On Cleaning Out One's Ears

In the house in which I am currently residing - as the (elderly) uncle of the lady of the house  - there live said lady, her husband, their twin teenage daughters, her youngest son (from another marriage) - who leaves early and gets home late, from commuting a little over half an hour to university and a job (and a gf) there, and so is hardly ever around - and his eldest son (ditto for him), who is not around much either, for working, for now, as a uber driver - based out of a somewhat nearby airport - while attempting to get off the ground an idea of his in the electronics field,(1) with his family - of wife and five children - living way over east, in Nebraska.(2)  Last night - a Friday, celebratory night - the man of the house had taken my niece/his wife out for dinner, the two teenagers were each out on dates, and it was just me at the dinner table.  Until the ‘uber driver’ son showed up, and joined me at the dinner table, for a (very good) leftover and homemade meal (what my niece labeled ‘Italian shells’; with a meatless version for me, as the only vegetarian in this family constellation).  Knowing a little bit about me, but our not ever having had a real, sit-down conversation yet (I have been living here now for almost exactly four months), he asked me, while preparing his plate and then joining me at the table, about the ‘spiritual community’ that I had lived in over in Scotland.  And thereby hangs a tale, for this blog’s sharing.(3)

I will deal here with just the aspects of my sharing with him that have to do with its theme; especially as to how we were organized, as a ‘spiritual’ community, and what caused me, primarily (at least readily recognizably) to leave.  I explained to him how we were an international non-denominational spiritual community, with members of ‘all’ religions or no specific religion, but all united through the one common denominator of being concerned about Nature/the Earth, to the point of believing in a ’New Age’ of higher consciousness on the planet, and wanting to do what we could to help bring it about, in the way of the theme of Personal and Planetary Transformation - i.e., that the world will change when we individuals change; that that is where the essential ‘change’ must come from first.  To that end, we had a structure whereby we didn’t pay people to be there (except as guests to take workshops; our main source of income), rather, that people - members, and prospective members - were there to be of service - to the community, because of/for its being of service to the planet.  And so, besides getting one’s room and board, and after paying an initial membership fee, we(4) got what was called an ‘allowance’ - i.e,, pocket money.  Which was not a lot; reflecting the fact that we were not there ‘for the money,’ but for the Service we could render.  (Reflecting the idea of monasteries and nunneries.  Indeed, a leading British philosopher and educator - Sir George Trevalyn - called the community ‘the Essene community of the New Age’.)  But as the years rolled on, more and more people - many young in age - wanted to join what had become, as part of an international network of same, an ‘eco-village’ (complete with windmills, recycling programs, etc. etc. - ‘living lightly on the planet’), and not have to engage further in the ‘outer’ world’s scene.  Which caused a fundamental change in mindset philosophy of many in the community: As I termed it to my listener at the dinner table, “from being a spiritual community with members to being a workshop center with employees;” the ‘allowance’ having morphed, in the minds of many of the community members,(5) into ‘wages’.  (And thus, as the ‘wages’ grew over the years, into ‘income’ in the eyes of the Scottish government.)(6)  And that wasn’t why I had joined the community in the first place.  I very much liked the idea of thinking of work as Service to a cause, not, primarily, as ‘a way to make money’.  Which, I told my auditor, I was afraid that the membership was beginning to think of their work as.

My story, then - which also involved my leaving the community, for most of the ‘90s, and living in Australia in a relationship, but feeling drawn back to the community, in 2001 - got to the point of my listener asking why fundamentally I left the community (in 2012).  My reply:            

      

Partly because it was, simply, time to, given the ‘politics’ of the place, the attitude that was beginning to creep in, and replace the founding principles, concepts.  But also - as I told him; and found myself telling him, putting those pieces together for the first time in my own mind - because Barack Obama was going to run again - as an ineligible candidate(7) - for the office of POTUS -

of MY country - 

and I found myself wanting to go back there and see what the hell the citizenry - 

the clued-in citizenry;

the awake citizenry -    

were going - finally - to do about it.

To rise to that (very large, in my estimation; and, I would say, easily to be fairly determined so in general) occasion.

Or not.

And either way,

to see what I would do about it.

How I would deal with it.

In my retirement years.

From the world’s - often very dark - way of doing things. 

But my leaving the community, and when I did, was mostly, I understand, now - with these years back in my old home country, and the time that I have had here, in my retirement years, for reflection, on various subjects, and conditions - because, if people get - really get - the idea, and the principle behind it, of doing things not for the personal monetary recompense in doing them, but out of service to the ’spiritual community of which we are all a part’ - i.e., a member thereof; like a finger of a Hand - then ultimately we ’spiritual beings having a human experience’ can do away with money altogether on the planet; when people - incarnate souls - do things - i.e., share goods and services with one another - out of a higher motive than that of ‘making a profit’ on it.  Out of the highest motive that there could ever be.  Not, alternatively to that way of life, out of being a subject of an all-powerful secular state.  But 

out of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning.

Out of, in a word:

Love.

And then 

All else will, and can, be added unto us.  As facets, fractals, aspects, points of view, expressions of

The Whole.

The All That Is.  At the core of our very 

being.

And lo - here we are.  At such a point.  With A Global Currency Reset facing us (in the aftermath of a collapse of the global monetary and financial system).  When we can recommit our national monies to being backed by gold - and other precious metals; or assets/commodities; in any event, recommitting it to being backed by honest-to-God value.  Not just fiat money, backed by nothing but a promise to pay in itself.  (What.  A.  Scam.)  And then, see our way into a new world -

the New Age - 

by eliminating interest-bearing money altogether.  And fractional-reserve banking along with it. 

A ‘bit’ of scammy corruption that we have lived with, and under,

long enough. 

P.S. Something that has come up for me at this time in my life is a difficulty in hearing.(8)  It hasn’t made much difference in my life, especially living alone in my retirement years as I had been for the last seven-some years.  But my not being able to hear soft voices at the dinner table, in my new ‘family’ configuration, has caused some angst.  Not for me.  But primarily for my niece, who has taken very seriously her sense of responsibility for her uncle in his waning years; and with the Mormons especially having such a big concern and feeling for ‘family’.  And so she has, er, ‘pioneered’ the process of a) my having my ears checked out by her family doctor (who did, indeed, discover that I had some wax impacted on my eardrums  - even though I have been attempting to deal with the problem by using ear wax removal drops and a syringe; to little noticeable avail); and b) upon discovering, through my feedback, that dealing with that factor didn’t solve the problem itself, going to the trouble of purchasing batteries for my hearing aid, which I dug out of my moving-in boxes for the occasion, and the batteries to which had long expired.  I plan on trying out my enhanced, ‘bionic ear’ at the dinner table this evening.  Primarily so that I am not a ‘burden on the family,’ in their having to speak up for ‘Uncle Duane’ in his old age.

     Although I think that something else - something more - is going on here.  If, er, Truth be told:     

     I titled this blog ‘On Cleaning Out One’s Ears’. 

     There is a metaphor in there, in that statement.

     And for humanity as a

     Whole.                                  

     As in (altogether now):

     ’He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’

—

footnotes:

(1) having to do with people being able to organize their bank accounts for better budgeting procedures.  Thus, providing ‘society’ with a service.  A theme which I will return to herein.  

(2) We all just came back from a cruise-ship holiday, out of my old stomping grounds in Southern California down the West Coast to the southernmost tip of Baja CA and back, organized by my niece’s husband, and consisting of a party of just over two dozen of us, including, besides those of this extended family already mentioned, my niece’s four other, adult children, her eldest daughter’s family (of three children and somewhat newly-minted doctor husband), ‘his’ youngest son’s (smaller) family, the patriarch of the brood (her growing-up father; my brother having died when she was very young), and a couple of friends of the family - and me.  A good time was had by all, although I will admit to having had some trepidation regarding such an outing, with the ‘novel coronavirus’ beginning to surface in the States and in such particular surroundings, and all.  But so far, so good in that department - for this family, and this neck of the woods.  That whole thing being part of the change that we need to see, now.  Fundamentally.

   But to continue.

(3) And to point out, at this early point in it, that this family is LDS - Latter-Day Saints, better known as Mormons.  But more clearly known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  So: very a) Church-oriented, and b) Christian-oriented.

   That information has to do with whatever was going on in his mind while I was telling my tale. 

(4) I say ‘we’ as a long-time member of the community, having joined it in 1976. (It began, strictly, in 1962, but had started its main period of growth in 1970, with the arrival of a young American named David Spangler, who had begun to make a name for himself in New Age circles and whose association with the community helped it take off in greater numbers, particularly with many Americans finding out about it for the first time through that connection.)  Not that I was among the eldest of members of the community, in terms of service to it (or in age).  But there were few of us ‘elders’ remaining, as the years rolled by.  Which became part of ‘the problem’ - of the reason for my leaving.  And which has to do specifically with the overriding theme of this blog. 

(5) Judging, I think fairly, by our annual year-end Conferences, when we closed to the public for a week and reviewed our past year and then looked to the new one, in terms of workshop-theme offerings and budget items and so forth. 

(6) And which began to set up a series of financial straits for the community; which it had constantly to deal with, in terms of selling off properties, and cutting Staff (read: membership) lines, and so forth.  The ‘allowance’-turned-‘wages’ - which the membership didn’t want to cut, even when everything else  was on the block - amounting to more than the community could reasonably handle.  But once that door was opened - i.e., the idea of being paid a wage for a service rendered - it was difficult to put the horse back in the barn, so to speak.  The community - the ‘spiritual community’ - becoming more and more just like the outside world.

   I hesitate to say, “like the real world”.  For reasons which will shortly come clear.

(7) I have dealt with this subject many times in these pages, so I won’t go into that detail here.  Just, here, to say that I didn’t come across this fact until after his first election, in 2008, and those facts, about his ‘birth certificate’ and parentage, began to appear on the Internet, in the ‘alternative media’ - which, fortunately (as in said example), had come into being by then, and was alerting the public to many such factors, about life.  And how we have been lied to, by the MSM, and our governments, for many years, on many issues.  So, I had been keeping an eye on that specific subject since that time.

   And getting angrier and angrier, about its not being dealt with, back in my home country, as those years went by.  

(8) Which actually began back in the closing days of my time in the (specifically dedicated) spiritual community.  And for which I obtained a hearing aid, on that country’s Health Service. 

   When I was beginning to have trouble with hearing…

   I think there’s a metaphor in there, somewhere.  For me….

   In any event: I hardly ever used it, because I realized that at least part of the problem was that I had wax in my ears, and I didn’t want to cover that fundamental aspect of the matter up with an artificial hearing aid, but rather deal with it via a real, natural ‘hearing aid,’ of a good clean-out first. 

   It’s the same principle as dealing with the childhood diseases, by natural, immune-enhancing means rather than with vaccinations - and their terrible load of toxic constituents.  And then, also in our culture, there is the perverse phenomenon of how so many adverse mental conditions, besides physical conditions, are due simply to faulty nutrition; so that drug treatment for these conditions - as with similar ‘treatment’ by ‘motivational speakers,’ like, say, Tony Robbins - just masks the underlying causal condition, and so is, as I say, or at least can be, perverse.  But to continue.