Each step along our individual paths changes us. Some experiences grow body, mind, and soul. Other experiences cause those same parts of us to shrink and ache endlessly. The trick is to let each step teach you even if it pains you. When you dedicate yourself to a task with little hope of recognition or monetary gain, many steps on the path are painful. No matter how much you give or how many you touch, there are still more in need. We live in a harsh world. My hat/cancer bandana off to anyone on the path to healing themselves and/or helping a loved one get relief in the most natural way possible. It takes a lot of courage and resolve to reach the end of the modern medicine road and only be left with options you may be logically against (such as chemo). It’s just as difficult to dutifully stand by and genuinely unconditionally love someone whose body is in decline.
As difficult as those decisions are, being public about them makes those choices even harder, but the stories we tell and leave behind in this time when cannabis legality is in its infancy of revival are a testament to the plant, it healing and transformative powers, and the lives of those left searching for comfort when modern medicine can’t offer it. Each of us who has chosen to tell our tale in the public forum of our day (the internet, or public eye in general) is living history. My endless gratitude to all those out there playing nurse to a loved one so limited in physical ability. Watching the cannabis world work to change from prohibition to test markets for medical use to states defying the federal government to decriminalize for adult use has been a heart twisting journey every step of the road. Please don’t forget the chronically ill folks and their caregivers for each recreational bowl you enjoy or sell legally. We still have a long way to go to honor the people who put their entire lives and health on the line in order to create change. Let’s begin by more and more programs to help the low income patients among us.
After many years of dedication to the cause of cannabis education and healing, This is the greatest need I see in the movement today: Just too many folks with too little resources and too much pain while the price of cannabis remains a burden to their largely ssi/ssd funded existences while pounds of useable cannabis are grown in the name of someone suffering and sold elsewhere by their “caregiver” for a profit. We must do better by the low income legal cannabis patient if we ever hope to legalize cannabis for medicinal or recreational use across the board. But as an individual, I can only offer individual mercy. Lately I’ve been giving free oil to individuals legal in Colorado and to cannabis charities such as Greenfaith Ministries. We need to see more of this kind of mercy.
Feel free to wander around Kiefair.com, wish the site a happy anniversary, comment on and share your favorite articles from years past. Also feel free to comment on this post for any improvements or changes you would like to see to the site. Moving forward, I have a project to preserve samples of products I make and products available in the market for future research. I imagine a time when we are looking back at this period in our shared history as the dawn of cannabis legalization. I imagine scientists wanting to know exactly what we were using. To preserve this history, the best, the good, the bad, and the ugly, I have procured slides and lab vials to make samples to carry on after us.
My next article covers making your own massage oils. As a preview for those eagerly awaiting the write up on that article, Let us have a look at the history of extracting healing compounds or scent compounds from various plants. This history is essential to understanding the next article from kiefair.com
I invite you to come and visit the site through a sampling of the most read articles. Scroll below the photo for the top read articles according to my site’s stats, 2014 reading statistics. Let’s take a look at what people are reading.
The tale of one of many who has taken information they learned on kiefair.com and had the courage to use that knowledge to treat their own illnesses with it.
This post is not to debate with others about if J.R.R. Tolkien was a stoner or not. This post is for people who have already determined for themselves that he did like to suck on a weed pipe every now and again and who wonder about what is really in Lembas Bread.
Fat Freddy has had a sore on his back for about 3 years and it would not heal! We started putting Rick Simpson Oil on it on November 23, 2011 then the next day we checked it and then checked it every 3 days afterwards, changing the oil and bandage every 3 days as well! I documented the process as long as I was the live in maid/nurse for the patient. (WARNING THIS IS GRAPHIC!)
I do not look like I have a single drop of Mediterranean blood in me, so why do i care about this rare genetic disorder? Because the color of skin is only skin deep. Because despite the pale appearance of my exterior, I have the genetic ancestor from that part of the world who handed me this recessive trait. Because I have this disease and have to live with it…
A set of videos in Tribute to the writing of Hannah Hurnard, “Hind’s Feet on High Places” to Art of Breezy Kiefair i just put music and art to a book that has been a favorite since childhood… my mother used to read me that book…. call it a tribute to her and an introduction of the book to an audience that may otherwise remain unaware of it. I recommend it for anyone with anxiety or PTSD
Ronnie Lee Smith, aka Roland A Duby made much of Kiefair.com possible. In April 2014, he lost his battle with Leukemia after being falsely imprisoned by Yavapai county in Arizona. We got Ronnie out of jail, but only in time for him to die with a pipe in his hands. While Ronnie was alive, he tasked me to keep his oil making method alive. I have done my best to ensure I keep this task entrusted to me by making his method freely available to anyone willing to learn.
*****Note, I have not updated the review page in quite some time. Some of the dispensaries I have reviewed may no longer be in business. The quality at the locations I have reviewed may have changed due to a change in ownership, grower or extraction agreements. Nearly all of my reviews are of MEDICAL locations, so please check to see if they have a retail location before using any of these reviews for a vacation guide.
Do you use Kiefair.com? Do you support me giving out info on cannabis oil creation for free? Do you support my free oil program with the colorado cannabis charity known as Greenfaith Ministry? Well, you may be unaware that one little lady pays for all costs associated with KiefAir.com. The way the site stays afloat with its mini library of cannabis related reference information is through sales of art and books. Each year, I must make $300 in PROFITS from the art at my etsy store and my poetry book sales on amazon.com.
Have a look at some samples from my portfolio, all of these images may be purchased to support kiefair.com
Please remember I only make pennies per art print I sell, so I need to sell a lot of pieces each year. I was very worried about keeping the site open for 2015. The holiday season left me with not one sale. But People pulled together, and We are all set to keep the site open through February 2016!
This is the tale of how I kept the site open this time… previous years, the money had come from my medication budget. This year was different… this happened because a long time patron gifted me $100 to bring the hosting fee bar a little lower, but he was a special case, my first patron ever who seems to still want to pay more for some ceramic figures I did when I was about 14. He always sends me some cash during the winter holidays and on my birthday. In truth this anonymous donor has been more of a father to me than my own. One of the few positive male role models i have had in mu life. The rule is to spend it on something for myself. I misbehaved this year and give the gift to you. This year I’m put it towards continuing to give the gift of information via kiefair.com . Pebbles Trippet, a prominent writer for Skunk Magazine bought a clutch of 4×6 limited edition Maya Angelou memorial prints. Other patrons got posters or 8×10 prints and we made our goal to keep the site open! My thanks to all Patrons!
Each year, I allow you, the reader/viewer to decide if kiefair.com stays alive. If I get sales, all profit (save my usual tithe if 10% of all profits) will go to saving KiefAir.com. I hope we can do better on those sales and keep the site alive. Remember the power is yours to make it live or let the library die. Any image from my please bogart my art page is for sale except the maya portrait.
Portrait of Toni Fox by: Breezy Kiefiar Toni Commissioned me to turn one of her favorite digital images of herself into a canvas painting. Toni said she was so pleased with it that she has it displayed in her home office.
details: 1. Make your selection at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/kiefyart
2. Complete your transaction here and let the artist know what image you desire. Ms. Breezy will ship you a print in the size you desire right away!
If you buy a new print edition of this book (or purchased one in the past), you can buy the Kindle edition for only $0.99(Save 90%). Print edition purchase must be sold by Amazon.Learn more.
A poetry book centered on pot written by cannabis activist and artist under the influence, Breezy Kiefair. “Of Pain, poetry, and pot.” Is a collection of cannabis centered poetry in a neobeatnik style. It includes updated versions of Allen Allen Ginsberg – Howls “howl” and “america”, along with an update on “to whom it may concern” by Adrian Mitchell , a cannabis parody of Rifleman’s Creed and many other poems that are all my own.
This review is from: Of Pain, Poetry and Pot (Kindle Edition)
Would You Like To Pick Breezy’s Brain? This wonderful book is a chance to witness the creative process at work; author Breezy Kiefair (aka Breedheen O’Rilley) is the real deal, a gifted poet/journalist/activist on the forefront of the battle for medical marijuana patients’ rights and for truth in media. And speaking of truth, emotional truth is exactly what you’ll get here. Breezy isn’t afraid to take an open-eyed, unsparing look at society, at herself, at her illnesses, at the lies we tell ourselves and each other — and at the scintillating, breathtaking beauty which is more real and more powerful than all else. Highly recommended.
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This review is from: Of Pain, Poetry and Pot (Kindle Edition)
Written by someone very intimate with pain on many different levels. Beautiful and honest. I can’t wait to find out more about this amazing young woman. I originally borrowed this book. I have now read it twice and I have to own it. It must become a part of my permanent collection, along with anything else I can find which flows from this beautiful author.
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This review is from: Of Pain, Poetry and Pot (Kindle Edition)
The poems and rhythm that comes from the author’s feelings show you that she uses her medical cannabis passion and even frustrations to put her concerns into words we can understand. You can feel her pain – you can feel her pride. The transposed songs were a great touch.
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This multi-talented artist and writer amazed me with her insightful and sometimes heartbreaking poetry. Her artwork is not only beautiful, but different from any I have seen. I have actually ordered several individual prints off her website to give as gifts this Christmas. I highly recommend this book.
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This review is from: Of Pain, Poetry and Pot (Kindle Edition)
As an activist,a woman and a HUMAN BEING,, I could feel the pain in Ms. O’Rilley’s poetry. Yet I could also feel the triumph. A must for all “pot’ lovers, I got it for 2.99 for my Kindle and it was MORE than worth it. I’ve read these poems over and over, you will too.
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This review is from: Of Pain, Poetry and Pot (Kindle Edition)
This is an excellent book written by a very gifted, unique woman Breezy Keifair. I loved the whole book and have read it a couple of times so far. She is an artist that does her work under the influence of pot for the pain she is in and you can feel that pain with her words. I could really relate to that and a lot of other things in the book. I highly recommend this book. She is also a very gifted artist besides being a good poet and writer.
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If you are looking for a safe medication, look no further than what the hemp plant can provide. On top of all that it’s a medicine we can all grow and produce ourselves. Also there is no need for a doctor’s supervision with its use.
When the hemp plant is grown for medicinal use, you now have your own medical system that is much safer and effective than anything our current medical system provides. You still may require a doctor to set your broken leg, but you will no longer need the chemicals they have been pushing upon us.
Hemp is medicine for the masses and no one has the right to control its use. We are all different and we all have different tolerances for practically everything. So it is up to each and every one of us to determine for ourselves how much oil we require to maintain good health.
Over the years people have come to me who after years of treatment by the medical system did not even have a diagnosis for their conditions. But the oil exercised its amazing healing power and their medical problems were solved.
Another aspect of the use of hemp as medicine is its anti-aging properties. As we age, our vital organs deteriorate and of course this impairs the function of these organs.
Hemp oil rejuvenates vital organs even in small doses it is very common for people to report to me that they feel 20 to 30 years younger after only ingesting the oil for a short time.
Now let’s take it to the next level. What about people who ingest larger quantities of oil over a longer period of time like myself? After 9 years on the oil my body does not appear to be that of a 60 year old man. Instead, my body has the appearance of someone who is a great deal younger. When I have the oil at my disposal I like to take about a quarter of a gram a day. Of course, due to short supply, quite often I must go without so my own treatment has been erratic to say the least.
From my own experience with the oil I cannot help but wonder what would happen if a person was to ingest larger quantities of oil over a longer period of time. If a person were to do this, can they actually reverse the aging process and grow younger instead of aging.
From the oils effect on my own body by all appearances this seems to be the case. Someday soon when I have enough oil I intend to start taking a gram a day for a year to see what effect it has on my body.
Many people who have taken the oil have stated that they thought it to be the fountain of youth. From my own experiences with the oil I believe this to be true.
*****Author’s note… the above information is my research source. It is how I learned about Phoenix Tears and why I wanted to try them… ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
*****THE BELOW information is data gathered based on personal observation. I have utmost respect for Mr. Rick Simpson and his work, but I in no way have his permission or endorsement… just for honesty and clarity.
Fat Freddy has had a sore on his back for about 3 years and it would not heal! We started putting Rick Simpson Oil on it on November 23, then the next day we checked it and then checked it every 3 days afterwards, changing the oil and bandage every 3 days as well! Here is the progress so far! (WARNING THIS IS GRAPHIC!)
On December 9, 2011 this is how the wound looked….
12/09/11 7:12pm progress on Fat Freddy’s shoulder… WOW!
*note* our supply of Phoenix Tears AKA Rick Simpson Oil AKA Hash oil ran out during the course of therapy. We substituted one treatment for Hemp-EaZe™ THERAPY CREAM. We have also been using the Hemp-EaZe™ for Baby & Me Spray to wipe away any excess oil when we change the bandage. Hemp-EaZe™ THERAPY CREAM is available here: http://tierrasolfarm.com/Hemp-EaZe-THERAPY-CREAM-333.htm Hemp-EaZe™ for Baby & Me Spray is available here: http://tierrasolfarm.com/Hemp-EaZe-for-Baby-Me-Spray-335.htm
In the future, I plan to do a blog post about my personal experience with the phoenix tears for my fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. I doubt I will have any fantastic images, but I have already seen improvement since I have been ingesting this therapy.
Fat Freddy‘s treatment began on November 23, 2011. We changed his bandage (covered with phoenix tears oil) every 3 days until around December 12, 2011.
Here is the progress from ! December 12, 2011 to December 26. 2011 (WARNING THIS IS GRAPHIC!)
We saw amazing progress. When the scab initially fell off in November, it left a pitted area from where the sore had been for so many years. In addition to healing over, this ugly pit began to fill in with pretty pink, healthy skin.
We began changing the bandage every 6 days as the healing proceeded.
I did some additional research on diabetes and it’s effects on the skin.
According to WebMD, “Every 30 seconds, somewhere in the world, someone loses a lower limb as a result of diabetes”……
In my opinion, nearly all of those amputations could be prevented if we would stop running from the cure for so many diseases & start using Rick Simpson‘s Run From The Cure method to make Hemp oil.
For more info on “Fat Freddy” of the Freak Brother’s Comics (a longtime cannabis freedom fighter and the dude whose back we are healing) please visit: http://www.fatfreddy.com/
to buy Hemp EaZe Baby & Me Spray (the non thc lotion I have been using along with the PTO) please visit:
Around one edge, some light scaling of skin remains. The scar itself continues to fill in where it had been an sunken area on the back. We are continuing to change the bandage about once a week. Have a blessed day. We will continue to update this post as we can. The authoress of the post is currently nursing a broken pelvis.
We changed the bandage this morning, lo and behold, all the scaling has gone! We are now continuing treatment only as scar reduction! It has been so amazing to watch this horrible wound heal up and begin to disappear. Here are the latest pics.
There seemed to have been a deeper infection going on. We continued therapy for scar reductive therapy. Now we have entered a second phase of deeper healing. We’re calling it the “Dave Triplett effect”
Cured: A Cannabis Story (A Film By David Triplett)
Cannabis cured my skin cancer. This is my story.
It has been proven that concentrated cannabis extract oil cures cancer.
Why hasn’t The U.S. National Cancer Institute or The American Cancer Society tested Cannabis Oil?. Is it lack of personnel (2,100 USNCI staff members) or limited financial support (USNCI 2010 budget of $5.1 Billion dollars!)
Cannabis Concentrate or extract is the same as Rick Simpson’s “Hemp Oil”. Hemp seed oil is NOT what Rick Simpson is making and using.
Google “cannabinoids” and “cancer”.
Google “endocannabinoids” and “cancer”
Google “THC” and “Cancer”.
Google pubmed, go there and look up “endocannabinoids” and “cancer”, as well as “cannabinoids” and “cancer”.
Google Dr. Robert Dr Robert Melamede and cancer”.
May 18, 2011 still images…. We left Fat Fred’s back open to the air for nearly 1 week prior to these images. This gave his skin some time to breathe without a bandage and demonstrates how quickly the phoenix tears therapy treats wounds and also how quickly a wound suffers when therapy is removed.
Washing and Debridement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debridement) of Fat Freddy’s Back. Then we cover it with a bandage covered in Phoenix Tears Oil (hash oil, hemp oil, concentrated cannabis oil)
musical selection composed by: Tchaikovsky
“Nutcracker Suite” “March”
Continuing the healing with phoenix tears therapy on Fat Freddy’s back. We suspect the sore to be a diabetic ulcer and/or skin cancer. Fat Freddy does not like doctors, so a “proper diagnosis” is impossible. There is already a lively debate in the comments on youtube for this video. I will be altering my method slightly to prove a point because of the complaints registered there.
We show what 11 days without the Phoenix tears therapy does and discuss the Naphtha video a little more. Fat Freddy has a few words to say to you as well.
October 29, 2012 UPDATE and FINAL WORDS ON THIS POST:
I must admit that I have not updated you all on this story in FAR too long. I must also admit that all I was truly able to do for this ulcer is to prevent it from becoming overly dangerous to a very resistive patient. I could have achieved more success had I been able to convince Fat Freddy to stop wearing his suspenders. I believe that the wound began as a pressure sore from those suspenders, and as long as he continues to wear them, he will continue to have a sore there. During my prolonged illness this summer, I had someone else take over his wound care for a time. They did not follow instructions or treat his wound and within a few weeks, his shoulder looked like the “before” images in this post. When therapy resumed, his wound resumed the healing process and was back to the level of healing it had been when I last provided documentation. I have a few videos and images that have been piling up on this story, however due to the patient’s stubbornness, I have little faith that this wound will ever truly heal. What can be done is continuing the therapy and preventing a major infection in a geriatric body.
I want to say a few things about who Fat Freddy is and how he came to life as a human for all who don’t know about it. In the form of a comic book, Fat Freddy is a name that Gilbert Shelton created from his own mind in 1969. The comic book stories were conceived and written by Gilbert and others. I will now try to explain the truth about what has happened over the last 30 years.
Gilbert Shelton went to college at The Univ. of Texas and had some good friends there. Three of them were to become the basis for his comic book. There was Joe Brown and the real Fat Freddy, they were into getting high while they went to school. Joe Brown told this story to me before his death in 1988. While in school Joe brown met a man his name was Mable (Ralph Moore) he was a dope smuggler from Memphis Tenn. from 1954. I can say his name now because he to has passed away.
In 1954 Ralph took his family on vacation to Ft. Lauderdale Fla. He was a taxi cab driver in Memphis and when people would ask for him to take them to a whorehouse, he would take them to Mables. In doing so he got the name of Mable. In Ft. Lauderdale he met some bikers from California who told him about the starting trade in Marijuana smuggling from Mexico. He was interested in this so he went home and sold his house, cab and all he could, quit his job, got a divorce and went to Mexico to build his trade.
He worked at this until 1967/68 and then retired from it, in doing so he picked up a hitchhiker by the name of Joe Brown. Who then with his other friends in Austin became his friends. Mable moved into Austin and got to know Gilbert, Joe, and Fat Freddy well. In being a dope smuggler he was wealthy, so when graduation came for them Mable called them together and told them that he wanted to give each one a gift.
Joe Brown said he wanted to have a head shop, so Ralph bought a house and they named it Oat Willies. Joe said he owned it for three years and then sold it as he stayed to stoned, to keep it running. It has since become the largest one around.
Gilbert Shelton said he wanted to start a comic book so Ralph bought him The Rip off Press and gave it to him. He then started the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and others. They were named: Freewheeling Franklin (Joe Brown), Phineas (Gilberts imagination), and Fat Freddy (Unknown). These became comics of the early 1970’s.
The original Fat Freddy told Ralph that he had had enough and wanted nothing but his name never to be mentioned again. Ralph said OK to him. They then went there own ways Joe owned Oat Willies and after he sold it became a taxi cab driver in Austin where he was when I met him. Gilbert started The Rip off Press and was in California. Fat Freddy disappeared.
Now it gets to me, I knew nothing about the story above in 1976 when I met Ralph Moore and became his friend. I was working for Southwestern Bell at the time and due to a divorce I got into reading The Furry Freak Brothers (I like the Cat.). They had a concert in Austin that gave me the idea to put one on called The Furry Freak Brothers First Annual Freak Party Convention. I started to put it together in March 1976. Booking bands for October 1976. I was going to go on stage as Fat Freddy using Cheech & Chong as MCs. I talked to Cheech to book them.
I set up the bands and got an attorney to handle it, so it was set up as well as it could be. In telling my attorney that I was to go on stage as Fat Freddy, she said that he was copyrighted and I could not unless I got permission to from Gilbert Shelton. So I called The Rip Off press 8 Times in one day to get it from Gilbert, but he was always out of the office or not available. In other words, he was putting me off this pissed me off.
So in going home that night I went by my friends house (Ralph Moore) and in going in he said: “ You are mad about something, what is bothering you?” I said: “I’ve called Gilbert Shelton 8 times and he won’t talk to me about Fat Freddy. He keeps putting me off.” Ralph then said: “You want to talk to Gilbert? Then he then reached over and picked up his phone and dialed the # from his memory and said “This is Ralph I want to talk to Gilbert. Gilbert a friend of mine wants to talk to you.” He then gave me the phone. I talked to Gilbert and he gave me my copyright protection so I then became Fat Freddy to go on stage as him. Ralph asked me if I would be home later I said I would.
About an hour later he called me and asked if I would come over to his house. I went over and there was Ralph and a longhaired blond headed man with him. Ralph then said “I want to introduce you to the real Freewheeling Franklin, his name is Joe Brown.” They then gave me a comic book and told me that of all the stories that Gilbert wrote only one was true and it was in that book. It was about when Joe met Ralph and was only two pages long. In reading it I will have to say it was just like them in real life. Right down to the point where Ralph said he didn’t smoke Grass. I talked him into smoking a joint with me and Joe one time and was told by Joe that was the only joint he had ever smoked with him since they met.
I knew these two men and had the opportunity to learn a lot about there life of the past. I spent many a long hour with them both in conversation about how they lived. Mable was killed in Memphis in 1979 and was buried in Austin Texas. I, like Joe Brown have never been to his grave. We feel that the law is still video taping it.
I was hurt in a motorcycle accident in Oct. 1988 the same year that Joe Brown passed away. So now there is only Gilbert and I still alive in this world. I have no idea what is going to happen with this story now. The Rip Off Press has gone out of business and that leaves me free to put out a Fat Freddy comic book that is a true story of my life minus the CAT of whom I liked a lot. I hope some day that Gilbert will bring it back into my life – who knows.
Note from Breezy…. Fat Freddy now lives in Colorado. He is the proud holder of a Medicinal Cannabis License commonly known as a “Red Card”. He continues his activism fight. He has been using Phoenix Tears Oil to treat his diabetes (both internally and skin symptoms of the disease topically) please visit the documentation of this amazing healing beginning here
Please also see the recent blog post about meeting Fat Freddy in person written by writer and #Occupy Together protester Steve Bass here
Whew! These Occupy posts are far more difficult to pry from myself than their predecessors; the hands-on mechanics of putting the earlier stuff into practice in the present world, amongst the isolated pools of individuated consciousness we humans represent, each with his or her own vision of the whole, has been at the very least disorienting. I’ve lately revived an old motto i swiped from the good people at Oat Willie’s down in Austin, Texas: Onward Through the Fog! How odd is it that i’ve recently connected with some folks that hark back to that place in ways that are deeply surreal. Oat Willie’s and Fat Freddie will seem to be completely out of place in this bit, in which i mean to address the notion of cooperation amongst disparate factions, but not permanently i hope. By the end of this post, i hope to connect Occupy, The Tea Party, disparate passions, and yes, Hippies. It will be necessary to engage in some relatively surreal thinking.Last night on a new Facebook page, “UNITE: OCCUPY,” (cap lock and all), i got into a conversation about this stuff started by a guy that asked whether anyone thought a joint event between Occupiers and Tea Partiers might be possible. Sure, i said, our Colorado Springs group had lots of Tea Partiers among its earliest enthusiasts, and although many have pulled away, there still exists a close association with many that veer sharply toward the Te Party camp, especially among Ron Paulsupporters. The common ground Occupy shares with the Tea Party, at least t a grass root level, is substantial. There can be no doubt of the equally substantial differences. I suspect that it would take some pretty serious ideological barnstorming to bring the two camps together, but nothing prevents the groups from at least tentative discussion to find commonalities.Tonight our Occupy group staged a talk by Tea Party stalwart, ConstitutionalistMike Holler. Mike seemed for all appearances to be an earnest and well-versed supporter of Constitutional “fundamentalism,” if you will. He peppered his talk with lots of my favorite quotes from my favorite founding fathers. He got a little testy about the revisionist history his kids bring home from college early on–perhaps indicative of one point of separation between Occupiers and Tea Partiers. Some of those are important. Occupy is international, where the Tea Party can display degrees of jingoism. I, personally, respect the earnest efforts of our Enlightenment founders, but recognize that they were flawed, and aver that their document was dated by racist, sexist, and elitist provisions and thinking that they might be excused from by noting their temporal milieu. We don’t have the same luxury. Occupy is legitimately grass root, supported by sweat and blood more than funded, where TP is, or at least became very quickly corporately funded “AstroTurf,” disingenuously proffering libertarian ideals as a smoke screen for corporate license to plunder. Occupiers are in my experience far more diverse than Tea Partiers. Socialist and Anarchist Occupiers are common, as are assorted races, genders, orientations, and religious persuasions, where Tea Partiers seem to my limited observation to be relatively homogeneously white Christian capitalist patriots. Mike interjected that both groups had been misrepresented by the media, and that seems likely to be so given that mainstream media seems content to misrepresent ’bout anything they report in this country, but Fox news and the rabid right like the Tea Party so much i have to wonder if he’s fallen victim to a personal soft spot.Mike spoke eloquently enough in his effort to simplify the Constitution, focusing on issues of freedom, and state’s rights. He said very little with which i could find disagreement. He pointed out two major points of confluence between Occupy and the Tea Party–personal liberty, and a rally-cry, “No more Bailouts!” I suspect he fastidiously avoided some points he knew or at least feared might be contentious, like for example the ludicrous assertions i’ve heard often that environmental warnings from the scientific community stem from some kind of Satanic control scheme from the–well just whom is never too clear. The Vatican or something. Commies, i guess. That just maybe the best way for Tea Partiers and Occupiers to interact, though, for now, concentrating on the common aversion to what amounts to Fascism. Interacting from that perspective could exclude much conversation. It could put the Tea Party in the same position as the Occupy movement, after their Fascist sponsors withdraw in horror. Whatever. We Occupiers got on just fine with Tea Party Mike–“Mr. Constitution.”Mike largely expressed notions we Occupiers could embrace. I suppose he could have done a bit of research and tailored his speech toward that end, but i think we just agree; he seemed a grassroot kind of guy, to me. He briefly alluded to schisms within the Tea Party, and there’s no sensible reason to avoid acknowledging the same within Occupy. Last night’s event was attended by Occupy people that have had such extreme altercations in their attempts to wrestle a semblance of ideological unity from a stubbornly liquid platform that it could easily enough have disintegrated into bedlam. I attended with my dear friend Thomas, with whom i often disagree. In fact, he and i often disagree so strongly that sometimes i feel like smacking him in back of the head. I expect he feels the same way about me at times. Maybe much of the time. Take note, war-mongers of the world: Thomas is a great guy, and even though we disagree with one another, sometimes strongly, neither of us has smacked the other in back of the head. Get it?So here we were last night, disparate Occupiers engaging a Tea Party mouthpiece in a room full of people that have all experienced the vagaries of human interaction under a fairly pressurized circumstance over the past few months. No butterflies fluttered around the room, but no one worked up a bickering session, either. We worked together. All of us. One could recall the old adage that “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” but that would be devolution. I prefer to imagine that those with arguments present recognized the futility of scrapping amongst friends, if only below the radar of their Egos. Whether my nobler hopes for those pained souls in the room last night are valid or not, the assertions i made in these non-pages well before Occupy began remain true. The system we wrestle against is collapsing around our heads. And the solution is spiritual, to a far greater extent than it is temporal.Fat Freddy is a comic book character that lives in Denver. Seriously. I met him a little while ago. (This only seems out of place, i promise.) Mr. Constitution Mike Holler expressed the opinion last night that our American republic, our constitutional federation of states, is in its final throes; that we are in a position where, ” it’s too late to save the country, but too early to start shooting.” Mike seemed tentative in expressing his hope that God might pull some kind of supernatural rabbit from his celestial hat to resolve our monumental national woes. I expect he feared perturbing the often non-Christian sensibilities of the Occupiers. He needn’t have worried quite so much–we may be largely skeptical of literal interpretations, but we’re pretty tolerant of that sort of thing. When i met Fat Freddy–an icon of counter-cultural activism important to me since childhood, an old-school Hippie with connection to the most famous and infamous of that crowd–he singled me out and pulled me aside to explain in some detail his expectation for a spiritual upheaval in coming days. Freddy’s taken up with the Urantia Book, a tomei’ve heard Christians disparage as devilish. I couldn’t see anything devilish about what he showed me. He earnestly explained his expectation for resolution. Soon.We had come to Denver to talk about foreclosures and bank jiggery-pokery with another guy, and pulled up at Freddy’s house without knowing it. It just happened that way. These old Hippies like Tea Party fave, Ron Paul. (Follow along, now, i know it’s weird, and yeah, i know a lot of Occupiers don’t like Paul; i’m not sure about him myself). Also in attendance at that meeting was a woman i had been conversing with on line for quite a while in the context of Occupy. It took me nearly through the whole meeting to recognize her, because i knew her to live down in the Four Corners neighborhood of Colorado. She lives at Freddy’s now. This juxtaposition is so weird that now i’m expecting the Mad Hatter, or Lewis Carroll himself to pop up at some meeting quoting from Jabberwocky. Mike Holler holds out for resolution to the country’s woes in a traditional Christian context. My own suspicion, shared with J.B.S. Haldane, is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. But somewhere in the mix i am convinced that some divineThing many of us think of as God is deeply interested in the little proceedings here on our little blue marble and that our interactions are subsequently and necessarily thus influenced.
We live right here. We have no choice but to manage things on a coarse, physical level; but we also live, i think, on an overlapping and less tangible plane, where we have more influence than we might ordinarily imagine. At the same time, things seem to occur there without our conscious direction. We’ll need to keep plugging away at things like grasping the Constitution, and taking on massive, quixotic quests like fighting banks and a world full of renegade, intransigent governments and power brokers, not to mention our own internal battles, as finely defined as within our own Souls. We’ll need to recognize the Truth in one another, even when it’s obscured by a bunch of worldly disagreement and fog. And so far as i can tell, were learning. Whatever that means.
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