Don’t believe the hype

Good Morning everyone…

I was sent a video yesterday. It’s about JD Rockefeller. It’s an example of how greed and the obsession of money and power can take over someones soul. I want to share briefly my story as a Graphic Designer. Although I’ve never been hellbent on power or money, I have seen it around me more than a few times.

I was in advertising for several years of my life. As a Graphic Designer, it was how I made money. I was pretty good at what I did. I started out doing package design for toys. I would make the art look so appealing that children would flock to the store because the toy looked too good to be true. The truth was that it was too good to be true. Most of the toys in the packages didn’t live up to what was inside.

And so the deception began…

I remember airbrushing magazine covers, making the women look ‘more appealing’. A deception at the time that I never dreamed would make young women think that they had to look like the women on the magazine covers. No flaws, but perfect specimens. From Maxim I moved on to Cheri, High Society, Playgirl… I covered scars from bad boob jobs on porn stars. Again, making them look appealing. When I started working for some of the big ages this is when it really started to affect me. I watched how the machine worked. I saw how easy it was to make people want things that they don’t need. Essentially it was my job to manipulate you. Why? Because it made revenue for our clients. That was the bottom line. How to we generate as much profit as we can regardless of what it was doing to the public. I was under the same spell that many are under. You have a choice to take the bait or not, right? We know in advertising that if you say it enough times it becomes real. I mean, it’s sooooo easy because people want to believe.

Back to Rockefeller.

This dude had so much money and control that he bought the media. He delegated what could be published and what couldn’t. If he didn’t like it, it was put on the shelf. Then, he got into pharmaceuticals. He found out that he could use his petrolium in them, and since he controlled Standard Oil it was an easy way to make more money. Then, using his control of the media he started changing how we looked at natural remedies, plants, herbs, etc., he made them look foolish by calling them ‘quackery’ and made pharmaceuticals the gold standard. Why did he do this? The same reason that JP Morgan cut all of the funding from Nikola Tesla… because there was no money to be made. Rockefeller changed history as we know it, so much so that we now believe all of the hype that he created.

Big Pharma has been destroying lives for close to a century now. It’s a very grey area because there are some very dedicated people in that industry that want to help, (just like I did when I was in advertising) that really believe that these medicines can cure and help the world. But history shows us a different story. History shows us the payoffs, the lobbying, the buying out of media, politicians, social media all for one thing.

Profit and greed.

Do you think that Big Pharma changed their tune overnight to save humanity?

When you look at the big picture of all that has been happening in the last few years, what does your heart tell you? What does your gut tell you? I’ve asked you in the past to follow your gut and your heart and I’ve shown you examples of how following your inner guidance can serve you better. Why stop now?

I’m not here to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. I’ve long learned that you can’t influence anybody that has no desire to be influenced. And that is ok. I am just asking you to look at history.

If you want to study more about the real history of the US. Go talk to a Native American Chief. He’ll give you a different story. Go read about the Trail of Tears. Read Howard Zinn’s book ‘A Peoples History of the United States.’

And for God’s sake… Turn off your TV. Start supporting local artists. Get outside and take a deep breath of that prana that is all around you.

On a final note…

Families have been torn apart in the last few years. If you look again at history, the Hatfields and McCoys fought for years because they both wanted to be ‘right’. Instead of looking at what we have in common we’ve allowed ourselves to be guided into this horrible deception. I’m experiencing it in my own family. I’m totally cool with being the black sheep. I follow my heart, and my gut. It hasn’t always led me in the right direction, but for the most part it has and I sleep like a baby every night night.

Peace,

David

The Seven Hermetic Principles

I started studying these maybe 4 years ago or so? Hermes was a Greek god and one of the 12 Olympians who lived on Mount Olympus. To me, all of these Greek gods were actually here on this planet, not actually ‘gods’ but leaders of some sort, or an amalgamation of several people. I don’t know if I’d venture into saying that they were aliens or anything like that, but whoever ‘he’ was we know a few facts about mythology. We know that Homer’s Iliad, once thought of as fiction was found to be real. Troy was actually found by archaeologists.

So, regardless of where these principles started, like the Bible, Bahá’i, Tipitaka, Vedas, Quran, Agamas, Tanakh, Kojiki, Sikh, Dao De Jing, Book of Shadows, Avesta, etc. All of these sacred texts, religions, all have a ‘truth’ to them. It’s when these thoughts become extreme and say they are the end all / be all… that is when we stray. There is truth in everything.

Let me get back on track here. I tend to ramble a bit. 😉

What I like about these 7 Principles is that they can be incorporated into everything that we do, that they are inclusive in whatever you believe. They are a compass that helps guide is in the direction of our own truth.

I will put down the Principles here and what they are but I will allow you to do your own research if interested or feel free to contact me.

The 7 Hermetic Principles

1. The Principle of Mentalism.

The ALL is MIND; The Universe is Mental.

2. The Principle of Correspondence.

As above, so below; as below, so above.

3. The Principle of Vibration.

Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.

4. The Principle of Polarity.

Everything is Duel; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.

5. The Principle of Rhythm.

Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.

6. The Principle of Cause and Effect.

Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law, Chance is but a name for Law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law.

7. The Principle of Gender.

Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principle Gender; manifests on all planes.

Dig in!

Peace!

David

I want to talk to you about division

Rumi said, “In the field of spirit there is no division. No individuals exist.”

No Individuals Exist.

Most Marine brothers and sisters that I know or that I’ve worked with, know this. We were trained to co-exist, despite our differences, to overcome a common enemy. We took an oath, whether foreign or domestic to protect and to serve. There is a bond between, regardless of age. We know we’ve got each others backs (I’ve got your 6). Now that I’ve been out for more years than I was ever in, I look at what this means to me now that I’m on a more spiritual path, moving from warrior to spiritual warrior…

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Are we so self serving in todays world that we are so busy pointing the finger at others, defending our egos, finding faults in others that we just can’t see that this division is killing us?

When did we decide that political affiliation, color of skin, sexual orientation, sports team, vax, no vax, is more important than someones character? When we gloss over someone’s character we are doing ourselves a dis-service. Are we subconsciously allowing our surface self, our ego, to determine what is right or wrong when in fact we might be wrong ourselves because we haven’t acquired information from sources other than what our ego aligns with?

Going back to the Marines.

When we study war, we understand that dis-information, propaganda, is put out to confuse and disorient those that we are trying to ‘persuade’. In a way, when I was in advertising I was essentially studying this art of propaganda by making convincing adverts to persuade…. ok, let us be real… to LIE to people to get them to buy a product.

The Art of Lying.

Have you ever been told a lie so many times that it becomes real? I mean, you hear it repeatedly and so therefore your mind pretty much accepts it as truth. We do this to ourselves as well. We lie to ourselves even though we have answers right in front of us, or somebody that we respect lies to us. We’ve caught them in a lie but we decide, our ego decides, that it’s ok because they are really on our side.

What does this have to do with division?

We are allowing ourselves to let our ego run the show. We aren’t looking at the characters in the play and realizing that these actors, these leaders, are creating this division. I can walk down the street and strike up a conversation with anybody, yes, anybody. Why? Because all people want the same thing. They want to be loved. They want to provide for their families. They want to be judged by their character. They want to contribute. We all want to be one. We want to be indivisible.

Media creates division.

News stations create division as well. They know that by making your blood boil because ‘they’ (insert whomever they are trying to make you hate) are destroying our world. Turn off your TV or reduce your consumption to it and to online media like facecrack, instagram, twitter, etc.

Basically what I’m saying is this…

When you start noticing the similarities in people, the more united you become. Here in the USA, the UNITED States, we aren’t living up to our own name. We are more the DIVIDED States than anything. I would like to think that the country that I served was United and that my service was not in vain.

Please grow up.

Peace,

D

Kill Your Television

This might fall on deaf ears but let’s give it a shot.

TURN OFF YOUR TELEVISION!!!!

TURN OFF YOUR NEWS FEED ON YOUR PHONE AND COMPUTER!!!

DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT YOU HEAR, AND ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE — Ben Franklin

YOU ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS (We are all individuals) — The Life of Brian

Throughout the ages there have been people in our history that have repeated these messages trying to get us to think for ourselves. They have tried, and unfortunately failed.

Why have we failed?

I believe, because the masses, generally speaking, are lazy. It’s easier to hear something and repeat it than look into it for themselves. In today’s society we don’t want to be bothered. ‘Prayers’ seems to be the new catch phrase. It allows us to be passive. Although I do believe in the power of prayer, I also believe in the power of action.

What are YOU doing as an individual to change the world?

I’m going to repeat something that one of my coaches told me while going through Summit Education in 2002…

Act on everything as if YOU were responsible for it.

What if you were responsible for poverty? Would there be poverty in the world? What if you were responsible for war? Would there be war in the world? What if you were responsible for all of the hunger in the world? Would anybody go hungry?

You see… taking on this perspective does not allow you to be passive in your life. Once you take on this role, you take on a role of leadership. You take on the role of giving a shit. You can bring this down on a micro scale if it helps you understand.

Let’s take on poverty.

The foods you eat. Where do those foods come from? Do they come from a local farmer or from a grocery store that ships that food in from a huge corporation? Are you aware that certain foods that you eat get shipped in from countries that use labor so cheap that they could be considered slaves?

The material goods that you buy. Where do those products come from? Are they made in china, so cheap that places like Walmart, Nike, Amazon corner the market on basically (again), slave labor just so you can get something cheaper?

Let’s take on war.

We send our sons and daughters off to war to fight for what we’ve been told is ‘freedom’, or ‘democracy’. But are you willing to look at where that money goes to to support these wars? Are we really fighting for democracy or are we feeding a machine that only thrives on acquisition of land to exploit the minerals?

Let’s take on hunger.

This can piggy back on poverty. So many people go hungry around this world while we throw away more than we can stuff in our faces. Did you know that the Whole Foods in LA locks its dumpsters at night so the homeless can’t get into them? Do you know how much food a DAY they throw away?

This is the tip of the iceberg. Once you start doing research you become more aware of your actions. Once you know, you can’t un-know. And maybe that is the answer right there. People don’t want to know because it will depress them? I get it. Believe me, I get it. But for whatever it is… I now know and there is no going back.

Let me get back to the television, social media, the news.

The news used to be Walter Cronkite telling you what was going on in the world. He would not voice his opinion on air, he would just tell you the facts. It would allow us to form our own opinion. In the 80’s when Ted Turner started CNN, 24hr news, they needed to pay their bills. Advertisers paid hefty amounts of money and they wanted the most bang for their buck. To keep the people watching the news 24hrs a day they realized that they were never going to capture the audiences attention with boring personalities like Cronkite’s. New needed something sexier, more exciting… something that would keep people on the edge of their seats. They needed rock stars of news! People that would inject their opinions into what people were seeing. News turned into a fucking soap opera.

They quickly realized that the more drama there was, the more viewers they would have, and therefore the more money they would make off of advertisers. Advertisers realized this as well so therefore, following suit, advertising had to become more enticing. So much so that I guarantee that you have your own favorite commercial. Basically, a paid for lie about a product that will never live up to what it really is.

The psyche of the world was changed.

We are essentially no different than an addict. We ARE addicts ourselves. Things need to become more exciting, more violent, more… more… more… We aren’t satisfied, ever. We have been left with an emptiness that we don’t know how to satiate. We doom scroll on our phones, on our social media feeds, ‘liking’ what we see. ‘Liking’ is now equivalent to your self worth. Even the person that created the ‘like’ button has apologized for creating it, never knowing that it would create such pain and sorrow.

Let’s get a little deeper now that you have a basic understanding of how these systems operate.

Politicians, Governments, Corporations which I will call the PGC know how easy it is to influence you. They understand how the news, how social media has captured us. And like puppeteers, they pull the strings and make us dance whichever way they wish us to. They follow our trends. They watch our every move as they hone in deeper and deeper into our psyche until we all come to the point of following their influence. We believe the PGC. We adore the PGC. They care about us (so we think). This is the Matrix that Morpheus was warning us about.

Wake up Neo!

Whatever you want to believe, believe. But understand that we have been hijacked and the generations that follow will ask this question, “What the hell were we thinking?”

I’ve asked a lot of questions here without offering you some solutions. If you wish know you can start with this…

Think Globally. Act Locally.

Start working within your own community. Instead of buying products that are shipped to you, start finding local farmers, local retailers, local restaurants. Start spending your money within your community and your community will grow. The ‘j.o.b.’ (Just Over Broke) that you work to pay your bills… is it fulfilling or does it just pay your bills? Maybe you’ve acquired too much. Do you really need two cars? If you start working within your community you might only need a bicycle to get to where you need to go? Killing two birds with one stone. You get transportation and exercise all in one! Win! Speaking of the job and it’s fulfillment. Is it for a big corporation that doesn’t contribute to its own community? Back in the 80’s we had a lawsuit against Walmart in the town I lived in because Walmart had a reputation for entering into a community, wiping out local businesses, and destroying the local economy. And if that isn’t enough… none of their money went back into the local community.

Maybe start your own garden? There is nothing like watching your own food grow that you can eat yourself and share with your neighbors. The food tastes better and your neighbors, well, you get to know them!

I hope that I have planted some seeds. I hope that I have made you look deeper into things because right now we live in a world of fear. The acronym for F.E.A.R. is False Evidence Appearing Real but unfortunately most of us live under a different acronym. Fuck Everything And Run.

We live on a beautiful diverse planet. She will continue with us, or without us. She is giving us this opportunity with this reset to see how beautiful this planet is when we stop, regardless if we were forced to stop or not, to smell the flowers.

Please… let’s move forward and not back to what it was before. Do you really want your old job back? Do you really want to continue this rat race or do you want to smell the flowers with me?

How did ‘Normal’ serve you?

There has been a social divide about vaccines that I’ve been watching lately, as I’m sure you have seen as well. Whether you decide that it is good for you or not, I encourage you to do your own research, and most of all… make the decision based on your gut and not what everyone else is doing around you, or to be pressured into it against your own inner truth.

I’ve been encouraged, either by the media or by people who religiously got their flu shot every year, to take the shot. I would do my best to ask myself if it was something I needed or not. I’ve usually opted out of getting one as I would explain to anybody that would ask…

I would rather let my immune system adapt to the environment around me, to do my best to take care of my body by exercising, by taking care of my mind by meditation, by doing my best to heal my body using Reiki and to trust that raising my vibration will ultimately serve me best, as well as those around me.

There is a F.E.A.R. (False Evidence Appearing Real) that we might contract a virus that we might never be able to get rid of, or worse, infect others. That by taking this shot we are allowing society to return to ‘normal’.

How did ‘normal’ serve you?

Is it worse for society to continue on a path of fast-food, consumerism, television, isolation, addiction to porn, drugs, alcohol, social media, or even fossil fuels? Allowing the rich to get richer, and the poor to continue getting poorer? Allowing our already divided world to become even more divided? More medicated? Continue allowing Big Tech, Big Oil, and Big Pharma to continue destroying our minds, our resources, and our spirit?

OR

… would it better suit us to take advantage of this global pandemic by REALLY changing our world?

Start focusing on Plant-based Diets, or at least start focusing on where our actual food is coming from, how it is grown, where it is grown, and who is growing it. Recognizing what GMO’s actually are and what they really contain. Start focusing on nutritional value instead of quantity. Yes, Quality, not Quantity.

Seeing the beauty in smaller, Self-Sustaining Communities. Allowing each member of these societies to focus on their strong points which will inevitably make these societies thrive.

Starting schools that actually teach kids to focus on what makes them shine, teaching them useful information instead of teaching them how to be a ‘productive’ member of society, in other words… getting a good job.

Learning to have conversations that empower others, instead of having conversations just to hear ourselves speak, just to appease our own egos just to be ‘right’.

Teaching Art and Music and embracing the idea that without these we will die. When we look at the past we see how Art and Music have contributed to those societies, enhanced them, made them better, more prosperous, and ultimately made life worth living.

Instead of sending our elders off to die alone in nursing homes, allowing them to use their wisdom to teach the younger generations what works and what ultimately doesn’t work and how they can make the world a better place for all. Stop looking at them as useless just because they can’t work anymore.

If you’ve made it this far I encourage you to start taking action. Start looking for commonalities in those that you once apposed. I wrote in the song ‘Alive’ by Electric Messiah, to “Drop the Ego, drop the anger. Stop pointing fingers. Look inside.”

Alive

Martin Luther King Day

Today is Martin Luther King Day. MLK once said, “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

Being peaceful is much more difficult than being violent or angry. How many of you have had a hard time biting your tongue from time to time? You’ve had to restrain yourself, teach yourself to breathe, and bring yourself back to a state of calm. I can say this because I struggle with this as well. I mostly struggle with it in relationships, I confess. It has caused a rift that only I can mend.

Last night my partner reminded me to be grateful. To practice Gratitude, instead of focusing on the small things that bother me. Sometimes those small things seem so huge, they seem like deal breakers, and that there is no going back. I think that we (I) feel this way because we have forgotten the tools of forgiveness. In todays society we are constantly bombarded with all of the bad that surrounds us, that we forget about the good that is right in front of us. This goes for our nation as well. We have a great nation that is still growing and learning. We’re working out the bugs.

Forgiveness comes with work. It means that we are going to have to forgive ourselves first and then patch up our past. Fix what we couldn’t fix. Fix the stains of our past. We need to truly be ‘We The People’, not just ‘Some of the People’.

We have communities that struggle. Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White. It’s time for us to become color blind. It’s time for us to do as the bible states,

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Because we are all one. We had an unwritten motto in the Marines. It was,

“You are only as strong as your weakest link.”

That means taking the weakest amongst us, not in physical strength alone but in; Education, Economic, and Spiritual.

Join me today to learn how we can do this together and lift each and every person up. See their strengths instead of their weaknesses.

Peace!

D

Living in the Matrix

What is our true purpose here? Are we here to make a quick buck, have kids, watch football, and then die? I choose not to believe that but I’m fighting against a society that completely buys into that foggy dream.

I watch people busy their lives doing things that they don’t want to do because everyone else convinces them that they have to be miserable just like them.

“The love of Money is the root of all evil.”

Money used to be used as a tool for trade but all I see it as now is a tool for greed. It tears families apart, it tears friendships apart, and it tears societies apart. We see the rich getting richer, while us poor down here fight over the scraps never bothering to look up and realize that we’re all getting fucked.

We shop at multi-billion dollar companies like; Amazon, Target, and Walmart to buy useless things that somehow, in our little brains make us think that we’ll forget about our misery if we just have that new T.V., or toaster.

Well, guess what?

You’re fucked if you think that. You’re just going to end up in a house full of useless bullshit that you’re going to have to move when you get kicked out.

Trying to talk to people about this is useless now to me. They are more interested in protecting an orange haired maniac because he has the same obsession that they do…

Money.

That’s what it all comes down too.

Screw the Homeless, screw the Veterans, screw the poor, screw the Mexicans, or anybody else that tries to climb over our fictitious wall. To the Orange Idiots they are people just trying to take advantage of THEIR money.

Where did we go wrong?

When did money become so much more important than community?

When did we stop looking at our brothers and sisters with compassion?

Have we become so busy just trying to get by that we’ve forgotten these fundamental beliefs? Is it too late to turn around or are we actually so deeply part of the Matrix?

If that is the case, then I want out. There is nothing for me here.

Unless…