A Vision To Which I Might Give My All

November 16, 2019

3:13 a.m.

This is the moment that I understand finally the commitment needed to leave the drugs alone. 

She asked: “What is so wrong with the world that it doesn’t deserve your best?”

Nothing.

There is nothing wrong with the world. I love people.  I love helping people. I love the land, I love working on the land, being with nature. I don’t mind the institutions, so far as the people that populate them. 

It’s the systems that I despise.

The systems of greed, power, divisiveness, borders and hierarchies.  The inequities and imbalances that are centuries old. 

Our governments, schools, economies, infrastructure – these things all subtly serve some unseen power, that so coldly shuts out the average human and makes us all servants to this tilted labyrinth with unseen hands twisting the wheels.

These systems dehumanize us.  Make us small, weak, alone; pit us against each other in some infernal and eternal contest.  I am noticing that it is impossible, at least for me, to not sense the evil laugh at the bottom of my psyche – in the tiniest corner of my ear, when someone who is “just doing their job” inflicts soul hurt on another human; not my laugh either.  The one that underpins all the broken value covenants within Bizarro Rousseau’s Social Contract.

This is why I couldn’t go into business. 

The very principle of charging more for something that I received at a relatively inexpensive price, the “margin”, flies in the face of my understanding of relational economy… of a human economy. 

Maybe it’s just me, but this truly is my dilemma.  And I usually carry a sinking feeling after engaging in that world – the shiny lights, the bells and whistles; the glucose, the social angst and competitive mean streak many of us seem to have inherited and cherish so dearly – these things that conceal and mask the heinous underpinnings to so much of what we do in the world.

I use the word "heinous" though sometimes simply because it’s drudgery, meaningless; thankless.  We are actors on a stage that we didn’t build, that sometimes we don’t understand, and all the while we are ALL CHASING PLASTIC PICTURES OF THE QUEEN. 

What the actual fuck?

This is the Royalty, (at least on our shiny new Canadian plastibucks) who I’ve been led to understand, hail from Austria; descendants, it’s rumoured, of Vlad the Merry Old Impaler, that sits upon the throne that mostly fucked up the world’s earthloving brown, red and black races.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I got nothing against white folk and their ancestral backgrounds and unique gifts they’ve brought to the world.  But these fucking systems, which seem to have all trickled down from the biggest fucking bullies throughout time are the scourge of humanity and tickle the visceral virtual clitori of each one us of with their power, availability and proliferation of creature comforts and guiltless engagement in depravities that can potentially numb our souls. 

And the uberwealthy families who supposedly drive this train that is hurtling us towards planetary destruction. 

Supposedly drive the train he said… 

We are actually the ones pulling the levers and shovelling the coal.  But there are so many layers of separation and confusion, and we have become so preoccupied that the systems we inherit are the right ones for our world, that we cannot see the #onelove#onerace forest for the #selfish#greedy#mineallmine trees.

Sigh.

So, yeah: Back to the dope. 

The inequities and imbalances trickle down through the generations and our families and our unique positions on the twisted labyrinth, and land in our precious perfect childhood psyches as so much abuse, alcoholic/addicted inflicted pain, indifference, absent parents; even simple greed and “chasing the American Dream”, buying a bigger house, bigger TV, German car, etc, etc..  Or the familiar refrain “I will be so happy when _____”  

All these and so many more purposely misguided societal engineering blights (which service the creepy masters andmistresses who must be right fucked to allow this shit to go on) and substances, aberrant behaviours (suggestively shown on prime time and often slipped into our morning drive time or coffee) and congruent psychoses and coldly inhuman, fear based clubs which pander to the basest caveman power centres (Alberta separation anyone? Lol)

And we ALL find our various solaces, salvation and slipstream in the cornucopia of choices presented to us. 

And that little dark voice within.. Our Shadow..  well, sometimes that precious and devious scarred and scared core protector grabs fucking hold of some soul salve – be it  the VLT or Slots, booze, Methamphuckingphetamine, sexual obsessive behaviours, getting MORE money, shit, cars, whatever, going faster, being better, brighter, stronger – and in trying to define who we are, limpidly and desperately from adding shit OUTSIDE of us, Shadow takes us to the depths of depravity that the masters of this fucking roller coaster seem to have wanted for us all along.

"Fuckin' rights bros and brosettes! Stoodis...
Hit that bong, pop that top, tap that ass, spin to win and winner take all!"

The most relevant and important truth, is that everything we need for comfort and security is INSIDE of us. 

It grows and blooms in our hearts very much like God would, if we allowed that concept to live in all of us, equally.  Instead, people hoard their God and pretend he/she belongs to them alone. 

Nonsense. 

I have been trying to fill the holes in my heart with pot, booze, gambling, women, food, crack cocaine, sexual obsessiveness and other things that emanate from my beefy LIZARD BRAIN, due to the inevitability of the social program that I walked into all trustingly and lovingly and the availability of all those damn things and my “almost worn thin” .. nay, worn thin, shucking and jiving and multiply abused gifts and talents.

My God is love and she blooms everywhere I look.

Well, except box stores.. lol just think of all the exploitation and ripoffs that little piece of bric a brac took part in from Taiwan or Malaysia to Sherwood Park and the profits pretty much go the same old, Old, OOoold Money families that run the shiznit.

Well, I had about a fuckin nuff. 

My new friend said, “What is it about the world that makes you feel that it doesn’t deserve your best?”

All that shit I just spewed out after another slip.

But just now, at 3:10 a.m., I saw clearly my place in this world.  

It is as a builder of community. 

Of a new manner of living; as a teacher and a helper and a doer and mover and a shaker and a singer and a cook and a writer.  

As a spreader of heart love, and a lover and respecter of one Gaiagift of a Woman (yes, you love) and a father, son, cousin, uncle, nephew, grandson, friend,etc. who might earn the love and respect of the people who know him best, (and who he probably owes a few bucks to! :  ) IF ONLY HE MIGHT GET THROUGH THE DAY WITHOUT PICKING UP or falling prey to the beguiling temptations of Vlad the Impaler’s Amusement Park and losing my heart and soul again.

I will sleep now, with the realization that it will be my last slip if I can remember that I LOVE THIS FUCKING WORLD.  I LOVE ALL THE PEOPLE IN IT.  I LOVE MOTHER EARTH. I LOVE SHARING, GIVING, HELPING, LEADING, SINGING, WRITING, CREATING, and I want to help people with what’s left of the gifts I’ve squandered for so long.

I love you all.

S.

PS: In reading this through, I realize that the devil’s candy is still being metabolized in my poor weary brain and it’s making me wide eyed and panicked following along with the tone my fingers laid out on the keys.  

Know that the desperate need to frame the vision I had in my head – of building greenhouses on first nations, facilitating healing circles, picking up garbage, starting tree planting nurseries, teaching guitar, redeveloping our cultural resources in our younger generations, awakening the connections with mother earth and our children, youth, adults and elders; with me – just had to come out. high or not.

 I just saw hundreds of smiles and tears and just a giant upswell of love growing in our communities. 

Well, one community in particular.  One I have been working with, or trying to these last couple years.  I owe them an apology, and my best.  My very best. 

And all the other communities I’ve worked with throughout the years.  Man.  I got some miles to make, but they gonna be starting with some baby steps day by day.  I probably gonna be hitting this page on the regular; try and capture some of the feelings that I ain’t gwanna be smothering no mo.

We got lots of work to do and I can’t help if I’m hiding in the dark. 

But I ain’t going to no damn casino between shifts! I’m gonna live life on life’s terms, but it’s gonna be on my renewed awareness of what MY terms need to be.

I want to help show that it’s alright to have made mistakes; that we are all human, and that there is always hope. Say a prayer for all those people you mad at if you manage to read this far please.

My love.

Shelbert