Intuition in Divination

[ginnie]

When you speak of dreams, I had one in 1980 about this. In this dream the world had flipped sideways and was tilted at an angle. Europe returned to a mini-ice age and the world was poisoned. We could ice skate between countries and everything and everyone was linked by frozen water.

I hear that the surface of the earth has slipped around like this many times before, because there is nothing attaching the surface of the earth to the many layers beneath.

Then there is also the Pole Shift, which might not be the same thing as the above.

I attended a lecture in which the speaker said that some of these phenomenon have already happened.

I know, for example, that N on the compass is definitely not where it used to be. I moved into this place 39 years ago. At that time, N on the compass pointed to the corner of the room. Now N on the compass points to the flat of the wall, not towards the corner at all.

 

[willowfox]

I know, for example, that N on the compass is definitely not where it used to be. I moved into this place 39 years ago. At that time, N on the compass pointed to the corner of the room. Now N on the compass points to the flat of the wall, not towards the corner at all.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magneticfield.html

 

[justin farrell]

1) Have any of you ever received answers from the Yi which you were absolutely positive of its meaning?

I had a reading a couple of days a go where I asked what I was missing from somebody's response to a question - a response which I did not properly understand. The reading came up with hexagram 27 unchanging. As I read the text of the translation "Look at nourishment. Oneself seeking to be nourished by what is true" it felt like I had lit up inside - a beautiful feeling. Normally I would have done some analysis on the answer, but the feeling was too strong and true. I just left it as it was.

Justin

 

[arabella]

GINNIE: I hear that the surface of the earth has slipped around like this many times before, because there is nothing attaching the surface of the earth to the many layers beneath.

Then there is also the Pole Shift, which might not be the same thing as the above.

I attended a lecture in which the speaker said that some of these phenomenon have already happened.

What I saw in my dream was the earth slowly tilting and then resting on its side. Which would be too drastic, I'd imagine for anybody to survive. It took fourteen hours. Having dreamed something so detailed was extremely strange. But everything was weirdly detailed in that way. For instance, one of the "new" animals I saw was a cross between a camel and a mule, and that sounds relatively impossible as well. There were teams of people being trained in water purification. They had a job that took them all over what was left of the world. Huge swathes of the East and West coasts of the United States, for instance, had ceased to exist. New York City was under water, but at least not completely frozen as Europe was.

I had no reason to dream any of this that I know of. It just randomly "appeared." And, obviously, I've never forgotten it.

 

[jilt]

Line 11.3 "No plain not followed by a slope, no going not followed by a return,.... so do not complain about this truth, just enjoy your good fortune that you still possess."

Accidents, deaths, natural disasters, man made disasters have been occurring for literally thousands of years.

The difference between then and now is that there are many more humans on this planet so the disasters always look bigger and obviously affect more people when they happen. When one pours boiling water on an ant's nest one kills a heck of a lot of ants which in turn affects a heck of a lot more of the surviving ants.

you mean:

don't panic

i've done this before,
the more that you do it
the more that you practice

enjoi the ride?

or, hey, peace to you, man, woman, you don't have to,
by living my lines you're already doing the right thing for life and love?

 

[ginnie]

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magneticfield.html

Thank you, Willowfox. I really enjoyed reading this article. It reports that the North Pole has been moving at about 40 kilometers a year, which translates to about 975 miles in the years I've lived in the same place. The magnetic North Pole has been traveling north-westerly at quite a fast clip!

The magnetic poles have frequently flipped in the past.

I don't know any people these days more into the subject of earth changes and the ancient 'lost' civilizations than the present-day followers of Edgar Cayce: www.edgarcayce.org.

Personally, I try to confine my thoughts to today only. Isn't Yi always encouraging us to stay in the present moment?

 

[ginnie]

Earth Changes

What I saw in my dream was the earth slowly tilting and then resting on its side. Which would be too drastic, I'd imagine for anybody to survive. It took fourteen hours. Having dreamed something so detailed was extremely strange. But everything was weirdly detailed in that way.

What a vivid dream! The earth's crust has apparently slipped like that upon the molten core many times in the past history of the earth. This could happen again at any time. The number 14 might be significant. It might take 14 years, for example, not 14 hours. Or the number 14 might be referring to something else. Dream numbers are not the same as waking numbers. Because dream symbols are compounded, one image connected to other images in the way characteristic of dreams ...

Many people have prophetic dreams, but still, the future is not set in stone.

Here in NYC, sometimes I see Mayan shamans scheduled to speak on the year 2012. I stay away from all these events, because I feel they are unfortunate money-making ventures arranged by people out to make a buck from our fears of the future.

Yi encourages us to confine our thoughts (and worries) to today -- if possible!

 

[willowfox]

you mean:

don't panic

Basically, yes, don't worry about it as there is nothing we can do about it anyway, when **** happens, it happens.

Snow, floods, earthquakes, just another day's work for planet Earth.

 

[arabella]

What a vivid dream! The earth's crust has apparently slipped like that upon the molten core many times in the past history of the earth. This could happen again at any time. The number 14 might be significant. It might take 14 years, for example, not 14 hours. Or the number 14 might be referring to something else. Dream numbers are not the same as waking numbers. Because dream symbols are compounded, one image connected to other images in the way characteristic of dreams ...

Many people have prophetic dreams, but still, the future is not set in stone.

Here in NYC, sometimes I see Mayan shamans scheduled to speak on the year 2012. I stay away from all these events, because I feel they are unfortunate money-making ventures arranged by people out to make a buck from our fears of the future.

Yi encourages us to confine our thoughts (and worries) to today -- if possible!

Yes, I find it all interesting, and significant --of what exactly we never know -- until something happens and then we can say, OH, that was it -- maybe. This is a very significant time in history, no doubt. And I don't underestimate what the suffering and confusion will be until we've sorted ourselves out spiritually. Because, of course, the material condition is always a reflect of the spiritual base on which the civilisation rests. And our material condition is going steadily down, particularly in the USA where the contrast is so obvious, where the promise was so great and failed.

We don't have to go back to the Mayans to see what is wrong. It's directly in front of our faces. Poverty, racism, sexism, inequalities and prejudices, failure to communicate on every level, and most of all greed. When a cataclysm comes along the rich are no better off than anyone else. If the earth shifts, their pile is going to be just as much in a mess as everyone else's -- and they'll have further to fall. It's undoubtedly a great equaliser to see it all come tumbling down and everyone scrambling to establish what was necessary and should have been thought of first.

As lovers of the Yi, all of us are aware of the desirability of rebalancing and the cyclical nature of existence. We will have a lot to work through, just like everyone, but I don't think we'll be that fussed really.

 

[peter2610]

1) Have any of you ever received answers from the Yi which you were absolutely positive of its meaning?

My sister was recently admitted into hospital with severe hyperglycemia, memory loss and confusion. In the following days her hyperglycemia stabilized but her cognitive impairment continued to get worse; she could no longer finish sentences, remember which town she lived in etc.
My first reading from the I Ching (19,1,3,4,6 > 50) indicated a positive outcome, I was completely certain. But two days later she suffered a series of violent convulsive seizures. My certainty in the reading was almost shattered, but subsequent readings, 43,1,3 > 47 and 62,1,3,5 > 17, were consistent with the first reading and continued to affirm a positive outcome. Now, some weeks later, her condition is steadily improving and she is heading towards a full recovery. The I Ching was right all along, but my certainty had wavered and nearly collapsed - such is the path of the I Ching.

The short answer to Sooo's question is yes. I can say that, in my own experience, many answers come along whose meaning I feel very certain of; I wouldn't use the term 'absolute certainty' because I'm only human. There are many factors involved in reaching a clear interpretation but I do believe that the final step of grasping the whole essence of a reading is one of intuitive induction; however, that final step of intuitive certainty must be rooted in material reality. The more grounded and secure our understanding of the individual components of a reading - the hexagram, line-texts, fan yao, zhi gua etc, the more certain our final intuitive grasp. If the separate components of a reading are accurately understood, then the intuitive 'whole' emerges on its own - its not a blind leap of faith, but its not a purely cognitive process either. It's a very subtle and "enlightening" experience. The great danger is when you ignore the need for a grounded, structural context and just "go for it" with an intuitive stab at the line-text, ignoring everything else. Then you might get it right, or you might find yourself in La-La Land.

 

[pocossin]

A relative with an uncurable leg ulcer asked me if she should move to a location where the climate was cooler. Her doctor has agreed it might help. I felt sick when she said it, because she was an impossible patient who did not follow doctor's instructions once out of the office, and the doctor was merely passing the problem to someone else. I also knew that the decision to move had already been made, and I was being asked for polite confirmation, not a real opinion. I said, "I hope it works out for you."

She sold her home and moved to a new home too expensive to keep up payments, lost it and the money from the sale of her home, and returned to this area now forced to live in rented property. In trying to repair the the old farm house they rented, her husband fell from the roof and never recovered. When he died after a few years, her son was killed in a traffic accident while returning to his father's funeral. There was a double funeral for the two of them.

Pain from the ulcer eventually compelled amputation of the lower leg. When I visited her in the nursing home she told me that selling her home was the worst mistake she ever made. She was a person with many good qualities yet doomed to cause suffering to herself and those around her.

 

[pocossin]

Really, Trojan, you brought up an important issue, and I regret you deleted it. I don't mind being opposed.

 

[Trojina]

Want more details? Fingers also had to be amputated and she end up blind from constricted blood vessels in the eyes. Yes, she lived as she wished but smoking, diet, and refusal to stay off her diseased leg and keep it elevated led to consequences she didn't wish for. That's doom.

No it isn't 'doom' except in your eyes. It may be a horrible experience she had but such is life. We make our choices and we suffer through our mistakes, but that is is not 'doom' that is part of being human and having free will and learning...and ultimatley par tof our spiritual journey. All the things she did...and then she died ? So we all die....its not the end of the world
I know people who died very unpeasant deaths through lung cancer...and they were smokers but i wouldn't call them 'doomed'.

Each person makes their own journey in the best way they know how at the time, inevitably making what others will call 'mistakes' and so on...but its their life and noone knows how to live it better. You seem to think you have the objective truth about others 'doomedness'. You don't. In the bigger picture ..and i mean big as this woman as a soul on her spiritual odyssey through many incarnations (or not) how can you from your limited vantage point call her 'doomed'.

 

[pocossin]

So you might as well move it back to moderation because i want to know why, after i had deleted a post you reposted it. Its not your choice to make ! They are my words and I decide if i want to post them or not !!

I am under no obligation to keep track of what people post and then delete or edit. I almost never respond to a post by using the Clarity editor but copy to a wordprocessor and then paste to Clarity, so I have no idea what you are doing while I am composing. After posting, a thunder storm passed over, and I had to go off line. That is how my response to your deleted post occurred. No arrogance on my part. Since you want your quoted words deleted, I will delete them, but the issue of whether character is fate is import to me.

 

[Trojina]

Okay, I see, you weren't resurrecting a deleted post there was just a time gap. Sorry for the accusation.

I have left my last post re objection to the 'doomed' word in place

BTW "Character' is a not a fixed thing really is it...and life is more or less a series of 'mistakes' some may say evolution itself came via series of 'mistakes'. Some 'mistakes' have fortunate outcomes and some don't thats all...but how attached can we get to fortune and misfortune anyway

 

[pocossin]

'Character' is a not a fixed thing really is it...and life is more or less a series of 'mistakes' some may say evolution itself came via series of 'mistakes'.

In my experience character is fixed. There is an unchanging continuity at the center of every person. I still have the same attitude toward life that I had when I was five years old. And rather than being a series of random events, life -- both rewards and punishments -- is a projection of self into the world. My fate has been to be the kind of person I am in essence.

 

[Trojina]

In my experience character is fixed. There is an unchanging continuity at the center of every person. I still have the same attitude toward life that I had when I was five years old. And rather than being a series of random events, life -- both rewards and punishments -- is a projection of self into the world. My fate has been to be the kind of person I am in essence.

You seem to be saying that because the woman decided to sell her home she thereby caused the death of her husband and son...infact i reread the story a few times and I'm not at all sure what you are getting at.

Noone is 'doomed to cause suffering'...surely if you believe someone is doomed there would be no point using the I Ching. There may be a number of factors going against a person but is anyone truly doomed ?

One can pick out a few facts from anyones life and, depending on those facts you select and the way you present them, portray them as the most hapless doomed failures or persons of ingenuity and courage.

It seems strange to me you label this persons life as 'doomed'...out of all the things that must have happened in her life you pick out the her death , her husbands death and her sons death as somehow evidence of her doomedness ?


I don't understand what you are getting at. At the end of many lives there are less than fortunate events...well there has to be usually as a lead up to death itself.

I think whatever choices a person makes, even if it seems totally stupid, its valid choice for them in their life...since noone else knows what life looks like exactly from their angle.

Maybe on some level this woman wanted to have the experience of selling her home and making the mistake of selling her home. It doesn't make her doomed though

Not sure either where you are coming from re 'rewards and punishments' . It is said by some we incarnate to have all kinds of experiences...including leg ulcers and all sorts., not as'punishments' just experience

The tale of doom you tell of the woman diminishes her to your one dimensional view. She was/is more than that catalogue of events

However perhaps you related the tale to make some particular points in response to a previous poster ? I don't know, i read it in isolation as I've not followed this thread.

 

[simon ian]

Doomedness? Is doomity a better word? Or doom friendly? Damn thats 2 words.
I favour doomadisticalism, but thats just personal taste.

 

[arabella]

Agreeing with Trojan, most things aren't "Written" in the book of Time. Our choices may snowball on us and cause hardship but also remember that all the other people in the sad story told above had their decisions and choices to make, not only the person who decided to sell the house. It sounds a terrible, tragic course, poor things. Sometimes hard times, bad luck and depression can seem almost contagious and there isn't enough positive energy to make it turn course and run the opposite direction. I remember a situation in which a little boy was abducted and killed in our city. His father and mother both died shortly after in separate traffic accidents, apparently because they were grieving and terminally distracted. An awful, snowballing course of events, but no one's choice at all.

 

[pocossin]

You seem to be saying that becasue the woman decided to sell her home she thereby caused the death of her husband and son.

She didn't decide. The It decided and she followed It's dictates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Groddeck
Groddeck and Das Es

"He who draws the conclusion that I mentally medicate a human who has broken his leg is very true – but I adjust the fracture and dress the wound. And then – I give him a massage, make exercises with him, give a daily bath to the leg with water at 45°C for half an hour and I take care that he does neither gorge nor booze, and every now and then I ask him: Why did you break your leg, you yourself ?"

In the same manner, provided she wanted insight into her condition in life, it would have been right to ask my relative, "Why did you give yourself an uncurable ulcer? Why did your husband and son die? What were they sacrificed to?"

There may be a number of factors going against a person but is anyone truly doomed?

Yes, we are truly doomed to be what we are. My relative had many good qualities but also a fatal flaw. What seemed to her to be from outside sources was actually her inner self projected onto the world.

. . . if you believe someone is doomed there would be no point using the I Ching.

Everyone is doomed. It is our individuality. Wisdom (智) is to know who you are. Like a cloud chamber, the casting is an opportunity for the evasive It to materialize, and we come to know ourselves.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express myself on this matter.

 

[arabella]

What you can visualise you can create. Absolutely any change is possible with prayer and meditation. We are all miracle-workers, made in the image of God. There is no such thing as evil and no such thing as doom. We can inspire, direct and protect one another. We can become like whatever we admire or aspire to, whatever we have the opportunity to stand next to and emulate. There is no ceiling nor limit on our capabilities. We are perfection and happiness in training. We benefit most directly from kindness, love, service to mankind, and acquiring a sense of humility. There may be contrived other versions of life expressed by human philosphers who are by their nature subject to error, however, this is the one I know that has permeated all belief through the Ages, representative of a Divine source.

 

[bamboo]

She didn't decide. The It decided and she followed It's dictates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Groddeck
Groddeck and Das Es



In the same manner, provided she wanted insight into her condition in life, it would have been right to ask my relative, "Why did you give yourself an uncurable ulcer? Why did your husband and son die? What were they sacrificed to?"



Yes, we are truly doomed to be what we are. My relative had many good qualities but also a fatal flaw. What seemed to her to be from outside sources was actually her inner self projected onto the world.



Everyone is doomed. It is our individuality. Wisdom (智) is to know who you are. Like a cloud chamber, the casting is an opportunity for the evasive It to materialize, and we come to know ourselves.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express myself on this matter.

BUt the real question is "who are you really?" You are not your personality, and you are not the IT that makes choices for you. Without waking up to who one really is, yes, perhaps one is doomed to a certain way of expressing, and to the chain of events that unfold like a steam engine barreling down the hillside. But that is a story, nothing more. at any point in the story, we do actually have the potential to wake up from the dream, and upon awakening, to realize that the story is our creation, the conglomerate of our beliefs. But it is not who we are.

We once had the discussion on here about whether or not it is possible to truly change, transform. Someone remarked that he thought we were like dogs on leashes in a closed courtyard, occasionally hearing tales of other dogs who somehow got free and ran in their freedom to new horizons...but that the tales were myth nothing more.

I think the leash and the courtyard are a Story universally agreed upon.

like wise, I think our personality is merely a vehicle, the structure of which may never alter, but transformation does not demand a new structure. Transformation just brings a new kind of fuel. changes the scenery,too., because the perceptions change.

 

[ginnie]

And our material condition is going steadily down, particularly in the USA where the contrast is so obvious, where the promise was so great and failed.

Coming back later to this thread ... don't know if the great promise failed exactly ... depends how one looks at things. So many different points of view ...

This country still attracts many immigrants every year. Maybe about 50% of them prefer this country to where they came from. The other 50% try to get back home.

That was about the same percentage when the West was being settled early in our history. People would leave from the big northern cities and about 50% of them would stay out West. And about 50% of them would try to get back home to the northern cities, if they survived.

Maybe it's just human nature to be restless and discontented -- always thinking that someplace else will be the real home.

 

[ginnie]

One can pick out a few facts from anyone's life and, depending on those facts you select and the way you present them, portray them as the most hapless doomed failures or persons of ingenuity and courage...The tale of doom you tell of the woman...I don't know, i read it in isolation as I've not followed this thread.

I also wondered where the story of the woman came from. I just came back to this thread today, and the story of the woman with the leg ulcers didn't seem to follow anything similar in the thread.

But I was thinking that sometimes there can be a rather pivotal decision in a life, as if the decision made at that time had more than the usual amount of significance for the future.

When we receive an answer from the I Ching, maybe we understand it but ask ourselves: "Why should I?"

Seems to me, the consequences of not following Yi's advice always turn out worse than if we had followed that advice. That has become clear to me over time. However, sometimes I just cannot follow Yi's advice at the time -- and end up regretting it, even if nobody else knows about this ...

 

[ginnie]

Everyone is doomed. It is our individuality. Wisdom (智) is to know who you are. Like a cloud chamber, the casting is an opportunity for the evasive It to materialize, and we come to know ourselves.

Well, every physical body does die.

The "agreements" about what lessons we are here on Earth to learn were drawn up before we were born, it is said. I believe it is the Buddhists who say that the agreements are kept in a chakra higher than the crown chakra of the head. So, there are more than 7 chakras. Maybe there are eleven chakras? Two more above our heads and two more below our feet? Or are there three more above our heads and three more below our feet, making a total of 13?

Anyway, the level of the physical and 'how things appear to be' is not everything.

Seems to me, one of our most important responsibilities here on Earth is to keep our own spirits up -- and to lift ourselves up whenever we feel 'doom, gloom, and disaster' taking over. Because, you know, there are a lot of external circumstances that would just drag anybody -- even the strongest spirit down -- if we allowed that to happen.

I haven't read about Georg Groddeck. Will take a look at it later.

 

[ginnie]

Regarding asking the patient why she gave herself the disease -- this is a therapeutic technique.

It would not work for everybody to ask a sick person why she had given herself the sickness. Obviously, such a question might backfire and be considered by the patient to be cruel.

When we accuse people of misdeeds, they obviously will go to the other extreme and become resistant.

But the doctor in question may have had a way of doing this so that it did indeed benefit the patient ... A special gift ...

It's probably true that we fall ill only when we decide (on some unconscious level) to get sick. But I believe that people do this as a last resort, because we have no idea what else to do, given the circumstances in which we find ourselves ... We're too deeply ignorant to know about our other options.

When a family member is seriously ill, doesn't it sometimes happen that we don't feel compassion for them anymore at that point -- we may find it difficult to forgive the family member for disappointing us, letting us down?

We don't want to hear that there is no solution to that problem and that nobody can cure such a sufferer. If the sufferer isn't open to being a healthy person again, and won't take any advice -- well, it's human to feel frustrated by that.

 

[arabella]

Coming back later to this thread ... don't know if the great promise failed exactly ... depends how one looks at things. So many different points of view ...

This country still attracts many immigrants every year. Maybe about 50% of them prefer this country to where they came from. The other 50% try to get back home.

That was about the same percentage when the West was being settled early in our history. People would leave from the big northern cities and about 50% of them would stay out West. And about 50% of them would try to get back home to the northern cities, if they survived.

Maybe it's just human nature to be restless and discontented -- always thinking that someplace else will be the real home.

Hi Ginnie. I was actually referring to the ideal of the American Mall. I lived there for years and it's such a stark contrast to the rest of the world I now know. The idea of "shopaholic" doesn't really apply anyplace else I've lived since -- among a whole range of countries and cultures. In the USA it seems that materialism promises happiness, and yet never delivers. The material wealth of the country is prodigious, with the American economy at the tippy-top of the human food chain, yet producing no more enlightenment about the meaning of life [less in fact than many places] although the convenience and living standard is unremittingly high. People may prefer it or not, I'm just referring to the overall benefit that should have come into the world as a result of such enormous wealth.

 

[arabella]

Regarding asking the patient why she gave herself the disease -- this is a therapeutic technique.

It would not work for everybody to ask a sick person why she had given herself the sickness. Obviously, such a question might backfire and be considered by the patient to be cruel.

When we accuse people of misdeeds, they obviously will go to the other extreme and become resistant.

But the doctor in question may have had a way of doing this so that it did indeed benefit the patient ... A special gift ...

It's probably true that we fall ill only when we decide (on some unconscious level) to get sick. But I believe that people do this as a last resort, because we have no idea what else to do, given the circumstances in which we find ourselves ... We're too deeply ignorant to know about our other options.

When a family member is seriously ill, doesn't it sometimes happen that we don't feel compassion for them anymore at that point -- we may find it difficult to forgive the family member for disappointing us, letting us down?

We don't want to hear that there is no solution to that problem and that nobody can cure such a sufferer. If the sufferer isn't open to being a healthy person again, and won't take any advice -- well, it's human to feel frustrated by that.

I believe there are three kinds of "physical" illness. One comes from emotional roots; another from spiritual roots; and the third from physical causes such as germs, bacteria or environmental influences. The sources of the first two are obvious and these illnesses could possibly have been prevented or warded off by stronger emotions or spiritual attitudes. The third type has a physical cause that may be relatively unavoidable.

 

[ginnie]

the ideal of the American Mall.

That's a wonderful phrase: "The Ideal of the American Mall."

People go to the mall because there's no place else to go anymore ...

The idea of "shopaholic" doesn't really apply anyplace else I've lived -- I'm just referring to the overall benefit that should have come into the world as a result of such enormous wealth.

Among the Founding Fathers of America were some highly evolved and enlightened people. They gave birth to a place where we have the freedom to pursue what we want. Learning what we want is the process millions of people are going through. In this way we refine our collective ideas about what it is we really want -- what is truly meaningful to us.

Actually, if America were a human being, it would now be an adolescent. It still thinks and acts like an adolescent, not even a young adult. It's a very brash and immature country. But maybe for that very reason people respond to the culture, so different from the traditional and the hide-bound.

America has given my relatives the freedom to roll their eyes when I make reference to my spiritual beliefs. This hurts me tremendously, but being able to withstand the harsh words of others is an advanced spiritual practice .... Thank goodness, nobody is forcing me to go shopping if I don't want to.

Most Americans believe they'd be happy if they had more money. But Americans own a lot of debt these days, in economic terms. I'm not sure what is the actual "wealth" Americans possess anymore. The wheeler dealer businessmen are building mansions outside the city, while I have seen pregnant women and the elderly sitting on the sidewalk begging.

The extremely wealthy usually see themselves as needing ever more income to pay their escalating bills ... After all, landscaping and pool covers are so darned costly ... And maybe they'll never wake up in this lifetime.

I think we must see the process as taking more than one lifetime, Arabella.

 

[arabella]

Ginnie, I agree that the USA is in an adolescent phase, but then, the whole world is. The coming to maturity of all of it will be fascinating to participate in. The sadness I feel, having been born in the USA and educated there, is that the true benefit of belief that great Nation had has been so diluted and pushed to one side. Meanwhile, what is exported around the world as "American" are instead the concepts of "Supersize," fantasyland and the "ME" generation. If you identify with the spiritual intent of a place like America and travel under a dual citizenship, half American, then you know what it's like to cope with the world's criticisms and misunderstandings of the place.

I too am so aware what the USA was intended to have been, having grown up in Philadelphia down the street from the Liberty Bell, Billy Penn's statue on City Hall, Carpenter's Hall where the first Continental Congress met, and Elfreth's Alley, the oldest inhabited street in the country. So perhaps my disappointment felt a bit like betrayal realising that what was sacrificed by brilliant forefathers has been tossed away by later generations as so much rubbish.