Happy

How in the world am I going to get back to simple? Won't I be glad when I'm there! Or, will I? In less than three weeks, I'll be in Teote; I may be Internet-disconnected, save for a weekly trip to Jalapa on the chicken bus; I will certainly be rising with the sun and going to bed early and eating mostly rice, beans and tortillas, with plenty of chicken soup on the side. And lots of ketchup--they call it salsa, down there, but it's Heinz 57.

My gosh, my life's a complicated dynamo, these days: the global and local projects I've undertaken, the energetic way I'm getting my voice out, the writing projects, they've got whirlwinds beat by at least 60 miles an hour! Yikes! And I've built gravel paths through wilderness and marble paths through meadows and lasting paths of peace, on the ground in Colorado and in the mid-air, on the ObamaBlog. What a trip! Zip! It feels only weeks ago, I left for my life up here, instead of 8 full months. Time rips the sonic fabric when I'm happy.

Hello, CenterDoug

Goodness Gracious! Hello again to my beloved CD Blog. I'm about to get much more focused on Hello, my beloved Blogger Blog.

I'm back from my Obama-Work-Vacation, and will be more focused on this blog as I'm headed to Nicaragua on January 15th, as long as the planes are still flying. God knows any more what we can count on, except life, death, and taxes, and, for me, Barack Obama. My focus these days is very much in support of the Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere, including my family in Nicaragua. I'm co-coordinating a new Obama Community Group on MyBO tofurther communication in the States with all of Latin America and the Caribbean. Very wide ranging, with some superduperstar Obamabloggers signed on. It's hot, I'm excited, and this blog should be linking to all my other blogs about now through Intense Debate. I may end up an unofficial Ambassador to Nicaragua yet, just through my blogposts, anyway. I think I posted that early here: I applied to be appointed Nicaraguan Ambassador in Obama's Administration, and, while it is a cosmic longshot that this Cosmic Caballero would ever be considered, hey, WHY NOT? (said Robert Kennedy in 1968) and I've pretty much operated that way ever since. I could do some good there, but it would be a very different Embassy than what has ever been, for sure.
Gracias, CenterDoug

Ay Chihuahua!

So, strange. Only 32 days to Nicaragua, most out of Glenwood. Here's my happiest seasons greetings to all of you. CD

Navidad in Nicaragua

©Doug Evans 2008 (767 words)

For The Glenwood Post Independent (December)

Christmas Day starts early in Teotecacinte, Nicaragua, at least in my sister Marta’s casa de palomas, on the southern skirts of this peasant village where I spend my warmer winters. No sleeping-in is allowed, in Marta Betanco’s house, not even on Navidad. Except for me, of course, off in my cloistered wing: since I’m considered a North American angel of God down here, she grants me special license, at least on high holy days; she said, with a chuckle, last night, “Angels need their sleep, Dugla, particularly at Christmas, when they’re so very busy.”

My life is very sweet in Nicaragua.

Marta’s up at 3 am, probably, for an hour of prayer on her knees, after lighting the kitchen fire. The rest of the family gets rustled up by the mamacita at 4 am, to help her clean house (including washing the adobe walls of the sala and the kitchen stove with fresh, clean mud). Every inch of the dirt floors is swept by Estania, Marta’s daughter, with her handmade broom. In the kitchen, Marta’s steaming nacatamales in their banana leaf wrappers, poised in an iron kettle above a simmer for 5 hours. The water mustn’t boil off, or all-day-yesterday’s prep work will scorch, ruining the coming feast.

Cesar, the papa of the house, is scrounging firewood to keep the boil going. Even Arnoldo, the teenage son, has a duty: he’s gone fishing for tilapia in the rio Limon, hoping to catch a big one to give his grandmother on Christmas Day. I know all this is happening, of course, even from my sequestered spot, because Marta’s voice carries quite well in still-humid December. It’s now 9 am on Christmas Day in Teote. The only sound louder than her commands was the rooster “Hallelujah Chorus” at daybreak, 4:47, today, when I awoke. Even sleeping angels need to wake up sometime, I guess; it might as well be to crowing, for joy at the coming of light.

While all that’s going on in prep for the family feast at noon, I’m playing “Christmas Carols, ‘Round the World” on my laptop, stretching in the growing light, and being grateful for another day, especially this one, in my 64^th year. Time is very precious to me, and I make the most of it. The sound of Perry Como singing “Ave Maria” brings Marta to my door with café and “Feliz Navidad!” She’s picked a favorite coral rose as a special gift, this morning of mornings. We hug, then she scurries back, sure the nacatamales are burning. I look at the rose and know, once again, that my life is full of angels, right in front of me: it took Nicaragua to let me see that. It’s a gift I’ll carry with me, I hope, and live up to, as well.

With the swish of Estania’s broom and the tinkle of holiday laughter in the air for company, I head for my laptop and three hours of daily writing. Even on Christmas. Heck, because of Christmas! In a few hours, the whole extended family of Betancos will descend on la casa de palomas, 89 strong this year, counting all the new babies, and I’ll need to kiss my Christmas solitude “Good-Bye.” We’ll be decorating the chimbomba, the Christmas tree, this year a potted Norfolk Pine, my treat, brought all the way from Esteli by taxi, which we’ll plant in my garden at Tierra Mia after the 12 Days of Christmas are over. In the late afternoon, we’ll all troop to church for Christmas mass. We’ll vow to make each day a new beginning.

In Nicaragua, Christmas dances on for almost half a jolly month past the Christmas service, culminating in gift-giving, a multiplicity of hugs, another feast on the 12^th day, when the Wisemen arrived at the stable with their offerings. As Nicaraguans rarely have cash for gifts to emulate the Magi, love and handmade tokens take their place. It’s a time to honor babies, birth and parenthood, and every human life on the planet, a time for cherishing familia, not for shopping.

This year, I helped a friend fold 89 origami storks to pass out, then, hang from fishing line above my family’s beds and hammocks. I’ve been folding the first folds on and off since August, but I know they’ll be a triumph. I mean, they’re crimped by an angel from the States, after all; I even added sparkles with glitter, so they’ll twinkle in the Nicaraguan night.

Feliz Navidád, mi amigos en Glenwood Springs and all the international bloggers now my friends. CenterDoug

From Now On, Cultural Creatives: Us!

From this post on,
I will be refocusing this blog much more often on my daily life as a multicultural global citizen, triumphant in the USA and in Nicaragua, in the Now. I will be focusing my Obama Blog [http:www.my.barackobama.com (Obama Doug's Obama Blog)] on networking those who are interested in learning about the exploited and magnificent peoples of the "Land Bridge" between North and South America, the heartland of the Western Hemisphere, Central America, from South Mexico to Nicaragua.

This Blog, CenterDoug, will focus on furthering understanding, mostly for myself, on the current paradigm shift we undergo presently.

Gracias, CenterDoug

A Shift Towards Compassion

A shift towards compassion:

I’ve been playing with the concept, for a while, of the “Paradigm Shift,” primarily a rise to higher collective consciousness, accompanying our movement from a 20^th century “Old America” to a 21^st century entity I’m calling “New America,” a very transformative, millennial vision that’s still mostly perfumed air and dreams, right now, that I’m seeing only in tantalizing, ghostly shimmers. Admittedly, I live and think and act from the very-most fringe of contemporary being. But, right now, most everything out there seems to have turned inside-out, to me: so maybe, just maybe, the fringe has become, at least for a moment, the epicenter of synergy. Certainly, questioning looks better all the time, at every level.

We’re in a very transitional Transition, at the very least from a current President to a bright-shiny new one. Everything is transitioning, let us hope, with grace. We may, as well, be in the midst of a tsunami of a Consciousness Shift—Blip!--leaving everything (including, by the way, each of us!) looking somehow different, as from a never-seen-before perspective, while staying almost exactly the same.

Imagine it: Something uniquely new, that isn’t just another expensive toy!

And, I’ll tell you what. I feel it’s already happened.

Does it not feel to you as if everything’s somehow gone inside-out? Gone topsy-turvy? Turned upside-down? And, all the while, everything has, yet again, stayed the same? That’s the way I felt when I faced third world poverty and starvation in Nicaragua, in 1993, as an “entitled American” with spiritual issues. Things happen when we’re ready for them, even if we don’t know it. Back then, I suddenly became very grateful for what I’d taken for granted before and found a pair of global shoes to fill. Now, that somersaulting sense, intuitively, signs the Collective Shift that most Cultural Creatives (Paul Ray, The Cultural Creatives) have been awaiting and working on in their millions of private American lives, since the 1980’s: that moment when “enough” people are living their lives as conscious, grateful, global people, being the change they want to see, from every level of the warp and woof of both our American tapestry and the rest of the globe’s people.

Life’s a test we’re always ready for, if we’d only listen, from the inside-out.

It might be true (but, who knows what’s true, when everything is somehow different?) that those who’ve relied on institutions to save them, even from themselves, might be a bit panicked right now, since not much is working “rightly” out there, except, perhaps, the promise of Obama and continued American ingenuity; some might be afraid to do their own thinking for a change. In my estimation, self-responsibility is still rather new a concept in America, since we tend to forget to include responsibility for others in the equation. We might all be wise to take our lives reasonably lightly, right now, held in hands of love and gratitude, honoring the current craziness with the salsa of humor and a juggernaut of compassion for our brothers and sisters, some of whom might be cracking up, under the strain, right now, of tribulation.

We’re going through an evolutionary shift in thinking, together, even if we do not know it. Those who do know it might choose to serve others, right now, at least with a compassionate ear. It’s all up to each of us, right now, after all, as it’s almost always been, but, maybe, more of us know it.

We voted for change, and it looks like we’re going to get it. We might as well welcome it, then, grow and prosper.

Gracias, CenterDoug

I Can't Believe It's Almost December!

I'm here in Aurora,
with my daughter Melissa and her family, so life is sweet and millennial in my life. In retrospect, I certainly have been travelling, in and out, on the other side of the paradigm shift, and I certainly have had fun imagining in virtual reality quite a few interesting possibilities. Still, it's about time to pack for my return to Nicaragua in the middle of January, so I better get crackin'. I still have a 64th birthday to celebrate with my Current Lover, Christmas in 12 different places in Colorado, New Year's resolutions, 2 Grandson Birthdays: Ay, Ay, Ay! When will I have time to pack with all this birthing to party over? It always feels to me that this turn to January is a good time for forgiving the old ways and embracing new beginnings, but this year I've nothing I need to forgive: I've been celebrating newness in my life for a year! Season's Greetings to all, from this old codger, the artful dodger!
Gracias, CenterDoug

Down is Up in Obama-Land

"Down is Up in Obama-Land"

BALANCING THE TENSION OF THE OPPOSITES WORKS: Here’s how the Universe probably works: all things exist in tension with their opposites in an exquisite balance that can be intuited but not measured. The Universe is both expanding and contracting, all at once, a crazy paradox, of course, because the essence of the Universe is paradoxical mystery. Light is both a wave and a particle, physicists say, exerting characteristics of both in a seemingly impossible way: its essence is the tension between these opposing states of being. Get it? Another example: We are both living and dying in every minute: the quality of our living and dying depends on the way we hold the tension of these opposite states within our personalities. If we see ourselves as dying every minute (which we are) we live a different life than one who sees himself as living every minute (which we are). The most transcendent approach: to recognize that both states are true in every minute, then to be grateful for the energy this paradoxical tension develops in our understanding of who we are.

“So what?” say my Earth-bound friends; “Of course!” say my cosmic-flyer-cohorts. Somewhere in between the two is a space where I’m both grounded and flying at once: to me, this is the miraculous moment, the NOW, where all things and their opposites are One.

THE MARKET MELTDOWN: So, now we have the Market’s falling spiral, and we know from the above, when something’s falling, there must be something intrinsically connected to it that’s rising as well: Let’s look at that intuitively for a minute. What immediately comes to mind is TRUST/DISTRUST in this economic issue. The Market’s fall marks the lowering levels of investor trust, individually, then collectively, in our economic system: It continues to deepen and re-create itself in negatively-synergistic ways. We no longer trust that “business as usual” works.

But, then, if trust is falling into distrust there, where is distrust spiraling upwards into trust, in my life and in the life of the collective American spirit? A very important question. When I listen for an answer to that question, what bubbles up with truth-shining is “my own inner trust.” How rare and right that is, for me, at least. In the last three months of activism for President-Elect Obama, I’ve come to a flowering of my own formerly-wounded spirit. I’d chosen to be too disaffected in my native land. Now, I feel I’m busting out with purple (red + white + blue) roses! I can almost smell their musky scent, wafting up within me.

I’ve come to trust myself, my balanced mind and heart, my instincts, my microcosm dancing within the macrocosm of America: the key here, though, is not me, though I do believe in growing, but that this flowering evolved from my active participation and dance with the collective, rather than just within myself: in this blog; upfront in people’s faces; on doorsteps and sidewalks and out to the streets of Glenwood, a tango-fest in the face of oncoming rush hour traffic, the day before Election Day’s Victory, a jitter-bugging fool with my Obama/Biden yard sign. Hoo-Hah!

THRILLING STORIES: I’ll bet every active Obama supporter can write a similar story. I’ve read many of them on MyBO and www.change.gov. They thrill me, these stories of personal growth from active service in a mutually beneficial world. Our individually-rising trust in ourselves as worthy and functional, walking our talk, changing our world, being the change we want to see, has raised not only the collective self-esteem of Americans, even of both Parties, but the esteem of the enthralled billions globally as well, who rejoice with us in Obama’s—and Our--victory. We’ve become a stronger people as a result of this election and our participation in it. I’m grateful. I can hardly tell you how proud I am to be an American, on the cresting wave of the future.

The world’s a stronger world, as well, from the gift of hope in affirmative change that we all inspired, this mindful mandate, signaling American maturity to the planet. None of us need to be reminded of why the world has rarely if ever thought of our electorate or our politicians or our culture as being mindful, but it surely does now. I’m mindful; most of you are mindful; we all are more mindful because we’ve been trusting in and observing a very mindful leader, such an honorable man, with remarkable self-esteem. We're reflecting him like shiny candles in multiplying mirrors of wonder! This bodes well for the state of America and all humanity.

We have much reason to be humbly proud.

MARKET IS DOWN, SERVICE IS UP: Thus, as trust in the economic systems falls, we find ourselves, even in the face of all that paper collapsing, trusting in ourselves to survive, to create, to share with our brothers, to love, to link ourselves together for affirmative change. We want to keep our passionate hearts open. “Coloradans for Obama” has moved on from the election to filling food banks across the state with a mouse-click, to feed our hungering people, as well as continued networking for Obama. 100,000 meals have been raised in the first two weeks! That’s inspiring, and only one miracle among millions occurring among us now, at the grassroots level, in the very fertile soil of our linkage. We’ve learned we can work transforming miracles of--Let's name it!--grace, through mutually-beneficial service. I truly believe that America’s gearing up for blooming, regardless of the rotten garbage out there. Blooming out of “business as usual,” service linkage is emerging, and a breathtaking garden begins to evolve, even if it still has some prickers. Who wants a rose garden, without the thorns? How boring!

OUR FUTURE IS RAINBOW: What our “new” way of doing business will look like is anybody’s guess--it could come down and up to barter, as in Nicaragua, or to federally-linked service, here and abroad that serves the world mutually, also with a mouse-click--or a more meaningful life. Of course, I have a guess, too. We’re each responsible for its evolution in our individual, transformed ways, but our linkage synergizes our personal ways together: mutual service to our fellow human beings will most likely be its foundation; electronic linkage its probable engine; and rising self-esteem (and gratitude for it), its synchronizing energy.

Dynamo!

Service linkage builds new work and meaningful jobs that both matter and pay. Let's "follow our bliss" (Campbell) into the rainbow garden of American life.

While President-Elect Obama is our most visible miracle worker, it is all of us who'll make his miracles happen, as we did in retaking our nation. We may send our prayers and hopes to lift up Obama, but let's take our highest expectations for change upon ourselves.

Come on, now, Obama-bloggers, smell the sweet and sexy scent! It’s not all bad out there; we’re blooming like rainbow-roses, all over Obama-Land.

We did it once; we can flower again and again: Yes, We Can! Yes, We Will!

President Obama, for 8 Great Years!

Gracias, CenterDoug

Could Fantasy Become Reality?

I donated five bucks

this morning to the Obama Transition Team, greasing the Presidential Choo-Choo enormously, I'm sure, but since my net worth has been halved on paper this Fall, I've had to economize. As a result of the donation, though, I was asked once more to "Share My Vision for America" with the Team, and, of course, being the big-mouth I am, I did, and, in that process, came up with a rather strangely perfect job for myself in the Obama Administration, for 8 Great Years: Picture this! Doug Evans Betanco, Ambassador of the United States to Nicaragua.

Yikes, I love it! I'd look great, now I'm thinner, in a cut-away or tux and I sort-of speak the language, and the Embassy party scene in Managua is hotter than can be believed! I could truly do some good there, especially for the peasants, even if I were surrounded by a viper's nest of CIA gentleman-representatives still living as if Reagan were President. My first task would be to bring my staff into 21st Century Transformative Diplomacy. Cool, Old Man. Very cool.

Now, now, I can hear you saying, "Good God! Doug's gone off to cloud-cuckoo-land, for sure!" And, believe me, I'm really not counting on Federal work to keep me out of the breadlines, because I know I simply do not fit the mold of Beltway Bubble Believers very well, at all. I've considered my government here at least as wacked as I am for thirty years: I live on the other side of the paradigm shift that's happening. Anyway, I've probably flunked out already (See post below on applying for a position in the Obama Administration) because of my FBI dossier, which I'm sure is extensive because I created a crazy stir back in the 70's that involved a former President, sort of a secret that everyone knows. Oh, well, I've grown since then.

Gosh, I could forge such links in Latin America from that perch, and really, we'd better start forging good ones because South of the Border, my friends, is a newly-emerging dynamo of capital and development in this Hemisphere which currently is very wary of involvement with the manipulations of the Old Imperial America.

OOOOOOOOOH! I've got to start thinking about forging links in Latin America, to the mutual benefit of all the peoples involved.

So, anyway, This is the essay I send to the Obama Transition Team, today:

"My Vision for America"

My New America keeps its word, internally and externally, and walks its talk with maturity and courage as One with the rest of the world, an honorable nation among nations. Acting maturely means being peaceably responsive to the needs of all the world's peoples, not just the rich elites; honoring international law and World Court decisions, even when they go against us; and, especially, owning to our past mistakes, rectifying them when possible, and choosing in the future to forge a higher path.

My New America, for instance, would honor the World Court's decision in the case of Daniel Ortega and Nicaragua vs the USA in the 80's: the Court found for Ortega, found the US guilty of "conducting a terrorist operation" against the State of Nicaragua from 1979-88, and levied reparations in the billions against the USA. This has been ignored by the State Department for 20 years, and the whole world knows it. If we expect our fellow nations to honor that Court’s decisions, we need to honor them ourselves. When we don’t, we build support for world-wide terrorism’s ad campaign on the ground against us. Honoring this debt is in both the national interest and for the world’s security.

My New America would honor that debt by paying those reparations with interest and monitoring the funds so at least half gets into the pockets of some of the world's poorest people, the campesinos who comprise 90% of Nicaragua's citizens and who have borne the brunt of the ruinous hardships this US action catalyzed. Nicaragua’s economy is ruined, perhaps irretrievably. While the funds might technically go to the current Ortega government, they must be administered by a third party, perhaps The Carter Center, to assure that our tax money does not end up lining only the pockets of the Nica elites. The people at the bottom of the world's economic beanstalk need nourishing, if the beanstalk is not to topple out of starvation at its roots. As well, the USA needs to honor its own laws, in order to stand taller in the world.

My New American President Obama would need to re-educate the American public to understand the truth about Nicaragua: the Sandinista Insurrection of 1979 was both reasonably peaceable and justified, very much like the American Revolution in intention and inspiration, and in no way a "Communist takeover" by wild-eyed guerrillas; the only terrorists in Nicaragua were the Dictator Somoza's National Guard, trained by the US to subjugate the population; after the Triunfo of the Sandinistas, we paid the Guardsmen who had fled the country to terrorize the new and legitimate government of Nicaragua from Honduras and Costa Rica.

The New American people need to understand that the spin-dance of Old-American foreign policy vis-à-vis Latin America in the past no longer exists in the New Millennium, that we will not be lied to anymore, because our New America will no longer lie to its citizens or to the world.

My New American President Obama would travel to Nicaragua to offer both apologies for our dreadful past together and gratitude for the opportunity to make amends, so that we can move forward to stronger democratic and economic bonds. I want to accompany him on that trip because, In my New America, I would like to help build those bonds, if only by this suggestion, or, even better, in a more visible and responsible role. It would bring great honor to my "family" there and to me, here and in Nica. As I've bonded with the people of Nicaragua and lived part time there for fifteen years and spent my time both here and there forging stronger links between these two American countries, I'd just leap for joy to see brotherhood and honor reign in both. The rest of the world would fall to its knees and pray, in a thousand languages, "Thank God, the US we know and want to love is back with us today!"

Gracias, Charles Douglas Evans (aka, in Nica, Doug Evans Betanco)

It's funny, yet true, that when I returned to the States last June from a winter in Teote, I was calling myself in this blog Ambassador Evans Betanco because Teote had asked me to be its voice in Glenwood Springs. Unfortunately, the work with Nicaragua has no more buy-in here in Colorado, so that FCE focus is gone from my life. Why kick a dead horse alive? But, I really would love to be a really real "Hon." And, while I was doing all that ambassadorial stuff, I could be plowing money of my own into building my English Language Academy in Teote. Hoo-Hah!

Gracias, CenterDoug

Applying for Obama's Administration

Good Lord!
I just finished an application for a position in the Obama Administration. Cool, old man! I applied to be court jester, or even better, because being jester might be very hard this first four years, for position of Editor to the Obama Bloggers' Digest, a daily compendium of links and summaries and some full articles, videos, etc. from the National Obama Blog to the President's Ear (my idea). That one I could do from home, both here and in Nica, on the Net, and I'd love it.

You can access the Obama Job Search at www.change.gov. Click on "Jobs," but, be aware, it's an extensive application when it comes after the preliminary app, so have a resume to upload before you start.

Oh, well, it would certainly be more fun than working at Wal-Mart, where I'll probably be headed when I return to the US in June, unless the stocks start rising. I'd make a great Greeter! And probably love that job as well. Attitude is All.

Gracias, CenterDoug

99.44% Pure Democracy

99.44% Pure Democracy

©Doug Evans 2008 (729 words)

For the Glenwood Post Independent

On November 3, 2008, the day before Vote Day in America, my intuition led me to rush down to Obama HQ in Glenwood Springs, to volunteer for standing in the middle of the busiest intersection in the City, Grand and Sixth, at the Bridge. I felt I had to do something different from phone-banking, canvassing, and walking downtown in Obama regalia, and “dancing in the streets” with my Obama/Biden Yard Sign fit the bill! Full of joy and fervor, having chosen to believe the President-Elect would win in a blue-state landslide a month earlier, centered in Colorado, this sign-dance would not only be good exercise, practicing The Stroll and the Cha-Cha and The Frug in traffic, but, also, maybe one of my former students from CMC might decide for the Dems because of my example. I’d also carried a “Vote, Please” sign in downtown Glenwood on Election Day, 1976, for Jimmy Carter: it felt like a way to get out the vote and integrate parts of my life, as well.

When I got to the Bridge at the 4:30 rush hour, two other Obama supporters stood with their signs, so my dance floor shrank a little, but the company was great. We really got it together as a chant team out there, yelling “President Obama, For 8 Great Years,” while I twirled and whirled and boogied—There were even some ballet leaps, at the start!—shaking my power-stick-sign at passing motorists like a Ute Shaman on the warpath for “Liberty and Justice for All.” It was, as they say in London, “quite brilliant!” Horns were honked, more often than not; thumbs went up as much as down; I only saw a few middle fingers, which made me laugh. I honestly have not had such fun since I played Sancho Panza in “Man of La Mancha," singing about impossible dreams!

Then, the rest of the world intruded on my patriotic-trance-dance.

From out of the “Road to Nowhere,” as if by magic, 20 men, women and children appeared along the edges of the intersection, carrying McCain/Palin cardboard signs, soon flooding the island in the middle and all the other corners with ardent Republicanism.

“Uh-Oh,” I thought, “this could get ugly.” So, this crazy-minded-wise-old-dancin'-fool began to laugh at the top of my diminished lungs, just giggling hysterically at the comedy life was showing rather than dwell on potential tragedy. It was—and it became even more so—a laugh riot, for some time, out there in front of the Hotel Colorado, with everyone having chuckle fits of excitement. I’ve been told many times that my laugh is infectious, especially by directors of comic plays who want me in their audiences, so maybe my giggle made a difference. At any rate, we were all most civil and joyful, for two hours of red-white-and-blue; some of the kids broke away from their Moms and picked up Obama signs, balancing the ratio; four passing Glenwood High students also got into the spirit with more OBAMA placards, doing their patriotic duty with gothic flair; and every car honked for one or the other candidate, so I’m sure the Valley echoed all the way to Carbondale. It must’ve sounded in Glenwood Park like the world’s longest wedding caravan!

Reporters and photographers then showed up to make us part of the City’s visual history, and-- Goodness Gracious!—I ended up looking stern and somewhat patriarchal, probably because my back hurt, on the front page of the Post on Election Day! Now, I guess I really am a star, though I wish the photo showed me giggling: that’s what I’ll remember. And this: All of us had the thrill of participatory democracy in action. All of us felt “special.” All of us knew we were witnessing a unity of purpose above partisan division: we were all there To Get Out The Vote for America.

What a great lesson for all those young kids holding signs with us older patriots! People who are divided over issues or candidates or campaigns can still be united by our common values of fair play, free speech, and respect for law and order. We could’ve been clubbing each other with our signs! In other places in the world, that would've happened. Instead, we participated in a Happy Birthday Party for a New America, Proudly Walking Its Talk. Perhaps, I should rent myself out as the happiest dancing clown.

Pure Democracy in Action

[CenterDoug Notes: after two months of intense political activity--not since 1976 have I carried a candidate sign, though I've always voted and marched against the Rocky War in 2003--after all those phone banks and door knocks and sign-shakes and letters and blogposts for Obama, I've "Sayonara'd" my CenterDoug's Obama Blog now that he's going to be President, I'm sure for 8 Great Years. It'll remain up there at as a testament to my service to this Transformative President and his Transformative Presidency. Maybe I'll publish it, as it is timely. I even sent the Obama National Blog a lengthy tome of political philosophy that flew out of me, full-blown and amazing, down in Center three weeks ago [ ]. All in all, I posted almost 30,000 words of encouragement, high-road tactics, analysis, insight, along with some ludicrous folly. I think it's worth a read in the cold of winter coming, if for no other reason than to connect to the empowerment of the moment we are feeling now. It's also a chronicle of my own rather eccentric evolution as a contemplative activist for the American Democracy. CD]

Pure, Principled Democracy in Action

This 2008 Presidential Election, besides, I think, restoring the potential of America to Americans on the ground, also electrified the "Cultural Creatives" here, who've been living and evolving, mostly out of politics and under the media radar, for many silent years. Who? Oh, you know, "Them," the long-haired crazy rainbow hippies of the Sixties and their children, raised to believe that Principles acted out in front of and in us are more important than the American economy to the health of our global humanity. 50 million adult Americans, most of whom have not heard of this nebulous almost "virtual" group, have been quietly transforming the world every day by transforming themselves into empowered, present-moment, authentic people, whatever their walk of life. Most of those principles are in the masthead note on the Title Page of this CenterDoug Blog.

I'll be spending some time here, in the next few weeks, exploring the paradigm shift that most Cultural Creatives have been working towards: to move the world from the bottom up to elevate the principles of balance, mutuality, connection and gratitude, out of the greed, egotism, and parochialism, past the massive abuse of the human condition as well as of our Planet Earth to which we are witnesses in treacherous times. I do believe that shift in consciousness has already happened--or at least a tipping point was reached in the results of Election Day 2008. I'm quite convinced that the swing voters and workers and new registrants in this election are mostly Cultural Creatives who jumped on the Obama bandwagon because Obama speaks with the voice of the Now, and we all heard it and moved mountains of past karma aside by upholding the principles of Equality and Tolerance in America.

More, later. I have to get all those yard signs off my line and write an article for the Post.

A Prediction

I'm not much for looking to the future (too unpredictable) but in the present moment, I've awakened this morning knowing (from where?) that the great American Republican middle of Republican moderates is breaking up, and this middle is aiming to vote, one to one, for President Barack Obama, because these people, decent, loving, investing and stalwart, know a trend when they see it and put their money there. There's a surge developing from the moderate Republicans that most will not tell anyone, because it feels almost treasonous to own it, from their point of view, but, still, I feel it happening. Moderate Republicans are going to vote for Obama because, strange to say, the alternative is exactly what THEY don't want now: more of the same repudiation. Conservatives are discovering that the true centrist voice in this election is Obama! Hoo-Hah!

I'll go further: the downward spiral of the stock market will continue until Obama wins: then, such a dramatic surge upward, as the smart money comes back to the market, knowing that the transformative President will make things, if not easy street, at least BETTER. These people understand and watch world trends as well as internal economics: the world is awaiting a triumph for the world, and that will push the market. You watch. After President Obama wins, there will be the most amazing upsurge of the market that anyone has ever seen.

I may be crazy, but I ain't stupid!

[CenterDoug Notes: 11/19/08. Didn't happen. I must remember not to make economic predictions, which make me both crazy and stupid. Sorry. CD]

Gracias, Doug Evans Betanco

Ay, Chihuahua, I'll maintain my centrist position and spend a good deal of time praying.
Gracias, Doug Evans Betanco

Towards a Transformative Presidency

Hi, all. I've been whiling away my time being Madisonian, thinking of transformative government when President Obama moves in to the White House. Just some thoughts.

First, The Brief; then, the tome, full of examples and provisos.

Towards a Transformative Presidency (Brief)

By Doug Evans Betanco - Oct 25th, 2008 at 5:58 pm EDT

[Examples and Provisos form the bulk of TTP(9) below in Greater Blog]

Preamble: These Principles are based on a firm conviction that we live in a Universe pervaded with balance, even if we cannot measure it; with tension, even if we cannot touch it; with paradox, even if we cannot know it. At its center is mystery, way beyond our understanding, but, in and out, that mystery is somehow grateful love: All things come from and are driven by this energy, defined by a unity above division.

As well, these Principles contain two fallacies as old as man’s time on this Earth: 1) the use of words, a fallible necessity, when dealing with almost-absolutes; and 2) the expression of the macrocosm through the microcosmic eyes of man, indeed, only one man, with all he knows and intuits, just whispers in the storms and calms of time.

MISSION: Over-riding everything else, the mission of a Transformative Presidency is to empower the American electorate, by the Oval Office's example, to empower itself as a truly democratic citizenry, working in harmony and tension for the mutual benefit of all.

UBER-PRINCIPLE: WE WORK TOWARDS ANY MOVEMENT OR DIRECTIONAL SHIFT THAT, THROUGH ATTITUDINAL HEALING, LEADS THE INDIVIDUAL OR COLLECTIVE TO AFFIRMATION AND GRATITUDE FOR OUR ONENESS AND MUTUALITY, AT EVERY LEVEL OF OUR EXISTENCE, EXCEPT, OF COURSE, WHEN WE CAN'T.

Principle 1: There is order in all things, except when there is not. Seek it in the midst of chaos. Chaos tenses order: they are immutably connected in the human condition. What we can do is observe this tension: from its nexus, new order evolves; we are capable of seeing it come, even in the Oval Office, then channeling it towards the mutual benefit of all, except, of course, when we can't.

Principle 2: There is balance in all things, except when there is not. Seek it in the midst of Imbalance. Imbalance tenses balance. Both are necessary in the human condition. What we can do is grow with the tension to our own greater personal and national maturity, Mr. President, for the mutual benefit of all.

Principle 3: Order attracts and repels chaos; balance attracts and repels imbalance: the tension between these balanced opposites energizes all things as a dynamo. Seek the tension, hold it in both hands, feel the synergy and listen to its hum. Be grateful: It will speak of affirmation, for the mutual benefit of all.

Principle 4: Gratitude is the energy which binds the Universe together and empowers it appropriately, for the mutual benefit of all.

Principle 5: The multiplicity of the Universe is in the smallest things, right in front of us, as well as in the largest, biggest ideas. Pay Attention to the small things, even in the Oval Office, sir, and the Big Things will clarify, for the mutual benefit of all.

Principle 6: There is a space between things and between each other. It’s very full, even though we think there’s nothing there. Such a strange thing to put in words, but, really, half the Universe is there! Everything is about context, about what sits next to it. In this space we’re connected and One with all, as in our hearts: being with the spaces in between, sitting there, works towards the mutual benefit of all.

Principle 7: Time’s an illusion, except when it is not. A state of All Time, very real, though considered illusory, exists within us in the Now, the present moment, where there‘s no timeline: everything happens at once, a major paradox. Touch the Now as often as possible, especially in the Oval Office, in order to be timely, fitting and appropriate, for the mutual benefit of all.

What to Do?

Uber-Principle in Action: Transformation is a process that moves towards "turning things around" to a more fitting and appropriate way or direction (down to up; hate to love; fear to fortitude, etc.) that leads to attitudinal healing and gratitude, for the mutual benefit of all. Work in measured steps to turn things toward affirming and empowering the world's people in their Oneness.

Principles in Action 1: Unity pervades the Universe beyond division: work towards and empower others to work towards unity of spirit and connection for a mutually beneficial world.

Principles in Action 2: A problem is its solution: sometimes, the best fix is no fix at all; build linkage, instead, with other perceived problems, and help them to synergize with appropriate administration and service. When things fall apart, other things grow together from it. Look to see what’s growing from the center of dissolution and nurture it to new solutions, for the mutual benefit of all.

Principles in Action 3: As much as possible, rise to thinking from a both/and perspective, rather than strictly from either/or, as both/and thinking fits the Now. Almost everything is both a blessing and a curse; as well, usually, both sides are true: sometimes it’s necessary to rise up the middle, for the mutual benefit of all.

Principles in Action 4: Strengthening balanced linkage between the top and the bottom of just about anything right now strengthens the ends and, thereby, electrifies the middle. Forge the links, sir, and we'll all have much to be grateful for.

Principles in Action 5: The Principle of Balance/Imbalance often looks like Justice in action, as the Universe acts as a mirror to us, individually and collectively: What we throw out to it comes back to us.

Principles in Action 6: All of the above are lies at some level; be transparent, practice discernment, live in balance with this globe of nations, and trust your Presidential intuition, for the mutual benefit of all.

Principles in Action 7: Above even the above is a further state of intention, beyond lie: all things seek to rise to the next level, to transcend the known, even when they're headed down by circumstance or lack of curiosity.

NOW, the Tome:

Towards a Transformative Presidency 9

By Doug Evans Betanco - Oct 25th, 2008 at 5:45 pm EDT

Preamble: These Principles are based on a firm conviction that we live in a Universe pervaded with balance, even if we cannot measure it; with tension, even if we cannot touch it; with paradox, even if we cannot know it. At its center is mystery, way beyond our understanding, but, in and out, that mystery is somehow unitive and grateful love: All things come from and are driven by this energy, which, while we may see it as dual, is more appropriately a unity beyond division.

As well, these Principles contain two fallacies as old as man’s time on this Earth: 1) the use of words, a fallible necessity, when dealing with almost-absolutes; and 2) the expression of the macrocosm through the microcosmic eyes of man, indeed, only one man, with all he knows and intuits, just whispers in the storms and calms of time.

MISSION: Over-riding everything else, the mission of a Transformative Presidency is to empower the American electorate, by the Oval Office's example, to empower itself as a truly democratic citizenry, working in harmony and tension for the mutual benefit of all.

Uber-Principle: WE WORK TOWARDS ANY MOVEMENT OR DIRECTIONAL SHIFT THAT, THROUGH ATTITUDINAL HEALING, LEADS THE INDIVIDUAL OR COLLECTIVE TO AFFIRMATION AND GRATITUDE FOR OUR ONENESS AND MUTUALITY, AT EVERY LEVEL OF OUR EXISTENCE, EXCEPT, OF COURSE, WHEN WE CAN'T.

Principle 1: There is order in all things, except when there is not. Seek it in the midst of chaos. Chaos tenses order: they are immutably connected in the human condition. What we can do is observe this tension: from its nexus, new order evolves; we are capable of seeing it come, even in the Oval Office, then channeling it towards the mutual benefit of all.

Example: We have gone through a decade of dreadful cataclysm; there might be more to come. There has always been cataclysm, but last decade’s seemed “more global” in immediacy, instant to all. There’s been a lot of near-chaotic shaking. If seen fearfully, these constant episodes of panic could lead one to suppose the end of what we know. From a longer point of view, they’re the airing-shakes of the coverlet on our guest bed, to welcome someone new to the house: the intense impulse of hope this campaign sends to the world, electrifying Earth in anticipation, appears to be blooming a new transformative order amidst the trembling chaos; when hope blooms worldwide, especially in the immediacy of the Internet, fitting and appropriate things tend to happen, to evolve, while happening more quickly. Therefore, fan the hope for order, act accordingly, and Decade Two of the New Millenium might be a more graceful decade of growing American maturity in the world.

Proviso: What we see as order is often disorder to others. The wisest man today does not impose his sense of order upon others, unless they ask for it. But, in that, clearly, I’m not very wise. I am, instead, for this election process, American, totally a gringo, until the victory. I hope I'm not imposing; my only authority is my authenticity.

Principle 2: There is balance in all things, except when there is not. Seek it in the midst of Imbalance. Imbalance tenses balance. Both are necessary in the human condition. What we can do is grow with the tension to our own greater personal and national maturity, Mr. President, for the mutual benefit of all.

Example: The American economic system is grossly imbalanced, since everything flows to the top, while little attempt is made, except through government, to nurture the bottom. Practically everyone but me is a debt-slave! The top runs everything, creating imbalance in the system, not only in the flow of wealth but also in the numbers. Clearly, the balance can be driven down toward midpoint by opening federally-subsidized microenterprise banks in every hamlet and town, to put cash for growth into the hands of the impoverished and hold them accountable for repayment with Grameen Bank practices. You could do more, here. Loving the bottom is key to balance.

Their expenditures would massage the middle. The important thing is the balancing of the few at top with the many at the bottom in opportunities (not just accessible cash). Then, synergy occurs, and new, mutually beneficial order.

Proviso: Good Lord! Who really knows what balance is? We try, but fail, then try again, always towards a greater balance. My balance, today, comes from writing letters to the top from the bottom. Quite arcanely weird, but, balance, nonetheless.

Principle 3: Order attracts and repels chaos; balance attracts and repels imbalance: the tension between these balanced opposites energizes all things as a dynamo. Seek the tension, hold it in both hands, feel the synergy and listen to its hum. Be grateful: It will speak of affirmation, for the mutual benefit of all.

Example: The Obama/McCain race is a perfect example of a polarized tension of the opposites. It is currently an extraordinary dynamo of energy, worldwide, synergistically, but, how to use it for global mutuality? Colin Powell said it all: be “a leader of those who want to be free,” especially from fear, narrow thinking and demagoguery. Most in the world, except, perhaps, some neo-con Americans, know, firsthand, what that looks like. Continue to show us how the opposite of that, tolerance and authenticity, acts. Be tolerant of John McCain and his Party, unfortunately-deluded-and-dangerous as they’ve become. Ignore them.

Warn us, perhaps, that Arch-Conservatives behind this blatant racism must not achieve a victory for intolerance in November, not in a country of grassroots patriots whose ancestors came here to escape demagoguery, control, and ethnic oppression. What kind of idiot do those neo-cons think the electorate is? They’ve hung themselves.

If we as Americans can triumph over our own demagogues, if we can say, to the robo-phones, “Ha! Not in My America!” by electing President Barack Obama here, we will show the world Americans have come of age as thinking people and are walking our talk. The world needs a triumph for tolerance and multiculturalism. You’ve become, like it or not, a walking-demonstration-of-the-fruits-of-toleration-joined-with-personal-excellence. That could change things globally, in a very grateful way. Much could be built in the heady days after a world victory for loving kindness and respect for all. Much. Mucho.

Proviso: The universe is full of both risk and certainty. Making absolute statements is ludicrously risky. One must also exercise Principle 7, as everything changeable can change, overnight. Timeliness is all. In the moment, though, now, go for risking to be completely authentic in the modern world: that act speaks to championing the balance, the order, the Now you represent. There’s always time to dance, even elegantly, later, at the Inauguration. You know, sir, you’ll need to dance with change, like Fred Astaire, exceedingly well, defying gravity while keeping your feet on the ground of our common humanity, after your election. We can do this.

Principle 4: Gratitude is the energy which binds the Universe together and empowers it appropriately, for the mutual benefit of all.

Example: I’m sure you realize how grateful I am to finally have a Presidential candidate I do believe in! There’s been a dearth. Now, I’m enlivened in my American patriotism as almost never before, not since the Bicentennial. I am so empowered by my efforts to register college students—first time voters all—that I sometimes weep with joy. I certainly would not now be sending you all these strangely imperative posts—or my discretionary income, never political before—I would not even be paying attention to this election, had you not spoken with the voice of the Now when I needed to hear it. Thank you, Barack Obama. I’ve been waiting for your voice for thirty years. So have 50 million American adults who simply gave up on changing the outside world, thirty years ago, and decided to change themselves, instead, to make the world a better place, day to day, one intrinsic step at a time. Let me tell you, it works. Your constituency is very powerful, sir, as a result.

Results of this gratitude? A bunch of presumptuous ramblings? And 87 new voters! Who knows? I know I’m centered, connected, in love with the possibilities of my country for the first time in 30 years! It’s a totally blessed homecoming. It will work, my gratitude, all on its own, for the mutual benefit of all.

Proviso: You may be listening to the most-crazy person in the modern American states, from the Arctic to Antarctica, in the whole Western Hemisphere! Good God! I’m being written far more than I’m writing, in this current blog, and I’m sharing it, and, one time past, I promised I’d not do it again. I’ve done this political writing before. Yet, I’m electric! I know it’s crazy, but, oh, well--What can I say?-- I LOVE it! I promise to settle down, after the victory. Anyway, I know, though these things are going on to you and the Obama Groups on the Blog, that they’re really for me to grow with. Whether you read them or not, I’m growing spectacularly well as a result of them. They clarify me. Growth, anywhere in the human system, grows us all, especially from the bottom.

Principle 5: The multiplicity of the Universe is in the smallest things, right in front of us, as well as in the largest, biggest ideas. Pay Attention to the small things, even in the Oval Office, sir, and the Big Things will clarify, for the mutual benefit of all.

Example: I wore my OBAMA O8 T-shirt while eating at the local best restaurant in Center, resulting in the confirmation of at least 12 votes for you, today. The waitress mentioned the shirt, I started talking, and it ended up a triumph for diversity, in a place where I was the only guy not permanently tanned. The truth is in the details and, of course, in the intention.

Example 2: I watched an owl, usually reclusive, fly across the Rio Grande this morning. Huge! I thought, “a good symbol for Obama, that owl, who knows when to fly across the river, going home!” I learned later that you had flown to Honolulu to your Grandma, a very wise and appropriate use of time. Hope she's OK.

Proviso: The knowledge gained from small things must fit your vision, current, of the future. When it does, it’s a sign. It might, though, change. Pay Attention. Be flexible, and teach the difference between dancing with change from center—the ideals maintain--and campaign promises some blowhard spoke to the wind.

And, really, think!: Am I Polonius to you? I hope not, but maybe it’s good. I am one with you at the deepest patriotic level, but. for God’s sake, don’t be Hamlet! You’ve already chosen to be.

Principle 6: There is a space between things and between each other. It’s very full, even though we think there’s nothing there. Such a strange thing to put in words, but, really, half the Universe is there! Everything is about context, about what's sitting next to it. In this space we’re connected and One with all, as in our hearts: being with the spaces in between, sitting there, works towards the mutual benefit of all.

Example: The space in between the top and the bottom is currently vast, at every level, full of bitterness and unheard agony, class struggle, economic manipulation, racial hatred, and cultural bias. If, instead, it were illuminated with mutuality, pragmatic service to humanity at both ends of the beanstalk, philanthropy which empowers rather than enables, and open human love for one another, it would benefit all and grease the new order global economy, addressing the world’s needs as well as our own.

Proviso: Gaining a sense of the character of such “spaces” is an intuitive skill that smacks of magic knowledge or wizardry: Trust issues can result from the abuse of intuition for personal, religious or unilateral, national self-interest. One person’s glowing intuition, as well, could be another’s worst nightmare. The wisest intuitive chooses to be both leader and follower of himself, first, even in the Oval Office, rather than an avatar or guru to others. We need no more martyrs or Hitlers.

Principle 7: Time’s an illusion, except when it is not. A state of All Time, very real, though considered illusory, exists within us in the Now, the present moment, where there‘s no timeline: everything happens at once, a major paradox. Touch the Now as often as possible, especially in the Oval Office, in order to be timely, fitting and appropriate, for the mutual benefit of all.

Example: The Now is speaking a timely “LIBERTY,” both to me and my empathic friends, even “Loss of Liberty”; given that this country could, with another stolen election, move toward anarchy and rebellion-- God Forbid!--it might be best to hear this call of the Now as clearly as possible, scrutinize the election process as preventative maintenance, and push for action towards an evolution in the definition of freedom, stemming not from the unrestrained license we’ve seen on Wall Street or our former unilateral license against the world, but, instead, from self-restrained responsibility for our freedoms as connected beings, as One not only within our borders but with the rest of humanity as well.

Each of us is already connected to the collective: our every thought, word or deed affects the freedom of us all. Every timely step towards recognizing this Oneness is a step towards global liberty, in the present moment. Each of us is everyone else, as well, at the deepest transpersonal level of our being: we might as well treat “ourselves” well. Being responsible for everyone else is a very light burden, if walked in love and gratitude. Be a model of global responsibility for our connectedness and show us real freedom in action for all.

Proviso: Again, “hearing the voice of the Now” in “All Time” from our “Connectedness” is a mystical notion, with no scientific measurements for accuracy or reliability or proof. Be wary of those who claim to know the Now better than anyone else, as everyone hears this voice, though few are conscious of it or its significance. Out here in cosmic-cowboy-land, of course, everyone listens to and talks about the Now, every day. Ask Oprah.

What to Do?

UBER-Principles in Action Transformation means "turning things around," through a process which aids a change in direction or spin, resulting from an attitudinal healing that moves towards gratitude and affirmation from where it was before. Work towards this in all things.

Example: In my own life, I find, particularly now as an activist, but in my professorship as well, that simply listening and reflecting back to someone full of anger or hate or fear can often lead to attitudinal healing towards the affirmative, thus "turning" that spin "around." The effects of that "turn" affect us all, at every level, towards connection.

Proviso: This is not a magic trick or the work of a wizard, but, certainly, one could play that game. This is about being up-front and empowered as a "peaceful warrior" for Connection. It also works well for empowering change and empowering self. It's important to be very cautionary about claiming any special power from Transformation, except the power of communication. We all work towards it every day, even if we're working against it.

Principles in Action 1: A problem is its solution: sometimes, the best fix is no fix at all; build linkage, instead, with other perceived problems, and help them to synergize with appropriate administration and service. When things fall apart, other things grow together from it. Look to see what’s growing from the center of dissolution and nurture it to new solutions, for the mutual benefit of all.

Example: There are increasing numbers of unemployed middle class professionals in this country, trying to keep their homes and families together, with no new work in sight. These are responsible, careful people, for the most part, who’ve worked for years to prime the system for the people at the top, and all their work seems to be for naught. A problem, certainly. AND, at least a fifth of the world’s population is starving for lack of opportunity, a huge problem that must be addressed in a “new order” global economy. The unfed bottom of the bottom can no longer be neglected. AND, at the same time, the Internet is changing the way we work, connecting us all from our laptops.

Perhaps the Obama administration could network these unemployed American professionals in a new electronic WPA (Working Professionals Association), linking these professionals to paid international service work from their homes; linking them to community service within the country; and, most importantly, linking them to each other in ways that foster synergy and innovation, creating their own new businesses out of the current bitterness, serving the newly unemployed all over the world and focused on building opportunities for serving the perennially unemployed peasantry at the bottom, as well. Getting and administering the flow of cash for economic development into the hands of the peasants, rather than to the bureaucratic middlemen who pocket it before it gets to the people, as well as opening up the flow of education, financial management, language acquisition, meaningful work, and updated proficiency in technology to the world’s poor: this linkage of top to bottom would provide its own energy in short order, just as your linkage with the Grassroots has done here. Ay, Chihuahua! What a noble, transformative work! Alchemical! The transpersonal nature of the work, walking in others' shoes, would finetune the human systems, as well.

AND, since The Gates Foundation has already started this linkage, perhaps it could be enlisted to monitor or model appropriate behaviors and avoid mistakes in the transformative process.

Proviso: Linking problems to build solutions, top to bottom, can build a negative, downward synergy, creating a bigger problem, unless the linkage is administered with benevolence, flexibility, transparency, gratitude and mutual service rather than greed, narrowness, secrecy, charity, and co-dependent ethnocentricity. Listening is as important as linkage in the Now. So is trust.

Principles in Action 2: As much as possible, rise to thinking from a both/and perspective, rather than strictly from either/or, as both/and thinking fits the Now. Almost everything is both a blessing and a curse; as well, usually, both sides are true: sometimes it’s necessary to rise up the middle, for the mutual benefit of all.

Example: Both the top and the bottom of the beanstalk are starving, but from different food. In Nicaragua, rice, beans, corn and meaningful work are lacking. Here, we’re starving for a true word in the glut of information, for certainty in an uncertain age, for spirit, and for meaningful work as well. Both food and truth-- and meaningful work, always--are vital to well-being. Why not link them in the love of humanity, for the benefit of top and bottom?

Proviso: The linkage must be mutually chosen, not imposed.

Principles in Action 3: Strengthening balanced linkage between the top and the bottom of just about anything right now strengthens the ends and, thereby, electrifies the middle. Forge the links, sir, and we'll all have much to be grateful for.

Example: I have, over the last fifteen years built a bridge of understanding and heart with an extended family of dirt-poor peasants in Northern Nicaragua. The Betancos gain strength from my continuing return, sometimes with cash for small development loans or education or other aid, no strings attached, and I gain balance and love and a sense of transforming things, just knowing them and their heightened spirituality as part of "my" family. My life has been energized and moved by the experience and so has theirs: As well, the airlines have gained a frequent PanAmerican flier and the reading public has already gained from my writings, which speak of this synergy.

Example 2: God knows, I live now at the Bottom of our collective economic ladder, on a limited teacher's pension. You're successfully living near the top, more power to you. This blog linkage has the potential for creating growth in both places, and, perhaps energizing the middle, since I see this Obama Blog as a book that could be sold and read and pondered. I think it speaks of harmony, in many ways, despite the encroaching chaos of our times.

Proviso: The intention must be mutuality, to loose the synergy of top and bottom. No controlling behaviors, etc., when turning things around. The ego obstructs the flow.

Principles in Action 4: Clearly, all these principles work from unity, one we can't understand but which connects us always, even when we're blind to it. Therefore, work in every measured way to walk towards unity, in the Oval Office, within your staff and administration, towards common goals; inspire your fractured nation to come together hopefully to rebuild from our calamitous past into a more graceful future; enlighten your brothers/sisters in the world by your solidarity with all peoples, top to bottom, working for a more appropriate future of brother/sisterhood, of humanhood, on this speck of dust we get so riled about, floating in a tub of grateful love.

Example: Melding your election team with the unvoiced Grassroots progressives (cultural creatives) has empowered everything from voter activism to elegant and successful fundraising, much of it over the Net, top-to-bottom verticality laid horizontal in equality of common purpose. Keep it active after the Triumph to build consistent feedback loops and singularity of intention.

Practice seeing this horizontality when observing the mess-pot of problems in your keeping, most of which are due to top-heavy behaviors. In the pot, we're all just meat for the Giants, I suppose: we might as well be excellent morsels. The tension between the horizontal and vertical structures of American capitalistic democracy can be worked into a crux of synergy by lowering the bar to include the bottom, then raising it to a progressed level.

Proviso: As with most things, unity in action can be abused a) if people are unified by a leader on their common hatreds, as in Nazi Germany and, apparently, in the RNC, today; b) if the leader draws this Oneness to himself, as his property, rather than reflecting it back to the populace, to energize them; c) if this united force is focused solely at the national level, ignoring the global humanhood, it can be used to promote divisive ethnocentricity rather than global multiplicity (as in the War with Iraq).

Principles in Action 5: The Principle of Balance/Imbalance often looks like Justice in action, as the Universe acts as a mirror to us, individually and collectively: What we throw out to it comes back to us.

Example: If we, as a nation, throw out manipulation and control to the world, that comes back to us in ways such as 9-11. Our nation is carrying such a black cloud of our past world stance, it's hard for anything looking like freedom to get through it; instead, we're enchained in it and punished for it. Turn this around by being a mature American President working for mutual benefit.

Proviso: What comes back will be a reflection of what's thrown: it might not look like it, though. If a man kills someone else, he may not die, but, internally, psychically, something in him dies.

Principles in Action 6: All of the above are lies at some level; be transparent, practice discernment, live in balance with this globe of nations, and trust your Presidential intuition, for the mutual benefit of all.

Example: You. I.

Proviso: Who knows what lies we live by, thinking they are true. There’s almost always a question and an answer between us, since we are human, in tune though we may be.

Principles in Action 7: Above even #6 is a further state of intention, beyond lie: all things seek to rise to the next level, to transcend the known, even when they're headed down by circumstance or lack of curiosity.

Example: Whether it's called evolution or intelligent design, northward immigration or forced economic displacement of peasants, progress is always implicit in the process of living beings, even in their progress from dust to more experienced dust.

Proviso: Sometimes, it's important to remember, in a drive for transformative progress, that, in the Now, there are no directions, or, rather, all directions exist as One, eastwestsouthnorthupdowninout, all One, so, there, "progress" is not only very relative to each person but also, probably, not necessary. In general, though, "up" is an affirmative direction if the Mutuality is served.


Gracias, CenterDoug

I'm in Center!

Good Lord! I've been in Center, in the center of the San Luis Valley, for three days now, and, believe me, all is right with the world. I've not only solved half the human problems, but also got 12 new confirmed voters for Obama. So, I'd guess you know where I am. I'm mainly writing to tell you that, as a Center person, everything is flowing in the most appropriate and fitting direction, so party! Go knock on some doors quite happily for Obama, or, really, whoever, 'cause my man is gonna win! Check my Center trip photos at the right..

Where I Am These Days

I've been blogging

like a madman for Barack Obama, and will continue to do so on my CenterDoug's Obama Blog at the following link http://my.barackobama.com/page/
community/blog/CenterDoug

But, excuse me, I have a date with door-knocking. Please VOTE!

Gracias, CenterDoug

Somersaulting Images

It's struck me how partisan and biased I've become
in the last few months, rooting for President Obama (How I love to write that!). I was chatting with a very balanced friend, detached from most illusions, the other day; I gave a list of the mistakes I saw constantly in The Other Candidate's (TOC's) campaign, from the choice of TOC's Running-mate (TOC'R) on down to the mudslinging innuendos of TOC's illogic, a list which raised the question, "Is he trying to lose the election? He looked so old and bloodless in the second debate!" My friend reminded me that many of the items on my list, if seen by TOC's supporters, would be considered the blessings of his campaign. In truth, the attitude with which we approach an issue or a race determines our opinion of what we allow ourselves to perceive: we need to remember that we're probably seeing only half the picture, while the other half reads, point-by-point, upside-down.

In such a polarized, partisan contest, I've found it clarifying to see the Parties as stick figures, one standing tall, head above its shoulders, and the other upside-down, standing on its head. God knows which one is right-side up, but I'm sure you all know which figure I think has its feet on the ground of reality and its head high up in the mountain-air of its vision.

When I came back from my first trip to Nicaragua, I'd gone inside-out and upside-down, and stayed there long enough to know I'd better be grateful for the privileged life I lead, with so much luck to be born in North America. I found myself universally angry at the manipulation and terror the US exerted there, under the table, in order to protect "its National Security," in the 1980's. I decided I would speak out against the food slavery and control our State Department actively supports in Nicaragua and most of Central America.

It is inspiring to say, "I'm a freedom-fighter, working for Democracy" and getting other sovereign states to toe the line in our national interest, but, in truth, when our sense of supporting "freedom" leads us to enslaving others for our economy, I have to wonder what blowback we thought we'd get? Our "blowback" from ruining Nicaragua for ever, possibly, is that everyone from 18-35 has moved up here, illegally. Since we invaded their sovereign space so significantly in the 1980's, there's absolutely NO compunction to keep the young in Nicaragua from crossing into "our" space and into our opportunities. And, who can blame them?

At any rate, this image of the two stick-figures has helped me to find my way as a man who seeks to act with unity beyond division when I can. I've decided to build unity and healing and binding of our partisan wounds in this country as my first priority. Partisanship will move towards unity, hopefully, whoever wins, but since President Obama is already speaking vocally in that direction, too, I've great hope for the outcome of the somersaulting race, that it will lead us all to work for a more mature and lasting American stance in the world, which makes us adult learners in the statecraft of a world of equal nations.

I'd hate to think that TOC, who's saying "Yes" in his campaign to racial and ethnic and elitist division, would not work to unite this polarized population, if so elected. He's a mostly good man--most Republicans are very good people, including my beloved sister--who has fought the hard fight in Government while most of us have been in denial about most of it for thirty years of work and "Let them do it!"

That can't happen anymore: the majority, I believe, of the American voting public wants to take back the country from supporting only those 400 very rich families that own more than the next 100 million people down the ladder. I'm for a candidate who would bring the ultra-rich into the democratic fold.

Think six-times before you vote in this election.
Repeat after me: "President Obama! President Obama!"

Gobama 2008!
Gracias, CenterDoug