This isn’t political now, it’s existential. Can we have any conversation strategizing about Trump having to go? It should be now. Today. He could be attracted to being the person who did the biggest thing ever by ending humanity having an industrial civilization. In my last few posts I’ve talked about getting him to resign or to apologize, and I’ve been poking at power people to get that conversation going. That’s point #1.
On to the deeper issues that gave rise to Trump. Jeffrey D. Sachs is one of our political grown-ups. He’s not on Substack, but when Kathleen McCroskey sent Ending Israel’s War on Peace, all I could think of was how it reflects our time of might making right and fighting over who owns what. Hordes dead over who owns what. Kathleen wrote a critique of how Sachs would handle things that pushed around the same surface stuff to where it all took my breath away. Everything about matter. Nothing about soul.
What a hump to get over.
How many of us are strangers in a strange land, at the apex of might-makes-right in humanity’s evolution, where I can’t shake the idea that somehow the intelligence of the universe is pushing everyone to become devoted to each other and this land we love? You know, like in fires and floods. That way. Keeping my eye on that lets me keep going.
We could be at the crossover point, where one thing in the way is our aversion to rocking a boat that’s still managing to float. What can tune everyone into the urgency of getting humanity running on caring? From money running the world, it has to run on love now.
We can’t plan. All we can do now is poke. A natural evolution. Poking before planning.
My hundred-percenter, left with me from my dad asking about the other 2 points when I’d come home from school with a 98, keeps reminding me of the possibility that all it could take to get humanity to be hundred-percenting is a good idea! Keep thinking.
I’ve written before about four years in the late ‘70, when the Human Potential Movement was sizzly and I was with the Wizard doing ELF Enterprises Unlimiting. ELF stood for Enlightenment, Love, and Fun; the motto was Put the elf back in self; and the Wizard and I were Mr. and Mrs. Elfinself. It was a different time.
He ran the San Francisco headquarters of AHP, the Association for Humanistic Psychology, an umbrella for new ways to understand ourselves that I’d gotten immersed in. I’d stopped making TV commercials and painting pictures, thinking the world needed more of what was exciting me, and, when I applied to AHP to produce a conference to connect up L.A. new-agers, the Wizard gave me the assignment. Working with him long distance got him leaving his job, moving in with me, and us creating ELF as a playground for the forward-thinking people I’d connected to.
That spirit of curiosity and adventure and camaraderie ended in the early ‘80s, when a succession of pyramid schemes in Los Angeles got people focused on money instead of on each other.
After a long stretch of money gaming the government shut them all down, and by then the vibe in L.A. had changed. Many people who thought they were going to get rich had lost their money, and very few had made any. Kind of like what’s going on now, where the math of the notorious pyramid schemes people keep falling for matches it – half the people lose everything, a largish band breaks even, a little band does decently well, a very small top (look to the starters) makes a killing.
Ram Dass was in the little starter group, called Circle of Gold, that spread throughout the new age world thanks to his vouching for sending $100 in the mail. When it was over, he apologized for luring everyone in by naively saying it was going to fund everyone’s dreams. It had gone from $100 to $1000 in the mail, and then it became house parties all over the city to pass money around, until a photo of a storefront with lines around the block for money dealings was on the front page of the L.A. Times. Then, the authorities shut everything down. All the new age projects, mine and others, had folded by then, and nothing ever replaced them. There’s not even any thinking, in any public way, going on in Los Angeles.
I’ve told you my ELF story because this is the third of my postings of my old Pep Talks for Humanity.
DECLARATION OF ELF DETERMINATION
June 11, 1976The foundations have been shaken. Old views, values, and practices are being overturned. And, as the dust settles, a common awareness is emerging. We find ourselves responsible for our lives to a degree we didn’t realize we were before. And, as we discover our identities to be replications of the universe’s supreme consciousness, we find a power we didn’t know we possessed. To be cause, not effect – not victim.
Life need not be lived as if we were pawns in a larger game, but rather as designers of the game. Through this awareness, life becomes an opportunity – an invitation – to create. And to play.
In this large and positive spirit, in which we are most whole, healthy, and fully realized, we will explore ways for people to relate. And to survive – globally, governmentally, professionally, and personally.
Ever investigating life’s possibilities, rather than endlessly patching its problems. Playing
zestfully,
riskily,
lovingly,
joyously.
Opening, ever-opening, to who we could be in a cooperative world where we assist each other to win.
This arts festival was before the Wizard moved in, while I was finding all the wide-eyed people in Los Angeles. In 1976, I talked the director into including programs about the Art of Living, and I produced 23 showcases for different new age modalities. Most of my events were in a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece the mayor uses for receptions. Trucks of oranges would pull up, and there were lines for maybe 8 juicers to make your own glassfuls. I once had to take my 9-year-old for stitches when she cut herself instead of an orange. Let’s see what comment daughter Jamie makes on this!
Click on the picture for a little more Festival and all 23 of my programs!
Here’s a little addendum about this project. That Festival went on for several years. Produced by a sort of hippy type young arts enthusiast, it was in the heart of the city, between the rich and the poor. It was just there. No tickets. No formality. Nothing to sell. Plenty of parking. No charge for anything. Just come, wander around, several stages going at once, just take a seat. The program got worked-up all year, for hundreds of groups and acts that qualified for it, and people of all walks came from everywhere. It was L. A. as a village. You belonged to something. It was wonderful. We have not a shred of that now. I am just saying.
Here’s the program description:
“The Garden Theatre Festival is a celebration of the arts, providing a wide variety of cultural events and entertainment to the public at no charge in a relaxed, informal festival atmosphere with free orange juice and free coffee to enhance the feeling of sharing. It is a gift to the community by the community, giving a wide audience free performances and presentations from the entire spectrum of the artistic talents of the community.”
REMINDER: From a summit I’m part of:
🎟️ Claim your complimentary ticket for this transformation-minded event: Trauma-Free Childhood Summit
https://traumafreechildhood.com/suta
📅 Mark your calendar: April 13-18
To get immersed in the point of view I argue for, have a look at comments I’ve made in Substack Notes.
HOUSEKEEPING
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You’ve been on target with this since I’ve known you Suzanne. Your message is clear, wise, mature, developed, researched and lived. I have enormous respect and love for you. Thank you for not giving up for moving it forward for keeping it alive and always on target.
I still have the scar my thumb from the orange, I also have all the memories of being at Barsdale Park, of climbing over the wall of the Hollyhock House, with a bleeding thumb, while you were leading a meditation inside. My memories of that time, even that adventure, are all happy. I feel privileged to have grown up in a unified town, world, and house, that was, the 70s and 80s. We had less distraction, so we could focus on what made us all happy, and, as it turns out, the world being a “we” and not an “I” made us all happy. Those are some of my favorite memories of growing up, thank you.💜 PS, you forgot about the part where you and the wizard had a ceremony, not a wedding, but a Waylinking,
a linking of your ways, the house was filled with love, laughter, and linking🥳