While Being amidst a large-scale culmination time this winter, a few weeks ago I began freshly exploring “The Land of Our Births”—the United States of America, starting with its originations—from a perspective of Understanding the various background threads that have made up our nation‘s overall and complex story. Along the way I have been placing that picture in a global context—our country‘s relationship or lack of same with other countries. And beyond that, I have been Seeing the whole thing within what I‘ve called a spirit-being experiment for the past thousands of years, where trouble-causing patterns were energized by spirit-being humans and played out as experiences in individual, group, and national Lives. All together, it has become a dynamic tapestry.
One conclusion that has emerged so far is that not only is it quite likely there has been a vaster spirit-being experiment taking place globally for thousands of years, the United States of America may also be an experiment—that is, its origination and development has been and is an experiment within a bigger experiment, (which is a probability I am currently delving into).
Yes, almost a year ago I did successfully dissolve plans I had for any more studies such as going back into the U.S. historical past and threading out the earlier patterns which have evolved and grown to the present—which was wonderfully freeing at the time! Then as “I” personally evolved and expanded, a few weeks ago inner urgings directed me to get into the two small baskets of materials I had collected about “The Land of Our Births.” They were still cozily stored under my desk upstairs (which I had not taken downstairs yet).
Within the baskets, in addition to many other materials, I discovered one DVD and two CD courses from The Teaching Company that I had previously purchased during their sales, before removing that study from my future plans … all of which I had not seen or heard yet. They included America‘s religious history, its philosophy and intellectual history, and Frenchman Alexis de Touqueville‘s observations about the U.S. during his visit here in 1831 and 1832, from which he later wrote Democracy in America, a two-volume study of the American people and their institutions. When I asked Jim if he was interested in joining me while I watched and heard the DVD and CD courses, he was positive—seeing it as a great finale to many of the studies we had done in earlier years.
At the time when I asked Jim if he was interested in joining me with my U.S. historical focuses, along with still and video photography, he was immersed in his musical interests and studies, focusing on composer Richard Rodgers‘ accomplishments with his two main collaborators, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. He was also bringing in other composers from that era—primarily the first half of the 20th century—like Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin. (Jim is entranced with beautiful melodies and harmonies, and thinks he may eventually like to do his own composing.)
The above people were all connected to stage productions in New York City, from which many Hollywood movies were later made. Therefore, Jim‘s New York stage interests have correlated with my earlier Life in southern California from the later 1930s through most of the 1940s. I have laughingly said that while other families went to church together on Sunday, in those years my family‘s weekly activity was a Friday night double feature at a local movie theater … all of which fed us participants at church and the movie theaters weekly doses of certain cultural patterns at the time. (In those years my parents believed in a remote God “up there” to whom they prayed nightly, and I was free to attend numerous Protestant Sunday schools and churches with various friends.)
My mother especially loved musicals and musical comedies, so over the years I probably saw more than a hundred of them. Anyway, this winter Jim and I have been and are watching many DVDs of earlier movies, such as Kern and Hammerstein‘s Showboat; Rodger‘s and Hart‘s Pal Joey; and films based on some of Rodgers and Hammerstein‘s Broadway productions: Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music. Last week we saw State Fair, the only musical Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote directly for film. We both have greatly appreciated Oscar Hammerstein‘s lyrics, starting with Showboat. Oscar described himself as 1/3 realist and 2/3 mystic, and I certainly agree. To my mind, his lyrics often went far beyond poetry and spirituality.
After Jim decided to join with me and my American history DVD/CD studies, he and I began to correlate our evening film-watching with my materials, and it has really worked out well as many elements of our American past have become vibrantly alive nightly. Also, it‘s been very enlightening to See those movie “models-for-life” from my current-day perspectives and who/what I Am today.
A major difference between the plan I had envisioned almost a year ago about studying the multiple patterns that are embedded in our United States‘ past and what I have been doing recently, is its scope and purpose. Even though I‘ve been going through a lot of materials, both during the day and with Jim in the evening, I‘ve been doing it primarily as a personal process, instead of doing it as a pattern study to then write about.
Concurrently, with considerable Compassion and interest I‘ve been following recent events as they have unfolded in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere. Connecting those events with my American history studies, the original United States of America as we know it today was founded by people with desires for more personal freedom from their previous restrictions along with enhanced economic opportunities. And in the present I have been witnessing people in other parts of the world also seeking more freedom from their previous restrictions along with more economic opportunities too.
What will happen now? Obviously this is a very different world today than the one out of which the United States of America came into existence. As I Understand it, the combined human species within our global industrial matrixes has been using up many of the world‘s natural resources, including clean water and fertile soils. The human population is currently a little over seven billion. And today, we‘re all living on an Earth where there are dramatic climate-change effects manifesting—floods, drought, severe weather, and people who are hungry and homeless. (Nonetheless, I think that trying to feed people and animals with genetically modified food is an unwise choice.)
So how can young people, and people of all ages around the world attain their goals of better Lives in an environment of increasing pollution and diminished/diminishing natural resources? What is a better Life? It seems to me the answers need to come from multitudes of individuals effectively using her or his own point of divine power amidst an expanded dimension of Oneness. And I think that standing back as a liberated spirit-being human amidst any culture in today‘s world can be both an identity and a position anyone anywhere on the globe can choose to use.
With Unlimited Best Wishes To Us All, J.
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