The Habitable Zone

"Astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the “habitable zone,” confirming that Earth-size planets exist in the habitable zones of other stars and signaling a significant step closer to finding a world similar to Earth. Using NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star..."

Which raises the age-old question: Why are we so eager to find another habitable planet populated by beings like us or not? If these beings are like us, how disappointing to see the same fools trying to make a go of it, clashing in innumerable wars, hoisting intolerance, mediocrity and enmity to positions of leadership and disregarding the voices of reason and enlightenment.

If the beings on these habitable planets are more frightening than us, more incompetent, less trustworthy, more volatile, threatening and vicious, who needs them as a neighbor? Why not just pass on a house of horrors?

And, if by chance, the lucky residents of habitable planet is more enlightened than us,  why should we assume within degree of certainty that we would listen to their voices of spiritual wisdom anymore than we listen to those similar voices on our own habitable planet? Just because they may wear togas?  And seeing the intractable mess we keep making of earth, who's to say they would want to earnestly try to work with us? You know the old saying, "We gave them everything and look what they did..."

"Look what we did..." echoes through the universe, and "Look what I did.." echoes through each heart from the beginning of time.

The Virtual World

I'm skipping happily between two worlds, the world of virtual reality and the world with my footprints. Of course the virtual world only becomes relevant when we live for long periods of time on the ground. Without the ground there is no virtual world, unless we think of meditation or hallucinatory drugs as virtual fields of transcendence. There is something exciting about going to a different world, seeing who's there, seeing what they're saying and finding a voice, perhaps even our own voice. There are no parents to bother us, no teachers or cops. Well, there are virtual cops checking our data, patrolling. I suppose that's better than a guy following us as we pull out of the driveway and checking off the stores we go to, the clothes we buy, the places we eat.  And there are teachers in virtual reality, but, unlike school, we choose those teachers that are most appealing to us. Unfortunately, there is no fresh air in the virtual world, no breeze blowing through, stirring up the dead leaves, knocking off old branches, blowing empty cans down the highway. The virtual world feeds our private self, unencumbered by another voice, another critical mind. If we want to hate something, a country, a political or social platform,  an ethnic group, we can find websites and chat rooms that will encourage, validate and support our private view. There is no light in the virtual world. We can sit alone in the darkness of our habitat and stream the darkness of minds equally unenlightened. The virtual world buzzes; it just doesn't sing.

Death Penalty

Recently, I read that states that impose the death penalty are having trouble securing sodium thiopental, one of the drugs used in a cocktail to hasten the execution of a criminal. The drug is manufactured but evidently those who manufacture it are unwilling to sell or restricted from selling to states intending to use the drug for death sentence purposes.
This puts the guy waiting to die in a bind. Does he pray the state will be thwarted from obtaining the drug, in which case they might resort to something more macabre? Or does he pray the state will obtain the drug, which would only precipitate his death?

This dilemma has its origins in the state's need to find a drug cocktail that will insure the executionee  not be subject to harsh and usual punishment but rather enjoy a benign, peaceful death, without suffering. Yet, for most people who have suffered the tragedy of losing a loved one to a murderer, at least part of their emotions wants the perpetrator to suffer the same agony he or she forced upon the victim. Is that not justice the victim's loved ones proclaim? Very few people want the murderer to go straight to "Heaven."

Still, we go about searching for a nice way to kill a man because, in some idiotic way, we believe we are too civilized to chop the guy's head off with the blade of a guillotine, but we are civilized enough to search the world for a drug that will kill him. Are we not simply playing with our conscience?

Can the murderer ever be of service to the world, or has he or she lost their right and/or opportunity to serve, notwithstanding they are imprisoned?

Do we learn anything by killing a man or woman? About ourselves? About what it means to take another life?

And what about forgiveness? Are we here to forgive the murderer? Forgive him or her for what?

Would it be possible or plausible to instead sentence a murderer to life in a guarded monastery? A monastery in a traditional faith, studying the sacred texts of that faith, observing the imposition of disciplines, rituals, the vows of silence, the absolute surrender to a spiritual life. Not for a year or two, but for at least a decade or more; and only then, after they have been approved by their spiritual administrators, would they be allowed, not as free men or women, but as members of the monastery, observing the same strict disciplines, to serve, for the rest of their life,  the poor, the forgotten, the abandoned of this world.

Would they not then feel, in every act of love they perform - every day of their lives - the horror and terror of what they had once committed?

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After Brunch

A wonderful Sunday brunch with friends. We were together in conversation and in good feelings, as warm as the day. It reminded me of this poem.

After Brunch

Everybody’s shadow

Is in another city

On a busy sidewalk

Or sheltered under trees

Everybody’s rhythm

Is in a child’s fingers

Or wrapped inside the motion

Of someone else’s shoes

And everybody’s soul

Wanders through a sky

Of Spanish moons and stars

In someone else’s dream.

Ken

Waiting

Everyone is waiting for something: the water to boil, an email, a meeting confirmation., a verdict, a judgement, a lover's reply. What if we stopped waiting. Instead, if we sucked in the air, one breath, two, three, in a continuum, a stream, disregarding what we are waiting for, and we stayed within that circle of our senses, our own light being, our openness to what is coming in, the robust melodies of life within the core of our beliefs... If we could hold those moments and move forward, time and anxiety over time would disappear. Because time is only fear, hesitation and anticipation. Life is something more - acute and wonderful, the healing solace of a cosmic silence, with all of its inherent, transmutable beauty that reaches the infinity of one's own heart.

Raining on the mountain

Good morning.. Raining on the mountain. Does each raindrop feel lonely as it falls from the sky? Or is it aware that it is a part of a great water dance? Is loneliness simply a charade?.. Because we are connected, not only to each other in tears and laughter, in fears and wonder, in anger and exultation, but all  of share in the same Divine Intelligence, the incomprehensible, unknowable, incomparable touchstone of our being. Oh, why do children die of cancer, why was there a holocaust, why did thousands of free men and women die shackled in the cramped holds of slave ships? If we are smart enough to ask the questions, why aren't we wise enough to answer them?... We are drawn to the same Divinity, clamoring for a response from the same Unknowable Being. We feel the same wind on our shoulders, the same sun against our skin, the same moonlight follows us home, into the same confusion of darkness when our prayers seem unanswered.