The Present

I am reminded that, although I have come a long way ...

There is still nowhere to Go.

The Attitude

"Find the feeling ... of being grateful."

--Mr. Sydney Banks, A/V materials (frequent theme in talks)

"Reality is always kind."

--Byron Katie

"If you imagine the universe is agitated, go out and look at the night stars."

--Lao Tzu

Last night, my husband and I were chatting about "Life," as it were/is/may be. There were some of the usual apparent difficulties, recessionary issues and etc.

I said to him, "See how the universe is being helpful to you."

"Yes," he said, "it's all in how you think about it."

And I said, no, "See how the universe is being helpful, not that you think it is, but that it is."

Which seemed quite different to me at the time.

Sydney Banks, who passed away on Memorial Day, talked often of gratitude as the doorway to inner knowledge. He told us all to be grateful for little things, big things, medium things, all things.

I am starting to see that gratitude shifts our thoughts toward how the universe supports us. A pause at a traffic light, a time for reflection. A child. (A child!) A soft hotel bed. A fresh breeze. Sunshine. A husband who comes home at 5 every day. A husband who stays late, working hard for his family. Time alone. Time together. A neck ache that puts you in bed for a rest.

As we shift our thoughts toward how the universe supports us, we begin to go beyond just experiencing the effects of "positive thinking" and toward the very Nature of the Universe and Reality.

Reality is Love, Intelligence, Power.

Reality is Love.

Reality supports us, as that is its nature. It could not fail to do so.

& if you seek, so shall you find ...

with Love,

Your Mystical Mama

Sydney Banks

Mr. Sydney Banks, author, philosopher, lecturer, father, husband, mystic, passed away in the morning, Memorial Day, May 25.

Mr. Banks' life and work demonstrated that an ordinary, uneducated person has access to unlimited reservoirs of Love and Intelligence.

In my own life, he showed me that what I thought was real, was not. And that this "boring old world" was full of mystery and miracle. What personal contact I had with him always brought great leaps of understanding and opened new realms for me of feeling and gratitude. Sometimes, in his presence, the world would tremble and wobble in my peripheral vision, & a great openness would happen within, a Spirit, a feeling, boundless in its magnitude--almost frightening--would descend. Then, it would be gone as quickly as it had come. Leaving a sense of promise of more to come ...

Mr. Banks was inordinately generous with his knowledge when he felt that someone sincerely wanted to learn. And his simple, workaday approach to mystical knowledge, his emphasis on "plain" positivity, hope and human kindness made an end to suffering possible for so many thousands of people--from professionals to inmates to young children.

It was always Mr. Banks' hope that the great helping fields of psychology and psychiatry--which nobly work to alleviate the world's suffering--would finally come to see the logic of his Divine principles: Mind, Consciousness and Thought. We experience what we think. And there is so much more in us than we know.

For more information, please see Mr. Banks' website at sydneybanks.org, or see any of his many books, including: The Missing Link: Reflections on Philosophy & Spirit, The Enlightened Gardener, The Enlightened Gardener Revisited, Dear Liza, and etc. Audiovisuals (DVD's, etc.) are at www.lonepinepublishing.com ... (Click on Self-Help or Psychology.)

Goodbye, Syd!

And Thank You.

I wish I'd had more time with you ...

When the Child Calls

When the Child calls

let her pull you in

(this time, at least)

Observe as she reaches for This Moment,

pulling it toward her, too

The sand, so different

there's a crunch-smoosh, crunch-smoosh

Each wave with its Name

& Spirit

The Beach! ... it is

Full of screams!

Shape shifting waters,

running, crashing, pulling,
each wave, pulling for Home
where all waves become One
after their brief lives, alone

(but not alone, really, were they?
This, the child knows)

And hot sand cools to warm sand &
wet & sticky sand

Sand crabs, broken shell
Sea gull, fetid smell

All awash in the freshest of breezes

(the Sea's is)

Maybe, a moment,

You will Live again

Play is just presence

The Child Within!

Who was with you, was you, all this time

(as wave with ocean)

Welcome back, my Friend!

Let's expect

More to come.


(Remember: He said,
You must be, He said,
Like the little children.)

Mouths of Babes

"Love will make you whatever you want to be."

Maya, age 3 & 1/2, in the midst of festivities, at Father's Day breakfast

Praying to Love

Love!

Come, come and show me

how it is to See without seeing

the Soul of another

as

My Soul

Teach me how to

Trust You

For how I shall be clothed,

for where I shall eat and sleep

… for every Next Thing

show me how

You are Provision

Love!

Fill me with that ecstasy

unknown to the “outer” world

… which can do no harm

Show me how to stand with Courage

and still to Love

To speak my Peace

and still to Love

Show me how to BE my Peace

to be my Ease

Show me how Safe and Free are

One

Show me how You are Everything

And all

That is needed.

(I have been told

that I am already Yours …)

Take me!

Black Snake Moan

Black Snake Moan

Has anyone else seen this movie? Traveling on business, I wound up watching Showtime late at night in a Portland, Ore. hotel room and came across this film starring Christina Ricci and Samuel S. Jackson. The beginning had me wondering if I ought to just turn it off—it’s the tale of a sexually abused “pretty young thang” in the deep South whose boyfriend leaves for the army. She has been dependent on him for her sexual release (she is a fierce sex addict who breaks into hives if she doesn’t “get it”). When he leaves, she also loses his love and stability, and she goes on a hard to watch drinking-“getting it”-getting raped-(well, it would be rape if she were to object at all)-and-finally-beat-up binge. I winced the whole way through these opening scenes.

A local farmer and black man played by Sammy Jackson finds her at the edge of his driveway, after she’s been left half naked and for dead on his back road in the boonies. Jackson’s got his own demons he’s dealing with: mostly a wife who has left him after many years for his spiffed up younger brother. He has shunned help from local church members and friends after nearly killing his brother in a barroom brawl. And then he finds … this girl.

I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but what follows is a series of strange events that have you wondering if Jackson has found God or done gone batty. Suffice it to say, the story winds up as a tale of redemption for both characters. What I loved most about it was the way sexuality was put front and center with an initially muddy, but then sensible and loving demarcation between what healthy sexuality and unhealthy sexuality look like, what moral and immoral look like and, most importantly, feel like.

In the most unusual scene along these lines, Jackson’s character, Lazarus, takes Ricci’s character to a local blues bar where he leads a jam session on guitar. The mostly black crowd accepts this overly thin, beat up looking white girl into their midst, and proceed to “dirty dance” with her: men and women, women and women, all kinds of combinations (not quite going out on a limb with men and men, though). This is a very sexy scene in which, actually, no one has sex or even seems interested in actually having sex when all is said and done.

There were other things I loved. The way Christianity is in this film without adherence to the rigid constructions of religion, but as a faith which—when practiced gently—is essentially a faith of forgiveness and non-judgment. The way Jackson’s character boldly steps out into town after a while with his young charge ... and the way things actually turn out good, in the end, and not bad. I mean, in a film with blacks and whites and rape and sexuality, you keep expecting somebody to get killed, or at least wind up in a whole heap of trouble. And I, for one—while I appreciate some cinematic tension—really just want to see a happy ending. I have had my fill, at 40, of gratuitous fear and violence in movies. And I think happy endings are realistic, and happen quite a lot in real life.

This movie reminded me of the 1991 film starring Laura Dern and her mother, Diane Ladd, called "Rambling Rose." Rambling Rose was also set in the South, where a grounded kind of spirituality (Dern’s adopted family) meets young, out-of-control sexuality with some turbulence, but in the end, with Love, common sense, healing and salvation. I picked up the term "Creative Energy of the Universe," denoting God, from this film (adapted from the book by Calder Willingham).

The media around Black Snake Moan reminds me of the out-of-context way people responded to “Boxing Helena” (1993, directed by Jennifer Lynch) without grokking the deeper meaning of the film. The move poster for Black Snake Moan was completely at odds with the movie’s actual meaning and point, as were criticisms from feminist camps about its depiction of violence and sexuality. There are some films, like Boxing Helena, and many of Oliver Stone’s films that show violence or even exaggerated violence or fantasy, in order to illustrate a larger social comment about these issues. The content gets skewered (just because it's there) and the comment gets lost (because no one is listening).

Finally, it is also a treat to hear Samuel Jackson play the blues, which he does often in this film (and learned to do so for this film), although I’m not sure “Black Snake Moan” is my favorite song of all time, and certainly not my favorite song--or movie--title.

So, Your Mystical Mama says: Thumbs up for Black Snake Moan … Parental Cautions: Lot of sexuality, and disturbing sexuality, at the beginning of this film and some violence. No one actually dies, as far as I can now recall—and many are healed.