of the material needed to make new stars is gone? It's all used up. Fewer and fewer stars will be formed, resulting in fewer goldilocks zones, around fewer planets. We are living in the summertime of the universe, (late August if you ask me) and order just continues toward chaos. It's all downhill from here. It's the same story for earth's natural resources...they're mostly gone too; but you would never guess that to see how gluttonous and wasteful we are...but isn't that the job description for a God? So in the grand view of things, maybe nothing that happens in this place matters much at all. It's mind over matter; if you don't mind - it doesn't matter.

We regard this planet as though it's the only cracked egg in a dozen, that there's more where this one came from. Considering that we would just do the same to any new planet as we've done with this one, it's no wonder we're not permitted to leave & explore the galaxy. Would true Gods behave as we have on this planet? Would Gods place psychopaths in positions of power without the slightest penalty for poor performance? Would Gods value gold over good, allowing millions to starve so that a few may live in unregulated opulence?

"Everything is on the table now and its not ours to lose."

Steve Butler ~ 'Promised Land'

The title of this post is a German word, Götterdämmerung which means "Twilight of the Gods"- a collapse of society marked by catastrophe, violence & disorder. As the self-appointed Gods of this place, we humans have become so drunk with delusions of power it has blinded us to the setting sun. We've become so jaded as to even take pleasure in the suffering of others. The Germans have a word for that too; Schadenfreude. Perhaps it is a fitting requiem for a bunch of half-arsed self made Gods that we turn the whole smelly mess into a Roman Holiday where we offer ourselves up as the main course of the sacrificial feast.

All human effort is illusionary, thou not necessarily futile.

History teaches us that change is both inevitable and inescapable. The ancient truth has prevailed time after time, and that is simply the truth that all empires, despite their might, eventually fall. All of them. Entropy - the old order into chaos thing prevails every single time, as it is prevailing again now. That's the nice thing about history, it repeats itself until the lessons are learned; and only when we learn them will we ever escape this cycle of insanity.

For years experts have been trying to expose the global banking system for the planet-wide ponzy scheme that it is. Over-inflated egos obsessed with maniacal greed have over-inflated the world economy in a final grab for everything on the table. The word final being the operative concept here. Look back over just the last 2 years at the steady hammering the global ponzy scheme has taken. In Greece they learned they could even have the banks steal their customers money for the government, without much serious blow-back at all. Oh sure, lots of squawking in protest...that was it. Looks like we'll be going out with a whimper after all.

"History is turning into a white-knuckle ride"- Terence McKenna

How about water - how long can you go without it? Not long at all, and yet we not only stand by silently as the remaining supplies of fresh water are being privatized; we strangely are equally as silent when the raging psychopaths in control begin Fracking for natural gas in the exact same place as the fresh water. In places like Singapore they're already forced to recycle raw sewage into drinking water; because what water they had is gone! Who else is thinking about doing the same thing? Australia, Arizona, and California! A total 36 states (in

America

) are already facing water shortages. This crisis isn't looming, we're in it right now.

Not only is our water often contaminated due to illegal dumping by sewage treatment plants, it also contains dangerous chemicals from the medicines we take and the beverages we consume. Do you know there are many substances, like caffeine, exotic chemicals, and pharmaceuticals which are not removed by sewage treatment processes? If you could see inside the water you drank today; you might just swear off the stuff for good. So, how will you feel the first time you have no choice but to drink recycled sewage; knowing as you will in your heart of hearts, some of the responsibility for it, is yours? Kinda rounds out the contamination equation; covering all the bases. Scorched Earth. Your silence is your complicity in all of these crimes against humanity...what? you really thought that if you said nothing then they would reward you somehow??

Silly little God!

Now that irrefutable signs of radiation poisoning are showing up in our food, and in the mutations being documented in marine life up & down the pacific coast; it's getting harder to cover up and ignore. It's harder every day for the government to sweep the whole mess under the rug, when the rug has been eaten away by so much overwhelming evidence. When you see a mugger across the street it makes you feel safer to ignore him. When he crosses to your side of the street, and is coming closer you can continue to believe he'll just walk on by...but when his gun is in your face, it's rather hard to ignore.

Kamikaze Karma

Why do we allow corporations to continue harvesting radioactive seafood from the ocean and selling it. A still better question is why are WE still buying it and eating it? Why do we intentionally, knowingly feed poison food to our children, whether the poison is radiation, GMO, or corexit from the gulf ? I really want to know exactly what process a parent must go through to finally decide it's just too much work NOT feeding your kids pure poison. It's a big enough crime, and yes, I mean crime to dull their senses with drugs for imaginary disorders, so what's the logic here Dad & Mom...throw the baby out with the bathwater? How do you justify feeding your children something that will give them cancer and mutated offspring?

Not very damn God-like if you ask me!

There's a reason the human face fits so perfectly in it's own hands.

Until Next Time ~ Be God to Each Other

Related Augureye Posts:

Sovereign Souls

Sovereign Souls~part-2

lobster tales
deerin the headlights
already gone
death by a thousand cuts
evolution or extinction
creeping dread in the rage of Aquarius
future tense
the-trap-of-time
fukushima-deadly-silence
fukushima-monster-under-our-bed
fukushima-consciousness
Dancing-with the elephant-in the room
the-mayan-countdown
Archons & Chemtrails
the Archon Agenda
the Archon Hologram
Archon-endgame
Waiting for the Black Swan
Pernicious Evil & the Black Swan
the-zombie-apocalypse
DNA clouds and fairy tales

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Latest Fukushima Update from Yoichi Shimatsu

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& then there is this...

Satellite Photos Show Pacific Storms Stopped Cold, Destroyed

Other Voices:

Götterdämmerung - Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Schadenfreude - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One dead, one injured for texting at US movie theater
Activist Post: Fukushima: Crossroads At The Rising Sun

Smoking Mirrors | Living in a Time of Darkness on a Sea of Madness.
Activist Post: Life in the Orwellian Electronic Concentration Camp
You May Wake Up... But Will You Get Out of Bed? - Waking Times
BBC News - Geoengineering plan could have 'unintended' side effect
What Exactly IS a Polar Vortex? 100,000,000 Americans Are Finding Out

World's first documented case of Siamese gray whales in Mexican lagoon

DOUBLE the normal amount of radiation found in Missouri snow and San Francisco beach

It Was So Cold in Canada, the Ground Exploded
Polar vortex: temperatures drop below freezing in all 50 US states
Why Is Radioactive Snow Falling In Missouri?
Mass animal die-off: Sea Lions Continue Washing Up On California Coast - YouTube

Video Sparks Japan Radiation Fears At Bay Area Beach « CBS San Francisco
Photos: Massive Waves Pummel Europe
Polar vortex plunging America into record-breaking cold-may bring coldest day of century

Scientists Search The Internet For Evidence Of Time Travelers

Officials reject concerns over 500 percent radiation increase on California beach

CLIMATE ENGINEERING AND CLIMATE LIES

Activist Post: Why Will Everyone in North America Get Cancer?

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Is Fukushima Radiation Decimating Wildlife in the Western Portion of North America?
Learning without Questioning in America: The Sunday School Syndrome.
Bee-Harming Pesticides May Impact Human Nervous System - Waking Times

Monday, January 6, 2014

The Oracle at Deadwood

I have this little holiday tradition of my own which I observe without fail every year. It's a kind of sanity break from the raging consumerism that we have so lamentably embraced as normal; an escape from the insanity of black Friday and everything after. I simply refuse to be told how to feel, and when; 24 hours a day, for a "season" which grows longer every year. The only way to evade & avoid the fulltime assault on the senses by the prophets margin and motive, is simply to tune out, totally. My personal sanctuary from the annual full court press of commercial blight, is total immersion into a different kind of sensory overload altogether. Each year I select a few box sets of high quality series programming as a steady holiday diet for my DVD player.

This year, my choice was the highly acclaimed HBO series Deadwood, an exemplary production from the David Milch team. With intentional irony I selected a story about a lawless frontier town trying to survive the height of the gold rush, at the end of one era and the beginning of another, a time of rampant and unprecedented change. Set in the late 1800's the series is the story of a real life town, and real life characters from the historic old west. More than this; it's also an exceptionally rich visual tapestry of the human condition, and a compendium of personality & character studies as the players struggle with an approaching future they don't understand.

In the past, Hollywood has of course done a fairly poor job of depicting the American west the way it really was, well, Deadwood certainly sets the record straight, and from many perspectives. The series depicts daily life at the time the original mining camp was growing into a legitimate town, a time as described in the opening scene as when "There's no law at all in Deadwood." Basically the camp is one large den of human depravity of nearly every sort, with a membrane thin veneer of civilization kinda draped over it. The kind of place where scoundrels, cutthroats, road agents, and bottom feeders all attempt to fleece everyone, and the price of an insult is often the death penalty. For me, the main attraction here was the story of how good hearted, authentic humans struggled for Right to prevail, even in this most sinister of environments. Kinda like real life!

Don't Eat the Bacon in Deadwood

Wherever humans gather out of greed there's always a pecking order, just like in any chicken coop; and here the undisputed cock of the walk was the ever-snarling riverboat cutthroat Al Swearengen, who ran the town from his personal emporium of decadence, the Gem Saloon, strategically located near the center of camp. It was Swearengen who along with his loyal minion Dan had cobbled the camp together under his iron willed rule.

Now if you blinked, you'd miss it; but Al does have a soft side to him, evidenced by his employ and protection of Jewel the Gimp, whose jobs include cooking, sweeping and taking constant verbal abuse from her boss. In the deadwood ecosystem, the slow, the stupid and the terminally annoying left this world via the digestive tract of Woo's pigs more often than not; a public service of sorts.

Unlike the rote Hollywood westerns where everyone spoke in brief, monosyllabic if not illiterate parlance: the dialogue between characters in Deadwood is not only quite literate, but very sophisticated, however frequently seasoned with profanity sufficient to make mariners cringe. That so many spoke with both a mastery of the English language and its profanity was a constant enjoyment, despite the cultural whiplash that inevitably ensues. Communication between the players was as much a co-star as the sudden & brutal violence of daily life. This auditory feast was well matched visually; as the authentic period props, and everyday items filled every part of each set so realistically as to make one think they were there. All that was missing was a scratch & sniff feature on the DVD!

"I wouldn't trust a man who didn't try to steal a little"- Al Swearengen

From the high and mighty, down to those ranting & raving at their reflection in a main street mud puddle, Deadwood mirrors back to the viewer a clear, if not sometimes frightening portrait gallery of humanity in all of it's complexity and tragedy. Just as the remora survives on crumbs from the shark's mouth, thus survives the character of E.B. Farnum, the ever-groveling, Shakespeare quoting, owner of the Grand hotel. Weasel-like in every way, Farnum is a grotesque & cowardly; incurably corrupt whiner who describes himself as a born follower.

Another of self-imposed tyrant Swearengen's minions, Farnum's existence is justified by snooping and meddling into everyone's private and business affairs, then ferreting said information back to his boss in a timely fashion. Naturally, as the camp attempts to become a town, Farnum asks to be mayor, and is appointed such by Swearengen.

"I'll preside over the meeting, as I have the list of bribes" - Al Swearengen

Where the Gem Saloon is in every sense a den of inequity with hand drawn signs and all the atmosphere of a fetid swamp; across the street shines the polished and prim Bella Union owned by Swearengen's slick viperous rival pimp, Cy Tolliver, the best dressed psychopath in Deadwood. The bitterness of the rivalry between these titans of temptation is as epic as any between present day symbolic counterparts, the Republican & Democratic political parties: pimps, cutthroats and whores, the whole lot of them!

The hardness of this life is etched upon every face, be it Joanie Stubbs, the madam at the Bella Union bordello who wants to become more than what men say she can...or the road map on the face of Wild Bill Hickok; who just wanted to be left to go to hell the way he wanted. As I watched this story unfold I kept getting a certain feeling...seeing so many parallels to modern day life; and that is the feeling that nothing ever really changes here in this place!

"To work for crumbs to keep from the lash...says maybe a slave is what you are."

- Al Swearengen

Are we today so very different than those in Deadwood who just wanted to live their life, have their little piece of joy, all the while avoiding the tyrant's wrath? Aren't we also too afraid to stand up for what is right, reluctant to pay the price? Just hoping to keep what little piece of joy, or sanity we might have found? What's that they say about life imitating art, or is it the other way around...is this real, or Memorex? Like some protestors have recently taken to doing, Deadwood holds a mirror up to us so that we may see what truly complex creatures we are; and perhaps to better judge that which motivates us in our behavior upon this planet, and towards one another.

Perhaps fittingly, the writers certainly seemed to give a lot of the best lines to Al Swearengen over the three seasons the show aired. Always the brooding sage of the sagebrush, Al came up with some real gems in the Gem saloon.

Dan: "Well I'm older now, and a lot less friendly to change"

Al: "Change ain't looking for friends. Change calls the tune we dance to."

As the tune called by change becomes less & less to the liking of Deadwood's resident tyrant, Al feels his influence threatened by the endless corporate greed of George Hearst (Patty Hearst's Grandfather) when he arrives to industrialize gold recovery in the black hills...under his ownership. A ruthless and sociopathic robber baron with political clout in Washington DC, Hearst wastes no time in maiming Swearengen and establishing himself as the dominant force to be answered to. Although played to menacing perfection by actor Gerald McRaney, I could not help but see Dick Cheney in every aspect of this greed driven real-life character study.

"Elections cannot inconvenience me; they ratify my will, or I neuter them."

~George Hearst~

These vile darker characters of Deadwood stand out as such owing to the contrast provided by the more luminous souls who move among them, seeking to in some small way act as counterbalance to the excesses of tragedy & greed which feeds every appetite from the bribe to Woo's pigs. There is Seth Bullock the quintessential knight, a man of duty, honor and above all, loyalty who not only confronts the evil he sees, but also the evil he does.

Bullock is the quintessential one legged man stomping out a forest fire as he attempts to thwart the evil machinations of Deadwoods version of the power elite, and as with us in real life, he finds that the game is rigged from the top to circumvent any possibility of the good guys actually winning. Still, he charges ahead, undiminished, knowing he stands for Right.

"Every day takes figuring out all over again-how to fucking live" - Calamity Jane

Calamity Jane finds herself in Deadwood, drifting between the world as it was, and how it is becoming. As the industrial age catches up to the west it consumes her way of life as an Indian scout for the army, leaving her a rambling drunk; and a pure soul who wears the "cactus jacket" to keep anyone from getting too close to her. Only when defending a helpless child does she again find a purpose for someone such as herself.

If I was forced to pick a favorite character from Deadwood, it might just be Calamity Jane because she was the one person who never showed guile, deception or ulterior motive in her dealings with others, and because when pushed, she stood up to her greatest fear.

Another favorite portrayal was that of prospector Whitney Ellsworth, a true "salt-of-the-earth" type who was a man of unwavering principle and loyalty. Despite drastic increases of fortune which draw him right into the center of the power struggle for gold; Ellsworth remains true to the man he is, and his friends, without changing or being tainted by greed. A truly luminary soul in the darkness of human nature at it's worst.

Perhaps no soul in camp is more tortured than "Doc" Cochran who got his medical training on civil war battlefields...and is nearly overwhelmed by the constant flow of gunshots, stabbings, beatings and murders. His knowledge out of date, his days numbered, still Doc soldiers on, doing the very best he can while making no excuses. An example many of us could well emulate today; don't wait for the perfect situation which may not come...jump in NOW with both hands and do the very best we can.

Try to do some good every day; to counter the torrent of evil surrounding us.

Overall the story of Deadwood is not that different from our story today. In both worlds the battered & the beaten mingle among the hopeful & disenfranchised...hoping to make it through yet another day of greed and corruption running the show on every level. In both realities; the Deadwood of 150 years ago and society today, good hearted people of every type seek not to end, or topple such corruption...but just to find a small piece of joy to call their own. They know the game is rigged and the fix is in from the top down and tyrants are in charge. Just like in Deadwood, we scurry like mice, going about our lives hoping to not be noticed by all the rampant evil; hoping to keep what small joy we may have; as a darkly uncertain future unfolds all around us.

Until Next Time ~ Be Good to Each Other