Amid all the turmoil and hardships, challenges and tragedy, assimilating (or denying) the violence of gun-happy Amerika — I continue to still be amazed by the glory of this journey we share together: life. I can say this after I’ve dried my tears.

Not even the latest mass school murder can plunge my heart back into the stony block it once was set in, long ago. Before I learned to accept that so-called “bad things” are part of life, and shouldn’t be denied, rejected, or feared. I won’t let one crazy kid diminish my trust in humankind’s upward evolution! I won’t let the challenge of living in a violent society lure me back to where I once was: believing there’s no sanity, no reason or purpose to living other than enduring it.

People everywhere, not just Americans, are in shock, disgust, and mourning over this week’s latest school shooting, right here in Florida, my home state. What happened here is a symptom of the dis-ease of fear that’s threatening to spread throughout the world. Fear’s children: mental problems, violence, guns and neurosis are, in my mind, presenting opportunities for more upward growth. Once we get over the shock of murdered children.

The human condition is fragile, always changing. Our instability is revealed, once more, in the current rash of violence in America. Innocent victims’ lives are cut short by … an imbalanced person who too easily got their crazed, itching hands on too-readily available guns.

Are guns the problem? Or the mental instability so rampant in today’s civilization?

My heart bleeds over the insanity of such unfounded craziness as another mass murder of children and their guardians. All decent folk are worried, concerned, getting sick of it all. There’s no turning away from the horror this next heinous act screams the truth: that our society, as well as our environment, is toxic. One person’s derangement punches a hole in the fabric of all our lives, like a contagion of darkness seen in the midst of an otherwise beautifully opening blossom of possibilities.

Evil and ugliness, horror and such violence as child-murder, these aren’t supposed to be one of the possibilities!

Yet — the darkness is part of the light. And, as one songwriter puts it, “You need the crack in the darkness in order to let the Light through.”

le

Surely, this infection of dark evil doesn’t permeate the entire pattern of humankind. Yet one person’s heartless deed can diminish the overall effect of many others’ efforts toward peace and harmony, making some lose faith that our collective human heart still has a chance of opening wide and fully, like the newly blossoming flower it is.

I try to sense more than what appears to be. I’d like to think the entirety of this existence we’re sharing here on Earth is Good. Evil is, unfortunately, a small part of our human fabric. Just as so-called “evil” in Nature, like the poisonous snakes we watch out for, in forests or whimsical gardens, every landscape is filled with them as well as beautiful blossoms.

Oh a hike or a camp-out, there are gnats whisking about my face trying to take away the feeling of bliss, being connected to All That Is one more easily gets in the Wild. Yet, the prospect of evil lurks behind every wall, under every rock in Nature. We have to watch ourselves, continuously, in order not to fall off cliffs, get mashed by a rock, get bitten by a bumble bee. To make sure we don’t step on the poisonous snake or allow too many gnats to bite our delicate skin — we watch ourselves.

Whenever a gnat appears at one of the wilderness campsites I love so much, attempting to feast on my blood (as gnats are designed to do, like mosquitoes, like ticks) — I have to accept their presence yet I take precautions. Otherwise, they could harm me, infect me with their contagions, and generally make an otherwise pleasant visit to the Wild nothing more than Hell on earth. So I spray bugs away, wear appropriate clothing, and watch myself. Where I walk. Where I put my hands, where I pitch my tent.

Dealing with Nature is part of the experience of going into the Wild. To be open to Her glory, but also to protect ourselves from Her dangers. You can’t expect to have the comfort, sanitation, and predictability of sitting in one’s living room, watching a TV-special about Nature when you decide to actually go into Nature. When we accept Nature for what it is, natural, and unpredictable, just as gorgeous as it is dangerous — that’s one way how we can better elevate our senses. We become One with the essence of our environment. We accept the dangers, as well as the glory of our natural existence.

So as I prepare knapsack, supplies, tent and hiking shoes, I always remember — bug spray to ward against insects; and  knife, don’t forget the knife! I know the bugs will be there. And the knife is for, well, just about everything else. There’s no getting away from irritating insects (unless an unforeseen phenomena of weather, wind, or seasonal, unknown hatching rhythms happens to align with my camping plans, like a cosmic event similar to the recent Blue-Red Moon, in which several rare celestial events lined up, ones which won’t simultaneously occur for another 150 years).

The gnats of life are always with us. Thus too, killers will always be among our human population. As well as rapists, adulterers, and every other sort of aberration known to the human species, Dumb shit asshole people! They’re a dime a dozen. Mentally ill? Or evil? Seeds of the Devil? Or … just part of the natural balance of the human experience? Nature has dangerous killers, too. Tsunamis, typhoons, wild fires, floods, over-the-top unfair, yet natural horrors of everyday life here on our floating ball in space.

Hardships are always going to be around, no matter what. We have to accept that life is filled with bad as well as good. And really, these labels, what are they? Just ways of defining which events hurt, called “bad” and which feel “good.” Is a hurricane “bad”? Is an earthquake? Simply because … it exists?

When we read of another catastrophe, we breathe a sigh of relief it didn’t happen to us. But all these evils, the “bads” of life, they’re as much a part of our collective story as the joy, the bliss, the “goods”.  Crazy people are, sadly, naturally occurring events. People do go nuts, or are born with incredible handicaps that push them toward insanity. Massacres and mass killings have taken place since the beginning of recorded history. Just as Earth’s weather patterns goes berserk and kills. Rains ruin crops, cause droughts and starvation, Nature causes children to sometimes be born lifeless by even the healthiest of mothers (my own mom). In a certain perspective, Life is a seesaw of opposing events, a balance of goods and bads, rights and wrongs. Is it any wonder that humans call “the Devil” that name with its “D” in front of evil?

Yet, for every eruption of a volcano the planet has, every eruption of a madman’s gun pointed at innocents — we endure. We heal. We pick ourselves up and wonder at the shocking drama that continuously unfolds before us. Most days, the play, the interaction is filled with more marvel and mystery than misery. But this past week, with another school shooting — the drama has taken a very sad turn, once again.

Every single one of us has had our share of tragedy. Some of us accept it, some of us can’t. Simply can’t. Some of us spend precious time complaining, protesting — or worst of all — denying. Some unfortunates decide to off themselves because life seems too damn hard. Too awful. Too hopeless, and helplessly evil.

But today I want to share with you how I see the balance of life, in life of the role tragedies play, as necessary, unfortunately. Painful things happen, and we must learn from them, take action, and make sure we combat the negative energies they produce with sufficient positive forces to counterbalance, and conquer the demons of evil. Or else — evil may override the beauty of this creation.

Just ask yourself: How many good things do we hear about? How many times do we hear in the News about the number of people who are achieving great things? Awakening to the Light of Higher Consciousness instead of how many were murdered by an imbalanced person?

I’m happy to report that in this morning’s NYTimes I read the “Good News Column.” Wow! And I hear from other sources that more and more news sources are including a special section for those who are sick of the bad news, and want to fill their minds with at least some good news. But let’s face it: bad news is more sensational and … bad news sells.

The News goes for sensational, period. Yet everyday there’s scores of people who do great and wonderful things. Inventing new ways to celebrate our humanness. Researching new sources of energy, discovering cures for debilitating diseases. Dreaming solutions to what used to be unsolvable, hopeless predicaments. Taking on new and more difficult challenges.

Our species is awakening, in a grand and unprecedented fashion. We have embarked upon the next step of evolutionary heights that we have, step-by-step, been taking in our human journey together. Some of us, unconsciously, choose to focus on what mainstream media dishes out. Others (more aware of outside influences) look within, and search the goodness that’s spreading throughout the world one person at a time. Social media fans the flames of humankind’s robust metamorphosis as much as it’s accused of hampering with the 2016 election.

The internet can do anything! If you’re a News junkies, glued to the latest Breaking News report, or social media gossip feed, or ever present Amber- or sex-offender screen-alert, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. But people who operate away from the internet’s ubiquitous influence, can create the kind of goodness they want, just by staying away from the News. So we think, we become. If you want to be happy, try substituting happy thoughts instead of watching/reading the News.

That’s why I’m proclaiming some good news today instead of joining in with the national mourning over the recent killings. Yes, I’m upset but I do not despair. My focus is on other things besides atrocities and negative outbursts of insane people, young or old.

I focus on the knowledge, which I know without the slightest doubt, that our human family is healthier than it’s ever been. More people are able to receive education, more of us are free, living without tyranny, capable of choosing our own destinies! We are choosing to awaken to a higher understanding of how to live, accept one another, become more One in reality, not just in name. The number of those already awakened (not brain-washed by mainstream propaganda) persons is beyond the tipping point. Our species is right now changing from fear-based to opened to higher possibilities. What those possibilities are — is without limitation.

I’m not an idealist. I’m simply a chronicler of what’s happening. I look all around me, and I record what I see, hear, and understand to be true. And No, I do not sit in front of a screen to watch others tell me how to think. I know the News; I read about what’s happening elsewhere, everyday, on my iPad. At one time, usually in the morning. I’m aware of other events as they unfold throughout the day, but mainly focus on my work of chronicling the uplifting of humankind’s consciousness via words and images.

I decided long ago that I had to protect my well-earned peace of mind. I choose to not get upset, give up, get outraged, go into despair and accusatory mode.

All my adult life I’ve been concerned with observing my own evolution of consciousness. For those of us who choose to “be as aware as possible” this is a delightful pastime. As an artist and writer I’ve documented my own journey from my early stage of total fright about life, right on up to here and Now. My present state which I call Being-ness, the state of Accepting All That Is.

Awareness is described by others, teachers such as Eckhart Tolle, as allowing that portal of inner comprehension that allows us to feel connected to All — to fully open within us. After facing our blocks, dissolving our resistance, we can go through this portal within, which allows a person to understand how we are all One. It took me a long time to reach this place. And now that I’ve done the work of letting go of fear and fright, ridding myself of the barriers that deflected Truth, and now enjoy my own mind’s stilling … my role as spiritual activist is simply to share it.

That’s why I write and art. That’s what compels me to speak of today’s subject: being amazed more than being appalled over the tragedies of life that we all share. Not a single person, I bet, is untouched by children getting killed at their own school. It is a horror akin to being bombed by a sudden energy attack.

Yet — life continues. The moments, minutes, and hours after the attack — keep happening. Life .. keeps happening. We breathe In, we breathe Out. One breath at a time, we continue living.

Yesterday I discovered that I’ve been sharing my thoughts on LordFlea for ten years now. Without a whisper of celebration, I have already spent an entire decade of making public the journey of awareness I’ve been on. As I plan to continue being on. I’ll share what I can, not giving a care whether anyone listens here or not, believes me or not. Documenting my experience is simply something I must do.

Before I started LordFlea, in December 2008, I used to have a heavy sinking depression — based on the false belief that there was nothing I could do to communicate the amazing and very real sense of Oneness that is, truly, my reality. Sure, I’d been making images about discovering, testing, proving this sensation for many years before I began writing about it. LordFlea has been my chosen vehicle to help me make the transition from image-making artist, solely, to writer/artist who chronicles Beingness. I am happy to serve! It is my pleasure to share what I have experienced with all of you!

I’m happy to announce I’m at the final-edit stages of my next book, which you’ll hear more about in coming weeks. Stay tuned. And here’s the link if you’d like to see my current publication: In the I: Easing Through Life Storms.

Be Love!

Your pal, Lordflea, aka teZa