by Pausha Foley on December 28, 2011
It was a joke at first, you see. Or I thought it was. My yearning for magic could be nothing else after all. Chasing elven tracks in forests, looking under bushes, searching among the flower petals for fluttering fairies – I knew they were there, even as I knew they weren’t. They couldn’t be, everyone knows there is no such thing as magic. I knew that. But I didn’t want to know it. I didn’t want the gray, cold, lonely world where every step brought danger, where one false move meant disaster. I wanted elven pointed ears and fairy’s light step.
And so when you said that there is a wizard living nearby, one that will turn me into an elf, I knew it was a joke. But I took the number anyway. And I made the phone call.
I drove to see the wizard few days later. It was cold and misty up in the mountains, fog swirled in the canyon where the wizard lived shrouding the rushing river, the ancient oaks, the lofty pines. It was as it should be, I thought, climbing up a narrow path, up the mountain slope to a little cabin. It was just right for the master to live up on top of the mountain and for the disciples to climb up and claim the teachings. Claim the magic for themselves. [click to continue…]
by Pausha Foley on November 18, 2011
An idea occurred to me today, as I read an article about Wall Street and Main Street, and the wide rift between those two. The Wall st. not understanding the main st., the Main st. not understanding the Wall st.
Inside of the Wall street’s world, the rich people’s world, inside of their reality, the super rich bankers are not privileged half-gods, but a hard working people who receive just, and normal in their industry, rewards for their labors. They do not understand why they are being blamed, they do not understand why they are being held responsible.
And the Main street does not understand how the Wall street can possibly not understand. It is this lack of understanding, this split, that is the greatest issue, it occurred to me. It is not how much money who makes or doesn’t make, it is the two hermetically sealed worlds, two different realities that do not touch and do not meet. More than that, they don’t even acknowledge each-other’s existence.
“What would I do?” I asked myself, as I read this piece? What would I do if I had a problem, a big problem with something that Chris does. What would I do to address it? I could sit on our living room rug, and make a sign that expresses my outrage at his actions. I could invite my friends to sit on the rug with me and I would announce, loudly, to the house at large, that I will sit on this rug for as long as it takes for my grievances to be addressed and corrected. I would sit there until I saw the change I wanted to see. I might march up and down the stairs to his office, once or twice a day, for greater effect. [click to continue…]
by Pausha Foley on June 8, 2011
I can not think of anything that would render humans unconscious of the reality around us more effectively than the concepts of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. While we focus on determining what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s just, what’s unjust, we are missing what’s so.
To effect any change it is usefull to be present to the whole picture, to see the entire situation in all it’s implications. The ideas of rightness, justice, goodness, injustice, evil, limit the perspective drastically and make the change nearly impossible to occure.
It was a joke at first, you see. Or I thought it was. My yearning for magic could be nothing else after all. Chasing elven tracks in forests, looking under bushes, searching among the flower petals for fluttering fairies – I knew they were there, even as I knew they weren’t. They couldn’t be, everyone knows there is no such thing as magic. I knew that. But I didn’t want to know it. I didn’t want the gray, cold, lonely world where every step brought danger, where one false move meant disaster. I wanted elven pointed ears and fairy’s light step.
