From NOEBIE.net
Over on my Tarot blog, I wrote about how to get the most from your Tarot practice by establishing a routine for your readings.
As far as I am concerned, this moment to get still and get in touch with one’s intuition is second only to a thorough shuffle as the basis for a good experience with the cards. The stimulus of a random card, as interpreted by a quiet, intuitive mind, is the very nature of my practice.
Read More: A Simple Tarot Ritual | Cards of Light
Gail Ann Dorsey is one of the great American musicians of her generation. She recently began a Patreon. You should check it out.
Guggenheim Fellow Anna Badkhen writes about zeitgeist in Philadelphia, collective spirit in the Global North, and what the birds foretell.
We may say we like to be surprised, astonished, but we like to be surprised in a particular way that is expected or suits our projected needs. This is why children like to hear the same stories. Their predictability is something to hold onto. This is why I am rereading the classics, which I first read as a very young child: it is like worrying a rosary or a wave-grooved seashell you keep in your pocket, something familiar for the fingers to run over and over. This is why we read projections for how long the pandemic will last, or who will win the election, or whether the global uprising against racism will prevail: we want to know when those of us who survive can go back to normal. We want to project that normal.
Source: The Paris Review – Blog Archive How to Read the Air – The Paris Review
Open Secrets reports that Biden is near to raising $1 Billion in the most expensive election in history.
The 2020 election is more than twice as expensive as the runner up, the 2016 election. In fact, this year’s election will see more spending than the previous two presidential election cycles combined. The massive numbers are headlined by unprecedented spending in the presidential contest, which is expected to see $6.6 billion in total spending alone. That’s up from around $2.4 billion in the 2016 race. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will be the first candidate in history to raise $1 billion from donors. His campaign brought in a record-breaking $938 million through Oct. 14, riding Democrats’ enthusiasm to defeat Trump. President Donald Trump raised $596 million, which would be a strong fundraising effort if not for Biden’s immense haul.
Source: 2020 election to cost $14 billion, blowing away spending records • OpenSecrets
Truth bomb from Leonard C. Goodman at The Chicago Reader. TLDR: Barrett is exactly the kind of judge corporate donors love.
The Democrats claimed to be united in their opposition to Barrett’s confirmation. Yet their resistance to having a justice rammed through at the 11th hour of a lame duck presidency feels like the resistance that the Washington Generals used to show against the Harlem Globetrotters. That is, pure theater in which the outcome is never in doubt. What this tells us is that the corporate donors who control the Democratic Party are happy with a Justice Barrett.
Source: The real reason Democrats didn’t stop the Barrett confirmation | Opinion | Chicago Reader
Today over on the Shyamatara Das site, I share some thoughts on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of meditation.
As we achieve deeper and more profound levels of consciousness during meditation, it has been speculated that we can experience this field, and interact with it – perhaps even influence it – more directly than we do when mitigated by our bodily senses. Since the field is the foundational essence of all time and space, it is boundless. While experiencing these deeper levels of consciousness, we, too, become unbounded.
Tyrell Haberkorn sums up the situation this week in Thailand, where what began as a student movement questioning the role of the monarchy has become a broader struggle for democracy.
In arresting them and others last week, the Thai authorities seemed to hope to end the movement calling for an end to dictatorship and reform of the monarchy by locking its leaders away behind bars. But as the mushrooming protests this past weekend and early this week illustrate, the tactic has failed.
One who is dear to our hearts lives in Bangkok. We pray for her safety during this time of turbulance.
Source: The Fight for Democracy in Thailand | Dissent Magazine
This is a rather long read, and not a lot of fun, but I think that Hedges (as usual) describes the moment well.
The most difficult existential dilemma we face is to at once acknowledge the bleakness before us and act, to refuse to succumb to cynicism and despair. And we will only do this through faith, the faith that the good draws to it the good, that all acts that nurture and protect life have an intrinsic power, even if the empirical evidence shows that things are getting worse.
Source: Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair – scheerpost.com
Rewild to mitigate the climate crisis, urge leading scientists. The Guardian reports that restoring natural landscapes damaged by human exploitation can be one of the most effective and cheapest ways to combat the climate crisis while also boosting dwindling wildlife populations, according to a scientific study published recently.
If a third of the planet’s most degraded areas were restored, and protection was thrown around areas still in good condition, that would store carbon equating to half of all human caused greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial revolution.
The changes would prevent about 70% of predicted species extinctions, according to the research, which is published in the journal Nature.
Source: Environment | The Guardian
There was a brief moment after the election in 2008 where I was worried that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney would refuse to leave office. When the fears proved unfounded, I chalked it up to paranoia.
This year, I just don’t know. It’s hard to say whether it is sad, or fortunate, that we have come to the point where we have so little confidence in the health and veracity of our public institutions. I suppose that it may be both.
In any case, if folks’ fears about this are realized this time around, the notion of a nationwide general strike to keep the current occupant of the White House compliant is appealing.
Unions Are Beginning to Talk About Staving Off a Possible Coup – Labor Notes Reports: “Therefore, be it finally resolved that the Rochester Labor Council, AFL-CIO calls on the National AFL-CIO, all of its affiliate unions, and all other labor organizations in the United States of America to prepare for and enact a general strike of all working people, if necessary, to ensure a Constitutionally mandated peaceful transition of power as a result of the 2020 Presidential Elections.”
Read More: https://www.labornotes.org/2020/10/unions-are-beginning-talk-about-staving-possible-coup