Perspectives (Photo Essay Dream)

Yes, this is a picture of an actual supporter of President Caligula.
Can you feel her wisdom?

"When man stops raping his soul he'll stop raping the world - and not before."

- American Indian proverb

We reached a crossroads in the last century: to choose between greed or freedom. If we are to be judged by our fruits our choice was the wrong one. Everything this century is angrier: our songs, our words, our politics. Rage is taking over. Has making the right decision ever made you mad?

With the air of a century past

The fallen leaves on the garden.

- Basho

Perhaps if we look deeper, underneath, and into the hidden corners we see something different. The strands of time are like a flowing river. Try to dam the flow and you'll drown in the rising waters. Try to alter its path to your own ends and the strain will consume you over time. In the end, the river can only be released to flow as Nature intended. But the perspective of many is that if Nature wins, we lose. How very faithless.

Inverted picture, reflection up top

That soon they will die

Is unknown

To the chirping cicadas.

- Basho

I too feel the rage, a nightmare to live at the mercy of messianic monsters. Agents of cruelty armed with snarling lies and forked tongues dream of a false future that can never be. This makes them angry. They must find someone to blame, destroying lives in the name of justice. They must hide their bad decisions, crushing dissent in the name of security. They must blame their victims or see themselves as the monsters they are. What happens when the Nazi killers become Nazis?

Even if the cherry blossoms bloom

Ours is a world of suffering

- Issa

"I'm saying to you I'm hurting, I'm in pain, and see no hope."

What of my own monstrosity? I too wish to blame others for my own tragic self-betrayal. I spout plausible answers, I leave out inconvenient facts, I get patted on the back in false justification. And yet my life remains the same. We ache to rip off our masks because we can't breathe inside them. We ache to keep them on because we fear we won't be loved when exposed. Nature makes it simple in the end. Those who choose to breathe will survive, those who choose not to will die. Only the truth can set us free.

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