This is an issue that I just can't seem to reconcile peacefully.  Anyone?

Climate change: Carbon dioxide is killing the world's reefs 4/10

I love articles that put a smile on my face...and I love Garrison Keillor.  Found this today, and thought I'd share it.

April is here, time to cut loose of politics

Garrison Keillor

Published April 5, 2006

Columnists should not write about politics. Take it from me, it's a bad idea. You pick up your bright sword to harass the heathen Republican and your prose style goes limp, your verbs droop, and words such as "comprehensive" and "funding" creep in and you become thin-lipped and hissy, like Miss Whipple in study hall telling the boys in the back of the room to shape up or be sorry. Well, they aren't going to shape up. What will shape them up is the day of reckoning and it's not here yet.

It's spring in Minnesota, the snow is gone except behind the garage, so it's time to turn over a new leaf and let other people rag on the president. He is who he is, and anybody who hasn't formed an opinion of him is not paying attention. I am going to sit and read poetry and wait for the enormous old crab apple tree beside our driveway to bud and then blossom, a mass of brilliant purplish flowers like a Mardi Gras float parked beside the house--you can almost hear the brass band playing "Just a Little While to Stay Here." Or maybe it's a funeral and the purple flowers are from the deceased's old pals who are shuffling along beside the coffin, hankies in hand, on their way to the graveyard and then to O'Gara's for a commemorative bump of whiskey. You can get all this just by looking at a crab apple tree. Visions of the vast grandeur of the sensuous world, intimations of mortality.

What vast grandeur do you find in Washington these days? The Jack Abramoff-Tom DeLay saga is the story of weasels. Men wheedling favors and skimming money off the top. Nobody in the Republican majority could be shocked by any of this, so why should you and I?

The people who are getting reamed by this administration are people under 30, and they are, like, OK with that. They walk around with little wires coming out of their ears and 10,000 tunes on their iPods, and if you go, like, global warming, they are, like, whatever. And you go, government deficit, and they are, like, duuuuuuuuuuuude.

Our country has been entered into a 30-year war against Islam, and I will not be fighting it. I am, like, 63. In fact, I am not only like 63, I am 63 and will soon be 64 when I hope you will still need me and feed me. I am sitting pretty. If the polar ice cap melts, it's no problem here in Minnesota: The ocean isn't going to wash up on our doorsteps. No hurricanes on our horizon. None of my friends are penguins. If the Iranian government gets the bomb, is it going to fly all the way to Minnesota to drop it?

Politics is a slough, and maybe we should let the weasels have it for now. Even if two more Republicans follow the Current Occupant into office, this country will still be around in some form or other. Cities may crumble and we may be forced to reside in walled compounds and hire security men to escort us to Wal-Mart and back, but much will remain, such as love, for example, and the quickening one feels in the spring. Flowers will bloom in whatever wreckage we make. Somewhere, someone will sing the old songs about love walking in and driving the shadows away.

People have been falling in love through every dismal era of history and through every war ever fought. Enormous black headlines in the newspapers and agitated talk in the cafes and yet she waited for him on the corner by the hotel where they had agreed to meet, and as traffic streamed past she watched the buses pulling up to the curb, looking for his familiar shape, his beautiful face, his slight smile. Under her arm, a newspaper, and inside it a columnist shaking his tiny fist at corruption, but it isn't worth 2 cents compared to what's in her heart. When her lover steps down, the air will be filled with bright purple blossoms and they will embrace and turn and go into the hotel, and on this, the future of the world depends.

Take the day off, dear reader, and ignore the world and let the president play his fiddle. Find the one who means the most to you and make yourselves happy. If that be ignorance, make the most of it.

DARK GODDESS WELCOMED BACK IN?
by Rob Brezsny

In 2004, astronomers announced the discovery of a shiny red planet-like
world orbiting the sun far beyond Pluto. They called it Sedna, a name they
said was derived from the Inuit deity that created the Arctic's sea
creatures. But the truth about the myth of Sedna is more complicated.

She is the Dark Goddess, embodiment of the wild female potencies that
are feared yet sorely needed by cultures in which the masculine
perspective dominates. Dwelling on the edge of life and death in her home
at the bottom of the sea, Sedna is both a source of fertile abundance and
a mysterious prodigy. Shamans from the world above swim down to sing
her songs and comb her long black hair. If they win her favor, she gives
them the magic necessary to heal their suffering patients.

The Beauty and Truth Laboratory enjoys entertaining the possibility that
the discovery of Sedna is an omen signaling our collective readiness to
welcome back the long-repressed influence of the Dark Goddess.

We'd like to direct your attention to two further omens. The first is a
book I wrote, *The Televisionary Oracle.* If you don't want to buy it, you
can read it for free on the Web at http://snipurl.com/nieu.

A second hopeful omen of the Dark Goddess's return is the work of
Andrew Harvey (http://www.andrewharvey.net/). He has graciously
allowed us to publish a taste of his writing in the piece below.


BLACK MADONNA RETURNS
by Andrew Harvey

The entire world is now going through a massive crucifixion on all levels.
It's going through an environmental crucifixion. Hundreds of species are
vanishing every month. It's going through a personal crucifixion. There are
two billion people living on less than a dollar a day. It's going through a
crucifixion of all the patriarchal systems. Look at Enron and what it has
shown us about Corporate America. Look at the Catholic Church's
scandals of pedophilia and what it shows us about authority. Look at the
growing disillusionment with politicians of all kinds. All of the systems are
being exposed as illusory and fantasy-ridden, as deeply corrupt and
exploitative.

There's another kind of crucifixion going on: crucifixion of purpose and
hope. Everybody is totally bewildered. They know that the world is
potentially on the brink of total apocalypse. There's a tremendous danger
that as people wake up to the horror of what is going on, they will run
into political extremism or into fundamentalism of one kind or another.

So it's extremely important that the wisdom of the 'dark night of the
soul' gets across, because if people understand the necessity for this
crucifixion, and understand that it's preparing a resurrection and
empowerment, then they will be prepared to go through it without too
much fear, trusting in the logic of the divine transformation.

The Benedictine monk Bede Griffiths shared with me his experience of the
dark night of the soul. He said he was sitting outside his hut one day
when he felt as if a hand hit him on the right side of his being. He had
suffered a massive heart attack that destroyed what he described as his
patriarchal mind and gave him access to a much deeper elaboration of
Oneness with all things.

He said, "It's a very strange thing, but when I thought of surrendering to
the Mother I of course thought of Mary--I often say the 'Hail Mary'--but it
was Mary as the Black Madonna that came into my mind. She is the
mother of the earth as well as heaven, of the body as well as the soul, the
mother of the subconscious, the hidden, of all those powers that the
'masculine' mind represses; the Mother of the sacred darkness. In Her the
Western Christian vision of the Divine Mother and the Eastern one merge
and meet; you can think of her as both Mary and Kali, both preserver and
destroyer. From that time on, I have turned to Her again and again.
Invoking Her strength and grace, I find, makes the 'birth' go so much
faster and more cleanly."

The power that is doing this to us is coming towards us simultaneously
with terrifying destruction and extreme grace and prosperity. The
destruction is, in fact, a form of that extreme grace. It's quite clear that
humanity is now terminally ill, and can only be transfigured by a totally
shocking revelation of its shadow side. And this is what we're living
through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have
done nothing but betray the sacred in us.

We have lacerated the sacred in others. We have betrayed the sacred in
an orgy of fundamentalism. We have brutalized the sacred in nature. We
are now terminally destructive.

So only an almost terminal destruction that reveals to us the full extent
of our responsibility in this destruction can wake us up. And that is what
is happening, and it will get worse. It's bound to get worse. But it is only
being done to us for our own redemption.

Those who turn to the Mother in total faith, those who turn to the Black
Madonna in total admiration, those who realize the mercy behind the
violence will be given extraordinary protection, strength, and revelation.
They will be empowered in the core of themselves to become what
everybody who has a heart and a mind must now become--a spiritual
revolutionary devoting their entire life and all their resources to the
preservation of the planet.

Finding the Black Madonna, in whatever form you want to find her,
realizing the massive task that she's doing and turning to her for
protection is now crucial to the preservation of the planet. It's extremely
important that people really come to understand the feminine and turn
towards it, because it's our betrayal of the feminine in ourselves and in
the divine that has led to this crisis.

--Andrew Harvey, in an interview with Colleen O'Connor on the Grace
Cathedral website at http://snipurl.com/nieq
Copyright Andrew Harvey 2004--All Rights Reserved

For more information about Andrew Harvey, see his website at
http://www.andrewharvey.net/

Been doing a lot of reflecting lately, how life has changed so dramatically in the last five years.  It is a struggle of my inner peace constantly being tested by outside influences I simply cannot ignore.  My rantings on my blog probably proves that point.

I am ever grateful for knowing that I am truly not alone in how I feel.  I am also very grateful for places like this right here - zaadz - where so many like-minded, real, genuine, spiritual, and honest folks can meet, from all over the world.

Can we really save ourselves?  Is it even possible?  And really, from the way things look now, from global warming, the destruction of everything this planet has provided us, the question that begs to be answered, is will all of humanity be purged as the result?  Quite literally, our oceans are dying of life.  Water wars are the next battles to be fought.

So to go off - I will remind you that bottled water is fast becoming a scourge of the planet.  Realize in South America, battles are already underway for THEIR water from multinational corporations. 

And thus the point for my ravings.  So much to monitor, to be aware of, and to inform others of.  To tell the truth.

gotta get back to work now...thanks for visiting.

Try as I might to avoid the news, at the same time I can't get enough.  As the saying goes, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore"!!!! 

This coming mid term election is literally the beginning or the end.  Seriously.  The only shred of hope I feel we have, is to get the PROGRESSIVE agenda out there, which means challenging the status quo.  Democrats who have been silent, or have acquiesced, I feel should be held ACCOUNTABLE.  Those who are up for re-election, have to be challenged in a serious way.  NO MORE PLAYING IT SAFE - DAMN IT!

It is one thing to live our lives the best we can, but we must also take in account our homeless brothers and sisters. 

The situation in Bay City, Mississippi and New Orleans is something we must not forget.  I read an article a few weeks ago, and I wished I had saved it.  It was about this woman architect who designed a 300 sq foot home, totally efficient, and can be added on to.  The basic price?  $33,000.

Instead, what does my government do?  Buy thousands of trailers and mobile homes.  Right now hundreds upon hundreds of them are wasting away on some air field in Arkansas. 

As with all things frustrating these days, I decided today I would say something about this particular issue.  Why?  Because it is not hard to imagine a catastrophe happening like that to any of us.

Wow!  A friend sent this to me...it will definitely put a smile on your face!

 http://marketplace.espeakers.com/movie.php?sid=5290&aid=10558

Enjoy!

Simply insane.  The mendacity and ignorance of the sheeples of the bush cabal is just too hard to ignore.  So much information - so much truthfulness - so much blindness.

I am of the belief that what affects humanity clear across the world in other lands, affects all of humanity.  Is it really enough to just live my life as righteously as I can, the best I can?  When I know my sisters and brothers the world over are being terrorized by my very own government?  I have personal power, no doubt about that.  But in the scheme of all I am connected to, as a human, I am powerless.

what a struggle it is to keep from succumbing to the despair of our very humanity, at this moment in time.  what is now has to be destroyed, one way or another...