As well as Pansies, as referred to in my previous post, D.H. Lawrence entitled another collection of his poems after plants: 'Nettles'. Even if, like me, you are pretty rubbish at knowing the names of plants, the difference between a pansy and a nettle is so obvious that I need elaborate no further on the general nature of the nettle poems.
So, yes. It makes you laugh, really. I was in the process of completing my pansy, all about cutting the discursive thought etc, when I found myself in the middle of a whole bed of nettles. Ouch.
Neil Kramer provides an excellent window on the mess out there. From the perspective of Self, he declares, the current state of affairs (cultural, social, political) is a disaster. To Soul it presents a challenge. To the Divine it's all a game. Certain events over recent days have really come forth to test the depth of our immersion in Soul or the Divine; or whether we're solely scrambling around in the ever-changing mire of Self.
I speak of Trump, and of Syria. I was one of the many who felt the Trump was a good thing: not necessarily due to many of his policies, which suck like anybody else's policies - but because his election suggested a sea-change: enough Americans had seen at least a little through and beyond the Elite who had been running the roost over recent decades. Trump was at least different, not one of them. It denoted a change of consciousness on the collective level. A bit, anyhow.
Overnight, with his action over chemical weapons in Syria, Trump has transformed. He has turned into Hilary Clinton. He has become one of them.
As I write, I'd say that this use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government is a suspect proposal. Even many mainstream media reports include words such as 'alleged' and 'suspected' in their reports. It is worth considering why on earth Assad would use such weapons in the first place. By all accounts, he has been doing quite well recently in the conflict in his own back yard. He knows what's coming his way if he resorts to such nasty tricks as chemical warfare. Unless he's on his own suicide mission, which is unlikely, he's gonna steer well clear.
I suggest that it behoves any responsible citizen of Planet Earth to look elsewhere than the crap that spews out of their television screens and oozes off the pages of the mainstream papers if they want to know what is going on. Afterwards you still might not know what's going on - knowing what's going on is a critically-endangered species nowadays, and its pursuit may no longer be an appropriate strategy. But at least BBC's 6 o'clock propaganda show will be put into some kind of perspective.
Part Two
During my years of English language teaching in London - we're talking late '90s here - I developed decent relations with quite a few members of staff. There was one, a female teacher in her late 20s, with whom I was always joking, swapping good stories, etc. Let's call her Rachel. One day, however, I did something, or said something about her, that she didn't much like. I have no idea what it was. Not serious in my book. Anyhow, life continued as normal.
Months later, all the teaching staff was enduring one of our occasional post-teaching-hours staff meetings. These were invariably interminable affairs, the school principal engaging in a series of lengthy monologues on matters with zero interest to anybody apart from him. Anyway, at one point he brought up the subject of the photocopying machine. Once more, it had broken down due to careless handling by teaching staff, creating inconvenience for all concerned. It was unnecessary, and inexcusable that a lone irresponsible teacher should create so much trouble for everybody else. At this moment, Rachel perked up. She looked straight at me, accusation glaring from her eyes, and firmly declared in front of the entire gathering: "Ian, I told you not to do that with the photocopying machine anymore."
All eyes were instantly fixed on me. Was I the guilty party, the bringer of mayhem to class preparations, the prophet of last-minute panic? And we all thought Ian was such a responsible kind of guy. Meanwhile, Rachel found this hilarious.
Creating suspicion, making false allegations - creating fake news, as is the trendy way of putting things - is dead easy. One of the easiest things on the planet. At least Rachel had no machinery at her disposal to rub the accusation into the school's collective mentality. Imagine if the receptionists were telling students every time they went to the desk about my photocopier crimes. If the teachers were informing all the pupils every lesson to watch out for me. The principal's henchmen included a bit about my photocopier misdeeds every time they went round the classrooms publicising trips to Bath and Cambridge. This is what the anti-Assad machine has at its disposal, in the form of the mainstream media. Everywhere you look, there it is: the chemical criminal.
What's going on with Trump I do not know. It would seem that he's been well and truly got. The transformation borders on the surreal. It is like if Pale Green Vortex suddenly gets full of articles entitled 'Nicola Sturgeon's funniest jokes'; 'Why Angela Merkel is my screensaver'; 'More windfarms, please'. Ironically, it was Trump who really brought into the public domain the term 'the deep state'. Now, I propose, that very same deep state has him by the short and curlies.
Part Three
Why I am an anarchist.
The current mainstream world - financially, economically, socially, culturally, politically - exists to perpetuate itself and to further its reach. That is all it is there for, nothing else. This is so obvious nowadays that I am tempted to say that anyone doubting or questioning this is just stupid. It is as if the Gods have decided the time is right to give it to us straight: more and more situations in your face, smack bang, the Trump and Syria being the most recent and blatant of all. It requires a considerable effort of purposeful unawareness, a kind of self-disavowal, to maintain the deception. Wilfully turning a blind eye becomes an increasingly schizophrenic act. The Gods are trying to help us: Look, look! Great gifts! We bestow events with our blessings. They are your teachers, if only you will see. All we cannot provide is the awareness to see and to learn. That alone must emanate from you, the individual.
Thus is the configuration within which we live. Only a restructuring along anarchist lines will more properly reflect the individual and their deeper purpose, their self-determination. I do not subscribe to the classic political view of the 19th century anarchists, however. Their notion was that all we need is to remove the bosses, the chiefs, the big nasties, and people will become free and good. In this they were naive and metaphysically limited. As I've discussed elsewhere, we are all here because it's where we are suited. It reflects our own being, the maturity (or lack thereof) of ourselves on the levels of Self and Soul. The System is not something we just smash to pieces, to enter into Utopia. No. We need to do our unique spadework; to grow, to use that language. Only then will the powers that strangle have no choice but to slink away into oblivion. Precisely how, I cannot pretend to understand. But this much is clear: it cannot work any other way.
P.S. When I was a child, I once fell out of a tree into the middle of a large bed of stinging nettles. I was wearing short trousers, and it was not a good experience.
P.P.S. I did not damage the photocopier.
Images: A bed of stinging nettles
Bakunin, 19th century political anarchist
