Last Summer, in my book "The Metaphoric Mirror", and repeatedly throughout the following year, I have very publicly stated, along with the Psychic Twins, Linda and Terry Jamison, Alison Baughman, Allie Cheslick, and others, that I expected "bank failures" at the end of the Summer, 2010 -- literally the last 30 days of the season, which would have started . . . today.
Eight (8 !!) banks failed today (*published on Facebook last Friday, August 20th) and I expect more soon to follow. The news on the economic front, in my opinion, is not good. I believe this is just the start of a dark trend over the next 3-4 weeks.
In late 2008 and early 2009, I said repeatedly that the looming skeleton in our financial closet was commercial real estate; I have also stated that, as a result partly of the Gulf "spill", I expected real estate values -- and, very likely, a rise in real estate defaults -- to drop drastically in Florida . . .
in addition, record numbers of people this week have petitioned for early withdrawals of their 401K's -- and commodity prices are falling .. . to me, sort of a perfect storm for bad tidings.
My track record on the economy over the last 3 years has been pretty much dead on but this is a biggie . . . however, I have been saying it and I am going to repeat it. Right or wrong, we'll know in 30 days.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The looming mental health crisis in the U.S. Military :(
Another "surprise" to the so-called experts is an issue that I have been talking about publicly as a potential threat for the past several years -- American soldiers are increasingly falling prey to mental health issues. These are both active duty servicemen and women, as well as those recently discharged.
This problem has now reached almost epidemic proportions. Case loads of counselors have seen an 800 % increase in just 5 years -- 800 % !! -- and at Fort Hood, almost one in four soldiers sought counseling for assistance with some type of mental health issue in the past year.
This is a staggering number.
I started talking about the possibility -- no, probability -- of this happening years ago. I have said privately since 2004 and publicly since 2007 that we were destroying the US military (seemingly from within) and that, in my opinion, the problem would only get worse.
I believe this is due to several factors: fighting for something many of them had to realize was a false pretense is incredibly stressful and injurious to their self-esteem, most of our service men and women are young and many of the Reservists called up for active duty have received poor training for their specific tasks at hand, not to mention the fact that they see mercenaries like those working for Blackwater make big money while concurrently having few rules to follow, while they were given poor wages and were subject to an entirely different set of rules.
Add to this a string of continual deployments, with few breaks and without the chance (in many cases) to quit once their enlistments were technically up -- all these factors (not to mention the fact that most young men and women have been brought up in a culture that values consumption over duty and anyone who exhibited any behavioral traits other than sit still and pay attention has probably been drugged since pre-school) suggested, to me anyway, that the likelihood of a mental health CRISIS in the US military was inevitable.
Sadly, that is becoming more and more obvious with each passing week. This is a serious problem, not just for the soldiers and the Armed Services as a whole. This is also a looming threat to those of us still here once these young men and women are discharged and attempt to re-assimilate into civilian life, at a time of such economic and social uncertainty. Trained fighters who are mentally unstable is not a recipe for the ideal neighbor or co-worker.
Our leaders have failed us and wasted the greatest Army ever assembled. It is a shameful act and one, I am afraid, that may haunt all of us for years to come :(
*********
US Military 'Overwhelmed' by Mental Health Problems of Soldiers
Thousands Strain Fort Hood's Mental Health System
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/23-2
Army Weak: Soldiers Expose Deployment of Unprepared Troops
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/11-9
Soldiers Punished for Refusing to Attend Christian Rock Show
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/147937/soldiers_punished_for_refusing_to_attend_christian_rock_show_/
This problem has now reached almost epidemic proportions. Case loads of counselors have seen an 800 % increase in just 5 years -- 800 % !! -- and at Fort Hood, almost one in four soldiers sought counseling for assistance with some type of mental health issue in the past year.
This is a staggering number.
I started talking about the possibility -- no, probability -- of this happening years ago. I have said privately since 2004 and publicly since 2007 that we were destroying the US military (seemingly from within) and that, in my opinion, the problem would only get worse.
I believe this is due to several factors: fighting for something many of them had to realize was a false pretense is incredibly stressful and injurious to their self-esteem, most of our service men and women are young and many of the Reservists called up for active duty have received poor training for their specific tasks at hand, not to mention the fact that they see mercenaries like those working for Blackwater make big money while concurrently having few rules to follow, while they were given poor wages and were subject to an entirely different set of rules.
Add to this a string of continual deployments, with few breaks and without the chance (in many cases) to quit once their enlistments were technically up -- all these factors (not to mention the fact that most young men and women have been brought up in a culture that values consumption over duty and anyone who exhibited any behavioral traits other than sit still and pay attention has probably been drugged since pre-school) suggested, to me anyway, that the likelihood of a mental health CRISIS in the US military was inevitable.
Sadly, that is becoming more and more obvious with each passing week. This is a serious problem, not just for the soldiers and the Armed Services as a whole. This is also a looming threat to those of us still here once these young men and women are discharged and attempt to re-assimilate into civilian life, at a time of such economic and social uncertainty. Trained fighters who are mentally unstable is not a recipe for the ideal neighbor or co-worker.
Our leaders have failed us and wasted the greatest Army ever assembled. It is a shameful act and one, I am afraid, that may haunt all of us for years to come :(
*********
US Military 'Overwhelmed' by Mental Health Problems of Soldiers
Thousands Strain Fort Hood's Mental Health System
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/23-2
Army Weak: Soldiers Expose Deployment of Unprepared Troops
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/11-9
Soldiers Punished for Refusing to Attend Christian Rock Show
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/147937/soldiers_punished_for_refusing_to_attend_christian_rock_show_/
Teacher
I had always "planned" on teaching -- in some capacity. My ideas did not "fit" the academic canon of the time so even though I was considered something of an academic wunderkind, it was adios Ph.D. and all that route (which truly made me sad but . . .
no I do not want to "specialize") and I have, instead, out of necessity, taken the long winding outlaw back roads . . .
yeppers, "what a long, strange trip it's been" but I think it is safe to say that I "know stuff" and I am looking forward, now, somehow, in sharing that more and more.
When I was young, I wanted, REALLY WANTED, to have an academic career but I just couldn't compromise. I wanted to!! Don't get me wrong. But I couldn't. So, all these years later. . . here we ARE !!
My ideas obviously don't fit the "mainstream" . . . but I think the mainstream is pretty much all heading over the cliff so, right now, I am happy to be dancing on the fringe . . . So -- to the other outlaws and eccentrics of the world, viva la difference :)
no I do not want to "specialize") and I have, instead, out of necessity, taken the long winding outlaw back roads . . .
yeppers, "what a long, strange trip it's been" but I think it is safe to say that I "know stuff" and I am looking forward, now, somehow, in sharing that more and more.
When I was young, I wanted, REALLY WANTED, to have an academic career but I just couldn't compromise. I wanted to!! Don't get me wrong. But I couldn't. So, all these years later. . . here we ARE !!
My ideas obviously don't fit the "mainstream" . . . but I think the mainstream is pretty much all heading over the cliff so, right now, I am happy to be dancing on the fringe . . . So -- to the other outlaws and eccentrics of the world, viva la difference :)
The Intuitive Writer
"The Intuitive Writer" is a 5 week workshop (offered via teleconference) designed to help awaken the creative writer within. I see this as being beneficial primarily to three core groups:
(1) musicians and song writers hoping to tap more deeply in to their creative source in order to write songs or arrange existing music,
(2) "lightworkers" and consultants looking to "clear space" in order to get their ideas down "on paper" and
(3) creative writers who may feel stuck or "blocked".
The class is limited to eight (8) participants. After the second week, I will "pair you" with a creative buddy. You and your "buddy" will also be expected to arrange a time to work together on exploring your creative "selves".
Work books for the course are my book "The Metaphoric Mirror", "The Creative Habit" by choreographer Twyla Tharp, and "Demian", a novel by Hermann Hesse.
Cost for this 5 week workshop is $88 -- which includes an ebook copy of "The Metaphoric Mirror".
For more info: http://rocknrollpsychic.com/classes
Monday, August 9, 2010
Karmic Outlaw
It is kind of a crazy life, in one sense, in that you are always this free agent thing -- money comes all at once, then stops, then trickles or floods, people come in to your life out of nowhere 'cause they like your voice or your picture or whatever and then poof they're gone again and then (rinse and repeat) 15 more come knocking on your door . . . and the madness continues
you get opportunities thousands of miles away (which, very rarely, you're gonna do) and usually it is 5 all at once or none at all -- truly it is kind of a fascinating existence
Most people don't see the true story of what goes on in the "metaphysical world". It is a world of intense competition (yet, to say this out loud is considered, at a minimum, bad taste or more usually, blasphemous) and more intrigue than an 18th Century Romance
My world is not for the meek
Women are everywhere but you live like a monk 99 % of the time and the temptation to just go be a car salesman or manage a book store is always one bad moon away
and so . . . "Karmic Outlaw"
my look back at the starts, stops, heartbreaks, triumphs and dreams of this wild ride from over-protected child to wild child pretty boy jock turned bad boy poet then later The Psychic Adonis turned corporate guru morphed in to The Rock n Roll Psychic . . . and all the scenic stops along the way. the book I was meant to write. the truth.
can you handle it? I am not so sure but the truth, this time, is what you're gonna get :)
you get opportunities thousands of miles away (which, very rarely, you're gonna do) and usually it is 5 all at once or none at all -- truly it is kind of a fascinating existence
Most people don't see the true story of what goes on in the "metaphysical world". It is a world of intense competition (yet, to say this out loud is considered, at a minimum, bad taste or more usually, blasphemous) and more intrigue than an 18th Century Romance
My world is not for the meek
Women are everywhere but you live like a monk 99 % of the time and the temptation to just go be a car salesman or manage a book store is always one bad moon away
and so . . . "Karmic Outlaw"
my look back at the starts, stops, heartbreaks, triumphs and dreams of this wild ride from over-protected child to wild child pretty boy jock turned bad boy poet then later The Psychic Adonis turned corporate guru morphed in to The Rock n Roll Psychic . . . and all the scenic stops along the way. the book I was meant to write. the truth.
can you handle it? I am not so sure but the truth, this time, is what you're gonna get :)
Karmic Outlaw (Excerpt # 1)
They were shooting porn in the dining room, so I had to try and stay quiet. But this wasn’t your Grand Daddy’s porn, this was S & M so there was a whole lot of hootin’ and hollerin’ going on . . . not really to my taste but I was a vagabond, traveling across the country, The Gypsy Andini Autumn Tour ’09, and for now this was my home.
I had left California almost a year to the day before, tail between legs, fancy house gone, heart shattered, brain more than a little dented but I wasn’t built for safety and it was my nature to dangle off some psychological edge, peering into dark caves where others wouldn’t, or couldn’t, go. Outlaws, porn stars, witches and goblins and all manner of artistic broken souls have followed me, crossed my path like a black cat in the moon light but this time I was Lazarus, rising from the dead, and there were envelopes a plenty to push, dark paths to walk, angels following my every move. A wizard – such was my rep with those who knew me best, a high wire act with a fancy cauldron and the power to see what others could not.
My life kind of makes bad fiction, so many twists and turns, hats a plenty, high speed crashes, miraculous escapes, a Houdini of the soul . . . there was no road map when I started, just a vague impulse an inner push and the ability somehow to stay calm while the house burned. I have accomplished tremendous things, had “peak” experiences by the score, mystical highs too high to even imagine possible, lows so low one couldn’t believe morning would ever come. I had walked to my own cosmic drum beat . . . paid my toll – but the post cards were beautiful.
This is a look back at that journey. Truly, I’m not like the other boys. My story is different, as, most assuredly, I am different . . . girls by the hundreds, trophies and plaques and countless pats on the head yet there have been so many tears, so many broken hearts; broken bones and bitter bitter disappointments piled along the side of the highway, baking beneath a grieving Sun. I have been Icarus, flying towards the Father and yes sometimes my wings have melted. I have been Prometheus, giving secrets away, chained for my sins; Orpheus singing my song, my lyre spun like gold in to the tips of my aching fingers.
But I have survived, lived to tell the tale . . . Karmic Outlaw
I had left California almost a year to the day before, tail between legs, fancy house gone, heart shattered, brain more than a little dented but I wasn’t built for safety and it was my nature to dangle off some psychological edge, peering into dark caves where others wouldn’t, or couldn’t, go. Outlaws, porn stars, witches and goblins and all manner of artistic broken souls have followed me, crossed my path like a black cat in the moon light but this time I was Lazarus, rising from the dead, and there were envelopes a plenty to push, dark paths to walk, angels following my every move. A wizard – such was my rep with those who knew me best, a high wire act with a fancy cauldron and the power to see what others could not.
My life kind of makes bad fiction, so many twists and turns, hats a plenty, high speed crashes, miraculous escapes, a Houdini of the soul . . . there was no road map when I started, just a vague impulse an inner push and the ability somehow to stay calm while the house burned. I have accomplished tremendous things, had “peak” experiences by the score, mystical highs too high to even imagine possible, lows so low one couldn’t believe morning would ever come. I had walked to my own cosmic drum beat . . . paid my toll – but the post cards were beautiful.
This is a look back at that journey. Truly, I’m not like the other boys. My story is different, as, most assuredly, I am different . . . girls by the hundreds, trophies and plaques and countless pats on the head yet there have been so many tears, so many broken hearts; broken bones and bitter bitter disappointments piled along the side of the highway, baking beneath a grieving Sun. I have been Icarus, flying towards the Father and yes sometimes my wings have melted. I have been Prometheus, giving secrets away, chained for my sins; Orpheus singing my song, my lyre spun like gold in to the tips of my aching fingers.
But I have survived, lived to tell the tale . . . Karmic Outlaw
Karmic Outlaw (Excerpt # 2)
I went home that night and did the regressions myself. We’d done them twice during class so I had a fair recollection of the steps. Relax first, then the journey up the mountain, walk along the side count 1 to 25 step by step see the mountain picture it in your head. At the top, the guide . . . then another count and finally the doorway. Step through it, back in to the past, back in to a life “relevant to the life you’re living now.”
Reincarnation. Was it possible?
For months after that, I did them every day, kept the days and trips in a notebook, page after page after page. At first, I was a doctor, a pediatrician it looked like, living in Baltimore, born 1903 died young in a fire in a big beautiful Victorian home with a wrap-around cream-colored porch. Then I was a composer, studying at the Prague Conservatory with Dvorak, who, I later discovered was there during the years he/I studied there, 1890-1893. A doctor and a classical composer . . .
I had my validation, a historical “hit” – Dvorak at Prague. I had been playing the piano for the past year; so being a composer made sense to me. I was convinced. A verifiable fact; it was true!
But the lives started piling up. More and more and more lives – all lived in the 1900’s. It wasn’t possible to be all of them. What did it mean?
And then things morphed again . . . I won this little toy tiger at Pier 39 in San Francisco playing “whack-a-mole”. Actually, won two of them and in our apartment on Dwight Way in Berkeley there was a little hook hanging from the ceiling, so one of the tigers found a home there. At first I didn’t pay much attention to it but after a while I noticed that when I looked at the tiger it would “rotate”. The tiger’s arms were held up so the paws were both parallel to the head, like a mini goal post.
Each time I would look at the tiger, it would move. OK . . . a few days of this passed and then I started putting my arms in to the same configuration as the toy tiger and when I looked at it, I held my arms like the tiger’s and rotated at the hips. The tiger seemed to like this and moved more. Within about a week it became pretty obvious that there was something “unusual” going on . . .
Reincarnation. Was it possible?
For months after that, I did them every day, kept the days and trips in a notebook, page after page after page. At first, I was a doctor, a pediatrician it looked like, living in Baltimore, born 1903 died young in a fire in a big beautiful Victorian home with a wrap-around cream-colored porch. Then I was a composer, studying at the Prague Conservatory with Dvorak, who, I later discovered was there during the years he/I studied there, 1890-1893. A doctor and a classical composer . . .
I had my validation, a historical “hit” – Dvorak at Prague. I had been playing the piano for the past year; so being a composer made sense to me. I was convinced. A verifiable fact; it was true!
But the lives started piling up. More and more and more lives – all lived in the 1900’s. It wasn’t possible to be all of them. What did it mean?
And then things morphed again . . . I won this little toy tiger at Pier 39 in San Francisco playing “whack-a-mole”. Actually, won two of them and in our apartment on Dwight Way in Berkeley there was a little hook hanging from the ceiling, so one of the tigers found a home there. At first I didn’t pay much attention to it but after a while I noticed that when I looked at the tiger it would “rotate”. The tiger’s arms were held up so the paws were both parallel to the head, like a mini goal post.
Each time I would look at the tiger, it would move. OK . . . a few days of this passed and then I started putting my arms in to the same configuration as the toy tiger and when I looked at it, I held my arms like the tiger’s and rotated at the hips. The tiger seemed to like this and moved more. Within about a week it became pretty obvious that there was something “unusual” going on . . .
Karmic Outlaw (Excerpt # 3)
During the Spring of 2010, recruiters were once again jamming my email -- not knowing I am (at least in the corporate world, anyway) damaged goods, toxic, dangerous -- (1) a whistleblower against Kaiser Permanente, (2) a "celebrity psychic" and (3) a political hellion -- the wild child trifecta . . . but I enjoyed their little notes nonetheless.
I will admit, though -- there are times when I do fantasize a bit about conference rooms and fancy shoes but, evidently . . . God had other plans. I really believe there is a "guiding hand", though, driving many of the events in our lives and I also believe that our "past lives" play a big part in how that hand is ultimately "dealt". So adios conference rooms -- although I do still have some badass Italian footwear, souvenirs from a more prosperous time. But, no matter . . .
I think it is interesting how many times I’ve looked in to the "past life" hamper and pulled out all these very high-level military lifetimes. Not privates carting a rifle around fantasizing about getting back to the farm but Generals and Princes and even Kings -- crazy but true. It is what I see and continue to see.
The first "psychic" I ever visited was at a psychic fair in the Cow Palace (perhaps, why I now channel the cow?) in San Francisco in 1979. I was a 24 year old pretty boy jock and the last thing I wanted was to be a psychic but this was the beginning of my "psychic awakening" and when it came, it came like a hurricane. But that hurricane was still a few months in the "future". This was just part of the gathering winds . . .
I was curious about past lives and asked him why I kept having these strange reactions to old Victorian homes. He told me I was a woman in Victorian times, that my husband did everything he could to try to please me but that I was perhaps a bit of a diva and gave the poor boy a bit of a hard time.
Say what?
The funkiometer began to read "High" pretty quickly because he looked right at me and said "your life is going to be hard".
Great . . . thanks!
"You were a King, many times, and so it is going to be hard for you this time round."
No doubt . . . but the funkiometer was still just revving up. He said "you'll soon be doing what I do. Very soon, in fact."
Uh huh . . .
"You'll be able to see what we see." I talked to him a bit longer, truthfully in kind of a daze and when the reading was over his wife came over to me and started talking to me. "Oh you can do what we do."
No -- I can't. She was insistent and now 31 years later, I realize she was right.
A couple of months after that I took a past life regression class in San Francisco. That night when I went home I could regress myself, I was a "natural" at it and everything in my life changed -- that day.
But in class earlier that night I volunteered to be the first one to do the regression, the guinea pig because I was sooooo anxious to see. I wanted, no "needed", to "know" . . . and what was I in this regression?
A King.
Who knows . . . I always try to reconcile how these skills, these past life "themes" fit in to the "grand plan" as well as the day to day of our lives. Well I hate it but there ain't no kingdom any more . . . still as I grow older I begin to believe more and more in the validity of that line of thinking, about who or what "I was".
After shooting wrapped, I did a past life regression for some of the other actors in a film I worked in and one of the girls, a breathtakingly beautiful young woman, had a past life memory as a soldier and I told her it was the way I saw her, too -- VERY male energy, very strong military vibe.
Breathtakingly beautiful . . . just what most little boys think a girl should be but when I looked at her I saw a long line of badass soldiers trailing along behind her and, amazingly, it was something she identified with; she even seemed empowered by the knowledge of it. It is amazing what I see . . . how these karmic "themes" work.
Which raises sort of an in-ter-est-ing question, I think. In many of my lives, I’ve had a very definite badass kind of energy, myself, a killer . . . and so as I wade through the karmic waters, I can't help but feel there's something poetic about it all -- a political outlaw, in addition to being a religious heretic. A rope around the neck or a fire beneath my feet -- truthfully, neither one sounds too good.
A guiding hand; leading . . .
"Luck is a word devoid of sense. Nothing can exist without a cause."
- Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet), French author, wit and philosopher (1694-1778)
I will admit, though -- there are times when I do fantasize a bit about conference rooms and fancy shoes but, evidently . . . God had other plans. I really believe there is a "guiding hand", though, driving many of the events in our lives and I also believe that our "past lives" play a big part in how that hand is ultimately "dealt". So adios conference rooms -- although I do still have some badass Italian footwear, souvenirs from a more prosperous time. But, no matter . . .
I think it is interesting how many times I’ve looked in to the "past life" hamper and pulled out all these very high-level military lifetimes. Not privates carting a rifle around fantasizing about getting back to the farm but Generals and Princes and even Kings -- crazy but true. It is what I see and continue to see.
The first "psychic" I ever visited was at a psychic fair in the Cow Palace (perhaps, why I now channel the cow?) in San Francisco in 1979. I was a 24 year old pretty boy jock and the last thing I wanted was to be a psychic but this was the beginning of my "psychic awakening" and when it came, it came like a hurricane. But that hurricane was still a few months in the "future". This was just part of the gathering winds . . .
I was curious about past lives and asked him why I kept having these strange reactions to old Victorian homes. He told me I was a woman in Victorian times, that my husband did everything he could to try to please me but that I was perhaps a bit of a diva and gave the poor boy a bit of a hard time.
Say what?
The funkiometer began to read "High" pretty quickly because he looked right at me and said "your life is going to be hard".
Great . . . thanks!
"You were a King, many times, and so it is going to be hard for you this time round."
No doubt . . . but the funkiometer was still just revving up. He said "you'll soon be doing what I do. Very soon, in fact."
Uh huh . . .
"You'll be able to see what we see." I talked to him a bit longer, truthfully in kind of a daze and when the reading was over his wife came over to me and started talking to me. "Oh you can do what we do."
No -- I can't. She was insistent and now 31 years later, I realize she was right.
A couple of months after that I took a past life regression class in San Francisco. That night when I went home I could regress myself, I was a "natural" at it and everything in my life changed -- that day.
But in class earlier that night I volunteered to be the first one to do the regression, the guinea pig because I was sooooo anxious to see. I wanted, no "needed", to "know" . . . and what was I in this regression?
A King.
Who knows . . . I always try to reconcile how these skills, these past life "themes" fit in to the "grand plan" as well as the day to day of our lives. Well I hate it but there ain't no kingdom any more . . . still as I grow older I begin to believe more and more in the validity of that line of thinking, about who or what "I was".
After shooting wrapped, I did a past life regression for some of the other actors in a film I worked in and one of the girls, a breathtakingly beautiful young woman, had a past life memory as a soldier and I told her it was the way I saw her, too -- VERY male energy, very strong military vibe.
Breathtakingly beautiful . . . just what most little boys think a girl should be but when I looked at her I saw a long line of badass soldiers trailing along behind her and, amazingly, it was something she identified with; she even seemed empowered by the knowledge of it. It is amazing what I see . . . how these karmic "themes" work.
Which raises sort of an in-ter-est-ing question, I think. In many of my lives, I’ve had a very definite badass kind of energy, myself, a killer . . . and so as I wade through the karmic waters, I can't help but feel there's something poetic about it all -- a political outlaw, in addition to being a religious heretic. A rope around the neck or a fire beneath my feet -- truthfully, neither one sounds too good.
A guiding hand; leading . . .
"Luck is a word devoid of sense. Nothing can exist without a cause."
- Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet), French author, wit and philosopher (1694-1778)
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