If there is a single force that generates inequality, violence and war throughout the world, and therefore this day of memorial, I vote for the self-image we create gazing up for assurance and approval as infants. At this early stage of development what emerges from that glance is not a fixed image, rather feelings of acceptance, of care, welcoming, understanding, empathy, encouragement or their opposites; rejection, anger, frustration, neglect and the various forms of abuse.

Over time the repetition of these feelings coalesce, merge, form predictable patterns and these in turn create the scaffolding upon which our social identity is formed. Belonging means survival. Rejection could mean death. So we began to judge our worth and value based on the emotional reactions we experience in the mirror of relationship.

We all know that nurturing cooperative, creative, egalitarian individuals and societies is essential. The key that establishes this is turned very early. Research physiologist James Prescott, surgeon-epidemiologist researcher Michel Odent, author Joseph Chilton Pearce and clinical psychologist and researcher David Chamberlain have been saying and writing for 50 years that the deep, living, “primal” channel of communication we call “bonding” or “attachment” sets the biological template for either peaceful, expansive personal and cultural development or for fear-based, defensive, selfish, aggressive or passive personal and collective stagnation.

The nature and quality of the mother-infant bond, or lack of it, physiologically shapes the primal wiring that determines our interpretation of personal and collective relationships. And it does so for a lifetime, resulting in children, adults and cultures that are fundamentally calm, cooperative, creative and peaceful, are able to form and sustain meaningful relationships, or not. 

When full bonding fails or is damaged, which can begin before conception, not only individuals but families and entire cultures can become anxious or depressed, addicted – whether to substances, activities or greed, chronically ill and/or unhappy, self-abusive or violent. Interfering with the intimate continuum of this process is a crime against children and the natural world.

We must again learn to uphold and respect human bonding as a critical life sustaining ecological process and priority.

The greatest obstacle to meeting this challenge is not the biological imperative and intelligence to care for and protect our children; rather it is socialization and cultural beliefs that impair or prevent full bonding from unfolding. Millions of years of innate intelligence are in conflict with cultural conditioning and the root of this conflict is embodied in our social identity, our self-image.

Walking to the office I laughed at the myth that governments are by or for the people. Looking back to the days of the Vikings, the so called age of discovery, colonialism, imperialism, the BIG Lies that resulted in the rape for oil of Iraq and Libya, the planned turning of the ‘war on terror’ on the people, full body airport scanning, GPS tracking of every phone, every email, the militarization of local police – can anyone in their right mind believe all this is by and for the people? Totalitarian systems always begin by rewriting the law. CA Bill 2109, for example, masquerading as a vaccine safety issue. It is not.

“This bill, if passed, would require parents to obtain the signature of a “health care practitioner” for a personal beliefs/religious exemption. MDs, nurse practitioners, and physician’s assistants can sign. Naturopaths and chiropractors cannot.”

This is a constitutional issue - a de facto negation of the Bill of Rights, forcing parents to get PERMISSION to opt out of a voluntary medical procedure by asking a doctor if it's OK not to choose a controversial medical procedure like vaccines, which the manufacturers themselves admit is dangerous. And they are....

Please don't miss this important interview with Dr. Blaylock
This is important information. mm
Dr Blaylock - Why Vaccines Are Not Safe

Having realized in the past 2 years that they are losing the debate on vaccine safety, organized medicine has taken a completely different tack: outlaw the debate itself. Don't debate: Legislate.

We are not what we think we are, of that I am sure. And yet, what we think we are shapes our behavior, the quality of our relationships, our values, feelings of right and wrong, justice, and compassion. The key to personal and social transformation, which as we will see, are the same thing, is ‘identity.’

A breathtaking scientist, author and friend, Howard Bloom, writes about social biology, how independent particles, molecules, simple organisms team up to form super-organisms, how they share information, act in unison, form even bigger networks or gangs called species, on and on. Zooming back these appear as continents, oceans, planets, solar systems and galaxies, all moving, changing, forever.

Where do we draw the line that separates ‘me’ from everything else? The sieve-like membrane we call skin is so full of holes it forms no boundary at all. 30% to 40% of our body weight is bacteria and other parasite-guests hitching a ride. Without these micro-beasts we would not be. Is the bacteria living inside each of us – us? If not, we are a little more than half of what we think we are.

Perhaps we are defined by our thoughts which seem to emanate from nowhere between our ears, in the black hole just behind eyes. But thoughts just don’t happen, nor do feelings. Thoughts and feelings are shadows first cast by sensations coming from out there and then bouncing around like pinballs inside, triggering feeling and thinking bells along the way. Take away out there and in here disappears too. Inner and outer give rise to each other, and I am both.

Every now and then something new appears, a fresh perception. Musing about the reciprocal nature of what we are – suddenly, after reading a particularly explosive paragraph Howard had written, there it was. What I call me, my social-cultural identity, my personal ego or image of self-inside and the outer images that make up the culture-outside are the same. Looking through different ends of a toy telescope the inner and outer appear completely different – but they are, in fact, the same process, both are images.

Right, wrong, do this, not this, good boy, bad girl, language, the names we give things are all embodied reflections of the collective super-ego we call culture. Growing up, needing to belong, we personify these collective images as a self-image, and that’s what I think I am, but am not.

Compassion? Wisdom?
Sorry, no one by that name lives here...

My son recently graduated from college. He could have been one of these UC Davis students. The well fed skin-head on the right is the riot clad officer hosing our children with pepper spray as they sit, Gandhi style, arm in arm, nonviolently. This act, not by students but by our friend the civil mercenary, and others like it around the world (see below), rips the thin skin of civility off our eyes. Serving and protecting, yes, but who and what? Watching his unaffected cruelty, like food poisoning, vomits up the question, How could he do such a thing?

In 1981 when a friend was nearly raped and murdered by a stalking stranger I asked the same question, Why would a man do such a thing? How can a man who supposedly loves his wife beat her so violently it caused brain damage? Or a coach, scream at an eight year old for dropping a ball? Violence is so easy, so natural. Or is it?

I must be a psycho or suffer from multiple personality disorder. Part of me gazes out, soaking in the world and can’t find anything to be thankful for. Not one thing. The other part, gentle as a lam, could walk hand in hand with St. Francis of Assisi through a forests of wild beast turned peaceful by the simple fact that we were not acting like the wacked out human beings that we are. We are the mad species and every creature, tree and blade of grass in the garden knows it. That’s why we were tossed out long ago.

Indeed, each of us is brimming with boundless innate goodness. And every one of us is carrying around a brain chock full of nonsense, calling ourselves Democrats, Republicans, all the ideologies, all the religions, nationalities, casts, races and the self-centered money-power-politics this collective madness spawns.

Our hypocrisy is so vast, so blatant. We teach our little children about the first Thanks Giving when the nice Indians helped the Pilgrims. We don’t tell them that Columbus boiled their grandparents in oil or that we, white God serving men and women, used biological warfare (smallpox) to steal these first nation people’s land and murder off their culture. We are a greedy, selfish, self-righteous lot and proud of it.

I love social media (sometimes) because it helps us see that we are not alone and crazy. Others are as concerned as we are. What we need to do, each and every one is to pick a cause, get upset and get involved. Each of us must become pro-activists, passionate and skilled at creating nonviolently the world we know is possible, one driven not by books, religious-political propaganda and dogma, not by fear and greed, by the flowering of innate human kindness, creativity and values.

Regarding our recient newsletter:

We are attracted to experiences that feel good and turn away from those that hurt, pleasure and pain. Both are driven by millions of years of natural intelligence.

“The addict’s reliance on the drug to reawaken her dulled feelings is no adolescent caprice.
The dullness is itself the consequence of an emotional malfunction not of her making.”

Gabor Mate, MD, Author,
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Close Encounters with Addiction

More on Pleasure, Pain and the Developing Brain

The development of each new human being involves the complete evolutionary process of life on the planet. Native traditions recognize and honor this fact. Western civilization, driven by an anti-feminine passion for male intellect does not, thus the classic mind-body split. One self-world view nurtures the deep ecology that we are, the other attempts to dominate and control nature, including our own.

In each of us is the entire process of creation, what Joseph Chilton Pearce calls Evolution’s End. Each stage of development anticipates the past and creates the necessary foundation for the next unknowable leap forward to unfold. The developing fetus in the liquid world of the womb, for example, has no use for lungs and yet creates lungs anticipating an oxygenated environment it ‘knows’ nothing about. The entire spectrum of human development implies this unfolding anticipation and unknowable expectation.