Singing Birds and Stinging Bees: SEX slavery

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; Monica Luhar (SCPR.org/KPCC); Dennis Romero (laweekly.com, 11-2-11); Eleanor Beasley; SWAAY.org

There are singing birds and stinging bees. Sex slavery = domestic human sex trafficking (EB)

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It is doubtful that all people will understand. Wisdom Quarterly is sex-positive, that is, we believe in sex.

 

We are opposed to sexual misconduct, sex slavery, human trafficking, forced prostitution, and harming (himsa) in all its forms. Yet, we remain sex-positive. People generally paint things in black and white; it is our Judeo-Christian legacy.

FEMEN fights patriarchy and sexism

When I was raised I was taught I was a born sinner with depraved tendencies utterly incapable of behaving. Then I was told to "behave," to be "good," and more ludicrously to "smile." So every impulse proved the raisers (beyond parents these included uniformed authorities, in loco parentis school officials, relatives, and "go along to get along" neighbors) were right.  There was no Kalama Sutra then. I was no better than Alanis Morissette trying to swallow a Jagged Little Pill:

"You know how us Catholic girls can be./Hey, hey!/ We make up for so much time a little too late./ I never forgot it, confusing as it was,/ No fun with no guilt feelings,/ The sinners, the saviors, the loverless priests!/ I'll see you next Sunday.// CHORUS: We all had our reasons to be there!/ We all had a thing or two to learn!/ We all needed something to cling to,/ So we did!// I sang Alleluia in the choir./Oh, hallelu, hallelu, hallelu-yah!/ I confessed my darkest deeds to an envious man./ My brothers they never "went blind" for what they did,/ But I may as well have!/ In the name of the Father, the Skeptic, and the Son,/ I had one more stupid question./ CHORUS/ What I learned I rejected, but I believe again!/ I will suffer the consequence of this Inquisition!/ If I jump in this [holy water] fountain, will I be forgiven?/ We all had our reasons to be there./ We all had a thing or two to learn./ We all needed something to cling to,/ So we did. We all had delusions in our head./ We all had our minds made up for us!/ We had to believe in something,/ So we did.

Hey, sailors (dongye.cc)

Sex is all bad. No, sex is all right. No, sex is a sin. Yes, it's all bad and bad is good, it's hot. The morass and mire of confusion never ends. We're raised to have this confusion and be exploited by by it. Look how prissy we are...and how sexy. Look how hypocritical we feel...and how pathetic we are.

Follow the supreme-way-of-living (spiritual celibacy of the brahmacarya with intensive meditation) or be tolerant, inclusive, and kind. Or maybe just shut up and listen. SWAAY once had everyone in L.A. upset about its billboards:

Sex Worker Billboards to Decriminalize Prostitution Roaming Streets of L.A.

Dennis Romero (laweekly.com 11-2-11)

"Sex and Zen"

We might call them victims or exploited, but a pro-sex-worker group founded in L.A. wants us to know pros are in control of their own bodies.

 

And it's doing so with mobile billboards that are being driven around town this week. The group, SWAAY (Sex Work Activists, Allies, and You), went mobile after claiming that every billboard company in town turned it down. Here's what the ads say: 

Banned (rejected) billboards of L.A.

"Sex worker: a person who consensually exchanges his/her own sexual labor or sexual performance for compensation. Sex work is not the same as forced sex trafficking or sex slavery." Got that, Ashton Kutcher? SWAAY, which wants to decriminalize prostitution, is fuming over the rejection by L.A.'s major outdoor advertisers... More

We are stopping HUMAN TRAFFICKING!

Monica Luhar (SCPR.org, April 25, 2014)

Human trafficking protest in London (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images/file/scpr.org)

California officials are in Los Angeles today to discuss efforts to combat and eradicate human trafficking in statewide.

 

The event at the YWCA Greater Los Angeles at the Museum of Tolerance will also focus on best practices that can be implemented locally to address the crime, which generates an estimated $32 billion annually to global criminal enterprises. YWCA spokeswoman Cynthia Heard told the Associated Press that the groundbreaking event would... More

• Alanis Morissette Bringing "Jagged Little Pill" to Broadway The singer's 1995 debut will come to the stage as a workshop production in 2014 (Rolling Stone).
• What happens in Palm Springs between Coachellas?

Topless protesters say no to rape, sexism, patriarchy (femen.org)

Why the forehead chakra? (Buddhist tantra)

Ashley Wells and Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Wikipedia edit

The crown, brow (agni), and throat chakras, Rajasthan, India, 18th century (wiki)

 

Om or aum (Themeplus/flickr.com)

Chakras (subtle energy centers of the body) play an important role in the main surviving branch of Indian Vajrayana, Tibetan Buddhism.

They play a pivotal role in completion stage practices, where an attempt is made to bring the subtle airs or winds of the body into the central channel, to realize the clear light of bliss and emptiness, and to attain buddhahood (Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear Light of Bliss: A Tantric Meditation Manual).
  

The Vajrayana system states that the central channel (avadhūtī) begins at the point of the third eye like the of Lord Shiva, curves up to the crown of the head, and then goes straight down to the lower body. 

There are two side channels, the rasanā and lalanā, which start at their respective nostrils and then travel down to the lower body. The apāna vāyu (down-moving wind, where "wind" means the invisible power to move) governs the lower terminations of the three channels. The lower end of the central channel ends at the rectum. The lower end of the lalanā ends in the urinary tract. The lower end of the rasanā channel emits semen.

Chakra picture produced by AuraStar2000TM bio-energy sensor (William Vroman/wiki)

  

Buddha aum (BrookeMontes/flickr)

The side channels run parallel to the center channel, except at locations such as the navel, heart, throat, and crown (i.e., the chakras) where the two side channels twist around the central channel. At the navel, throat, and crown, there is a twofold knot caused by each side channel twisting once around the central channel. 

At the heart wheel there is a sixfold knot, where each side channel twists around three times. An important part of completion stage practice involves loosening and undoing these knots.

 

Within the chakras exist the "subtle drops." The white drop exists in the crown, the red drop exists in the navel, and at the heart exists the indestructible red and white drop, which leaves the body at the time of death.
 

Sanskrit characters (sriaurobindoashram.com)

In addition, each chakra has a number of "spokes" or "petals," which branch off into thousands of subtle channels running to every part of the body, and each contains a Sanskrit syllable.

By focusing on a specific chakra (while often holding the breath) the subtle winds enter the central channel. The chakra at which they enter is important in order to realize specific practices.

For example, focusing on the subnavel area is important for the practice of tummo, or inner-fire. Meditating on the heart chakra is important for realizing clear light. Meditating on the throat chakra is important for lucid dreaming and the practices of dream yoga. And meditating on the crown chakra is important for consciousness projection, either to another world or into another body.

 

A result of energetic imbalance among the chakras is an almost continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of dissatisfaction. It leads to looking outside for fulfillment. When people live in their heads, feelings are secondary. They are interpreters of mental images in a feedback loop to the individual.

Bon protectors of Tibet (viewzone.com)

When awareness is focused on memories of past experiences and mentations, the energy flow to the head chakra increases and the energy flow to the heart chakra lessens. Without nurturing feelings of the heart, a subtle form of anxiety arises which results in the illusory-separate-self reaching out for experience. When the throat chakra settles and energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart chakras, one is able to truly contact one's senses and touch real feelings (Tarthang Tulku, Tibetan Relaxation: The Illustrated Guide to Kum Nye Massage and Movement - A Yoga from the Tibetan Tradition, pp. 31, 33).

Bön

Chakras, according to the Himalayan pre-Buddhist shamanic Bönpo tradition, influence the quality of experience, because movement of vayu cannot be separated from experience. Each of the six major chakras is linked to experiential qualities of one of the six major realms of existence. More

Irish Fest, Los Angeles (March 7-9)

Seven, Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; IrishFestAtFairplex.com

At the Fairplex in Pomona, northeastern Los Angeles County off the 10 Freeway

 

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at Irish Fest

Escape the hustle and bustle of the week with a refreshing dive into the land of the Irish.

Visit our Irish Village and Pubs for an authentic Ireland fair experience.

Bring the kids; it's a family affair!

Stop for a spell at the Dublin and Killarney stages, and listen to the sounds of Irish rock bands, traditional Celtic music, and classic rock ’n roll. Grab a glass and a plateful of traditional Irish fare, and relax at one of our pub stations. Test the luck of the Irish at one of our contests with prizes galore.

 

Take the little ones into the Medieval Kids Castle, and watch them become knights. Make Irish crafts like Blarney Stones, Celtic knot bookmarks, and pots of gold. Learn to dance the Irish Stew, and speak a few Gaelic phrases. There is something fun for everyone, whether young or old or somewhere in between. Sláinte!

• FAIRPLEX: 1101 W. McKinley Ave.
• Pomona, L.A., California 91768
• $5 admission, $10 parking
• Friday, 6:00 pm - midnight
• Saturday, noon - midnight
• Sunday, noon - 6:00 pm
• Big Irish Fair and Music Fest: June 14-15
• How to see the Wee People or Fae

The genius of Da Vinci and the Tao (audio)

Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Fritjof Capra, Mitch Jeserich (Letters and Politics, Dec. 30, 2013)

Fritjof Capra's new book Learning from Leonardo: Decoding the Notebooks of a Genius presents an in-depth discussion of the main branches of Da Vinci's scientific work. What was it?

Da Vinci pioneered fluid dynamics [the Tao being the way, the flow, the path of least resistance], geology, botany, anatomy, mechanics, aerodynamics, [ecology, eco-designing, war and weapons engineering, vegetarianism, pacifism, art most famously painting the "Mona Lisa" but, notably, not the social sciences or any political or economic phenomena].

Most of his astonishing discoveries and achievements in these fields are virtually unknown to the general public. Dr. Capra's thesis is that, at the most fundamental level, Da Vinci always sought to understand the nature of life. This has often escaped earlier commentators, because until recently the nature of life was defined by biologists only in terms of cells and molecules, to which Da Vinci had no access.

 

Popes were more like Roman emperors

THE POPE of Da Vinci's day, in tune with the corrupt Holy Roman Catholic Church he led, was absorbed with mistresses, children, and imperial wars. He was not concerned with Da Vinci's heretical ideas, like his view of the "soul." Da Vinci thought it akin to cognitive psychology's view of cognition [or the Buddha's detailed analysis of citta, the process of consciousness, as an interdependent process]. Galileo, a century later, would face a much different pope and inquisitive Church that allowed no deviation from its dogma.

 

Mona Lisa and Leo (gregoryherpe.fr)

 

The enigmatic Leo Lisa (lewets)

But today, a new systemic understanding of life is emerging at the forefront of science -- an understanding in terms of metabolic processes and their patterns of organization. And those are precisely the phenomena which Da Vinci explored throughout his life. The book has been published in three editions in three languages.

• AUDIO: LISTEN NOW (in own media player)
• Download this clip (MP3, 10.28 megabytes)
• 50:20: Gary Ruskin, "Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofits"

Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., physicist and systems theorist, is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. Dr. Capra is the author of several international bestsellers, including The Tao of Physics (1975), The Web of Life (1996), The Hidden Connections (2002), and The Science of Leonardo (2007). He coauthored Green Politics (1984), Belonging to the Universe (1991), and EcoManagement (1993), and coedited Steering Business Toward Sustainability (1995). His most recent book, Learning from Leonardo, was published in Italy and Brazil in 2012 and will be published in the United States in 2013. He is currently working on a multidisciplinary textbook, The Systems View of Life, coauthored by Pier Luigi Luisi and to be published by Cambridge University Press. See bibliography for book details.

The stories banned from the Bible (video)

Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

(ReligionHistory) "Banned from the Bible" examines the forbidden stories in ancient gospels, how they were rediscovered, and what they might mean to the world today.
 

The new Republican Jesus

When Jesus was a boy, did he kill another child? Was Mary Magdalene a "prostitute" -- or an apostle? Did Cain commit incest? Will there be an apocalypse, or is this the JudeoChristian God's trick to scare us?

The answers to these questions aren't found in the Bible as we know it, but they exist in scriptures banned when powerful leaders deemed them unacceptable for reasons more political than religious. "Banned From the Bible" reveals some of these alternative tales and examines why they were "too hot for Christianity."

• VIDEO: "The Lost Gospels" (Biblical Mysteries Explained)

Married rabbi with wife Mary

The Life of Adam and Eve, The Book of Enoch, The Book of Jubilees, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary, The Apocalypse of Peter... these are just a few of the books that were intentionally left out of the official Christian Bible. 

 

The reasons for their exclusion provide astonishing insight into the concerns of Church leaders and scholars responsible for spreading the Christian faith (and the hegemony of Greco-Roman "Western" empires) around the world. It is an illuminating look at early Christian religious history.

 

(BBC) The truth is stranger than fiction. Inconvenient facts make

sense to solve a great mystery. Was Jesus once a Buddhist monk?

When Jesus was African/Middle Easterner (W)

One hundred and fifty years after the birth of St. Issa (Jesus), a man named Marcion (of Sinope) decided that a Greek or Christian Bible was needed to replace the Jewish or Hebrew Bible. Church leaders opposed Marcion's banning of the Hebrew books, but they did agree that Christianity would benefit from having a "Bible" of its own, a New Testament.

 

Jewish rebel deified as Greek god, son of Zeus

After Emperor Constantine the Great converted to Christianity in the 4th century, a serious effort was made to compile a Christian Bible, one that included both the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) and emerging Christian manuscripts (New Testament). It took another 40 years before a final list of New Testament books was officially canonized by the church. Many of the most popular were excluded. Upon examination today, many of these writings attempt to resolve inconsistencies and questions raised from reading the Bible.

American Hegemony and Power

Growing by invasion and force

The Monroe Doctrine is a policy of the United States introduced in1823 that stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. At the same time, the doctrine noted that the USA would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The doctrine was issued at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved or were at the point of gaining independence from the Portuguese Empire and Spanish Empire. Peru consolidated their independence in 1824, and Bolivia would become independent in 1825, leaving only Cuba and Puerto Rico [now under de facto American control with Guantanamo and semi-statehood] under Spanish rule. The US, working in agreement with Britain, wanted to guarantee that no European power would move in. It was the USA's time to colonize the world (beginning, it seems, with Mexico and the Philippines).

(The Onion) Satirical look at things that should make the mainstream news

Occupy Movements live on (occupytogether.org)

The (Buddhist) Prayer of St. Francis

Steven Goodheart (FB); Gary Saunders, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly

St. Francis, Essenes, earliest Christians lived like Buddhist monastics (gardenvisit.com)

Kwan Yin/Virgin with child shows evidence of religious syncretism (Dale in China)

 

Good St. Francis and the animals

May I be an agent of love in this world.
Where there is hatred, let me bring loving-kindness;
Where there is injury, forgiveness;

Where there is doubt, insight;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
May I console as well as be consoled.
May I understand as well as be understood;
May I love as well as be loved;
For in giving we receive;
In forgiving, we are forgiven;
In dying to self-centeredness, we are born to the deathless.

• Nirvana is the "deathless"
• Forgiveness (khanti) is one of the Ten Perfections
• Christ was like St. Francis: brother sun, sister moon
• Discovering Guan Yin, Buddhism's Virgin Mary
• Environmental ethics, Christianity and Buddhism

...Buddhas only point the way (hkoppdelaney)

The Buddha: "As a mother would risk her life to protect her child, her only child, even so should one cultivate a limitless heart with toward all beings. With a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, radiating kindness over the entire world" (SN I, 8).