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What if call centre operators were cast in adverts, so that the prduct was unintelligible?

What if real women were in washing powder commercials, instead of sterile bimbette-slaves with whitened teth and gym bodies whose entire sense of vocation is oncentrated in their role as family washerwoman?

What if all bran adds that "keep you regular" were filmed with happy custometrs on their toilets giving their testimony where it counts most

What if wills were read out as if they were Oscars?

What if infomercials were delivered with the cautious and measured double squeak of academic papers and academic papers were written with the hypnotic smiling blather of infomercials...

What if the ad agencies that come up with the names of medicines did cars, and vice a versa. So 4.5 litre muscle cars would be viagra, the latest model would be latecummer, fuelaway for a frugal hybrid, a staid family car would be dormicum, a low slung Italian beast Zoloft etc.

What if the galaxies are my cells and the stars are my atoms (then what do the atoms of the stars become, and what is the earth upon which my universe-body stands?)

What if animal rights activists started rescuing insects that had become trapped in spider's webs?

The Sydney Institue for Domestic Violence: Men helping men by sharing wife-beating strategies

See also
premises and
organic-advertising-or-foie-gras/

Why there is no advertising on this blog

Because you do not need anything you don't already have

Damm Straight

Thank you for your note to me
(I read it on the lavatory)
my poems are rather weak I fear
they will not make you shed a tear
products of a childish mind
you only praised them to be kind
therefore place them in a bin
never to be read again
_____________
I had just finished watching

this documentary about how

the holy crusaders had painted the town red

with the blood of any people

who happened to be Jews

on their way to liberate

the holy land

when the door bell rang

it was two people with bibles

wanting to share

that Jesus is love

__________________

The rioteous off all nations

sat round the table

rav kook was there, and the baal shem tov too

St Francis of Assisi, and St Kabir

and I think that was Rumi seated near by you

Jane Goodall was there, a guerrilla near at hand

Raoul Wallenbach and Ramana Maharshi

cut up vegetables in the kitchen

while Zinoviev poured tea from the Samovar

bekavod, said St Francis, you make the blessing

we’d be delighted to hear the holy tongue

he held open the door of the limousine, helped the old man in

made sure his coat tails wouldn’t get caught in the door

Joan of Arc and Hannah Szennesh arm wrestled

while Osho in the swimming pool

laughed quietly to himself

__________________________

I am at a party

with Ramana, and Osho, and the Baal Shem Tov

and Gangaji and St Francis, Rav Kook and Rav Nachman

Papaji and dod Zvi

and we link hands and dance the hora

one-and-two and three and

lef-ft righ-ght and

one –and-two-and three and

lef-ft righ-ght

faster and faster we spin til

none of our feet are touching the floor

Osho’s beard flies

like a comet on the wind

Rumi is like

a sweet breeze at my side

Nisarghadattha’s hand

is warm on mine

on the other side

of the windows

all the murderers and resenters

of history

the Hitlers and Ahmanijads

gaze wistfully

no one ever told them

joy is free

they wish they could have another chance

and they shall

_____________

I come to Australia

to yur beers and fukking rugby

to your anglo celtic bigotry

to your proudly Australian insecurity

fuck this man I’m not gonna play some nigga immigrant role

just cos I been here five minutes

I’m as Australian as you, if not as much as the Garigal

if I wannabe

______________

To want to share is a holy thing
To want to influence is not
How often I confuse the two!

________________

Torture is yoga
imposed from the outside

___________________

Masterchef

To eat from hunger, not from boredom
to be with what is here
to thank the G-d for gratitude
to meet desire and fear
___________

In our house
everyone has an illicit supply of clothes pegs next to their beds
____________________________

These are the generations of woe-man
The uncircumscribable freshness and revelations of youth
the despair of middle age
the surrender into grace of ripe maturity
_________________________

the Jew in you
is furry and sweet
the Jew in you
dos not eat meat
______________

I think I've earned
my master's degree
in feelings of
in
feri
or
ity

_______________

A comforting thought: as I get older I move from anonymity to invisibility

________________________________

ReKindle your relationship with African Animals

Now available from Kindle at only $5.95 a giggle. There is, however, an advisory. On Kindle the book’s beautiful illustrations are only in black & white, as Kindle does not yet support colour. If you want the charming originals, order the book online

Apparent Contradiction #357

Being fully present in the moment also means being fully accepting of the mind's tendency - in this moment - to shuttle between the vanished past and the imaginary future. Can you embrace this tendency, and not resist it or make it wrong?
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now that I'm in my later 40's, a night on the town means staying up 'til almost 11:00 to write a few poems

Lets do coffee sometime

For other short stories see

A story about Jacob the piglet, the only one of his litter, who, whether it was blind fate or divine destiny, was spared from the abbatoir and landed up sniffing and snorting amongst garbage in a lane betwen two high buildings in the city. And there he sees several people passing by with a four legged animal on a lead, and these animals look snug and much beloved, So Jacob decides to do his best to adopt a new identity, so that he too will be hopefully taken home and fed twice a day and die of old age (rather than be castrated and have his tail and teeth docked and then gassed before being killed aged one year old). So Jacob tries to create some new ears for himself, and a nose that is pointy and does not end in a snout, and paws that have pads and nails rather than trotters...and when he has done the best he can with the means at his disposal he wanders out of the alley to chance his luck. And is taken home by a man who lives in a big house with a little girl who comes once every other week. So Jacob, who the man calls "Shadow" thinks he's done a good job, He thinks his oink makes a fine bark, and when he gets given a pig's ear to chew on, he cleverly hides it (while shedding a tear or two two for his sister's and brothers) so that his owners won't think his behaviours are odd. But one day Jacob is surprised when his owner...(to be continued, G-d willing)”

 

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After my divorce I was paralysed for eight months. I buried myself in work, and at night I took sleeping pills. But by September the sharp pain had become a dull ache, and there were moments when I didn't even notice it. Urged on by some friends, I started dating women again. A divorcee here, a widowed mother of three there.
____________
The Sydney Institute for Domestic Violence: Men helping men be mean and sharing wife-beating strategies
___________________________

Story about a psychologist who is soon to graduate and wants to get their unmet sexual "needs" "handled" before beginning unsupervised clinical work. Comedy. tantra groups. brothels. etc.
________________________

Understanding children with the Enneagram - Part A

Those of you who follow the blog will know that I am fascinated by theories of personality, both because of my profession and because of my own search for balance and self-knowledge. One of the most flexible, insightful and accurate predictors of personality patterns is the Enneagram, and I've decided to explore how some of its insights can be applied to parenting. Watch this space for more posts.

Using the eneagram to help your children intergrate their agression, and their "shadow" material.

Often when a child says to a sibling something like "I hate you, I wish you were dead" parents tell them to be nice and not to say things like that.

My own son sometimes displays in a veery mild way some of the constellation of traits that have noww been labelled asberger's, and which are equivalent to type 5 on the eneagram. But static labels placed on fluid beings can never do justice to their story...
___________________

interesting to compare the Reichian / Lowen taxonomy of personalities with the Enneagram...oral; schizoid; rigid; psychopath; and masochistic

____________________________________________

Classifying human beings by skin colour alive and well in SA

Out of Africa

While in Africa to visit my surrendering dad ( who has been blessed with Alzheimer's) I dug up an amazing piece of mind-talk (self-talk), while doing some work with my friend Rasada.

"Not only do I HAVE to be a father to myself, but also to my father (never mind to my own sons) - and it is too much."

No wonder I might feel overwhelmed when I'm unquestioningly accepting this belief.

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Part of me - admittedly only a teensy weensy part of me - wants to be with my dad in the old aged home. Or perhaps IS my dad in the old aged home.

___________________________________

On the flight out to Africa, the seemly interminable torturous 14 hour flight from Sydney, my head dully aching and my mouth dry, the night fears come, and I completely doubt my adequacy and capacity to be there for my family, my beautiful wife and children, who in this moment, in this flying tin prison, seem like my only anchors in this scary universe. And even though I know the task is made up, and no one gets "THE TASK" done - eventually all subcumb to something - at this point the task, the imaginary task I've made up for myself - seems much bigger than I.

...and I cannot protect them from birth or death. The only protection I can offer is relative – clarity of thought, how to get clear, the ability to work in partnership, a safe space for a while, money... and this I will work to provide, in keeping with the sutra in Pirkei Avot: You can not complete the task, but nor are you free to desist from it.

Lawyers and intimacy

I do not pray I am prayed
I do not grieve, I am grieved
I do not think, I am thought
I do not breathe, I am breathed
__________________________

Some people are good at negotiating
the stuff that is close to them
and some the stuff that is far from them
and some
born under a lucky star
are good at both