Posts Tagged authentic
Just Released, March 2020. *Who to Be: Identity, Authenticity, and Crisis* (2020) by Michael Adzema
Posted by sillymickel in 1%, activism, America, anthropology, authenticity, awakening, being yourself, book, child-rearing, Class, Class War, consciousness, Culture, Culture War, Culture War Class War, economics, education, Falls from Grace, Generations, globalrevolution, hero, indigenous peoples, life, meaning, Michael Adzema author, nonconform, oppression, parenting, Patriarchal culture, Personal Growth, personality, philosophy, pre and perinatal psychology, primal therapy, psychology, religion, spirituality, transpersonal psychology on March 25, 2020
*Who To Be: Identity, Authenticity, & Crisis* by Michael Adzema has just been released at Amazon
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What does one do in a postmodern, complex, multicultural world in which the options are so numerous and enticing as to paralyze one’s actions? How does one live a good life, a fulfilling life? What actions, commitments, careers, causes, service are most likely to return happiness?
These are questions we all need to address in our youth, yet throughout our lives as well. They come out again specifically during mid-life, and particularly in the mid-life crisis.
One can have access to the entire Universe; but while in Form, one not just *should* but has actually come here to do some aspect or part of that, only. One has one’s dharma, one’s duty arisen out of who one is, and not anyone else’s. This is called one’s *atmadharma*.
It is good, in fact imperative, to open oneself to all kinds of potentials. But if one does not express it, does not bring it out, positively, creatively — and in a fulfilling and socially satisfying way… like a tree does in taking the nutrients it pulls out of the soil to manifest in leaves and blossoms and limbs — one is like a drowned plant, underwater in a swamp … unfulfilled, depressed, unhappy.
At best, one is in an oar-less rowboat, directionless and drifting, in the middle of an infinite sea.This peek into immersion in the Cosmic Soup is instructive. It says something about the spiritual process, the primal process, and the Identity processes of life … especially in the places where they all overlap.
Sample chapters are currently available to read and download at these links:
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Our Global Multiculturalism Directs Us to the Roots of Our Beings as Foundation for Answering the Primary Concern of Human Life, “Who to Be?”
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Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Uncivilized “Civilized” Man
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To order print or digital copies, go to *Who to Be: Identity, Authenticity, and Crisis* at Amazon or to Michael Adzema at Amazon
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Invite you to
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join me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/sillymickel
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friend me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sillymickel
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Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickeladzema/
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For any of the 13 of Michael Adzema’s works currently in print go to Michael Adzema’s Author’s Page at Amazon
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A rare peak into holotropic breathwork: “It’s not like anything you know or have heard about” … here’s a taste, on video, of some authentic spiritual experiences….
Posted by sillymickel in Apocalypse NO, books, Experience Is Divinity, Falls from Grace, Funny God, holotropic breathwork, Michael Adzema author, spirituality, Stanislav Grof, transpersonal psychology, videos, Wounded Deer and Centaurs on November 5, 2015
For those of my friends and followers who have been wondering what holotropic breathwork “looks like” here is a very rare clip…. Rare, because Stanislav Grof, its originator, has refused to allow the actual goings on of such workshops to be video recorded for media use. These experiences are too easily misunderstood and mislabeled, especially taken out of context. To my knowledge, he was unwilling to let the workshops be filmed unless the reporters themselves went through the experience. Perhaps this is one such. It occurred in the Eighties, and you will see a very young-looking Stanislav Grof facilitating here.
This is in German, so I can’t know what the commentary is saying. But this is most definitely what it looks like…. this is what i have been doing with my clients for years… this is what i have had years of experiencing with …this modality….
Simply describing what we do, no one really gets a good idea of what it’s like, for it is not like anything they know or have heard about….
So here it is folks. a sample…
Of course, this says nothing about what the actual experience is like, actually feels like …. nor can it convey the profound transformations that go on inside one, or the depth and meaningfulness of the experience to one’s life….
But here’s a taste….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlGg99yt1ZA
Holotropic breathwork experiences played heavily into my writings. One of my books, in particular, contains detailed explanations of some of my holotropic breathwork experiences.
That is
Falls from Grace: The Devolution and Revolution of Consciousness
http://www.amazon.com/Falls-Grace-Devolution-Revolution-Consciousness/dp/1499297998/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Other books of mine related to holotropic breathwork include, importantly,
Experience Is Divinity: Matter as Metaphor
http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Divinity-Matter-Metaphor-Return/dp/1492932213/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Apocalypse NO: Apocalypse or Earth Rebirth and the Emerging Perinatal Unconscious
http://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-NO-Emerging-Perinatal-Unconscious/dp/1492347213/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Funny God: The Tao of Funny God and the Mind’s True Liberation
http://www.amazon.com/Funny-God-Minds-Liberation-Return/dp/1499504845/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
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and the soon-to-be-released
Wounded Deer and Centaurs: The Necessary Hero and the Prenatal Matrix of Human Events
prepublication excerpts and samplings to whet your appetite include:
http://sillymickel.blogspot.mx/2015/11/the-next-frontier-in-evolution-time.html
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For any of Michael Adzema’s books, go to Michael Adzema at Amazon at
http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Adzema/e/B00J7F0URC/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1445400944&sr=1-1
#holotropic #breathwork #experience #actual #Grof #rare #transformation #spirituality #authentic
The Cost in Lives, Suffering, and Sweat of Obama’s Lack of Spine
Posted by sillymickel in History on March 17, 2011
Why Always Wait Till Something Has Become an Alamo Before Sending in a Cavalry?
Libya, Nuclear power, Collective bargaining rights…Wisconsin, Off-shore oil drilling…Gulf oil spills, Tax cuts for the rich, the public option in health care… UN oks a no-fly zone for Libya. But, why did they wait this long? Qaddafi is attacking Benghazi, the last holdout. Isn’t this like sending in the cavalry when only the Alamo is left? Does Obama have to concede EVERYTHING ahead of time!? And then have a last final futile battle when all is lost, often accomplishing little or nothing. Look at the lack of fight on health care, in particular the public option part of it. Look at the lack of fight on (and then total capitulation to) tax cuts for the rich (requiring that we will be fighting a running, losing battle against overwhelmingly funded adversaries indefinitely)! Look at the lack of action on Wisconsin, leaving only the lame recourse of people having to try to pull off a recall of elected officials. Look at the lack of action on the Gulf Oil Spill; the health and environmental repercussions of which are out of mind now, but are there forever, and will be back to haunt us soon enough, just like the danger of nuclear reactors never really went away. Obama’s preemptive concessions to Qaddafi; to BP, to offshore oil drilling; to Republicans about the public option, tax cuts for the rich, & collective bargaining rights; to the nuclear industry in the US, and so on are weakness, dilly-dallying, mealy-mouthedness, and lack of cahonies by our President that we will be dealing with and suffering because of for a long time. A little more spine by Obama in crucial areas such as these would have saved what will be required instead: the loss of innumerable thousands of lives to Mideast tyrants and environmental hazards and pollutions and the years, decades of hard work, sweat, tears, and sacrifice by the even greater multitude of activists and workers needed to just TRY to regain, or gain, what has been conceded.Mr. President, your generation wanted to avoid confrontation at all costs in reaction to the Sixties tumult that involved speaking truth to evil, right to its face. Your generation invented the word, “wuss.” Watching you (so sadly), I see why.
My generation didn’t want to be part of the problem but part of the solution and had a moral barometer of “you can do anything you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone.” Your generation’s moral rule of thumb was whether something was “inappropriate” or “appropriate” and so divided the world along arbitrary lines that gave greater weight to whether something was unseemly rather than whether it was true or authentic. But a lot of evil is being done now because it would have been “inappropriate” or “unseemly” for you to have taken a strong stand on principle. President Obama, Harry Truman and Teddy Roosevelt are rolling over in their graves. (Cf: http://bit.ly/PT-ob http://bit.ly/AM-ob http://bit.ly/AN-ob http://bit.ly/OB-ob http://bit.ly/GB-ob #Obama #nofly #tax #union #nuclear #BP #UN #Libya)Amplify’d from uruknet.info
March 17, 2011
UK and French ‘would lead first airstrike’
Rebels use three jets and a helicopter to attack Gaddafi forces
Gaddafi threatens attacks on Mediterranean targets if no fly zone enforced
Warnings from America ‘a massacre is about to happen’
U.S., UK and French diplomats have forced the UN to impose a no-fly zone over Libya tonight, with reports allied bombs could ‘drop within hours’.
The dramatic intervention comes as Colonel Gaddafi this evening warned rebels in Benghazi to lay down their arms or expect ‘no mercy’ as his forces push towards their stronghold.
The news follows a reversal in rebel fortunes, with reports anti-Gaddafi militias had used up to three ‘stolen’ fighter jets and a helicopter in a desperate bid to halt the advancing army.
Fight back: reports have emerged of rebels flying at least three jets and a helicopter against loyalist Gaddafi forces. This jet crashed due to ‘mechanical failure’ according to witnesses
Desperate: If a no fly zone is imposed tonight, bombs could drop ‘with in hours’ military sources have said
After weeks of hesitancy over imposing a no-fly zone in Libya, the United States made a dramatic about-face, calling for even more expanded action, including strikes on Gaddafi’s ground forces besieging rebel-held cities.
The U.N. Security Council voted this evening on a resolution that would open the way for that, establishing a no-fly zone but also authorising member states to take ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians from attacks by Gaddafi’s forces.
The BBC reported that China and Russia, usually opposed to such actions, abstained from the vote.
It is also expected that if the resolution goes ahead, planes from at least five Arab nations will join the international force in strikes and patrols over Libya.
The BBC also said British and French war planes would be among the first to launch an attack if the go ahead were given, with the U.S. joining the campaign at a later stage.
The change reflected the past week’s swift reversal of the realities on the ground, where once-confident rebels are now in danger of being crushed under an overpowering pro-Gaddafi force using rockets, artillery, tanks, war-planes.
That force has advanced along the Mediterranean coast aiming to recapture the rebel-held eastern half of Libya.
Gaddafi troops encircled the city of Ajdabiya, the first in the path of their march, but also had some troops positioned beyond it toward Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city and the headquarters of the opposition’s leadership.
In an address this evening, Gaddafi proclaimed that the ‘hour of decision has come’ and that his regime would begin ‘tonight’ to put an end to the rebellion.
‘The matter has been decided … we are coming,’ he said, calling in by telephone to state TV and addressing the people of Benghazi.’
‘There is amnesty for those who throw away their weapons and sits in their house … No matter what they did in the past, (it’s) forgiven,’ he said.
But for those who resist, he said, ‘there will be no mercy or compassion.’
Cornered: The rebel situation is looking increasingly dire as Gaddafi troops are reported to be less than 100 miles from their stronghold in Benghazi
The warning comes after Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, currently in Tunisia, spoke of bombing Libyan targets.
She said: ‘A no-fly zone requires certain actions taken to protect the planes and the pilots, including bombing targets like the Libyan defence systems.’
Visiting the region for the first time since protesters in Tunisia and Egypt toppled their long-time autocratic rulers, Clinton said the U.S. would support U.N. actions that gain a ‘broad base of participation, including from Arab nations,’ and that military action short of boots on the ground might be needed.
Gaddafi must go,’she said, calling him ‘a ruthless dictator that has no conscience and will destroy anyone or anything in his way.’
‘If Gaddafi does not go, he will just make trouble,’ Clinton said. ‘That is just his nature. There are some creatures that are like that.’
Several witnesses said rebels in Benghazi succeeded in shooting down at least two of the attacking aircraft. Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, a 42-year-old merchant who lives nearby, said he saw one of the warplanes shot down after striking Benina – a civilian and military air facility about 12 miles from the centre of the city.
Another witness, medical official Qassem al-Shibli, said he saw three planes attack the airport and nearby rebel military camps before two were shot down.
A third witness saw fire trucks fighting a blaze at the airport, and black smoke billowing from the area. Another witness reported that a rebel war-plane crashed north of Benghazi, apparently after running out of fuel.
At the same time, the rebels were sending their own war-planes in an attempt to break the regime’s assault on Ajdabiya, a city about 100 miles south-west of Benghazi that has been under a punishing siege by Gaddafi’s forces the past two days.
Three rebel warplanes and helicopters struck government troops massed at Ajdabiya’s western gates, said Mustafa Gheriani, a spokesman in Benghazi, and Abdel-Bari Zwei, an opposition activist in Ajdabiya.
Attacks: A wrecked Libyan commercial plane sits on the tarmac of Benghazi airport. Gaddafi forces bombed the rebel stronghold today in anticipation of an all out assault
The U.N. negotiations took place against a backdrop of increasing scepticism in Congress about the Obama administration’s Libya strategy.
Questions focused on what action the U.S. was willing to take to back up its strong calls for Gaddafi’s ouster and whether the crisis could lead to military conflict.
Both the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Senator John Kerry, and the top Republican, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, expressed frustration with the administration and its articulation of policies.
Burns said Gaddafi’s forces ‘have made significant strides on the ground over the course of the last 24, 48 hours … taking full advantage of their overwhelming military.’
He said a Gaddafi victory could mean a reversion toward terrorist support and could destabilise the region.
We ‘need to approach them with a sense of humility about our role and our influence,’ Burns said.
‘That’s why we’ve attached so much emphasis to making this an international response authorized by the U.N. Security Council and attach so much importance to active Arab partnership, not just declarations.’
Doctors working at a local hospital join other protesters in calling for a no-fly zone over Libya during a rally at a square by the sea side in the eastern Libyan town of Benghazi
Clinton said discussions were going beyond specific actions toward broader authorization so countries can enforce any U.N. measures, though no ground intervention is being considered.
But with Gaddafi threatening to ‘rescue’ the people of Benghazi from ‘traitors’ and promising no mercy to those who resist, it was unclear if the U.N.’s efforts would be concluded in time to protect areas remaining in opposition hands.
Senators were in disagreement over the no-fly zone. Lugar doubted that U.S. interests would be served and said the step would require a declaration of war from Congress under the War Powers Act. He asked that Arab governments pay for any U.S. military involvement.
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, said the administration’s response was too weak and relied on Russian and Chinese support for a U.N. resolution.
Rubio questioned whether the U.S. had a backup plan if the resolution failed.
The Seventeenth Prasad, of “The Great Reveal” by The Planetmates
Posted by sillymickel in History on May 20, 2010
The Seventeenth Prasad, of “The Great Reveal” by The Planetmates:
“Nascent Culture War, 20,000 B.C.”
Lion Is First Consciousness at The 17th Prasad
Making matters worse, both conforming behavior and controlling behavior had survival advantages over more natural and authentic behaviors. Not only did Big Accumulators and their conforming underlings have the benefit of access to more of the resources of physical survival, but Big Accumulators, out of that same uncertainty and fear rooted in early birth trauma, would be pushed to deprive others in their sphere of influence of these survival resources.
Big Accumulators could do this because they derived excessive strength and power combining their own power with the power of their conforming underlings.
Big Accumulators would do this because their crazed brains saw no end to their fear of deprivation, got no relief from their blown up fear of uncertainty, hardship, pain, and struggle, and so saw no end to their desire to drive others into states of deprivation that would make them more amenable to control and to also becoming conforming underlings, doing their bidding and serving the ends, not of themselves, but of their high accumulating overlords.
(to be continued)
This video is a reading of The Seventeenth Prasad, as received from The Planetmates — what I’m calling “Nascent Culture War, 20,000 B.C.” — with additional explanation, context, and some commentary by SillyMickel Adzema. The issues highlighted in the commentary concern the way the sedentary lifeway and the possibility of storing and owning more than one needed led not only to a division among humans into Big Accumulators and Small Accumulators, but also into Controllers, Conformers, and Non-Conformers. The natural alliance between Controllers, i.e., the Big Accumulators, and their conforming sycophantic underlings gave them survival advantages over natural, authentic Non-Conformers. How human’s birth pain and its increased anxiety led to the Controller-Conformer alliance to seek to swallow up or eliminate all Non-Conformers is explained, along with the consequences this has had ever since for societies and the divisions between them and within them.
Paraphrase/ Elaboration/ Abstract of “The Seventeenth Prasad:
Nascent Culture War, 20,000 B.C.” — by SillyMickel Adzema
Over time, there was increased pressure on Small Accumulators; those who were “more conservative” in seeking to choose richness of life experience over possession of things became fewer for several reasons. One reason was that among Small Accumulators, there were also those who, for reasons of fate, Divine intention, inordinate fearfulness, and/or inability to be or “bad luck” in becoming Big Accumulators, would be easily swayed to conform to the wishes of the Big Accumulators. These Conformers would become solid, albeit often sycophantic, allies with the Big Accumulators or Controllers. And these together would dominate in the struggle for resources over those Small Accumulators who sought to hang onto more natural and authentic behaviors and lives.
The Controller-Conformer alliance not only could organize their activities in ways to reap and store resources in greater amounts than the more natural, individualistic, Small Accumulator by choice, but fear drove them further. The Big Accumulators (the Controllers) shared something with the Conformers — an excessive fear, again from that early birth trauma, of lack of resources and its ultimate consequence, death. Fearing death, deprivation, and uncertainty to an extreme degree they would feel that nothing less than the control of all resources and the conformity of all other humans to their will and ends was the only way to find relief from their overpowering anxiety about existence.
So the Controllers and Conformers would not merely seek to gather and accumulate resources, they would seek also to eliminate any competition for these resources, however slight or inconsequential, however small or disorganized that competition might be, in the form of the natural, authentic, but also individualistic Small Accumulator.
They did this in a number of ways, beginning with gathering and hoarding as much of the available resources as they could and thus leaving the non-conforming Small Accumulator with less than enough even to survive. They would employ other stratagems to persuade the non-conforming to become “domesticated” — just like the animals they had corralled. Causing deprivation was the stick, but persuasion to become Conformers and to enjoy the benefits of “social conformity” was the carrot. And if neither worked, then there was harassment, scapegoating, belittlement, ostracism, ridicule, the creation of rules to suit their ends and therefore the creation of crime and therefore the ability to mark the Nonconforming as criminals, and therefore to be able to rationalize the use of physical force, capture, enslavement, physical punishment and torture, and even death.
So Controllers and Conformers would have extreme advantages over Non-Conformers and they would dominate in the circles of increasing densities of societies, whereas the Non-Conformers would either fall in line and become Conformers, would be enslaved and killed, or would run away to live in groups of their own kind farther and farther away from the reach of the Controller-Conformer populations.
The links below bring you to an mp3 clip — the audio portion only — of the video above, containing the reading of The 16th Prasad with some commentary and context provided by SillyMickel Adzema:
The 17th Prasad “Nascent Culture War, 20,000 B.C.” Of “The Great Reveal” By The Planetmates
The Sixteenth Prasad, of “The Great Reveal” by The Planetmates: “The Rich Begin Calling the Tune..25,000 B.C.”
Posted by sillymickel in History on May 20, 2010
The Sixteenth Prasad – “Accumulating Things, Dominating Others”
The other dire consequence of your adoption of sedentary, non-nomadic life ways was the ability to gather more
Starfish Is First Consciousness at The 16th Prasad
“things” – not just food but all kinds of “things” – for you did not have to carry what you owned, like a nomad would. When you ceased wandering and set up more permanent abodes, you enabled the gathering and storage of much more than you could possibly need.
This had effects on your unplanetmate-like greed and your unplanetmate-like desire to control, now – sadly, even this – others of your own species.
Those of you who gathered more or accumulated more, by whatever means, could have more “say” and would have more sway over those who gathered less. Big Accumulators were able to control the actions and behavior of Small Accumulators because of their ability to use their excess accumulation to gift or reward those whose actions fit with their ends.
(to be continued)
This video is a reading of The Sixteenth Prasad, as received from The Planetmates — what I’m calling “Accumulating Things, Dominating Others” — with additional explanation, context, and some commentary by SillyMickel Adzema.
The issues highlighted in the commentary concern the ways that our change of lifeways from nomadic to sedentary led to the ability to accumulate more possessions than one would ever need and how this excessive accumulation led naturally to another cancerous branch on the tree of obsessive, fearful control the branch of controlling, now, even other humans. This control of other humans derived from the ability of those who were Big Accumulators to reward and gift using their excessive store of things — Smaller Accumulators in exchange for their cooperation. Thus this enabled people to buy off other people for the first time in humans history, but it also led to an increasing diminishment of consciousness of the human species over that which humans had previously. This diminishment of consciousness was tragic and has had dire repercussions extending right up to today, as is being made ever clearer by The Planetmates.
Paraphrase/ Elaboration/ Abstract of “The Sixteenth Prasad” — “Accumulating Things, Dominating Others,” by SillyMickel Adzema
Your adoption of a non-nomadic lifestyle had other pernicious consequences. When you became sedentary – staying in one place and growing your food, eventually corralling other planetmates, and so on – you were able, for the first time in your long evolutionary history, to accumulate. You were able to store food, but other kinds of “things” as well. This was because when you were nomadic you, naturally, had to carry everything you wanted to “own”; whereas when you “nested” you not only did not have to carry possessions but you were able to create and build storage areas to protect your accumulations. In this way you gathered and stored more than you could ever possibly need.
But it did not end there, because this development led to another cancerous outgrowth in your increasing addiction to controlling your experiences as opposed to discovering the adventure that divinity would have for your development and furthering on the path back to unity with divinity.
This tragic, life-diminishing spinoff of your ability to gather and accumulate excessive “things” was a desire to control even those of your own species: Your fellow humans became the last targets of your mania for control — added to your desires to control your experiences, the timing of events, your sustenance and food sources…which involved controlling your planetmates of the Flora and Fauna Kingdoms of Consciousness…your lifestyles, i.e., becoming sedentary, and so on.
Your unplanetmate-like desire to control expanded your unplanetmate-like greed, and, sadly, you saw that gathering more enabled you to control the actions of those of you who gathered less. It was not long before some of your kind discerned that by gathering and storing excessively – becoming Big Accumulators – they could have more say and more sway over those who were Small Accumulators.
Small Accumulators were not necessarily less able to gather more. Keep in mind that gathering more required an obsession and preoccupation with that, thus it required an unremitting focus on what is now called greed, manipulation, and power. So the more congenial and less crazed and obsessed of your kind would not wish this, especially as it required the relinquishing of the other pursuits of life not involving accumulation – e.g., the relational, emotional, spiritual, and creative pursuits.
Many — who would choose to accumulate only that which was needed to sustain life and little more, so that time would be available for more fulfilling pursuits — thought the narrowing of focus to simply possessing more a sad diminishment of experience, which it was.
But this choice to use some of one’s time in the pursuit of a fulfilling life, as opposed to just the pursuit of piles of “things,” also left them vulnerable to the Big Accumulators who could tempt and persuade the Small Accumulators to act in concert with them through promises of gifts and rewards, taken from their stores of excessive accumulation.
The stage was set for Big Accumulators, who had accepted a reduced spiritual and personal richness for a richness of “things,” to overpower and silence the voices of those who refused such a diminished richness of experience and narrowing of their personality – a narrowing of personality that left out the grandeur of existence more for them than for any other “thing” of Consciousness – living or “nonliving” – on this planet.
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The links below bring you to an mp3 clip — the audio portion only — of the video above, containing the reading of The 16th Prasad with some commentary and context provided by SillyMickel Adzema:
The 16th Prasad, “Accumulating And Dominating” Of “The Great Reveal” By The Planetmates
About My Story
Posted by sillymickel in History on January 9, 2010
So that’s my story. And I should say, you know, I mean…. sad story.
I’m much older now and it’s not like I’ve forgotten it…Like I said, I’ve been through primal therapy…. I don’t want to forget it.
But, you see, having gone through Primal… experiencing it, along with the other ways I’ve been screwed over… I’ve accepted it; and it doesn’t affect me, or push me, or anything.
I’ve learned to appreciate my Dad; even to love him later in life…and my mother…seeing them as poor souls who had it so bad that…. I’m just glad I didn’t get their lot in life.
Oh sure, as a kid… as a kid I just hated; I was so mad, I hated.
But you see, I didn’t know two things — that I learned in my life — but it took a lot of life experience and Primal and so on….
I had to learn…that cruel people do cruel things not knowing they are being cruel; and not being able to help it…. They’re driven…by cruel things that have been done to them. It’s always: “There but for the Grace of God go I.”
If we’re fortunate enough to be able to change our ways, to not be so cruel, to be kinder, gooder… to help people… that’s why we should! Because not everybody can. Some people are just too crushed inside, more crushed than me.
And the other thing is…”OK, so that was football, y’know… but I had other talent….
And I realized in life that it’s not . . . . Who is really in charge of this life is not my parent. I began to realize that nothing happens, not even a blade of grass moves… in the wind…unless by the will of God. I surely believe that… Because I’ve seen it… in my life. How many times I’ve planned things, I went to have; something else happened that was better for me.
What I’m saying is: There’s your feeling of destiny, and your feeling of how it should work out… and then there’s you know … you may know your talents, but you don’t know your goal. You don’t know what God’s divine plan is for your destiny. In the end, I could just think that maybe I might have got football… and been a jock… and played Pro Football and everything. I might’ve been one of those businessmen they always turn out to be; and become a Republican like they always turn out; and never gone and to school and gotten that passion for knowledge… that passion…for knowledge…to know…incredible things that the great minds have known for millennia… passion for knowledge….
And then to actually find out about the way of feeling my emotional scars, and to go into that and actually do it, and to get the benefit of that … would I have done any of that if I had gone on into football?
And who knows if I had gone into football if I might not have had something happen to me as a Pro where I might have had some kind of weird creepy accident or had my…. people have died on the playing field… I mean God only knows your fate in life and when something, some brick wall is blocking the way, even if it is your greatest desire — and there’s nothing you can do about it — well, you gotta know, that God is protecting you there… from something that you know not what…
I found out, I found that out. I even had a house fire. I thought, “What are you doing, God, trying to kill me?”
I had a house fire that burned down all the books, all the books I had planned, for the rest of my life….
It took me ten years… well, nine full years for sure for me to realize that that was the greatest gift I could receive because it freed me from all those old books — some of which are so important that I will bring them out in some form or other…
But it freed me to have a style — not an academic style, but a style all my own. It freed me to write, to speak, be comical, to act … to be me! In a much freer way than I would have been had I stayed with all those academic books that I was going to write — trapped into academic kind of writing, which very few people would read.
Also, I realize now I got so much coming up; I got so much more material, and it’s so much more… in some ways it’s much better than before. It’s so much better than what I had planned. I wouldn’t have come to it otherwise.
Oh, and this is so much, this is so much….
My life? I realize had to be exactly the way it was and even my father… You know I can forgive my father. It was hard! But you know? It didn’t kill me.
It had it’s blessings that I might have resisted. It helped me to know what’s good, in family, in groups and stuff. It helped me to appreciate love. It helped me to understand love and to be even more sensitive because I knew my Dad had been miserable. So I was totally committed to being sensitive and to being all that I could be. Because I knew what it was like to be well, I guess, smaller… I knew what a small person looked like. Although for he, it was probably all that he could be.
He would be the inspiration for all of his children to be better, to do better, to raise their children better, which they all did. My nieces and nephews are wonderful; they’re beautiful.
Though my siblings and I all carry scars. They, my my brothers and sisters, carry more scars than me because of Primal.
Can you imagine, I’m going into realms I feel so happy about. You think I think about football? Hardly.
My joy, my greatest joy; the things that’s giving me joy now is the thought of helping somebody out; helping people out. I can’t think of anything better.
You see I’ve come from so much suffering, and still survived over and over again. A lot of it I did on my own, like my birth.
And so I’ve born me.
I went into Primal, and other things that I put in, coming out of suffering…
I know so many things; I mean I know things; I know I can help people, through the therapy; and I also know things that I can tell people that will, how you say, “ease their mind”?
I know things that are true; that if only they know, you see, because it took me a long time to get to them… but they are true. And they can relieve the suffering that they’re feeling unnecessarily.
I can’t save everybody; but I know that my greatest joy is doing what I can for the people that God puts in my life, that God brings to me….
So, it’s not a sad story. It’s not a sad story at all. What the story is, is a story of authenticity. As I was talking about in “Message from Michael,” — it’s a story of authenticity. It is — by bucking and defying culture — which is exactly what I had to do.
So, that’s the dilemma of culture, and, I thank Michael Jackson for the message of his life and for all the wonderful things that he’s done. As well, I thank him for his personal contribution to my understanding of me.
As I said at the end of “Message from Michael,” this is no. this person is not lacking, this person’s life was not a failure or tragic. He lived larger than life… He let himself be all that he could be to the umpteenth degree, surpassing everyone and no one surpassing him that could dance like him
And so I say, Is it the length of your life that’s important? Or is it the richness of the LIFE that’s in your life that’s important.
I think Michael Jackson is happy sleeping with the angels. I think he’s finally at peace.
Thank you, Michael.
This is SillyMickel Adzema.
That’s my story.
From My Personal Tale, Pt. 2
For more:
My Personal Tale:
Reflections on Persecution of the Talented, Sensitive, and Unique; and Culture’s Sick and Contradictory Purposes
Part One: Fathers, Sons, and Everyone Inherits a Laundry Room
SillyMickel Adzema
