Jessica Simmons is interviewed by Byron Carrier at KSKQ radio in Ashland, Oregon. She remembers her military family lifestyle growing up in North Carolina and how she has grown to fulfill a priestess role, creating ceremonies of drumming, chanting, and meaningful moments.
The Reverend Michael Dowd, pro-future evangelist, and I talk shop and religious philosophy for almost an hour. Michael Dowd, author of "Thank God for Evolution," has a refreshingly similar philosophy as I do: Nature is our primary access to ultimate Reality. If religion is an accurate and fruitful relation with Reality, being religious is living well in our bodies on our precious earth. Too much, religion in humanity directs us to afterlives and instead-of-lifes, to a distant and vague God instead of the "stuff" of…
I interview Constance Dean on my Tuesday morning radio show at KSKQ in Ashland, Oregon. Constance remembers her challenging life and how she broke through to self-ability and self-respect. I had helped her remodel her house, tearing off a back room, creating a new foundation for a large community room and a second story for her private bedroom. Almost all the materials were found for free at yardsales or from Habitat for Humanity. The recycled nature of the project took on spiritual and synchronistic surprise.
A little love can sway the world. We’ll look back in history we see how little acts influenced larger outcomes. Then, in our own lives, the same applies. Little changes in our spirit, mind, and mood make for little acts of love in our world. This then goes out to sway our whole world in ways we don’t yet know, but will. Henry David Thoreau, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, refused to pay his tax because it was going to help fund the war on…
Despite my many criticisms of Donald Trump, I haven't given up all hope. Between the few good things he's done and the Women's March, I've come to a place of potential loving welcome for this rascal. He's a rascal, but he thinks for himself and can go his own way. He's bold enough to skillfully hide his ordinary bald head with a crown of golden fleece. He has a better hair-do than most women! This shows a can-do spirit of someone who masters his personal…
As of tomorrow, I can’t even raise the question without violating the law about threatening presidents. But the question and possibility will remain if Trump begins to copy Philippine President Duterte’s slaughter of over 5000 supposed drug pushers and users. If Trump okays living by the sword in other countries or here, he deserves that same sword. They’re called “extra judicial” killings, meaning “lawless,” only using terms that make it sound “especially legal.” Calling them “sub-human beings who deserve to die,” Duterte bragged he’s like…
At this inaugural moment, Republicans should consider Lao Tzu’s warning: conduct your victory as a funeral. Your gloat of power could turn on you. For the next four years, or forty, or four hundred, you could be making America groan again. After eight years of disloyal, insulting, relentless ridicule and obstruction of our decent president, after blatant racism and bully threats, after gerrymandering of congressional districts and voter suppression, after stoking the worst in us, after flippantly ignoring and excusing blatant Russian and FBI manipulation…
I blame Hillary for passively absorbing Trump's "crooked Hillary" mantra instead of snapping back at him with "How dare you, you insulting liar," or some-such. I blame her also for letting Trump take Bernie Sanders' concern for jobs and trade deals from the Democrats as if he will fix both. I blame MSNBC for pairing the "crooked Hillary" mantra with their line-up of shows, letting the only quasi-liberal commentary we had be classically conditioned to their murder investigations and life-in-prison shows. I blame Bill Clinton…
I want to remember, rescue and revive Eden, and I want you to help. Eden is more than the natural world. It includes humanity and how we live in it. Yes, sustainability is a good initial step, but that implies barely staying even. I want us to revive nature and sustain it to thrive as never before. I want us to change how we exploit, extract, and poison the life we all rely on - to promote cycles of replenishment. We need systems that…
Because my last name is Carrier I've long-noticed the air conditioning company by the same name, secretly hoping there's a pile of money there waiting to find me as its inheritor. Shy of that, I can gripe about the hype The Donald tried to foist on us. He brought it up at least four times during the campaign, saying the 2100 Carrier jobs would not go - or there would be a 35% tariff on the returning products. Turns out about 1250 Carrier jobs will…