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moderndayruth

~ Tarot inspired essays and more

moderndayruth

Tag Archives: United States

‘If you wake up surrounded by broken vodka bottles…

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by moderndayruth in Essay, Photography

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

All-Russia Exhibition Centre, Jim Morrison, KFC, McDonald, Moscow, Russia, The New York Times, United States, VDNKh, Vladimir Vysotsky

… ass-naked in the snow you had a quiet night with some work colleagues in Moscow’, says the Road Junky’s Instant Global Morning-After Self-Locator. Sounds funny and perfectly depicts the common stereotypes about mother Russia – but it’s false. 21st century Moscow’s reality is rather what they believe to await you in Switzerland, under the circumstances: If you wake up in a snow bank and are greeted in six different languages by a helpful hiker you are in Switzerland. Don’t touch anything; you can’t afford it.  You see, Zurich is ranking somewhere 7th in various lists of the world’s most expensive cities, and Moscow is either No1 – or second only to Tokio.

The truth is that my friends and colleagues here don’t drink more than my other friends anywhere in the world, it’s only that they pay double and triple for the booze. All in all, if you are dying to live a genuinely Russian experience – or, rather, a Soviet one – you’d better head for Moldova or Belarus. I’ve been to Moldova couple of years ago – and it’s really an experience out of this world, somehow the globalization has bypassed it and you can indeed experience stuff unavailable anywhere else; i was told the same is in Belarus.

In Moscow – you won’t get lost if you don’t speak Russian, as it was the case some quarter a century ago, Russian cars are driven mostly by migrants from Central Asia, while locals prefer Mercedes and Audi. Wherever  you go – there is a McDonald’s and a Starbucks and there are very few foods from home which you’ll miss horribly while staying here – you can buy pretty much everything in Moscow’s hypermarkets.

If you were here 25 years ago, you needed to speak from the framework of Russian culture, so to be understood – cultural gap was huge because Russians at the time were watching their own movies exclusively, reading their own writers mostly and listening to music that was made-in-Russia… It’s not the case anymore, the same Hollywood blockbusters are screened in the movie  theaters here and the NY Times bestsellers are translated instantly. Nowadays, when you want to share something from another culture – your brain won’t explode while thinking of the Russian equivalent (i mean the impossible comparisons of a kind: Jim Morrison is to us, what Vladimir Vysotsky is to you, to which foreigners used to resort at the time), just spit it out, whatever it is that you thought of – chances are that your Russian host already knows about it.

Of course that there are certain local specifics – like the tea culture and certain traditional foods, such as herring which is savored with delicious Borodino bread … But those you can taste in any Russian restaurant pretty much everywhere in the world.

Oh, right – many Russian women still wear fur, but so do Montenegrin and vegetarianism is not as common as it is in the Western Europe and USA.

Other than that – i really have hard time thinking of some major differences; Russians, like other Eastern Europeans, were said to be gloomy because here it wasn’t common to keep smiling at all times, but that’s changing too; also the previously obligatory use of patronymics is mostly the matter of the past.

All of that being said, you can imagine my amazement when -unexpectedly – i’ve lived an jamais vu experience, here at VDNH which by now is as ‘all-Russian’ as KFC at the Chinese Great Wall is all Chinese.

After the stroll at the botanical garden, across the park’s ponds we headed to the Exhibition Center VDNH which is adjunct to it. With a friend who’s my usual sojourner during the local adventures, for some reason we ventured into the Pavilion No2, where Soviet geological wonders used to be exposed (nowadays it’s a flower market.)

Lo and behold, we hear loud Panjabi music coming from somewhere, we follow it and get to some stairs leading down, the entrance itself being hidden by white textile paravan… Excited, we head downstairs and find ourselves in the most amazing place in which i’ve been during my three years long stay in Moscow – it’s a restaurant and a shop owned by a Bengali gentleman, Amin, who runs it mostly for his own countrymates and the small business owners from the flower market.

I do doubt there is a friendlier restaurant owner in Moscow than Mr Amin – and i am certain that you can’t treat yourself to such delicacies at such a low prices anywhere else. The atmosphere is that of a local pub – and it doesn’t matter that you don’t really know anyone, you feel welcomed; with all the loneliness and alienation typical of Moscow and all other megalopolises – Amin’s restaurant does feel like a cosy, divinely smelling and tad messy home away from home. (Pictures posted with permission.)

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Oh those Russians

08 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by moderndayruth in Essay, Photography

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Andrew Bromfield, International Women's Day, New York Times, Russia, Russian Mountains, Russian roulette, United States, Winter Queen

… and those Americans too! I love you guys, being from a tiny nation myself, i am forever fascinated with dynamics of big nations – Russians, Americans, Chinese… to the extent that i learned your respective languages and made an effort to travel and even live in your ‘part of the woods’.  (I do know that many of you are equally fascinated with us – opposites attract, what else can i say? ;))

Anyhow, in my unsystematic and off-the-record research of foreign cultures, motivated mainly by quite childlike curiosity about the big world out there – one of the most fascinating phenomena to me is the bilateral relations  between the big guys… Let alone state politics – that’s a world unto itself, and quite a predictable and boring one, i am speaking of how your “average Joe” relates to his Russian counterpart and his better half (and the other way around.)

Inter-marrying is blooming and it’s always one of the best indicators, there is huge Russian diaspora in the US and there are numerous Americans living and working in mother Russia.

That being said, i am reading Akunin’s  “conspiracy mystery” – The Winter Queen and i am enjoying it thoroughly. After having suffered for years from poor translations of great writers into my native tongue, i am finally having an amazing first-hand experience. Akunin’s Russian is rich and flowing, it feels like warm gloves and a cup of grog in the cold of contemporary global scribomania.

According to  The New York Times review, Andrew Bromfield did good work with the English translation, so if you are looking for an awesome and truly Russian read – i wholeheartedly recommend it.

So, earlier today in the laundromat, as i was waiting for the washing machine to finish it’s heavy duty work and skimming through the book’s pages meanwhile – at pages 27-28 i burst out laughing!

Someone Ksaveriy Feofilaktovich (the name sounds funny in Russian too) says: “I read somewhere it’s called American Roulette. They came up with it in America, during the golden fever. You put one bullet into the barrel, you roll it and boom! If you are lucky – you win the pot, if not – bye bye, off you go.”

Akunin uses Russian poker slang expression сорвать банк – it’s when one player wins all the money, but given that i don’t play poker i have no idea what’s the exact English equivalent, i guess ‘win the pot’ will do

Right, he’s referring to the infamous game of chance which the rest of the world calls Russian Roulette! That’s from a novel too mind you; in 1937, Georges Surdez had written a story of the same name for Collier’s magazine:

‘Did you ever hear of Russian Roulette?’ … With the Russian army in Romania, around 1917, some officer would suddenly pull out his revolver, put a single cartridge in the cylinder, spin the cylinder, snap it back in place, put it to his head and pull the trigger.
Except that the linguist in me loves learning where some widespread phrases originated, what did amaze me is that two great nations ascribe to each other this potentially fatal “game”.
Most interestingly, the predecessor of the roller coaster – so called Russian Mountains, in mother Russia are called… American Mountains, of course.
Funny, isn’t it?
Other than that, March 8th is big in Russia, it’s a public holiday and everyone takes it very seriously, almost as seriously as the New Year!
I’ve written on Communist Calendar before and on this day a year ago i wrote the essay Keep the bloody carnations for yourself, on my own aversion to the “International Women’s Day”… But it’s different in Russia, it does feel like a holiday, everyone is excited, planning outings and looking forward to the (obligatory) gifts they’ll be presented. 
I gave in to the peer pressure, going to the Gorky Park where all kinds of most amazing  events will be held – free of charge for the ladies, mind you – and i must admit i am quite excited about it!
Here is my own early 8th of March gift, a “Brazilian monster” and couple of shots from nearby Starbucks with my gorgeous younger colleagues from Pushkin Uni – Sasha and Zhenya.
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stalked by chronological narration

07 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Photography, Poetry

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Bible, Greg Kessler, Highbrow, Kim Thúy, Literature, Narrator, Social Sciences, United States

stalked by chronological narration

chased by master plots

haunted by the usual suspects

the characters of high brow prose

damsels in disress

and their cohorts

thorn apart by the cruel world

due sacrifices of the righteous people

of whom  nothing less is expected

ever since the opening sentence

I run away from metamorphs,

barewolfs

and their maturation

from  predictable fables of

strong lions’ and cunning foxes’

irreversible transformations

bypassing allegories and metaphors

I hide

from conventional morals of the story

in the variable curses

of magical conversing

in  unevenly  ­rhymed verses

L.R.S.

 

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9/11 In My Personal History

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Coming of Age / Bildungsroman

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Balkan, Balkan Wars, Chinese Philosophy, Kabbalah, Montenegro, United States, Yugoslav, Yugoslavia

picture taken in 2011

I lit a candle this morning and i prayed to God, silently, for heroes, for America, for all of us.

On this day in 2001 i had just returned from China, was watching a movie and getting ready to hit off to the gym… when they started broadcasting the tragedy.

I was taken aback.  My mother said: oh, this must be a movie!

I knew it, somewhere deep down, i felt that spasm in my stomach which told me that, sadly, this is for real.

Let me tell you what America means to me – beyond being a country where many people i love – live.

For an European intellectual – and an American intellectual as well, it’s rather customary to express certain cynicism when it comes to politics, especially to the politics of the only remaining super power (us having grown up under the threat of the other.)

As a linguist and as a writer – i use words as my primary tool of expression, as that very bridge through which i communicate with the world.

English language, which i started learning quite late in life, opened my mind for patterns of thought which were unknown to me in the culture into which i was born –  and which i haven’t known in the cultures where we lived, which languages i learned.

It’s the language – its richness, its warmth and its genuine, innate positivity that opened up my heart in the beginning.

I wanted to learn more about the people who spoke that language.

As my own country, former Yugoslavia, started to fall apart, my own identity did too; it turned out i belonged to a people, Yugoslavs,  who instantly went extinct , i remained without a citizenship, without cultural identity and even my mother tongue was not called the same any more.

As the remnants of former Yugoslavia were buried deeper and deeper, with them went down the communist system of values into which we were raised.

I turned to my Jewish roots to find meaning and personal salvation. It’s there that i understood what essential role US had played in the Jewish battle for survival.

I had studied literature under different system, so it’s later on in life that i came to  Kerouac, Carver and Ginsberg – and they have moved my world and shifted my perception.

The movies, the music – the more i learned about the culture, the more i loved its people and identified with them.

Whichever interest i’ve developed – Kabbalah, Tarot, and even Chinese Philosophy – it turned out that i was looking in the direction of US – first Kabbalah Center, outside Jerusalem,  opened in US and my teacher was there; people who wrote books on Tarot, from whom i learned – were there too, and even intellectuals from whom i was learning Chinese thought – were in US as well.

During the Balkan wars, my father being a dissident, we sought refuge in Montenegro, where his side of family originates from; during 1990ies  every single thinking Montenegrin understood that we have to regain state independence in order to reclaim our history that once was honorable – and in order to break out of the predominant back then Balkan hate for no reason.

In 2006, after years of struggle , Montenegro is free and independent – for which , i dare to say, political support of US administration, and thus, American people – was one of the main factors that made it come true.

Thus, on this day, eleven years ago, it was not some country overseas that was attacked. It was me and my own life that was attacked.

In my personal history, i had died once, when Yugoslavia died – was it a fake construct all together, did it turn out for the best at the end of things – i wouldn’t know, but i was too young then to have any relevant influence and for my voice to be heard.

Two decades later, the world has changed, my own life changed and grew in a direction of which i never guessed, i didn’t plan on becoming who i am today, it happened… But, big part of it, big part of who i personally am is forever intertwined with American people.

So, i stand with you today and always with my soul and with my life and i say, in one voice with you: ALWAYS REMEMBER. NEVER FORGET.

Lena Ruth Stefanovic

note: this essay was written last year, on the same day… dates were changed accordingly, but nothing changed in my heart, nothing ever will.

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A Confession: Why I Love Obama

03 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Essay

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

Ann Dunham, Barack Obama, HBO, Mitt Romney, New York Times, Obama, Romney, United States

Sylvia, a dear friend of mine, has sent me last night this message and i promised her to reply as soon as i wake up, so here it is (bit shortened): “You posted that our choice of President in the US affects  you all, and other countries. So, a question… how? Secondly I’m curious why Obama, and why not Romney. So, if you feel up to either a short answer of food for thought for a blog post that would be great.
I personally am curious as well. ”

I think i wrote before on my educational background, anyway it’s in ‘About me’ section here; i am a schooled diplomat and i have over a decade of related work experience, it’s a piece of cake for me to write a paper on advantages of Euro-Atlantic integrations as the main course of foreign politics of my own country, Montenegro, and the positive impact the foreign politics implemented by the administration of President Obama has on the process; the truth is that with me it is way more personal than that.

Not only diplomats in career, but any socialized human being needs to have at least some  theoretical background so to explain and if needed – justify – their choices; that’s where logic’s fruits kick in and that’s why we still need to know at least some history, but the truth is that most of our choices are still made on subconscious, intuitive level and it’s only later that we come up with perfectly reasonable and sound explanation for it all.

We could focus on the overall advantages of the liberal agenda, on the incalculable value  of the fight against the extreme economic inequality; having grown up behind the iron curtain i could write pages on importance of the civil rights and the rule of law, last but not the least, as a woman, i naturally believe that choices regarding procreation are to remain with me – and not with clergy or administration – as it is i who is giving birth and it is i who is responsible for my children’s well-being, not them.

You see, the world is not divided anymore. When i wake up and go to my bedroom’s balcony to breath in fresh air – i first hear my American neighbor’s kids playing in the backyard, in our street, out of eight buildings , three are inhabited by Americans who live and/or work in Montenegro.

After a stretch and a yawn on a balcony,  i check out daily newspapers –  besides local ones i read The New York Times.

I don’t watch tv that much, but when i do – it’s HBO and HBO comedy, which, of course is mostly American movies and series.

Kabbalah, Tarot and even I Ching – all i am interested in, i study in English – and except couple of schools of thought in Israel and one I Ching scholar in UK, the sources from which i study are US based.

So, it’s not the proverbial ‘butterfly effect’, i and everyone else do feel the shifts across the Atlantic and are affected by those profoundly.

I remember Bush’s presidency well and i do remember how it was reflected here, i hated it. As much as Conservatives like to come across as God fearing Christians, i call it BS and i  don’t believe them, not a single bit, more so – i see them using God’s name in vain.

What does modern feudalism that Romney is pushing have to do with the Bible is beyond me and so is his – as i see it – arrogance to present the interest of the gun industry under the religious agenda.

He is a Mormon, is he not? And yet he is monogamous?! How come? If the polygamy is a base of your religious believes, how can you still be a Mormon – and be married to only one woman? I get the doctrine of the Latter Day Saint Church, but i do not get the hypocrisy to renounce polygamy and still call yourself a Mormon, that’s beyond my comprehension.

And you know, all about Mitt makes the tune from my fav American surrealist –  David Lynch’s Twin Peaks play repeatedly in my head, he simply gives me the creeps:

It’s almost as if i can smell violence, drugs and bondage; all thoroughly tucked in under the clean-cut appearance… overly clean-cut, if you ask me.

You know the moment when i knew i really love Obama? It’s this one:

One can fake almost everything, but not dancing, Obama is cool.

Have you ever seen Mitt dancing? Neither have i, except for that parody clip on Leno of course ( Romney’s head was digitally projected over a dancer’s body, entering the Republican National Convention to ‘Gangnam Style’).

Obama is biracial and having a complex ethnic and religious background myself i do know the rule of thumb is for people who are not  of “ethnically clean” background to be more comprehensive and inclusive of other denominations and ethnicities, it is so by default. Of course that many (most?) of people whose parents are of same ethnicity and religious affiliation are tolerant and accepting as well, but, being a part of majority, it does take a conscious effort to connect to those of us who are in minority – never mind whether religious or sexual.

Romney never knew that kind of anxiety. He never knew lack. He never knew unprivileged childhood. How can he possibly relate to us?

Only several years prior to Ann Dunham’s giving birth to Barack Obama in 1961, biracial  love story was still one of the only two taboo subjects in American literature (the other being pedophilia); can you imagine what guts it took this woman of blessed memory?

Everyone loves watching ‘Modern Family’ nowadays, Dunham’s lived it – an outstandingly progressive way of life – back in 70ies:

I like him because he doesn’t try to come across as holier than though – he is human and is not perfect, he smokes ciggies – albeit not more than five a day and in his memoir “Dreams from My Father’ he openly writes about smoking pot while a teenager.

Last but not the least, i respect Obama because he married a strong woman and not a bimbo.

His spouse, the first lady, has impeccable dressing style and promotes American designers, it’s maybe a detail – but you know, the bigger picture at the end of things is threaded out of the small pieces – she is proud to belong to American nation and doesn’t feel it inferior to any other nation, she expresses that attitude even in her selection of clothes and i applaud to that.

A friend of mine, professor Aleksandra Nikcevic Batricevic PhD, an amazingly stylish lady in her own right, shared on facebook the other day a link to an interview with someone Dubravka Djuric titled ‘We all belong to semi-marginal cultures’. I had the ‘honor’ of attending at the time a workshop of Ms Djuric and i wouldn’t say she considers her native culture (Serbian) to be marginal, not really – that’s how she sees ours, Montenegrin culture, because she doesn’t know it and doesn’t belong to it. Whatever Ms Djuric’s personal issues and inadequacies are – i would ask her NOT to make such sweeping generalizations, and especially NOT on behalf of MY NATION to which she is in no way connected; in the future, please, keep your own inferiority complex for yourself and spare us of your projections that have nothing to do with us and our culture.

There is no center, there is no periphery in culture and art – in politics, yes, there is US, the only remaining super power – and its first lady gives a good example what does it mean to be an individual, a patriot and a liberal cosmopolitan at the same time. And, you know, your 1st guy is married to her, so, among numerous other qualities, he obviously has exquisite taste in women as well.

In full honesty, that’s about it, dear Sylvia.

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Eight of Swords and The Great Escape of The Upside Down King

16 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Kabbalah & Western Hermetic Tradition

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Great Sphinx of Giza, Harry Houdini, Houdin, Houdini, Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, Listverse, Old Cairo, United States

Houdini, East Indian Needle trick,  threading 30 needles inside his stomach

What magic it would take for Erich ben Samuel, an Austria-Hungarian born Jew from a rabbinical lineage, to become  the most famous magician of all times and an all-American patriot?

That kind of magic only Harry Houdini could perform – and that’s exactly what he did.

Erich’s surname by birth was Weisz,  while Houdini was adopted after one of the most important magicians who ever lived – Robert Houdin,  regarded as the father of modern magic for it was he –  Frenchman born in 1805, who discovered magic by accident, did not start performing until the age of 40 and had a professional career  of only 11 years, who made the magic respectable.

Before Houdin, magic was performed only in circuses, alongside “freaks of nature” – the bias inherited from Middle Ages and bigotry of Scholasticism were still strong.

It was Houdin who first used his knowledge of science to develop illusions – and it was Houdin who at the same time skillfully mocked both his audience and the science itself by backing up his magic with pseudo-science; like when he performed the first levitation  – he made his son breeze ether and had persuaded the audience that smelling ether was making man lighter.

Anyway, his magic worked and his explanations were accepted, the stigma was removed and thus – the door through which Harry Houdini entered the history – ajared.

It’s been said that the greatest of all Hudini’s  escapes was the escape from back then backwater town of Appleton in  Wisconsin; but if seriously, it’s his escapes from straitjackets and milk cans that made him famous – it seemed that his mind was firmly ruling over matter, dissolving the physical hindrances and making the impossible – possible.

Yesterday, Listverse has published, in my opinion, one of its best lists so far – the top 10 fascinating facts about  Houdini.

I can’t recommend it strongly enough because the greatest showman ever was at the same time a remarkable philanthrop and patriot with a heart of purest gold.

Somewhere ‘at the crossroads of Science and Mystery, the heart and the mind, the “old days” and the modern age’ –   the Great Houdini will encounter Vaudeville itself. (1)

As the story goes, “in the spring of 1899, twenty-five-year-old Harry Houdini was ready to retire as an entertainer. For six years he had traveled ceaselessly, performing in small-time dime museums and medicine shows, sharing the stage with physical anomalies and other assorted freaks. For five of those years, his wife Bess had shared his meager lot, performing with him as he desperately sought an act that might lead to greater success and a life in high-class vaudeville. Acrobat, illusionist, hypnotist, and puppeteer – Houdini had tried all of these and more, and nothing had worked. Then he met Martin Beck, “(2)  owner of a chain of Vaudeville theaters and the rest is history.

Personally, i am ever fascinated by the genre – in theater and in literature – and i dedicated my third book and my first collection of poetry to it.

As a side note –  don’t get me wrong – i am not using this opportunity to promote my own work, rather to explain it further – the book THANKS GOODNESS wasn’t a commercial project in the first place; my third – “Devil, an unauthorized biography” published together with Francisco J. Campos’ amazing “Vaudeville Tarot” was financed by Montenegrin Ministry of Culture, after the expert committee had evaluated it as ‘a work of art, contributing to Montenegrin cultural heritage’.

During launches i often get asked “how did you get such cool people to contribute to the  book?” Namely – besides Francisco – the famous Spanish artist who created the deck; mystical British poet and avantgarde philosopher Stephen J. Mangan –  who is enviably popular in not-easy-to-impress international tribe of Tarot connoiscieurs – contributed selflessly to the book; so did Sanjin Sorel, leading Croatian linguist and poet; Tanja Bakic – poetess and world renown Blake scholar and  others.

So, i often get asked “how come”?! It’s “simple” – it’s magic , it’s the strange ways of Tarot  and Vaudeville itself.

Francisco J. Campos, Lena Ruth Stefanovic

(Scans of the deck and the review of the book by everyone’s favorite author and mystic Bonnie Cehovet are  here .)

“Mystery attracts Mystery”, as H.P. Lovecraft puts it. The genius writer’s work is in public domain and if you haven’t yet –  you can enjoy his short story on Hudini which the statement opens – “Under the Pyramids.”

Lovecraft sets the story in 1910, in Egypt, where Houdini is kidnapped by a tour guide – a lookalike of an ancient Pharaoh – and thrown into a deep pit near the Great Sphinx of Giza. While trying to escape, he stumbles upon a huge cavern where he meets the deity that inspired the building of the Sphinx.

Apropos, Houdini himself loved the story and worked with Lovecraft on several projects afterwards – until his death in 1926.

Had Lovecraft written only this short story and not a sentence more – i believe he would have rightfully earned all the admiration and popularity he enjoys nowadays (sadly – like with many geniuses from the past – it was not the case during his lifetime.)

I’ve been to Egypt and with my interest in the occult you can imagine what profound impact it had on me – yet i never wrote a single line about it; simply – it’s already being done – and in a way that hardly can be surpassed: ” Old Cairo is itself a story-book and a dream—labyrinths of narrow alleys redolent of aromatic secrets; Arabesque balconies and oriels nearly meeting above the cobbled streets; maelstroms of Oriental traffic with strange cries, cracking whips, rattling carts, jingling money, and braying donkeys; kaleidoscopes of polychrome robes, veils, turbans, and tarbushes; water-carriers and dervishes, dogs and cats, soothsayers and barbers; and over all the whining of blind beggars crouched in alcoves, and the sonorous chanting of muezzins from minarets limned delicately against a sky of deep, unchanging blue.
      The roofed, quieter bazaars were hardly less alluring. Spice, perfume, incense, beads, rugs, silks, and brass—old Mahmoud Suleiman squats cross-legged amidst his gummy bottles while chattering youths pulverise mustard in the hollowed-out capital of an ancient classic column—a Roman Corinthian, perhaps from neighbouring Heliopolis, where Augustus stationed one of his three Egyptian legions. Antiquity begins to mingle with exoticism. And then the mosques and the museum—we saw them all, and tried not to let our Arabian revel succumb to the darker charm of Pharaonic Egypt which the museum’s priceless treasures offered. That was to be our climax, and for the present we concentrated on the mediaeval Saracenic glories of the Caliphs whose magnificent tomb-mosques form a glittering faery necropolis on the edge of the Arabian Desert.”

If you read this two paragraphs by Lovecraft – you too have been to Cairo, you strolled along the cobbled alleys of its bazaars, you sipped on your coffee on Nile and listened to the city talk about yet another Saudi prince who fell head over heels in love with the famous belly dancer and spent his fortune in the process.

As charming as Cairo is – traditionally the task of the Kabbalist is to escape his/her own Egypt or  Mizraim as is is called in Hebrew; of course – as meitzar (מיצר), means “sea strait” and also  “boundaries, limits, restrictions” – we are not speaking here of an actual country, but of our own egos made of fears and doubts.

Have i mentioned that Lovecraft’s fiction inspired one of my favorite decks of all times, which is immensely helping me to cross over my personal abyss?

Here is the image of 8 of Swords from Dark Grimoire Tarot:

Dark Grimoire Tarot  Author: Giovanni Pelosini Artist: Michele Penco Lo Scarabeo 2008

In Bonnie Cehovet’s words: ” The basis of this deck is the concept of Grimoires – the ancient texts of magic, witchcraft and rituals that over time many people have looked on as being books of Black Magic…

Here the Tarot is presented as a possible book of magic – inspired by the dream worlds of fantasy literature, by grimoires (real and imaginary), by the nightmares that they may have generated and continue to generate in the depths of the subconscious. “

This is the traditional depiction of 8 of Swords, from Waite Smith deck: :

8oS, Raider Waite Smith Tarot Deck

The girl depicted in the card has wandered far away from her home – the castle in the background – surrounded by seemingly inescapable fence of her own self-limiting thoughts which swords symbolize,  hands bound, eyes blinded…

She needs a miracle to free herself – and that’s what all of us need to cross the abyss which Aleister Crowley considered to be the main purpose of the (occult) magician’s career; in his  Little Essays Toward Truth he says:

“This doctrine is extremely difficult to explain; but it corresponds more or less to the gap in thought between the Real, which is ideal, and the Unreal, which is actual. In the Abyss all things exist, indeed, at least in posse, but are without any possible meaning; for they lack the substratum of spiritual Reality. They are appearances without Law. They are thus Insane Delusions. Now the Abyss being thus the great storehouse of Phenomena, it is the source of all impressions.”

In terms of Jewish Kabbalah we are speaking of Da’at and B’tzelem Elohim – the “image of God embedded in humanity” – an omnipresent idea in the Jewish thought; Nahmanaides explained it in terms of human soul being immortal, Rashi said it stood for our quality of  discernment, while Martin Buber stated that God exists in the space between “I and Though” – in a direct interpersonal relation which is not mediated by any intervening system of ideas (or, as Kabbalists would put it – in the unconditional love for thy neighbour – neighbors of all ethnicities, nationalities, religions, of all sexual identities and of all social statutes included.)

In the Bible, Da’at is mentioned for the first time when we are told that Adam “knew” Eve and she conceived –  except being a brilliant metaphor – it’s at the same time quite precise depiction of how an idea (Chochma) develops fully (Binah) and becomes a concrete reality (Da’at).
Da’at is also used to describe  prophet’s connection to the Divine,  prophet been referred to as haskel vayodea Oti –  one who “perceives and knows Me.”

Another question i get asked often is whether Jews believe in this and that prophet  – we don’t believe in any other prophets, except the forty eight male, seven  female and one gentile prophet, who are recorded in the Bible.

When it comes to my personal believes –  i believe in the magic of art, i believe that Houdini,  who could thread 30 needles inside his stomach – did have abilities well out of the ordinary and, on my good days, i believe that every woman and every man,  tied in ropes and bounded by circumstances and by fears – is capable of Houdini – like spectacular   GREAT ESCAPE.

Upside Down King as Art Muse :

RX King

(1) Stars of Vaudeville:

Houdini

(2) Martin Beck, the American Experience:

 The American Eexperience

photo of the book ‘Devil, an unauthorized biography’: courtesy of Jim Maher ©2012, All Right Reserved

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Tragedy in Colorado

23 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Essay

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

Aurora, Aurora Colorado, CBS News, Colorado, James Holmes, New York Times, Roger Ebert, United States

My heart goes to the families of victims of Aurora tragedy.

I can not stop thinking of Jessica Ghawi, who had escaped shooting by minutes only a month earlier, of Alex Sullivan who was celebrating his birthday and marriage anniversary, of six years old girl  who went to the theater with her mother, of three men who took bullets for their girlfriends…  I can’t stop thinking of victims and injured and their loved ones and i can not  stop thinking of what’s wrong with us and how can we stop the suffering.

‘Collateral damage’ is a phrase which was thrown around a lot during wars in ex Yugoslavia, but i think very few among us could ever think of death of another human being in such terms, we perceive others as individuals with  their dreams, fears and hopes, as someone’s child, someone’s friend, someone’s neighbor.

Yet, it’s somewhere out there – the line – which if crossed – can lead to tragedies, such as shooting in Colorado.

Media is covering extensively the fact that James Holmes, the alleged killer, was a PhD student with enviable scientific achievement – ABC News has even obtained a video of his speech at the science camp.

In the video, James Holmes states he’s been working on the Temporal Illusion – “an  illusion that allows you to change the past” in his words  and further on expands on his mentor’s interest in subjective experience in reality as juxtaposed to fantasy.

All of these are subjects of definite interest to the majority drawn to philosophy and art, these are some of the ideas i explore in my own writing; but where exactly James Holmes has lost it?

He comes across as sane and intelligent in that video, how is it possible that he dismissed the fact that people in the movie theater were someone’s children, someone’s brothers and sisters, someone’s  friends and significant others?

When was it that he, to the detriment of all, stopped perceiving people – as people – and began thinking of others as a part of some delusional pseudo scientific experiment or a video game?

I presume that the assigned public defender might claim insanity – but the suspect gunmen does not come across as psychotic, he seems to have planned the tragedy thoroughly and executed it with blood-chilling precision.

University of Colorado which he attended has made very few disclosures in these three days and the suspect himself,  according to CBS News, does not speak, but even little that we know so far should  make us all think deeply.

I believe it’s a warning not to ever think of others in any other terms, then as of fellow human beings, individuals and our own extended family; it’s dangerous to think of others in any other way – even  in terms of their nationalities and religious affiliations – because that too is a halfway to generalization and there we are already on a shaky ground.

And we’ve seen it all, or have heard of it – of religious leaders blessing the killings of those others  for they call their God another name; we know of monstrous tortures being executed in the name of science – of diabolical Nazi human experiments  and Japan’s notorious testing of biological weapons in China, to name only a few.

I can’t wrap my mind around it, how is it possible, how can a human being deliberately cause such suffering, but sadly it is obvious  there are those of  us who are incapable of empathy.

I was thinking of what can be done to stop them and to prevent such tragedies. It seems the logical first step would be gun ban – albeit Colorado governor has claimed it wouldn’t have prevented the massacre… we can’t know that.

How could someone described as ‘weird’ by his former colleagues and as ‘recluse’ by his neighbors, someone rejected from a gun club – be allowed to purchase  tactical gear and  “drum magazine” which fires 50 or 60 rounds per minute?

If there is one thing for which i’d applaud our own government – it’s the systematic implementation of the gun ban ever since the campaign in 2004 – regardless of the centuries long predominance of the gun culture and widespread sentiment that ‘house is not a home without a gun’.

Of course, it’s of help that –  being a small country with service based economy – we don’t have a gun lobby, or any other industrial lobby per that matter, but i believe it has to be done in States too.

In today’s New York Times op-ed film critic Roger Ebert says he is not sure ” there is an easy link between movies and gun violence.”

The link is obvious to me – we are living in a culture where violence is promoted even to toddlers, where even children’s TV programs, cartoons and video games are filled with violent content. How can there NOT be a link?

Also, James Holmes, like most mass murderers From Columbine to Virginia Tech, was on prescription drugs at the time of the massacre. Mood altering psychiatric drugs taken every day by tens of millions of Americans, including millions of children, can and do push some users over the edge.

I can’t recommend strongly enough Generation RX – a documentary about pharmaceutical lobby which sold an entire nation a scientific hoax: that millions of children have “chemical imbalances” in their brains and require treatment with  profitable pharmaceutical drugs.

Behind all of it – behind violence in movies and games and behind the industrial lobbies – is greed and lack of empathy.

Prosecutors are considering pursuing death penalty against James Holmes; i believe that those who – even if  indirectly –  have enabled such tragedies by engaging into corrupt business practices  and marketing of violent entertainment, should be brought to justice too.

the video obtained by ABS news http://www.youtube.com/watch?v47DpqTZoBw

CBS News coverage http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57477595/james-holmes-not-talking-ahead-of-first-court-appearance-after-aurora-theater-shooting/

NYT op-ed http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/opinion/weve-seen-this-movie-before.html?_r=1&hp

Generation RX trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xehHwkPpevk

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Chomsky, Žižek and West’s fascination by pseudo-intellectual bullies

16 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Kabbalah & Western Hermetic Tradition

≈ 43 Comments

Tags

Balkan, Buddhism, New Yorker, Noam Chomsky, Otniel Schneller, Paul Postal, Slavoj Žižek, United States

Buddhism in Bangkok, Thailand

Buddhism in Bangkok, Thailand (Photo credit: photo-555.com)

Can someone of my wise friends enlighten me on what’s so fascinating about Slavoj Žižek to Western taste? And what’s the guy’s problem with Buddhism? It seems to me  he is simply trolling and i find him to be an attention HO, quite unattractive one too.

I went to his lecture here in Podgorica and i really don’t get it – first and foremost, because he simply doesn’t make sense. His are ramblings, literally.

Is it that he is the first smarta** from Balkans who learned English properly and took Balkan bluntness to an all new level?

Check out this infamous article: http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/western.php

Firstly, it is built on false premises , secondly – even if this idiotic hypothesis was  true –  what’s exactly Žižek’s problem with Tibet and its religion?

(Tibet, rest assured,  won’t be ‘assimilated in couple of decades’ – and not because US gvmnt’s heart bleeds for Tibetan cause, so they won’t allow it  – but because it is one of the hot spots where US can pressure China’s ruling party –  and in that way exercise  some, even if minimal, upset – if not some control over it.)

He is not known to have spent any prolonged periods of time in Tibet, he doesn’t speak the language, probably does not hang around ethnic Tibetans either  and certainly does not practice Buddhism – on what exactly he based his opinion? And why does it matter? Except that it’s funny – a somewhat typical Balkan gastarbeiter thing to do – dismissing the things you don’t get with an arrogant attitude which only an utterly ignorant person can permit themselves. There are countless jokes on gastarbeiter still circling all around ex Yugoslavia – it was mostly the uneducated work force that filled positions with minimal wage in Germany, where the word for ‘guest worker’ originated. Being incapable of learning the local language and integrate – “guest workers” of first generation had developed a cultish mentality of their own: they gathered in “Yugoslavian  clubs”, eating their own food and  listening to Serbian folk music ; from the heights of hills of grilled meat  stuffed with onion and hypnotized by  the two accords of the  turbo-folc music & rivers of slivovitza, they disdained the culture of their host country – because they didn’t know any better.

That’s exactly how Slavoj Žižek’s verbal escapades come across to me.

If you want an intelligent reply to this verbal diarrhea of his – read Nathan, he explains it step by step: http://www.ethannichtern.com/tag/slavoj-zizek-buddhism/

But in Balkans you don’t get such detailed explanations under pretense that you misunderstood something – here you get punch in the face & i believe that’s the only reason Žižek choose to go ballistic on Buddhism and not on Christianity or Islam for example.

Or the other, in my view, bully –  Chomsky. You’ll hear that he alone started  the new shift of the scientific paradigm – if one has the slightest  idea what is a shift in scientific paradigm – that immediately sets off the BS alarm; he certainly did not.

What he did is the following: having overdosed on  Bakunin, an anarchist of times long gone and militant antisemite, about whom best part of contemporary anarchists don’t care the least –  Chomsky  thought that , given that he has Jewish blood, he’ll manage to get away with BS with which Bakunin, a CO Russian could not… well, next time he wants to enter Israel (and is not allowed into the country) he can indeed try “one of the tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt” as he was recommended by MP Otniel Schneller.

Here is what some intelligent people  have to say about Chomsky:

“Even on the rare occasions when Mr. Chomsky is dealing with facts and not with fantasies, he exaggerates by a factor of, plus or minus, four or five.”
Walter Laqueur, The New Republic, March 24, 1982
“After many years, I came to the conclusion that everything he says is false. He will lie just for the fun of it. Every one of his arguments was tinged and coded with falseness and pretense. It was like playing chess with extra pieces. It was all fake.” Paul Postal, The New Yorker, March 31, 2003

And here it is –  exposed lie by lie, if you can stomach it: http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomskyhoax.html

(I can’t, his discourse simply makes me sick.)

How he rose to academic prominence in the first place – is indeed beyond my comprehension. Except that – imho –  he’s an attention HO too. As per the imaginary shift , here on what it comes down to, explained clearly: Noam Chomsky, America’s Village Idiot http://theanti-chomskyanredoubt.blogspot.com/2006/07/noam-chomsky-americas-village-idiot.html

(I disagree only on one count – with author’s  derogatively use of  sophistry – which in academic circles is passe.)

I do know that if you posted hate speeches like  that on any internet forum in English language – except the supremacist ones –  you’d get banned  promptly; how come these two, in my opinion,  pretenders made it – is a subject for careful analyzes and a wake up call to us all.

Basically, what Chomsky has been screaming from the top of his lungs is DIE, DIE AMERICA –  his hatred for Israel is secondary ; Žižek calls for return to bolshevism – and not to mild Leninist kind, but to the hard’core Stalinism. And the latter probably doesn’t even mean it – it’s merely bluffing and a publicity stunt. And even if you bother to understand what he is trying to communicate in between tirades about Marx, Lacan and bashings of Shunryu Suzuki – even if  his faked or not neurotic tics  don’t bother you – there is very little to hear. Simply, in my opinion, he is fake.

There can’t be any wisdom, not even in disguise, where there is hate – and especially where there is  ‘hate for no reason’ which Kabbalists happen to consider the  root of all evil.

Haaretz Article on Chomsky being denied entry to Israel: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/noam-chomsky-denied-entry-into-israel-and-west-bank-1.290701

Slavoj Žižek: A Radical Critique http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/slavoj-zizek-a-radical-critique/

Žižek, the Borat of philosophy http://www.newstatesman.com/film/2007/04/slavoj-zizek-intellectual

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Democracy or… Idiocracy? The Tale of an American Missionary in Serbia.

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Uncategorized

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Barbara Kingsolver, Christianity, Church, Guanyin, Jesus, Poisonwood Bible, Serbia, United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Race_of_Jesus.ogv

Depiction of Jesus, BBC series “Son of God”, source wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Race_of_Jesus.ogv

I was appalled by a blog post of someone Caleb, an American missionary in Serbia: http://calebgoodnight.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/first-day-in-belgrade/  You are in your right to believe whatever you want (as long as it’s not in breach of your local legislation that is), but if going on a mission to a foreign country, do you really believe that WhateverYouCallYourGod wants you to be THAT DUMB? Are you certain the Deity you profess is behind your efforts, while you are making a fool of yourself – and more so, all over www?

I have no idea who is the blogger in question, more so he seems to be rather innocent guy of a fervent faith – i also do not know which Christian sect he represents, but the post he made is… hilarious.

He came to convert people whose religion he doesn’t know – he calls it “dead religion”, he went to Church and laments about listening to chants in Serbian

– for goodness sake, is it possible that you traveled all the way from US, without even reading the Wikipedia article about your destination and religion practiced there?! The services in Orthodox Churches are held in Old Church Slavonic, is it possible, being a missionary, not to know that? Why exactly did you come to a country which history you don’t know? He writes – a communist country… Well, not so. A comment added later on: “Well I meant the buildings were built while under USSR rule which was communist.” The thing is that Yugoslavia NEVER was under  Soviet rule.

So, you don’t know neither the history nor the believes of these people, and yet you came to convert them? Into what exactly?  Presumably you believe in Jesus, maybe (just maybe) you could do a bit of research and – SURPRISE ! – you would have found out that they do too!

More so, you would have found out that these people, whose religion you call “dead” are the founding fathers of Christianity – which, in its turn – on the moment of its foundation, was merely one of some 20+ JEWISH SECTS IN JERUSALEM.

Who knows, maybe – if you dig deeper – you would have also found out that Jesus was in fact Yehoshua, an observant Jew and, most probably, a Kabbalist.

Further on, it would turn out  the apostles were Jews too  – and you would have found out that these righteous souls were merely Yehoshua’s bodyguards. (it’s not that you  think they would let him turn the tables in the synagogue upside down, without his being escorted by fully armed bodyguards, right?)

And… he wasn’t a blond hippie as you imagine him, he was middle Eastern, right?

What he was prophesying is everyone’s guess, given that all of it was written many years later. Obviously, there is a fairytale-ish touch to it all – and i am not referring to the walking on water part, i have no problem with imagining that at all.

I’d stay away from the theological implications of the story because i believe that Christianity with time became a religion  in its own right and i do know people for whom it does wonders. Let alone that i know ‘immaculate conception’ to be a Hebrew word for young woman which got lost in translation – combined with pre-Christian myths of “Gods” impregnating humans – check out the evidence of Faith Healing at Lourdes, that story does work for many and i believe that’s what matters.

On another level, i believe all these stories and images to be merely a tool to activate your own archetype of miracles , it’s not  InsertWhicheverApllies who heals you – you do, by activating the potential we all have within us; whether the image of Jesus does it for you – or of Guan Yin, is none of my business, i only keep my fingers crossed that some of it works for you.

But, if seriously – what exactly you came to profess in these foreign to you lands? I recall ‘The Poisonwood Bible’, an amazing novel by Barbara Kingsolver about a missionary family from Georgia in Congo – i believe every single missionary crossing the border should be obliged to recite it by heart, prior to departure – and kept by authorities in case they don’t know it.

Serbs don’t need your religion,  trust me – they have their own and for better or for worse they’ve proved generation after after generation that they are ready to die for it in a blink of an eye. Not that it has done them much good in my opinion, but hey, who am i to judge?

And i read the comments posted by this guy’s family – they are cheering him up as if he is in the midst of WWII ,  fighting the fascists …  Wasn’t the money invested into this guy’s meaningless trip – better donated to one of the Serbian orphanages? Just saying. I am neither Serbian, nor Christian – but how stupid you need to be to write that these people are ‘nonbelievers’?! It’s easy to be a “believer” where you come from, with all the religious freedoms and the living standard you have back home – but to survive Balkan reality, it takes more than believing  in God, it takes CERTAINTY that He exists.

What each of us here in Balkans calls Him/Her – is our own business – so please,  just go home, kay?

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God moves in Mysterious ways

13 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in I Ching

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Beijing, Chi, China, Chinese Philosophy, Mandarin, Pacific Ocean, United States, Yi Jing

Kong Fuzi (Latin: Confucius)

Image via Wikipedia

‘God is His own interpreter,

And He will make it plain.’

William Cowper, Light Shining out of Darkness

Beijing is in 9,763 mi  from Park City in Utah. According to Google maps, getting to the North Capital of China (as that’s what it means in Mandarin, Nanjing being the southern capital traditionally) by car, from the picturesque mountain resort in US would take 36 days  and 23 hours.

If you would be heading by car to Beijing from Park City, you should head northwest on Park Ave toward 7th St, then continue onto UT-224 N, turn left and then right to merge onto I-80 W.

Point 36 of suggested by Google maps itinerary Park City, UT, United States to Beijing, China : Kayak across the Pacific Ocean…

Google does make an effort to amuse its users with gags, Easter eggs,the famous interactive Doodles etc., and this Kayaking across the Pacific is one of those friendly pranks, because… i mean, who in their right mind would drive from Utah to Beijing?!

Yet, stranger things have happened.

Back in 1999 i moved to China and if by chance you wouldn’t have nothing better to do do with your time (albeit i doubt it), you can read about it at ‘About me’ page of this very blog.

It all seemed to had happened by chance, as the saying goes – life is what happens to us while we are busy with other things.

A colleague from the State Protocol had brought me a newspaper add where scholarships were offered for Chinese studies – she knew i was immersed in the yixie, studies of the mysterious Book of Changes, said to be the cornerstone of Chinese philosophy.

This is a rewritten post i made in 2009 elsewhere: I started some 15 or 16y ago, with Wilhelm’s translation (translated once again) into my mother tongue – i couldn’t understand the text in any other language but my own back then – and Jung’s foreword.

I loved the book immediately – i did ask what it thinks of me (as i got it that’s what you should ask ) – and it hit me with the fourth hexagram… ‘The Young Fool’.  So i thought to myself, ‘ok, this is one honest person… pardon, book that is, and this is obviously a beginning of a beautiful friendship! ‘

I couldn’t get literature specifically on Yi Jing, so i dived into Fung Yu Lan’s Chinese Philosophy and just about anything by Jung and his students that i could get.
The 8th lectures which i got later on were a discovery for me; i read and worked with all the available to me translations – including Blofeld’s , Crowley’s and R.L. Wing’s ;
had given up at one point of time; then afterwords moved to China to learn the language so i can get their civilization and overall thinking somewhat better.
Somewhere at the point when i thought to give up all together, i ran into good translation into my language and it gave me the boost i needed to go on.
Now i must say that in the course of years i had met two people who claimed to be pro’s with Yi Jing, after going for years to their lectures and studying from their materials i ended up with the conclusion they fitted whatever they believed anyway – into Yi Jing , which is wrong, its like various fundies finding quotes in the Bible that could confirm just about anything – while dismissing the fact it was written in ancient language, coded – and very hard, if possible at all to translate.
And while i couldn’t divine with the Book – it always inspired me and gave me wise advice, so i kept reading it.
Now, after all these years, i am starting to make sense of the answers i am getting.

Back then, this was an intro to an I Ching casting i shared at an online community, asking the learned folks there for insights.

You see, i am drawn to such subjects where 15-16 years of study are still baby steps in the field.

I Ching, Yiddishkeit and Kabbalah, Tarot studies – that’s my chosen subjects. I am often  credited for having the will and perseverance it takes to learn foreign languages, but the thing is that to me those languages were only means to an end where i could put my claws on books written on the subjects i was dying to learn.

And that’s how i ended up in Beijing, where i met Rebecca from Park City. Ours is one of those friendships that start ‘at the first sight’. I don’t even remember who introduced us, but we became inseparable ever since.

They say, when universe loves a woman, it sends her a friend. That’s pretty much how i felt about meeting Rebecca, she and i were together in this adventure of discovering for ourselves an ancient civilization, travelling, studying, partying and making friends.

There is something about these friendships that started at the turn of the century in a distant land – something that brought together people who by ordinary criteria don’t have much in common… and that something still keeps these people together, in a way that reminds us how intertwined our destinies are, albeit the distance, albeit everything.

All ex-Yugoslavs in Beijing became friends instantly, nevertheless our respective countries had fought four bloody ethnic wars in the preceding decade; our circle expanded and included people from every single country you can think of – and many you probably never heard of.

Israelis, Russians, Americans, Saudi Arabians, Eastern and Western Europeans… All ages, from all walks of life, with only one thing in common – travelling to a far off land to look for something that was missing at home.

I have been writing a lot about that experience as it’s basically there and then that i restored my faith in the humanity – you can imagine how shaken it was after the ex-Yugoslav wars.

Normal people, not brainwashed, not instructed, not bombarded by the media BS; far away from our respective families, from our communities and old friends – and just about anything we knew before – we built a community which was friendly and supportive and became like one big extended international family.

There was no one to remind us the wars we fought, the who bombed who, who was the “traitor”, who was the “aggressor”, who was everyone’s enemy – and so on, the usual instructing we get via formal education, evening news, family history and so on.

And i got it how it works. Borders are a fictitious things, and so are religions. It’s all quite conditional and a subject to change. It’s us who let others with agendas put labels on us and separate the humanity. Those who bring this separation don’t have a vision of a perfected world, but of a divided one, where money is made and influence gained on the very separation.

As Niccolo Machiavelli rightly noted some six centuries ago, politics have no relation to morals.

Exempt the politics – and the lobbies behind it, exempt the stupid religious dogmatism and what you get is – HUMANISM.

That’s what all of us experienced living in China, that’s what in my experience is left when  all the other –isms are cast away. And that’s the experience we shared with Rebecca and that group of friends who met in Bejing in 1999/2000.

Against the odds, we managed to keep that something that brought us together back then, more so as the time goes by, i am more and more convinced that very something does care to be kept by us who got to knew it and reminds us about itself quite often.

You see, couple of years after the Beijing experience, Rebecca did traveled from US to where i am – to the magical teeny once-kingdom, hidden high in the mountain wreaths of Balkan peninsula, and – as she would tell you – she loved it here.

And not to forget that it’s Rebecca’s mother who sent me my first Raider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck, it wasn’t available in these parts back then (still isn’t, sadly).

Tomorrow evening is the launch of my third book, Devil – an unauthorized biography,  which is Tarot inspired collection of poems, coming with Francisco J. Campos’ Vaudeville Tarot.

Sadly, professor Susan Gunter, Ph.D. is out of the city, otherwise she would come – but she has my book and she knows the presenter, our gifted poetess, literature critic and known expert in William Blake – Tanja Bakic, so i don’t feel that bad about it.

And in two weeks, when Susan is back and we continue our Memoirs and Poetry Workshop at American Corner in Podgorica, Montenegro – Tanja promised to attend and   to present her work as well.

Tanja is very busy at this time as she is one of the moving forces behind Podgorica’s Winter Book Fair, so she couldn’t come to the dinner the other night hosted for Susan to meet the president of our Writer’s Guild (CDNK), Mijo Popovic – the evening was memorable…

I am a pro writer as tou know, but it might seem to you that i am loosing the plot here… well, not really;

you see, today Susan emailed me to ask whether i know certain Rebecca… My Rebecca, from Beijing. It turned out that Susan is close friends with her mother, the very lady who sent me my first RWS which in its turn became major influence on my work…

Had i mention i started writing in China, back then?

So, that’s what you get when you dare to take out the –isms… and it doesn’t really matter what you call it, the thing is that it’s good.

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