A prophetic dream of the deepening suffering and schism that is to come (after George Orwell’s 1984)

Tags

1%, 99%, destitution, greed, racism, suffering, take from the poor/give to the war, vast inequality

—mickey morgan, c.1991, Cincinnati

Lesson 6

Withdraw the mind from out there to in here.

Make everything that is in here become out there.

In the year 2065, when my son, a lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps is 84 years old—if he is still alive—and when I will have left this work of mickey to go on to greater responsibility, the United States will control the world. The Bible Belt will be the “axis mundi” and the only remaining resources of pure air, pure water and pure food will be piped in, as Mother Earth is sucked dry and left rotting outside a colossal tube of arched plexiglas spanning higher than Mt. Meru and enclosing the several former states. Light and air and green trees, running waters, abundant food, flowers and peace inside—dark gritty smog, ashes, rot, rubbish and skeletons picked clean, hungry ghosts emaciated, outside the bubble . . . all over the earth it is like this, except in that swathing white belt on the former North American continent.

White and worthy Christian children play in piles of warm sand, their clothes clean and ever new, colorful, novel, with pockets and nooks filled daily with bubblegum and surprises by mothers lounging poolside, or continuously sipping cocktails in swirling jacuzzis on wooden decks jutting out from huge mansions. Their men know their place better than any and stride fearlessly over massive grasses of golf courses. If they had been able to chain the sun and halt its democratic dance of day and night, these virile intellects would have done so long ago after cleverly imprisoning all other earthly resources indefinitely, though most old war chiefs continue to ponder this strategic necessity so as to bring the ancient ball of fire permanently into homeland service for the security of these deservingly-blessed and royal few.

Dark noses, dark faces, dark and dirty palms, dark sky, dark groans of hunger, lean to the plexiglas perimeter. Rotting flesh of death stinks the air to palpable dank. Flesh has long since been consumed by starving hoardes who, despite bleak prospects, continue to mate and propagate. Copulation remains the only small pleasure, yet soon they might be eating each other for whatever final drop of pleasure and relief from suffering that might bring. There is no telling who is black, white, brown, red or yellow outside the dome of the privileged blessed . . . all outside are sooty black with the ashes of death; all inside are creamy white in the blissful American tunnel of this good life.

And this is the making of her own mind. There is no stopping it. She withdraws her mind, relaxes back, and the whole scene becomes an “emanation of the wisdom of voidness and bliss.”• And so she feels blissful at the vision. Everything is happening just as it should. “By means of this development of wisdom, the entire earth and all space become filled with clouds of offering . . . ”• All the objects of her six senses become opportunities to experience bliss and emptiness. Visualizing the horror of earth’s certain demise in this way, she dreams of flying. Her mind falls back upon pillows of soft feathers. She exhales, and the sufferers disintegrate to pure light. The privileged become no less, all in a moment in her mind.

• • from The Lama Chöpa: Offerings to the Spiritual Master, the Method of the Profound Path, Inseparably in Bliss-Voidness, of Offering to the Guru and Assembly

Imagine You are a Book

Tags

American dysfunctional families, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, labels, Medicaid failure, Mental Health, physical health, poverty, PTSD, state of the "Union", stigmatizing, trauma

Each book is a life story

Imagine that you are a book. Each page in your book is assigned to all the doctors you’ve ever seen, and pages for each and every family member and friend and people you encounter, and bugs you squash in irritation . . . everybody has a page of YOUR book. Some have more pages than others.

You open your book about your life from birth to Now, and one by one, you tear out a sheet and give it to the appropriate doctor with a specialty in the issues of physical and/or mental health on that particular page, for each particular doctor.

Among these highly-trained specialists, there is little yet mostly no communication. Each specialist, when asked for a diagnosis, gives his take INTENDED to represent your entire book (after 5 minutes of your life), divulges a plethora of wide-ranging labels for your book’s title, meaning the entirety of YOU that they hold as truth with minds of ideological steel.

Their ignorance is causing you harm, via cost, stress of appointment after appointment while experiencing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, traveling while sick, being subjected to test after test after test with many instances of radiation exposure (body-wide), financial incurrence beyond your means, the failure of Medicaid’s infrastructure which has paid zero medical bills for 2 years and put you in a state of bankruptcy as you live on the poverty line, sick, alone, the desperation of having no doctor (but for one precious sapling, flexible and full of light–your primary care doctor) LISTEN to you with your knowledge of the whole of your own experience.

Your family avoids you. You remind them of their own mortality . . . that they too will each be invalidated and slowly die alone, as you are experiencing now. Family has disappeared but for your savior son 500 miles away . . . that set of conditions, among all issues has remained and manifested into the gut-punch of PTSD.

Each family member has a page or pages out of your life story. Light bulb moment!

You have lived each page and contain the entire narrative in a samsara*-wracked body and mind, and with each doctor or family member (of 7 immediate family), or friend, you sense rigid ignorance of the whole of your life, and the lack of interest each individual has in reading other pages of your book, even when paid! The blind men touching a huge elephant comes to mind. Each blind man has a wildly different “diagnosis” about what this thing is that they are touching.

Some family members have more of your pages than others, and rise up in power and arrogance, bestowing upon themselves some twisted honor to have known X before anyone else in your immediate family. In this scenario, it is your mother who has a rambling jumble of your pages, has a PhD diploma hanging on her wall, hence whose opinion is ceded to by others of the 7, far-flung as they are. (Do they run from her? Or do they run from you?). Four of the 5 adolescent siblings ran away or tried to get away from her sad ignorance and bitter spirit. The 5th one opted out of living with your mother, by choosing to go with your father upon the violent divorce.

Books Books Books. Too much to read and bothersome to have around. A house full of traumatized children and your two equally traumatized parents–a microcosm of the macrocosmic state of the “Union”–all covered in the pages of your book. And all the blind doctors and all the blind men couldn’t put you back together again, and had a cumulative effect in creating great confusion and stress as EVERYONE struggled to take power over your life. What an honor to have such power–especially if the PhD diplomas hanging on many walls were free tickets to RIDE over you and squish you like a bug with impunity. Get over it. In the U.S., you are worthless.

“I am joining the protests in Puerto Rico”–Tulsi Gabbard

Tags

corruption, Gov. Ricardo Rossello, Iraq, kickbacks, lobbyists, Puerto Rico, San Juan, the People, Tulsi2020, Wall Street

I second that emotion–mickey morgan

Yesterday, I touched down in San Juan to stand with hundreds of thousands of protesters calling on Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló to resign. Thousands of people have been protesting nonstop for a week now. And the only responses they’ve gotten are dismissive platitudes from the Governor ignoring their cries for an end to corruption. These protests are about so much more than offensive language in leaked chats. They’re about more than the Governor and his associates’ elitist attitudes. They’re about rampant corruption within Puerto Rico’s government that pretends to serve the interests of its people but instead exploits them, over and over again for profits and power. It is this blatant corruption that undermines people’s faith in our democracy, our country and our values.  Puerto Rico is an example of how decades of neglect by those in power, who put their own selfish interests ahead of the well-being of the people, and who put profits and politics ahead of the needs of its citizens, erodes faith in our democracy and causes widespread suffering. This isn’t something people only experience in Puerto Rico. Across the country, we share their sense of injustice. We know what it feels like for our voices to go unheard — in San Juan, on Wall Street and in Washington D.C.That’s why I’m here to support the people taking action to end a multibillion-dollar corruption network involving kickbacks for lobbyists and state officials, preferential government contracts and use of public resources to do partisan work. I’m here to stand with my fellow Americans in Puerto Rico calling for the resignation of a corrupt Governor who has shown he is for himself, rather than for the people. I call on every Democratic candidate running for President to come here and stand withour fellow Americans in Puerto Rico against corruption. I’m here to stand with my fellow Americans in Puerto Rico here on American soil demanding change. I stand with the people of Puerto Rico who love our country, who have sacrificed for our country and our people. Who have fought for our civil rights, and who I served alongside in Iraq. Who have put their lives on the line to serve our country. I stand with these great patriots and the people of Puerto Rico who deserve a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. With love of country, Tulsi

Pentagonal Babe

Tags

Auschwitz, Autumn equinox, Ft. Belvoir, Immigrant children, Pentagon, Strategic Air Command, U.S. Air Force, World War II

Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com

 

Around and about the autumnal equinox of 1951, September 23, a single day of equal light and equal dark, I desired to enter into the happy egg and sperm of my mother and father—and did so. I guess you could say I planted myself ​ at harvest time, when most tillers of the soil had months ago planted their seeds in the warm sunshine of early spring and deep summer, and were now reaping the fruits. 

For some good reason out of this paradox​, I was conceived just as the scales tipped into darkness. Though I knew harmony from that first moment. I remember harmony. Half a century later came 9/11, that eye-opening series of phenomena, that sure beginning of the final shedding of the skin of the 20^th century.

I was planted in my mother’s womb as the northern hemisphere that was the environment around and about the Pentagon and Fort Belvoir in Alexandria, Virginia, (where broken veterans were warehoused decades later, and where lost immigrant children will likely be squeezed in) began yet another slow descent into increasing darkness and cold. For those ensuing dark nights and hardworking days in the cold-lit halls of the Pentagon, I had an embryo-eye view of the cavernous enclosure that housed diligent dark secrets of the United States Military Industrial Complex. The five-walled bunker was sole place of employment for both my Air Force father and clerk typist mother.

My cells multiplied daily in a fortress of secrecy and fear. Surely fear permeated my mother’s body, as if the tribe of that community in which I was so deeply embedded in their fear revered some awesome dark force that promised to protect them in return for their pitiful compliance. And so each servant of the tribe would daily propitiate the secret god of fear through perpetual clackety-clacking of typewriters, answering phones, gearing up in the cockpit of a T-33 jet emblazoned with the elite emblem of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), ​and snapping salutes at the high priests dressed dark blue in winter and desert brown in summer.

That my mother’s fear was visceral is without question. At a mere 18 years old, fear permeated her blood and nourished me and became my blood, and bones, and spine, and throat clutch. And to this very moment of the darkening moon’s wane 67 years later, I carry this legacy of fear like an iron shackle around my neck.

And what has this to do with anyone else in this country? Nothing at all, if we are truly the heirs of the American dream of individuality, each of us endowed with equal opportunity in our separateness. But if there are gaping holes in our inheritance as we feebly realize something has gone terribly wrong with this picture, then a child nurtured in fear and groomed to be silent and obey the orders given in a strict military household, starts to bleed out and stain others’ lives, at school, at play, at work.

We baby boomers sprouted as a result of the age old effort to erase the memory of U.S. participation in the carnage of war. My older sister and I were born before a decade had lapsed since the end of World War II, since 1945, leaving the memory of Auschwitz fading in the smoke and chuffing chimneys of huge incinerators roasting flesh of people like you and me. We were born out of a nation-wide denial of the horrors of that death.

My parents seemed motivated by a strange kind of love as they grasped each other in a clutch for some kind of hope in life, that quietly agreed to forget death’s power, and to forget the incomprehensible abuse of that power . . . in which they, and now I, were and am, complicit.

 

Sakadawa’s Dog

Tags

Buddhism, Mind

from the DruidCast deck

Blessed be for your adornment

 

Just a short note to you, dear girl. You know this is all a fantasy that you

are allowing yourself to believe. As if an artist painting a picture, you

make broad strokes and tiny touches of color on canvas and make it

your single world only within the frame, bounded by fear of stepping

out of bounds. What is there? Why are you so afraid? Your life simply

IS, as Nan said . . . it just IS. Orphaned are you from the sad creatures in

this lifetime who had a moment of bliss, and that was you, beginning.

That moment of bliss that exists forever and is gone forever . . . is you.

Mother and father exulted and moved on. Orphaned Bliss is your name.

And every seeming concretizing moment remains and grows to crust

you, Orphaned Bliss, as you fear the change that never changes. Be

washed and soften, rinse your fearful armor to fallen leaves that

dissolve to mist. Let them all fall off and mistify. I tell you this

because the crust was never there. Only your fear formed them, and

fear is a secondary mental factor that is not.

Moment. Now. The flow has no impediments. All is the same flow.

R. is now on a plane returning from Amsterdam. Happy and wise in

pain. His life falling forward as mine, into death and beyond. And he

has fear as do all sentient beings. Your initial not-knowing, o Orphaned

Bliss, is a handicap from your previous life. And this time around, you

are alone, finally. Finally the opportunity to wrestle that handicap

without disruption. But you try and try, only to get glimpses of the

Understanding that is real love, Bodhicitta. It is good that you have

persevered for many years, however shabbily. Are nuns shabby in their

practice? It would be good if you had daily encounters with other

striving practitioners whose path is your path–a leisurely imprinting

on your mindstream pushed forward by others’ truths.

Leave others to their seeking. You cannot seek for them or force them

to seek for that which is alive under your ignorance, your handicap.

Orphaned Bliss, remember your name! Then stop there in your

remembering, that a concretized past contains pain, till it is no more,

and never was.

What is Socialism?

Tags

capitalism, communism, democratic socialist, environmentalism, feminism, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, liberalism, revolutionary socialism, socialism, Soviet socialism

I’ve seen too much terror in people’s eyes when they hear the word “socialism”, so let’s get it straight, to banish our fears, and consider bettering our country and interconnected planet. [The following is a page-long excerpt of Wikipedia’s 137 pages on the Socialist way of life.]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  –m. morgan

Socialism

For other uses, see Socialism (disambiguation).

Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production,^[10] as well as the political theories and movements associated with them.^[11]Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity.^[12] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,^[13]though social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.^[5][14][15]

Socialist economic systems can be divided into non-market and market forms.^[16] Non-market socialism involves the substitution of factor markets and money, with engineering and technical criteria, based on calculation performed in-kind, thereby producing an economic mechanism that functions according to different economic laws from those of capitalism. Non-market socialism aims to circumvent the inefficiencies and crisestraditionally associated with capital accumulation and the profit system.^[25] By contrast, market socialismretains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and in some cases the profit motive, with respect to the operation of socially owned enterprises and the allocation of capital goods between them. Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm, or accrue to society at large in the form of a social dividend.^[26][27][28] The socialist calculation debate discusses the feasibility and methods of resource allocation for a socialist system.

The socialist political movement includes a set of political philosophies that originated in the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 18th century and of concern for the social problems that were associated with capitalism.^[13] In addition to the debate over markets and planning, the varieties of socialism differ in their form of social ownership, how management is to be organised within productive institutions and the role of the state in constructing socialism.^[2][13] Core dichotomies include reformism versus revolutionary socialism and state socialism versus libertarian socialism. Socialist politics has been both centralist and decentralised; internationalist and nationalist in orientation; organised through political parties and opposed to party politics; at times overlapping with trade unions and at other times independent of—and critical of—unions; and present in both industrialised and developing countries.^[29] While all tendencies of socialism consider themselves democratic, the term “democratic socialism” is often used to highlight its advocates’ high value for democratic processes in the economy and democratic political systems,^[30] usually to draw contrast to tendencies they may perceive to be undemocratic in their approach. Democratic socialism is frequently used to draw contrast to the political system of the Soviet Union, which critics argue operated in an authoritarian fashion.^[31][32][33]

By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify opposition to capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production.^[34][35] By the 1920s, social democracy and communism had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement.^[36] By this time, socialism emerged as “the most influential secular movement of the twentieth century, worldwide. It is a political ideology (or world view), a wide and divided political movement”^[37] and while the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world’s first nominally socialist state led to socialism’s widespread association with the Soviet economic model, many economists and intellectuals argued that in practice the model functioned as a form of state capitalism^[38][39][40] or a non-planned administrative or command economy.^[41][42] Socialist parties and ideas remain a political force with varying degrees of power and influence in all continents, heading national governments in many countries around the world. Today, some socialists have also adopted the causes of other social movements, such as environmentalism, feminism and liberalism.^[43]

Greed and Ignorance from Doctors Ruin Our Lives with Impunity

Tags

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Chronically ill, Cobaltism, Cognitive loss, Dr. Steven Tower, Hip replacements, memory loss, Metal-on-Metal Hip Replacements, Metallosis, pseudotumors, Smith & Nephew, Systemic Cobalt Poisoning, vertigo

DO YOU HAVE, OR ARE YOU CONSIDERING A HIP REPLACEMENT: READ THIS HIPPY NIGHTMARE!

(excerpted from the 1900 member facebook page “Total Hip Replacement News” . . . go there for more HORROR STORIES.

I have had 4 hip surgeries. One woman of the 1900 chronically ill Hippies has had 15 hip surgeries. BEWARE THE MEDICAL/PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!

MaryAnne DellaFera I have a question for all you fellow sufferers…I apologize if this has been discussed before, but I haven’t seen much about this in the medical literature. I have been dealing with growing agitation, inability to concentrate, growing irritability. I’ve had bouts of depression on and off most of my life, but this is unusual for me and seems completely separate from my usual depression symptoms. This has been getting worse over the last 3-4 years. It is really atypical for me. As someone who has 2 doctorates, I’ve always been able to focus, read technical articles, study, etc for hours on end. At this point, I’m lucky if I can sit still for 10 min! There are many potential causes, I suppose, but I came across a paper (Systemic Disease after Hip Replacement: Aeromedical Implications of Arthroprosthetic Cobaltism. John G. Sotos, Stephen S. Tower. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine. 2013: 84:242-245) that described some similar symptoms in a surgeon who developed cobalt toxicity as a result of a failed hip prosthesis. I’m just wondering if anyone else has experienced this…

Judy Walleser You sound like me or I sound like you! I have 2 MOM hips about 10 yrs old. Surgeon states they are not on the recall list and don’t need replacing as my numbers “aren’t all that high”.

Mickey Morgan Judy, ask him to take the same amount of arsenic. “O my numbers aren’t that high”

Jane Jeffery Mine aren’t high either – have psuedotumor tumour, pain etc. Revision in a few months.

MaryAnne DellaFera Judy, My surgeon kept telling me that, too. Don’t listen! You have to be insistent about getting them out! My serum Co levels were “only” in the 20s. Surgeon said no problem until it was over 100. NO way! There was “only” a little fluid evident on MRI. I insisted he take it out. I had severe metallosis with muscle and bone damage that wasn’t obvious from the MRI. He discounted all my symptoms of toxicity, but I didn’t. I don’t know what literature he reads, but I KNEW I was in trouble. Toxicity symptoms aren’t necessarily related to blood levels of Co. That is evident from the literature! These moron doctors don’t understand that many trace elements, like iron, selenium, zinc, can compete and interact with one another for binding sites on important enzymes. Co can interact with the same binding sites. You have to dig in the literature to find that. There’s not a lot of definitive research on this, but my hypothesis is that if someone is deficient in iron, selenium or zinc, it will take much lower levels of Co to induce toxicity symptoms. Many people are deficient because of soil depletion of minerals, poor diet, etc. Find another surgeon if yours digs in his heels.

Judy Walleser MaryAnne DellaFera thanks so much for your response. At my age of 75 I am afraid in other surgery would not. Be worth it. I am so glad for you. How are your symptoms now?

Mickey Morgan Jane Jeffery Yes, listen to MaryAnne DellaFera! Get out of there and get a doc who will do what you ask. You know your body better than him or her. I was told that .01 to .04 were “acceptable” levels of cobalt (lead or nickel too could be factors); 1 is considered toxic. And your doctor says 20 is not high! I haven’t yet come across a doctor who knows anything about cobaltism or Systemic Cobalt Poisonsing. Since they don’t know, it doesn’t exist!

Wayne Monk MaryAnne, there is a great many of us with the same problems. I blame most of it on the reasons you mentioned. The solution is ??????????.

MaryAnne DellaFera Wayne, I hope these symptoms improve once the levels of Co decline, although that may depend on the length of time the symptoms (and toxicity) have been present. I’ve provided some info in another comment below about n-acetylcysteine and alpha lipoic acid, 2 nutritional supplements, which may help, but it’s just a guess and a hope at this point.

Wayne Monk They will decline. The high concentrations have had 7+ years to saturate everycell in your body. The damage is done. Too little too late!

Laura Burghardt My friend had her left hip redone less than two weeks ago. She started suffering depression several months ago and some memory loss. Her cobalt level was in the low 30s. She is suffering from anxiety, agitation and memory loss. We are hoping it will be reversing once the cobalt levels go down. Pretty awful!

Gale Azzopardi Davies I am six weeks post op. I suffered from all the symptoms, my blood results were high before op but not stratospheric. The surgeon seems to think that they need to be very high to make a real impact. I did not believe it was right I know my body. Once i…See more

Sybylla DeMontagna Anything one can do,for me, includes self chelating with organic clay, and eating cabbage which absorbs metals, and supplements that support the nervous system

Sorry you are struggling m’dear, hope things improve soon 😊

Gina Hines Buchanan My MoM was removed 5 years ago after being in my body for 5 years.

Have you had your thyroid checked? Two years ago I was diagnosed with Graves Disease (Hyper thyroid) which caused many of the same symptoms: lack of focus, irritability, as well as A…See more

Lisa Marie VanDyke I also have all u mentioned plus pain, STILL groin, hip thigh,enlarged bursa that if anyone touches of slaps my butt/hip. I wanna deck them but vomit it hurts so bad. My leg gives out on me. I STILL have to use 1 crutch. But my doctor says my “hip is…See more

Lisa Marie VanDyke I also set off alarms, not airports never flown.

But court or county buildings yes. As well as Wal-mart,Target, stores in Malls…etc. Which I hate shopping…. always did, so don’t do it often, its just too much, walking around w my crutch so I don’t fall.. All of it is just too draining…

Ali Ahmed All the symptoms seem to be much the same. I end up having anxiety and after having a lot of THR I got depression and I’m on medication for that. I think some of it has to do with constantly going in and out of hospital, going 2 steps forward and then 10 steps back. But also definitely it’s got to be down to the MOM replacements.

Mickey Morgan Any amount of cobalt can cause these symptoms. I have an MA in English, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Taft Fellowship, NEH Younger Scholars Award, Morgan Scholarship, etc. Now I can barely read and comprehend. I was/am? a writer/editor. Memory loss …See more

Mickey Morgan Depression is relentless and deep; like never before. Lasts and lasts and I’m supposedly labeled bipolar.

Sandy Doherty Yes, this is what happens I am now 8 years in and will never get rid of my psychiatric illness.

Joan Upton I am due to see a neurologist in two weeks for these symptoms, I did not make any connection with my hip devices.

Mickey Morgan So glad you have some info, Joan Upton. Don’t be afraid to speak your piece to the doc, though I’ve not yet come upon any health professional who knows about cobaltism and how to treat it, much less Systemic Cobalt Poisoning

Juli Bronk LaDue Mickey Morgan, I’ve mentored that my surgeon and my cardiologists are completely involved in my care amd fully support the diagnosis of metal poisoning as it relates to my heart failure, hip tissue necrosis and multiple dislocations.

Mickey Morgan Joan Upton, read Earl’s posting of the peer-reviewed paper before you go in. Or, it might be easier to watch Dr. Steven Tower on YouTube (he is one of the authors too): https://youtu.be/2oFCTK9TWpw

 

Judi Elliott Emotional fragility is an effect from the cobalt. The nervous system is affected in many ways. Ear ringing, auditory nerve. Visual problems, optic nerve. On and on, and mostly irreversible.

Judi Elliott Your opinion, please. A 60 y.o. lady in Cal. was scheduled for a MOM hip by an Ortho. specialist. At my urging, she asked him about metallosis. He claimed he never heard of it. I think he wanted the payola; what do you think? (She cancelled the surgery and is now with a new Dr.)

Wayne Monk Check his name in dollars for docs! If he is telling the truth, he is is very unaware!!!

Scott Piper All of this is just way too familiar with me. I had a pinnacle Mom hip. On my second and third revisions there are comments in the operating room reports about necrosis, metallosis, diseased tissue etc etc. No one however would test me for heavy metals. A few days ago I went online to northernhealthproducts.com and spent a hundred and thirty some bucks for a test kit so I can find out for myself. Northern Health Products NORTHERNHEALTHPRODUCTS.COM

Cushla Kusabs-Nairn Cobalt is an essential component of vitamin B12 it is stored in the Liver too much or too little can cause depression. Talk to you Doctor and ask for the right tests good luck

Mickey Morgan Cushla, I question and greatly doubt that Vit B12, which helps build back demyelinated nerves that have been stripped of their myelin sheaths by (in our cases) COBALT. Please provide evidence for this process you describe.

MaryAnne DellaFera Wow, thank you everyone for sharing your stories and information! I’ll have to spend some time poking around in the literature to see if there are more specific reports about these cognitive issues. Toxic levels of cobalt obviously cause widespread ne…See more

Laura Burghardt Jenny C. Marr, please read this thread. 😲

MaryAnne DellaFera Well, no sooner had I posted the above comment than I found this talk by Dr Steven Tower describing metal poisoning and brain toxicity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlU-67zAwEs)! This was posted on You Tube just about a month ago. I also didn’t re…See more

Metal Poisoning and Brain Toxicity in Patients With HIp Implants YOUTUBE.COM

Mickey Morgan MaryAnne DellaFera, the cobalt circulates throughout the entire body, including the brain. I have 5 quarter-sized lesions on my brain, as in MS. My cognition is half what it was because of brain scars and misfiring nerves whose myelin sheathes have been also eaten away by Cobalt.

MaryAnne DellaFera Mickey, I’m trying to find out what is known about the potential mechanism of action of cobalt toxicity at the cellular level. I haven’t turned up much yet, but I did find some information that suggests that cobalt may trigger hypoxia-like symptoms in…See more

Gale Azzopardi Davies I have done a brain scan for a separate issue or is it? My brain has started descending in my scull pulling the meninges at the back and I have kinking of the spinal fluid at the base of my skull. It’s not as pronounced as a Chiari Malformation stage 1…See more

Joan Upton Mickey Morgan,did they tell you it was due to cobalt, I have already had a brain scan and like you I have lesions, I was told by G.P that this was due to severe headaches but I have never had headaches.She then said she would be referring me to a neurologist which I have had to wait several months .

Juli Bronk LaDue I am sick, saddened and disgusted by the continued criminal behavior of the surgeons that “care” for some of us. Cobalt and chromium are silent killers. They will rob you of your health, mind and body. Get them out immediately. Do not listen to any surgeon that tells you that these issues aren’t related to your MOM hips. They are complicit. They are charlatans. They are allowing you to become further victimized. I have lost my memory. I have a mangled hip and heart failure. God only knows what else this metal poisoning has done and continues to do. My surgeons and cardiologists told me that metal poisoning had destroyed the tissue in my hip, brain and heart. Find a new surgeon. Ask me for the name of mine. Save what’s left of your life.

Derek Stocker in short yes

Jan Price I agree, I am not the same person, I once was , it’s frightening. I had a memory like and Elephant, I was a happy person, now I don’t recognize myself 💔

Mickey Morgan 3 years of deep depression! Aggg, every morning! We’ve all been poisoned.

magdala dipped in the black stream

by mickeypamo

[cut black]

He had brought her lines of dialogue, keen soliloquies and marvelous quotes. He told her the power of his known, lips pitched in green words. Caul-blasted and prescient, it ran a blade hunk-lump-blown into her. In dank-like prayer of Celtic prat he crayed, wrapping her when loose to mica-tight confession lone and long. She asked and it got her, gave her, took her.

He trenched at her, tilling her heels of their downward sane, veining each flit. She twisted and blenched a cable of cord. A crane of thought-blood tilted her to most bowls, laughing, laughing, sank herself down and ranged need-picks for herself. Built in the treetop spin, he favored air, down, down in a such-most, lifted her wound-wide. He was the doing, the doing. She named him a man, prayed a dream-plow.

It was all one way, his charge forward, ripping forest curves with ease and silence. And her taking, taking in. She wrapped loose then strong, slain pulse reeling him to the suck of legs, hollow belly down, down. He can’t watch but able to touch the dream place beneath the skullbelly. Large and torn, he sames the bones like milkweed pills and she swallows it. She swallows the sound of roundness and turns it up skybellied and orange. Rounding bell of earth rubbles to rich. She pulls and pulls and same-such call, calling, sails habit-full, chilling the old, danking the rocks of lungs. He came natal and brain and believed. She pleads never before and never again like bones of faring and home, yes, pillaged home. Rumpled lead and fixtures melting into each, she wept for the other, pontooned.

[blue fib]

Curled, lazed into safety of no, Yes, he said, I am scared. Wakening that hooded snake to crawl up her spine, to whisper at her neck, lying there, It’s ok, It’s ok. And this is the seed he left her, in her house. Then to disappear, vanish backward, tail first.

Ho God, press her back abrain of thought which fills pasted past again and again and a repetition of those, cracking like a box of groats: ordinary socks flung underfoot to try her.

Galloping pale to change, liveried loose, soldered and foot giggled. Sold.

 

[laundry baled]

Fled off the deck of bells and creased to find no one but herself dangering the rizzled rim of sainted air . . . the fears of rolling pitch amid cough dreams, that’s the angle post . . . no real danger . . . spilling in dreamsafe and soft of pitfalls, pillows, one with a good smell of familiars, sewn pieces that aren’t blank of airy her . . . but her call, her call, abray in the night.

Slighted edge of pins. Daze fell to and raised pain in fields of sad corn. Now, blithery mouthed, she worries deep hands will reach her, lift her sore and crusted to a plateau and leave her there, shelfed out of fire . . . O girl, O fled chair she dreamt of much and bet it left you time then this time, stone beam.

 

[emeralds chipped green]

What he did creviced the land of yesterday—a union half met by half. So down past lame but fixed to find, that is her resolve. The pop-flung girl she is swipes into hellpits of courage. She leads it in, fluid and seen, blues the edges and sifts into the middle—she saves the realm, pushes it, sits fat in it

—stone-lapped tears tearing fire in great sheets throw her on her back. Blazes of rarity sand, O sand, yes sanded up to toes and knees and rose in a heat of favor to her, yes, to magdala, fine girl, lost on demon chains, ache-aged and fine set in stone rings.

 

[hushed rocks]

A long wail, Welsh as the peal of a bell, clanged its memory round to blackened glass, infinitely snaked a shape of last things. Failed but dated and sore of fissure, only she magdala called down green rings to conal hollows:

“O sweet evangeline nomad, tramping and whoring backward in damp dead space, nail your fear to the dead and old. Kneel plans are lost. Deem care and sane to the river’s edge. Dip in emerald light. Dilate this cascade and drink it. She is.”

Still was, still was, she will bleach to needy lips and still she rolls final. Sand ran change to change and she was there, honed as a child, sleek, oiled and slipped the daylight to essences. Sun had become that and she was not missing for the first time. Henna nipples fan out winged and air-washed. Then night leaned in amber syrup and she shone.

She blessed his distance.

It burned red.

It was near.

Buddhism and September 11: It’s Not Easy Being Human

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9/11, Beth Israel Medical Center (Singer, Roshi John Daido Loori, Zen Buddhism, Zen priest

from the DruidCast Tarot pack

–Rev. Trudi Hirsch-Abramson

ACPE Chaplain Supervisor

Vassar Brothers Medical Center

When training as a monastic under Roshi John Daido Loori, I would often hear him

say, “It is not easy being a human.” What I believe he meant by this was that being

human contains the entire universe, which includes all feelings and thoughts at any

given moment. As we try to understand and make sense out of the myriad events

of our life, especially September 11, we tend to grab onto anything that gives us the

feeling of solidity or safety—trying to make the next unknowable moment known

to us. But life teaches us again and again that it is continuously changing; there is

nothing to cling to.

During that Tuesday in September 2001, two Buddhist quotes stayed with

me. In the first quote, Gautama Buddha advises against ignoring the suffering we

see: We must find ways to be with the suffering; we will, thereby, awaken others

and ourselves to its reality. In the second, the Buddha is dying and advises to be a

light onto oneself and to do one’s best. These two statements carried me through September 11 and have given me the strength to begin to reflect on what actually

happened in and around me.

Being a Zen Buddhist Priest, chaplain, and supervisor for the Beth Israel

Medical Center, I felt a strong responsibility to write about this day from a

Buddhist perspective. In reflecting on what a Buddhist perspective might mean, I

realized that this called for an authentic and honest portrayal of the day as well as

“being and fully embodying” each moment as it arrived.

Here is my story.

        I woke up early, particularly aware of how perfect the day was—sun, mild

breeze, a fall day that you wanted to be awake for. I remember feeling good, even

before my ritual Starbuck’s stop on way to a downtown staff meeting scheduled for

9:00 A.M. Now that I think about it, I don’t know why I was across the street on

Fourteenth at the bus corner. Ah yes, the crowds—so many upturned faces with

hands over their mouths and chins at a forty-five degree angles. Something “big”

was happening. Being curious I rushed in, lining myself up for a view that still has

not yet found a home in my mind.

I remember having an internal dialogue that went something like this: What

the hell. Is that a plane? No, well just the tail end of a plane. What’s it doing

sticking out of a building? Wait, planes don’t get stuck in buildings. Wow. Could a

pilot have misjudged? It must have been in trouble and flew into the building by

accident. Wow. Look at all that smoke.

My mind had taken it in and was trying to connect this image to all previous

images in its filing cabinet. I thought of Godzilla, and I was participating in the

crowd of people looking up, horrified. Then I heard Bart Simpson say, “Geez, this

is cool.” I thought, “Wait till I tell Bugs,” who is my husband, Mark. Then for a

while I stayed with Hollywood images, taking refuge in the no-mind of a couch

potato. This wasn’t real; how could it be? Slowly the voices around me began to

annoy me. I looked down at my watch and realized I was late for the staff meeting.

A quick look back showed the building surrounded in black smoke.

My appointment carried me toward the Spiritual Care office where CB and

rabbi JS were. I was the bearer of “hot news” and wondered how to convey it. I

decided to tell the facts, thinking that it had been a mistake and not the rumors I

had begun to pick up from the voices in the crowd. I wanted to sit down, as if

exhausted from a full days work.

Everyone went into action. Phones: “CB, you stay here and write down the

messages.” Another staff member, who just arrived, a little sheepish at being late,

was told to “go down and see what’s happening.” What about me? What would you

like for me to do? The response was, “Go down to the ER, and see if you are needed

there.”

The use of the word “ER” seemed to make the picture of what I’d imprinted

in my head come to life. I think it was the first time I realized that there were people

in that building, and of course they might be hurt—or dead. It was much later that

these people would have names and faces; some of them I knew.

As I made my way down the stairs, I passed through various conversations

and heard about the second building. I felt more distant from my feelings. “Oh,

another building hit by a plane. I don’t get it!” There were a few floating TVs

around, and the images all seemed to repeat like an old film caught on the reel.

There was considerable activity in the halls, on the floors, like a beehive with an

intruder. I stopped to marvel at the fluidity and focus of units, wondering where I

fit, what I could do. Beds were rolling into the auditorium making way for the

“victims.” That was another word that represented the before and after of a usually

horrible event. The victims. The victims. What was happening? I asked a few

people if I could help, but there was no time for “help,” only time for action. I felt

out of rhythm and useless and meandered into the ER waiting area where a small

crowd of mixed professionals, families, and patients had their eyes glued to TV

sets, repeating once again the shot of the buildings collapsing and the crowd

franticly running away from an avalanche of white and dusty powder grabbing for

their heels. My eyes were glued too, waiting to hear this was a mistake, a very bad

mistake. I looked around and noticed there were a few patients dealing with their

personal disasters right here next to me in this very room. I saw a man with a leg

amputated, a woman with one of those hats that disguises the loss of hair from

chemo, and a mother with a young daughter with something growing out of her

head. It seemed that everyone looked diseased or crippled. I felt as though I’d been

hit by a stun gun.

I also felt very simple-minded. I stopped thinking and just opened to

everything around me. The feeling I picked up was of hushed fear, as though a

secret was about to be revealed. I felt my ears stretched toward the newscaster.

Waiting, watching, waiting, watching. There was a certain comfort in being

mesmerized. I snapped out of it and tried again to be useful, but there were only a

few around me to console. I remember thinking, “Caregivers are those who care for

others in order to care for themselves.”

As I passed through the auditorium, there was a feeling of excitement and

impatience. Everyone was ready, but the “guests” weren’t arriving. The excitement

began to wane as it slowly became apparent that survivors were few. In our minds,

we all began to realize that there was not going to be a huge intake of patients, only

a few. My God, only . . . a . . . very few.

I felt a wave of sorrow sweep over me and immediately pushed it away.

Buddhism would teach to “be the sorrow,” but I had things to do. Being the sorrow

would have to be put on hold for later. “Later” was three weeks after that.

I returned to the chaplaincy office requesting further solid instructions. I

asked if I should head uptown to the north branch of the hospital. I was the only

chaplain at that hospital, and I wondered if they could use me more than downtown.

I was told to do just that and to stay connected by phone if possible. The phones

were presently tied-up. CB was busily involved answering phones and taking

notes.

I walked out to the bus stop where just two hours before I had witnessed the

tail of the first plane. Now it was an ominous ashen smoke that swirled in and

around where the buildings had been. The air smelled of death and burnt rubber. I

tried to breathe shallowly, wanting to inhale in as little as possible. I focused on the

practical, and wondered if I would have trouble getting uptown. I was prepared to

walk the 70 blocks, but to my surprise a bus appeared. I felt normalized as if doing

what I always do: bus stops, get on, grab a seat, stare out the window, reflect.

Everyone was informing those who hadn’t heard. The stories were similar, but the

responses varied.

What was I feeling? Surely I must feel something. I replayed what I heard and

what I saw, but there was no feeling, only a crib-note summary. I commended

myself for being able to function in a crisis, but that didn’t get rid of the gnawing

feeling in my stomach. I flashed to a Twilight Zone story of an ordinary man who

tried to convince the stewardess that there was a horrible creature eating the

fuselage of the plane, but everyone thought he was crazy. How could I help? The

blind leading the blind. Hey, stop that talk. I have training and experience. I will

need to take my authority. I felt called by duty, but my insides were calling for

tears.

Off the bus. Most of the uptown street people seemed unaware that the world

had dramatically changed. I went into the hospital, and dropped my bag off in the

office. I listened to the sixteen messages and didn’t dare tune into my e-mail. Some

messages were from previous students who were volunteering to help. I felt

relieved that there was so much that I needed to do to respond to these calls. I

remember thinking that chaplaincy was what was needed more than anything else,

and this would put us on the “hospital map.” I remember feeling that my responses

to the situation seemed distant and cold, and that I should be feeling such and such. I should be responding more like—Like what? Like what? No answer was coming

to me.

I ran down to the ER. Incredible quiet. I visited the few patients, and we all

seemed to go over the scene again and again. Questions buzzed around: Did you

know anyone who worked there? Did they discover who was behind this? It was

on leaving the ER that I first thought of my own family. My husband was upstate.

Did he even know? He would think that I was uptown and out of trouble. Damn.

My brother-in-law works in those towers! I later found out that he had called in for

a teleconference meeting at 9:00 A.M. and was uptown when it happened. He was

in phone communication with his staff as the plane hit, hearing the last cries for

help from some of his staff. The emotional anguish of this burns continuously.

My mind jumped to a far away memory of an old friend of mine who worked

on the ninety-ninth floor as a psychotherapist. Doing some fast calculations, I came

to the decision that he must have retired years ago. Even so, was he alive? I hadn’t

thought of him for years. No, I don’t want to call and find out. 

It’s amazing to watch the interconnecting links in the mind. How one thought

triggers so many others, and how one loss connects to all our losses. This was

happening to the patients too. They were connecting to all their previous fears and

anxieties, and I listened and concentrated on being there for them as a chaplain.

Some were comforted in a strange way by this catastrophe, which seemed to put

their present predicament into perspective; others thought the world was ending,

that Armageddon had finally arrived. Others hypnotically watched the TV sets

hanging from their ceilings. The repeated nightmares of these events played over

and over as I traveled from room to room.

I was paged to a staff member who had just found out that her fiancé—they

were to be married the following week—was on the floor that was hit. She was lost

in grief, and I stayed with her till she was able to get medical help. I tried to feel

what it must have been like for her to realize that—but I couldn’t go there, not now.

I had too much to do.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a wave of various visits, all melted into

one thick and horrendous stew. I finally went back to the office, felt the door close

behind me, and sat down, looking blankly out the window at the buildings. The sun

was still bright; the air still clear. I felt that my mind was trying to hold onto an

overwhelming amount of paradoxes. Zen Buddhism had prepared me for this:

“Don’t get caught in the words and ideas that describe it…be the”—No! No time

to “be the.” Things still needed to be done.

But things were quieting, and I felt weary. I called downtown, and JS

recommended that I go home. What else could be done? I didn’t argue. I felt a

desperate need to escape from the hospital, from my responsibility as a chaplain,

from myself, and from the truth of all that I’d seen and heard and been part of. I

felt guilty about leaving. “If not me, then who?” rang in my ears, but I answered,

“Someone else, please!”

The ride home felt very long. I had images of Auschwitz and of war movies,

and Godzilla was still furiously destroying buildings. I don’t think I saw anything

out the window. People must have been killed. How? Burnt alive? Jumping to their

death? Blown up? Asphyxiated? I went through a variety of possibilities, trying to

put myself in their shoes, but to no avail. I was glad to be away from the hospital

and relieved when I turned the key into my sanctuary. My room was filled with

religious objects and paintings. These “things” comforted me. After a while, I sat

by the phone wondering why no one from the hospital was calling me. I felt myself

get annoyed that I wasn’t being asked to return. Feelings revolved around wanting

to get away and wanting to be called. The sound of a jet out the window was

deafening my ears. I wanted my husband to be with me. I wanted to be taken care

of. I wanted to be soothed. There was no one, and the lines were dead. I fell into a

restless sleep.

Next day at the hospital, I had a meeting with social work. A special service

was to be prepared for Friday. I galvanized my energies. I wanted to offer a good

service, to bring us together as a community in pain. I worked hard on this service

trying to lift up the fears we had, as well as our hopes in prayer, candles, music, and

song. It seemed that the whole hospital came out for this. I continued to offer a

service each week for a dwindling number of the staff. The priests from St. Joseph’s

were wonderful, and the community found solace in the services. I offered staff

support groups, which felt especially helpful for dissolving some of the fears and

tensions that were around. There had recently been staff cuts, which made

September 11 recede for a while in the difficulties of present events and worries.

My own existence seemed to be one of perpetually responding to others until

a night about three weeks later, when I was at the Zen temple located on Varick and

Houston. Enkyo Sensei was offering a “Mondo”—interactive questions and

responses to a given theme, which this particular evening was September 11. I

remember sitting and listening to the personal stories of that day from different

members of the community and learning about the deaths of their various friends

and relatives, most of whom lived around that neighborhood. As I sat there on the

floor, I felt my body become tense; fear and panic arose as if I couldn’t listen to

another story. I had reached my limit! I started to sweat, and, if I hadn’t been so

disciplined, I would have bolted out of the room. Each new voice made my need to

escape that much more pressing. Right after saying the last vow, to “save all

sentient beings,” I rushed out.

I made my way through bodies as I rushed towards the door. A woman whom I had cared for as she had journeyed through the death of her partner stopped me at the door and asked if I was O.K. I broke down crying, saying that I couldn’t take another story. It was all too much. I collapsed into her arms, and she consoled me as I had consoled her just a few months earlier. It was the first time I had let myself feel, and I cried and cried. When I was composed

enough, I took the subway home.

On the train there, were two scrawny looking down-and-out guys singing,

“This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.” They stared out into faces that

were half receptive and half indifferent to their presence, but I heard them. Then

they said, “Come on. It doesn’t hurt to smile. Does it?” And I smiled and gave the

men some change.

Exploring our potential for peace and omniscience

Excellent insight . . .

Buddhism in Daily Life

We all need to be able to let go of our unhappiness. This, to put it mildly, is a Very Useful Skill – unless of course we don’t mind hanging onto misery for a few more years, a few more decades, a few more lifetimes…

Considering that we probably do mind that, quite a lot in fact, why would we hang on?

No one ever wants to suffer and everyone always wants to be happy. These are the two most basic wishes of all living beings. Do you ever wake up and want a truckload of suffering? … I didn’t think so. We always want to be happy and we hate suffering, that’s why we call it suffering. But still we relentlessly hold onto it. Why?

One reason is that we have to think thoughts without control – for example frustrated thoughts, lonely thoughts, worried thoughts, jealous thoughts, depressed thoughts. We…

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