THE DARK FOREST - LIFE BEYOND THE WEB OF THE BLACK WIDOW

IMAGES FOR THE DARK FOREST

Little did I know there was so much imagery and media surrounding the dark forest.

What is the Dark Forest?

Reference to Jean Stimmel and Psychoscapes... where he references Joseph Campbell, from the 1960's. Campbell posed the following:

“The myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth. If your private myth, your dream, happens to coincide with that of the society, you are in good accord with your group. If it isn't, you've got an adventure in the dark forest ahead of you.”

As Jean Stimmel states on his blog: "We are strangers in a strange land and when that happens, like it or not, we have no choice but to do the hard work to find our way to an authentic life.  It’s not easy. As he tells us, you have to blaze your own trail: “You enter the forest 
at the darkest point,
 where there is no path.

 Where there is…path, 
It is someone else's path.

 If you follow someone else's way,
you are not going to realize
 your potential.”

We people, we have a familiar saying: Life sucks, people suck.

Wow what a miracle it really is when our life works out and we can truly say we're happy! 

In my life, starting in 1974, I can truly say I discovered happiness. By 1979 that was gone, but for those four years I lived truly happy.

Also during those four years my life was Hell...

I've told the story so many times before, how age 8 I received a book from my aunt at Christmas. R IS FOR ROCKET by Ray Bradbury. It was a book of short stories, of which one in particular became a part of me, Frost and Fire. 

My childhood was great... I had a good home with loving parents, was free to explore, and wasn't micromanaged like children are today. 

I was bullied in school, starting in the 5th grade, only to get much worse in middle school. My parents were there for me, to help, but in hindsight it was the school district that should have been responsible for my well-being while learning. Today, schools still struggle with bullying... and really, there's no reason that should be a problem. A school system is a microcosm... everything that goes on within a school is managed throughout the day. So why should any student be subject to being bullied, or any student be allowed to be a bully?

Just saying... school systems are not helpless... and busting a kid for making a hand into the image of a pistol is insane. Pink Floyd had a song that captures the moment... THE WALL.

The You-Tube video is unfortunately censored:

So we'll go with John Lennon's WORKING CLASS HERO:

WORKING CLASS HERO - JOHN LENNON

So they hit me at school and called me a fool. I moved away on my own when I became 18 year's old. And that's when the real shit hit the fan.

There's so much in our society that lays claim to rules that blood is thicker than water, and that we don't abandon family. But what about when that family doesn't respect you nor accept you? When that family is like a black widow spider who has you snared in a web, injecting poison to make you conform to the people on the hill?

There are serious issues in the world with people being subject to parental or militaristic control.

There are girls married off to old men. Girls being subjected to genital mutilation in the name of just cause. Boys that have it hammered into their heads that violence is sweet, that peace is for sissies. 

At age 21 I saw my dreams come true... and that story I read at age 8, I found my place. That job was custodian at a local college... with excellent pay, and benefits, and a chance to find my own way in life. I became a disgrace to my family! 

How many people in this world become a disgrace to their family? 

I've been seeing a therapist of late... to help me and guide me through the Dark Forest. I got the good news my mental health evaluation includes PTSD, Depression and Anxiety... the recommended treatment: cannabis/marijuana, which is illegal in my state. Fuck me!!! With all the pills available for people, why would a plant be a better solution? NOT, that that is the sum total of my solution. A plant can't provide the total solution, but it can sure help, maybe much more than a pill.

As my mother believes there is only one road in life. ONE! There is nothing to question, no decisions to be made. Grow up, go to college, get married, buy a house, have 2.5 children, grow old, and die. That is life. Oh, and have fun... she does have her fun.

Me, I sought the mystical in life. I sought freedom and my own path through the dark forest... I've met more than one siren...

But I remain... a lone wolf.

My message to you out there... it is not acceptable that 80% of abused persons should be happy with their abusive environment. No abuse is acceptable. If you have a black widow on your back weaving a web around you - escape... escape to the dark forest and find your own way. 

We live but once, even if reincarnated, this life is important. Suicide is not an option. Living is the only option, and if that means cutting ties with the family, the past, the script, so be it.

Live free. Prosper. Break from the web... and find your own way through the dark forest... find the light!

HOMELAND SECURITY, BOB DYLAN (ARRESTED) AND MENTAL HEALTH IN AMERICA

EVERYDAY is a sorry day in America.

On September 11, 2001 terrorist flew planes into both the World Trade Center buildings in NYC, as well as the Pentagon. Another plane hijacked by terrorists crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers overwhelmed the terrorists, only to die trying.

Americans died, and most of America felt pain so acute as to make them stop what they were doing, and their lives were changed forever.

The consequences of that day that will forever resound in America was a crackdown by our federal government on the rights and freedoms of all. Yes, my opinion, but it appears obvious that rather than bring about healing, or accept the sympathies of other nations around the world, our government decided to seek revenge, to retaliate and to suck the American people into a Rage War unlike anything we'd experienced before.

We attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan, we attacked Iraq and brought down a dictator we'd accused of having WMD. We were wrong, but we didn't stop. Congress proceeded to approve the Patriot Act that in effect struck down 30% or more of our rights under the US Constitution. They blamed Mexico, though the terrorists came in through the US and Canada, and we now have our own Berlin Wall dividing US and Mexico. The DOJ infiltrates journalists and charges them with espionage, the IRS targets critics of US policy, and the Dept. of Homeland Security urges all Americans to be suspicious of others... anyone wearing a hoodie, who acts suspicious, who's walking after dark.

“If You See Something, Say Something™” (White House Link).

The NSA monitors our phone calls, our e-mail and our web-sites and blogs! Especially of interest are those exercising their First Amendment rights and those opposed to the status quo. Many states have legalized marijuana, and although technically a drug controlled under DEA Schedule One, these states have enough data, research and smarts to know that prohibition of cannabis is not the answer. The federal government promised to address the nation months ago as to it's stance on cannabis legalization and federal law. Still we wait while federal authorities harass and cause to shut down many state legal clinics that provide legal cannabis.

Incarceration and murder rates of Black Americans is so disproportionate to White Americans as to cause extraordinary concern for all Americans. And yet, we do nothing.

President Obama recently spoke out after a teenager in Florida was killed in a case of a "neighborhood watch volunteers" assertion that said Black teenager was a immediate, dangerous threat to the community, and this volunteer was forced to kill this person in self-defense. President Obama asks that the findings of the trial be honored, yet the President also admits that could have been himself 35 years ago. He talks about the overall national attitude towards Black Americans... the fear and paranoia Black people can cause.

Remarks by the President on Trayvon Martin - July 19, 2013

Bob Dylan: 

On May 29, 2012 the President awarded Bob Dylan, iconic musician, the National Medal of Freedom

It's so ironic as Bob Dylan seems to stand against everything our federal government stands for... and yet he is awarded the Medal of Freedom! The fact is, Americans respect individuality, as much as they fight the individual. It's something of a contradiction. One can be an individual targeted and tracked as a left wing radical who has hurt no one, and yet be awarded medals.

In principal, yes, our government stands for providing Americans their full rights as human beings and protections provided under the US Constitution. However in practice, not only do we now have our own Russian gulags in the form of Guantanamo Bay, but again our government has failed to adapt to the voice majority of Americans who want an end to the War on Drugs and those who simply want to play a game of online poker.

The true irony isn't so much how the federal government turned a critical injury to Americans into a War onto Itself, but how in essence the federal government turned us against ourselves. A kid in school that makes the caricature of a gun with his hand and fingers gets arrested these days. When a madman shoots up a movie theater or school licensed gun owners names are suddenly reported in the news, our Vice President urges us "to buy a shotgun" and our Second Amendment rights are viciously attacked.

Why is it that injury to Americans results in our being treated like children, en masse? New laws, more regulations? It's gotten to the point where we can walk the streets at night.

A couple years ago Bob Dylan was in New Jersey for a concert. He likes to walk the streets and he often wears a hoodie. He was arrested when concerned NJ citizens called 911 describing a "crazy man" walking the street. The arresting officer arrived on the scene and asked Bob Dylan for his license, called it in not knowing who he was. And does it matter? Is walking the streets a crime now too?

You can read the story here:

NJ Homeowner Calls the Police on Bob Dylan - ABC News

We can't smoke pot, we can't walk the streets, we can't fart in the wind!

Or blow in the wind...

Bob Dylan - "Blowing in the Wind" 1971.

Bob Dylan - "Blowing In The Wind" - 2010

Watch your neighbor, your co-worker, your friends! That's a public service message courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Homeland Security representative.  Everyone is watching you... and monitoring every activity you pursue!

Welcome to the 21ST Century in America.

Oh, and if you seek mental health therapy, the status quo is, to consider you, sick in the head!

Isn't it time we embrace Mental Health therapy in America? Isn't it time we stop the shame and condemnation for those who wish to heal their minds? Isn't it time to stop believing that only mentally ill people seek therapy? Fact is, you don't have to feel stigmatized to seek therapy... it doesn't mean you're sick. It means you're being good to yourself. That you care.

It was President Ronald Reagan that stood in Germany, fist raised as they were tearing down the Berlin Wall, as he shouted out - "Tear It Down!"

There are many walls that need tearing down before America can be free.  And many walls being built that shouldn't be. Walls don't protect us. The truth - that will set you free!

America... be free..."The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind..." and I suggest you listen, to the wind, as it is much more honest than our leaders... money has always bought power, and corrupts; in America we are free to vote, and although we may not think our vote counts for much, it does.

By now President Obama should have addressed the  issue of legalized cannabis, yet he hasn't. He should have addressed walls between US and Mexico, and he hasn't. It's not so much that I question pres. Obama's dedication to pledges he made or doing what is right, hell, I voted for him at his first run for President. No, it's more what he doesn't do that concerns me... and I'll leave it at that.

TRAYVON MARTIN/GEORGE ZIMMERMAN ON TRIAL - NOT GUILTY, BUT NOT INNOCENT EITHER - REFERENCE TO THE CASE AGAINST DR. SAMUEL SHEPPARD (1954) - AKA "THE FUGITIVE"

The verdict is in in what was called the George Zimmerman trial in Florida. "Not Guilty". Perhaps they ought to charge Trayvon Martin now with "Attempted Murder", "Felonious Assault", except that Trayvon Martin is dead.

The "crime" took place in Florida. If you want the details, read the news. My goal is to show how dysfuntional our current legal system is. Which means this is as brief a summary as I can possibly manage, to highlight the issues at hand and form what I hope will be a relevant essay on crime in America and the criminal justice system.

I did not follow the criminal justice/court proceedings intently. I did pay attention to the highlights of the case. In as brief of terms as possible here is my summary, for what it's worth.

Florida is a state with a law called "Stand Your Ground". The law states that if your life is threatened you can stand your ground and not, as is the case in many other states, be obligated to try to flee your attacker or the person threatening you. I am all for "Stand Your Ground", as trying to flee will rarely save your life. People who try to flee often end up exhausted running, end up in worse circumstances or in attempting to flee get run over by a car or bus.

In addition, in states without "Stand Your Ground" you may find yourself in a position to save the life of another person who is being threatened with imminent death. Under the law you must yell "RUN" to the intended victim and run yourself. If the person that you witnessed that was in imminent danger of death dies, well too bad. You called 911 of course, but they, the police got there too late.

Stand Your Ground makes sense. Unfortunately, "the George Zimmerman" case makes that logic rather suspect. Why?

George Zimmerman was part of a neighborhood "Watch Group" in a gated Florida community that had experienced recent break-ins and assaults. Zimmerman's training with firearms, Florida law and personal rights was indeed noteworthy and exemplary. There seems little to argue that George Zimmerman was the man for the job in a neighborhood watch group.

However, what happened the night he killed Trayvon Martin puts Stand Your Ground on trial, not Zimmerman. And it puts Trayvon Martin on trial, only he's dead.

The story begins at night. It's raining. George Zimmerman is on duty with the neighborhood watch detail. Trayvon Martin is staying with relatives and decides to go to the store for some candy. Trayvon is a teen, around age 16, and Zimmerman is an adult. As Trayvon is returning home wearing his hoody, Zimmerman sees him. He is suspicious and calls 911.

What follows is essentially speculation and the word of one man who survived, a key witness and friend of Trayvon's, and 911 transcripts.

George Zimmerman tells 911 that he has spotted a suspicious person. The 911 dispatcher tells him they'll sent officers, that he shouldn't follow the suspect who it turns out, is Trayvon. At what point if any when Zimmerman determines Trayvon is Black is unclear and disputed. Zimmerman himself is White Latino. The allegation is brought up in court between the defense and prosecution who has charged Zimmerman with 2nd degree murder, however my understanding is the judge rules race is a prohibited topic for either side.

The prosecution contends that Zimmerman proceded to follow Trayvon. The defense contends Trayvon jumped Zimmerman, allegedly while near his car. Seems that would be simple to ascertain, considering where Trayvon's dead body was found, which I have not heard how far from his car he was when he claims he was forced to shoot Trayvon dead in self-defense.

Assuming that Zimmerman shot Trayvon a significant distance from his car would lead one to believe he did not heed advice from the 911 dispatcher and instead followed Trayvon. Another way to look at this is he stalked Trayvon and became a vigilante, as the job of a neighborhood watch member is to report suspicious activity, not to play policeman and pursue.

The key witness for the prosecution was on the phone with Trayvon that night. His friend had this to say: ... testified that Martin told her he was being chased by a "creepy-a** cracker." The link is here: CNN - "Why This Verdict..."

When challenged by her statement, she had this to say (same CNN link): When defense attorney Don West challenged her story, suggesting Martin attacked Zimmerman, she responded: "That's retarded."

If we were to put Trayvon Martin on trial, and if we assume what the key witness for the prosecution said was true, would not Trayvon Martin also have the right to Stand His Ground?

And excellent opinion piece by CNN's Miller Francis is here: "What About Martin's Right To Stand Your Ground"

Where I live it would take police 15 - 20 minutes to arrive. If I saw a suspicious person lurking here, I would be obligated by law to retreat to my home and call 911. I could Stand My Ground in my home, but not pursue the suspicious person. I'm not judging Zimmerman for his concerns, and not suggesting I should pursue a suspicious person in my neighborhood. What I am questioning is whether what George Zimmerman did was justified? Whether prejudice played a role or a sense of playing law enforcement, ie, being a vigilante played a role.

What happened we'll likely never know. What we do know is Trayvon Martin had used marijuana, admissible as evidence in court. Do we know if George Zimmerman also had THC in his system, or alcohol? No we don't. What we know is George Zimmerman was found Not Guilty; he was not found Innocent.

Why is this important? In 1954 a Dr. Samuel Sheppard was found Guilty of murdering his wife. The story allegedly spawned the popular 1960's TV series called "the Fugitive". In the late 1960's Sam Sheppard was found Not Guilty of the murder. Dispite another 40 years investigating the murder of his mother, the child of Sam Sheppard knows who killed his mother. Yet, the legal proceedings are so dysfunctional that despite this knowledge, and although Dr. Sam sheppard is dead, the courts have still not found Sam Sheppard to be Innocent of the crime for which he was found Not Guilty.

You can read the fascinating story here, on Crime Library: "The Case of Dr. Samuel Sheppard"

THE TRUTH ABOUT MARIJUANA - PART SEVEN - THERAPUTIC USE AND RATIONAL CONCLUSIONS

If you consider fast-food and a beer as freedom, good for you. You're at the right place.I drink lots of beer and eat lunch at a fast-food joint everyday day, M-F. Although I used cannabis (marijuana) daily and by daily I mean about half a joint, with one beer maybe two, I gave all that up when I turned 50. I'm 58 now.

Wow I imagine you wondering... am I okay, after 30 years of "drug-addiction"? Do I still have a brain? Did I start living again, find a job, get married and finally have children - and, well, hope they're not deformed.

Well, I imagine I'm grateful for your concern. I imagine that gratitude as I hope you're not seriously concerned about me in that way.

The truth is, from around 1974 - 2004 I had a pretty good life. I worked FT, earned three college degrees, enjoyed the company of friends and lovers. I managed. I managed quite well.

I was dealt a curve in life, as many of us are. I will admit that my curve involved PTSD, depression, anxiety to the point of panic. From the age of 20 - 50 ...

I used cannabis and saw a therapist. I've worked at colleges, universities, and public schools. The benefits were always free therapy, and I took advantage of it. In those 30 years, between approximately 8 therapist/psychologists, only one panicked when I said I use therapeutic cannabis. 1 in 8. Yet every MD I saw it raised a red flag. "You shouldn't be using marijuana".

I'm only being truthful... this is the "truth about marijuana", isn't it?

I was highly productive for those 30 years, and then I gave it up. Turning 50, well, it sucked. It didn't help that those close to me around 2004 suddenly became "born-agains". People close to me I used to pass the peace-pipe with, suddenly convinced it was evil. "What evil", I'd ask, but the only answer I got was, "it's illegal, it's a sin".

And why I wonder is it illegal?

Which is beside the point. Fact is after 9-11 people changed, I got old, I lost touch with old friends and found myself too busy keeping my job, which required a 3 hour a day commute. I'm still at it.

So how has quitting cannabis helped me?  It hasn't. After a year I started drinking. First it was rum and cokes, coffee brandy, and then it was beer, and coffee brandy. And I gave up quitting tobacco. Easy to buy and it reminds me of the old days when I could instead imbibe in the plant of my choice.

I recently spoke to my new psychologist about going on SSDI. We discuss my depression, PTSD and anxiety too.

The state I live in, NH recently passed a Therapeutic Marijuana law. It doesn't include depression, PTSD and anxiety. Even if it did one must wait until the NH Dispensaries are built. One can't grow their own, nor can one get a temporary card for what's estimated to be 19 months. To get a card the homeowner, landlord or property owner must give written consent.Yeah, that'll happen!!! Imagine, as a citizen you can get Oxycontin, morphine, Nicolette gum, Xanax, Valium, Prozac and many other pharmaceutical drugs with just a prescription. You can carry a gun, even get a concealed weapon permit. You don't have to get the okay of your landowner nor your employer. Technically, you can even get a prescription for cocaine from your physician, though I don't know anyone who does - it's not a Schedule One drug.

As I've said previously, though maybe not here, physicians are simply not qualified to recommend cannabis to patients. It was back in the early 20th century when physicians were trained to use and dispense tinctures and grams of medicinal plants like cannabis.

Physicians today know next to nothing about plants.  Psychologists know a bit more, from experience dealing with patients who are more honest about their use of cannabis, but even they aren't "trained" in use of therapeutic plants, although they are more open to the benefits. They also have a better grasp of the difference between a client that uses a plant like cannabis for therapeutic wellness, and a person that over-uses, and are not particularly "helped" by cannabis. 

This Medical Marijuana response to cannabis use is, in my opinion, a Trojan-horse. It benefits many, it really does, but it's clearly unprecedented in it scope as to the regulations the sates can impose on an individual and I believe simply the impositions are probably unconstitutional.  I simply don't believe a state has the right to impose such cruel and inhumane restrictions on a plant that is safer than fermented grapes.

Live Free or Die is our State Motto. Means little to a citizen who's lived her for over 20 years!

Rational Conclusion: Legalize it already and Stop the Hurt!

BTW (by the way)... the federal goverment earned US patent # 6,630,507... for therapeutic use of THC back in 2003. The National Institute of Heath provided the research and clinical trial necessary. As cannabis is currently a drug listed as Schedule One, this would be illegal. To see why read my section, the last part of my favorite media... about the ONDCP and federal law regarding Schedule One plants and drugs. Why is it our federal government feels it can break it's own laws, while hunting and prosecuting citizens in states where cannabis is legal?

That's the truth, the whole truth... I swear by Nature!

US patent # 6,630,507