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What is at the root of our societal ills?
is it religion? with it's antiquated dogma and decrees
packaged neatly in the form of a pill
militant atheists call for it's eradication, but that
*would only cure a symptom, and not the disease
This poem was inspired by long held beliefs that religion is not the disease, but merely a symptom of a greater problem; human suffering.  Also partially from the article below.

All people operate from the same two motivations: to fulfill their desires and to escape their suffering.

Learning this allowed me to finally make sense of how people can hurt each other so badly. The best explanation I had before this was that some people are just bad. What a cop-out. No matter what kind of behavior other people exhibit, they are acting in the most effective way they are capable of (at that moment) to fulfill a desire or to relieve their suffering. These are motives we can all understand; we only vary in method, and the methods each of us has at our disposal depend on our upbringing and our experiences in life, as well as our state of consciousness. Some methods are skillful and helpful to others, others are unskillful and destructive, and almost all destructive behavior is unconscious. So there is no good and evil, only smart and dumb (or wise and foolish.) Understanding this completely shook my long-held notions of morality and justice.

I encourage you to read the full article here: http://www.raptitude.com/2010/10/9-mind-bending-epiphanies-that-turned-my-world-upside-down/
 Sep 2014 Hollow
SøułSurvivør
sleep is in the
similitude of
death

silence
is

oblivion


10W
Soul Survivor
Be careful to
say what is important to the
ones you love
WHILE THEY LIVE!
 Sep 2014 Hollow
SøułSurvivør
The mind is a cave

would YOU go in
without a

LIGHT?


12W
Soul Survivor
 Sep 2014 Hollow
SG Holter
For Billy and Madison.


Brother more than
Friend

Everyday soldier
Hero/father

Nyack, NY
Windows down

Watching water
And its frame

From bed/
Seat

Appreciating all
Except the

Missing of so much
More than

Some*
Own

Flesh and
Blood

Chose peace over
Own victory

I know
The Hudson River

Knows
Too

In our humble
Eyes

All your
Battles

Are
Won

-

Rivers flow
Fathers sacrifice
Why not envision a new eco-poetics grounded in a heritage thousands of years old which upholds that everything in the universe is sacred?
    Francisco X. Alarcón


Space, time and Borges now are leaving me …
    J L Borges

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of the personality.
    T S Eliot

One does not often think of the tripartite goddess who gave her blessed name to Ireland -  Éire, Banba, Fódla - not to mention other goddesses who have left their trace on the landscape, Danu of the Paps of Danu for instance.

Devotional poetry in India goes by the name of bhakti. In the heel of the hunt, a bhakta does not really adore or pine for any god or  goddess; as with Mirabai’s love affair with Krishna, or Muktabai singing her own glistening Self; what is sought and what is praised is the brightness of eternal brightness, our shared Self, knowing neither birth nor death.

Some words in this poem sequence are ‘shaded’ to allow for another reading of a line, or a faint echo, a game much cherished by the Celtic poets of yore. Thus, the reader sees the word as the world when written as world and encounters  bhakti invocations such as ma (mother) hidden in the word mad!
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