Morningstar East

Morningstar Mesa above Arroyo Hondo

I have been searching for pictures of the pueblo at Morningstar East on the mesa across the highway from New Buffalo in Arroyo Hondo New Mexico. I have only found a few and none that show the most marvelous part of the structure, the kiva. Nothing has been published and I'm wondering whether anyone took pictures of anything on the east side of the highway. Reality Construction Company shared the same property and I don't find anything of it either.

Dream Escape Postcard

Dream Escape Postcard

Time passes…

I’m awake.

My lover sleeps.

What holds me

In the past?

What holds my heart in abeyance?

Where does shame become

A bludgeon to wake my dreams?

Longing takes a turn

Towards rage and rage

Takes a detour:

A flat … air let out… a slow leak.

Mahayana wheels

Worn to the wires

On the rutted-road of remorse.

Changing the tire…

Shit! No spare…

Echoes of high Himalayan

Despair’s night of the

Void I rest my soul…

A vehicle frozen in time.

High desert landscape

Left of old Route 66…

An empty highway

Nostalgia sick

I send a postcard dreamscape

Of this glassy mirage.

Are You a Psychopath?

From an article in Salon. Psychopaths: how can you spot one?

By Tom Chivers

Posted 04/06/14

Here is a list of 20 criteria, each given a score of 0 (if it doesn’t apply). 1. (if it partially applies). 2. (if it fully applies). The list is composed by the criminal psychologist, Professor Robert Hare, creator of the PCL-R, a psychological assessment used to determine whether someone is a psychopath.

If ya feel like taking a look... how do you score?

     1.      Glibness and superficial charm.

     2.      Grandiose sense of self-worth.

     3.      Pathological lying.

     4.      Cunning/manipulative.

     5.      Lack of remorse.

     6.      Emotional shallowness.

     7.      Callousness and lack of empathy.

     8.      Unwillingness to accept responsibility for actions.  

     9.      A tendency to boredom.

   10.     A parasitic lifestyle.

   11.     A lack of realistic long-term goals.

   12.     Impulsivity.

   13.     Irresponsibility.

   14.     Lack of behavioral control.

   15.     Behavioral problems in early life.

   16.     Juvenile delinquency.

   17.     Criminal versatility.

   18.     A history of revocation of conditional release (I.e. broken parole).

   19.     Multiple marriages.

   20.     Promiscuous sexual behavior.

A pure psychopath will score a perfect 40. A score of 30 + qualifies as a diagnosis of psychopathy. Most certainly above 35 or 36.

The terms cognitive empathy and emotional empathy were of the most interest to me. Cognitive empathy is the ability to know what others are feeling and emotional empathy is the ability to feel what others are feeling. A typical psychopath lacks emotional empathy but is quite adept at knowing what you are feeling, thinking and so on. 

I suspect that most people read these lists and see many of these traits in ourselves... at least I do. At various times it appears that most of us just don't give a damn one way or another how others feel about anything outside of our immediate circle of family or friends. CEO's, politicians, sales people, and poke players may have developed a high degree of cognitive empathy but are sometimes lacking emotional empathy. They can say "I feel your pain" but simply don't give a shit accept for manipulating our emotions to close the deal. 

I include myself in this analysis. My emotional empathy is stunted. I know it is and am sometimes actively developing a seed of it that needs nurturing. I don't say this to set myself aside from those who are naturally empathetic so much as to recognize it for what it is. Though I'm no Ted Bundy, I am confident that I score higher than most. I'm thinking that this might have something to do with being an Alpha male. Maybe... maybe not.

Fear of Death

Renunciation is realizing that samsāra is full of shit.

Chogyam Trungpa: Wisdom of No Escape

&

The question was posted on facebook: “If you were given a book with the story of your life, would you read the end?” My snide answer was, “Sure, why not. Most of it fiction anyhow.” I should qualify my answer: That depends on who is writing it. It would be okay with me if I was the author because I would have been in control of the ending. If it is written by the great magician of samsara; Kama-Mara, then it would not be so bad either because I would know that this too is an illusion. I would know that the bag of skin I call George drops away. It does so eventually at regardless of who writes it.

            Death is where the rubber hits the road in spiritual practice. A life well lived, while not exactly welcoming death, is certainly most prepared for it. Once I thought that all this preoccupation with death of most spiritual disciplines were fear based but I came to realize that death is always near us. The seemingly randomness of it can be frightening until it is accepted. There are combat veterans that can relate to the way a bullet or a bomb can zap… crack the illusion of life in a nano-second. In that nano-second the veil of karma is exposed as part of the delusion that one life is more important than another. It just doesn’t matter how good or bad you are, how brave or cowardly, or even how well trained… in the field of combat there is no choice. Shit happens and then whew! Gone.

            Religions can be based on fear of death; but, in actuality, religions merely present a door to be opened to the realization that death is nothing to fear. A better question for this idea is: “Where were you before you were born?” The answer for me would be: “OM.”

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