What we're doing is well worth doing

The pause in my blogging has been a regrouping, a shift in many things. Ultimately a decision on my part that what I'm doing is worth doing. What I'm pursuing is worth pursuing.

Inspired really by a Kris Kristofferson song I heard anew at a Western Beat tribute night a few months ago in a local joint, Highland Grounds -- a night conceived by Americana list goddess Bliss (www.americanarootsla.net).

"’cause I think what they've done is well worth doin'
And they'’re doin'’ it the best way that they can..."

The song's about all the great musicians in Nashville at the time (1976) that everyone was poo-pooing: Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson.... You know those legends... well, folks didn't all like them back then.

"And if you don't like Hank Williams, honey, you can kiss my ass."

I realized that on another level, the song was talking about now -- in the LA music scene first of all -- LA music is the most invigorated it's been in a decade, according to veterans, and it's all because of the renewed interest in roots and alt-country music, they tell me.

The Vaquetones, James Intveld, Mike Stinson are just a few of the talents I'm blessed to hear in this town every month...

I think that what they're doing is well worth doing.

I also realized that I needed to look at what I was doing in the same light -- that what I was doing was well worth doing and at the end of my life I would be proud of myself for pushing forward with this idea so few fully believe in or act as if it is possible.

Peace among the people on earth.

I know that it is possible. Not only that it's possible, but that it's our birthright. It's what we deserve. That's right -- we human beings deserve to be treated with honor, respect, appreciation. So do animals. So does the planet. All of us, not just some of us.

This is, I'm realizing, a radical idea.

It changes everything.

But I believe it's much more our human nature than the current predominant worldview would have us believe.

I've read psychological theories that describe how, as babies, we're set up from day one to expect to receive love, so we interpret any abuse we receive in early years as "love." Once we're grown, therefore, we create in our lives the very conditions that will recreate the abuse because our early experience wired our brains to subconsciously understand the abuse as nurturing "love."

Yikes.

So it's gonna take some rewiring. We can do that work.

The key here is that we COME IN expecting to be loved without condition.

Marianne Williamson spoke yesterday here in LA and told of a cruise she'd taken recently in Alaska. Some kayakers paddled by. All the folks on the cruise boat happily waved and the kayakers happily waved back. Wait a minute, Marianne thought, how'd you know you'd even like these guys? The observation prompted her thought that it's the natural initial tendency of human beings to treat each other like brothers and sisters.

The millennium, for example, she said, was a worldwide party -- people riding on the Subway in NYC even spoke to each other -- but the day itself wasn't different from any other day, in truth. The sole difference was, on that day, we gave ourselves social permission to treat each other like brothers and sisters. Social permission. That's all that was necessary for the natural tendency to take over.

Here's another radical idea... maybe all that's needed is to drop the BS that stops us from seeing each other as brothers and sisters.

To me, as a rose is a rose is a rose, a human is a human is a human. The species is defined by DNA -- and we all share pretty much all of it.

So I press on. Doing it the best way that I can.

The best way for me is through nurturing self worth and joy in the world. Imagine Festival is one engine for that. To open the possibility that solutions are before us all the time, we simply need to discover how to apply them. To create spaces that perhaps will help people run into the magic that is out there for them and bring it into their lives. To encourage folks to own their power. To take the steps we need to get to peace.

And to imagine beyond that... for me, peace is just the beginning.

Another Kris Kristofferson song caught my ear -- To Beat the Devil

"And you still can hear me singing to the people who don't listen
To the things that I am saying, praying someone's going to hear;
And I guess I'll die explaining how the things that they complain about
Are things they could be changing, hoping someone's goin' to care.

"I was born a lonely singer and I'm bound to die the same
But I've got to feed the hunger in my soul;
And if I never have a nickel I won't ever die of shame
’cause I don't believe that no-one wants to know!"

Thank you Kris -- I've decided not to believe that no one wants to know.