Session July 13, 2019

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When the cash was gone, it was gone, so I had to spend very carefully.

By RMAF

When my cash was gone, it was gone, so I had to spend what I had left very carefully. There was no great inheritance money for me from anybody. 

Although my late father was adventuresome and an avid hiker and climber who left me his gear and trip journal in which I have read over and over and memorized, I realized my inheritance was having a good Dad.

I had to spend what little money I had very carefully. I bought many plastic bottles of purified water and dozens of healthy dried fruit and nut energy bars and stuffed them along with my father’s trip journal and ashes into my father’s backpack and began our father and son journey into the Mysterious Mountains of Meandering Souls, Spirits and Minds. There, I will join my beloved Dad.

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There is no escaping the Barbarians

By TNT

There were many Chinese Emperors – some more ambitious than others. It was a mistake to give Marco Polo fireworks (gunpowder). It  was like selling nuclear bombs to Iran or North Korea (which the West probably have). The Ancient Chinese had Confucius and other wise and happy Buddha types to remind the Chinese of their ethics and duty. Of course there is no escaping the Barbarians. The Western Barbarians in particular. But I have heard of persecution of Tibet and they have killer smog in China, too. Emulating the Western Barbarians wasn’t the best idea. 

I rather liked the Maoists who made the rich plow fields and do the peasant jobs. I think we should emulate the Maoists and make the Koch Brothers and big CEOs of Corporations, Banks and other industrialists with salaries 200 times their workers to support their families on minimum wage flipping burgers and serving beer to their people. The Governors and the government, Senators, Congressmen, etc. could do with a healthy dose of hard work. Then they would be a little more in touch with reality.

And Presidents should have standards and ethics and a background in Land Management, Farming, and ecological knowledge. No more ignorant illiterate Presidents who have no ethics or standards of behavior. Presidents who are bought by corporations put shame on all Americans – Foreign and Native. 

Why don’t they elect a Native American like the Bolivian president? Or Chief Crazy Horse or someone else Native). The immigrants are the White People!

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Death is not the end, but a new beginning.

By MD

I never believed in reincarnation. The idea seemed too outlandish, too extreme. My philosophy in all things in those days was “once and done.” It seemed much more logical, more embraceable, even, to live life and get it over with. Who in their right mind would want to keep coming back, over and over, trying to correct mistakes and reconcile omissions from former existences? Certainly not me. Or it is “I?” That’s my point….one lifetime is enough to deal with the questions of grammar and who would want to have to relearn all that?

Well, if you haven’t guessed already, I’m writing this to tell you, dear Reader, I was wrong. My former existence was a tormented, painful time when I sought to end it all and good riddance. But now, in this new life, I know only beauty and joy. Look at my photo above. No, I’m not the bride or groom, so lovingly kissing by the shore. I’m a flower in the bride’s bouquet. Are you surprised, dear Reader, that I’m sentient? That I can write? Me too. And although my presence in this bouquet means that this new life of mine will shortly end, I now know for sure that death is not the end, but a new beginning. And I can’t wait to see what comes next.

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He lost her, eventually, about half-way along the bazaar’s alley.

By CC

It was hot in Alexandria, despite being on the water. His hat shaded his eyes as he looked around the parking lot. No, she hadn’t come back to the car. He’d had a bad feeling about this day ever since they woke up that morning. He couldn’t shake the dream of enormous sunflowers staring at him, an endless field of them under a hazy sun. And now Marjorie had wandered off again. 

This wasn’t new. She tended to explore, but now they were in a foreign country, a land with an exotic undercurrent, a dangerous subterranean tow. She was a slender, attractive foreigner in the eyes of Alexandrians, and that meant, to them, that she was probably wealthy. He headed back to the shops where they began their day. He'd lost her, eventually, about half way along the bazaar’s alley, but he wanted to retrace their steps from the beginning. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure just when he had lost her, or how.

Later that day he called the police and the American embassy, hoping he was just over-reacting, and maybe she had made new friends, or realized she was lost and was taking taxis all over town trying to find the hotel again. But, he sighed, that wasn’t likely. He didn’t want to leave the hotel in case she came back, but he couldn’t afford to stay much longer. 

He had fallen into the kingdom of uncertainty and confusion, where his only guides now would be his dreams. He forced himself to stay up many hours before succumbing to sleep, and whatever he would discover therein.