The Quest for Fame and Fortune

And lo, here is my Amusing Tale.

Some time ago, when I was first trying to get a Facebook account, they would not allow me to use my own name.  Nor was I, at the time, given any recourse against this particular brand of silliness.  My co-author Lauren was kind enough to create an account for me, and used the name of a character from our books, Christophe Ecarteur. 

Shortly thereafter, I determined that I would begin shedding the habits of humility I had been acquiring over the years, and allow myself to become world-famous as my nature demands.  I am a distinctive person, after all, designed to be seen and remembered.  And fame does seem to be a step towards publishing these days.   So, in pursuit of this, I started getting out of the house more.

Come on, this is me.  How much more would it take?

Fast forward to recent times.  Since we’re wanting to promote our books, we decided, she and I, to try again.  As before, my name was rejected.  But this time I was offered a recourse: I could email them proof of my identity and they would allow me to use my own name.  After some predictable snarling and grousing on my part, I acquiesced with good grace to their demands.

Bitches. 

Anyway, after finding that the local businesses flatly refused to scan any legal document or similar at all, I imposed upon Lauren and she was able to scan it at her work.  And so, with flash drive in hand, I started the process anew, to create (gasp!) a Facebook account in my own name.

About halfway through, a new message popped up, saying something like, “It seems you are trying to start a Facebook account for a famous person or celebrity.  We recommend you start a Celebrity Facebook Page instead.  Please click here to begin.” 

So I said, “Okay.”  :o)

So.  I have a Facebook page, under my own name, and Christophe Ecarteur is the sole Administrator.  XD  I’ll be working on it as time goes on, and using it to keep people up to date on my various nefarious doings.  Feel free to "like" it if you wish.  Something to help exposure is supposed to happen when I hit 25 "likes;" I’m not sure what.  But it should be fun.

Anyway, it certainly took them long enough.  Watch what happens when I start to travel . . .

Sometime again,

--Coyote

Handfuls of Jewels

I’m glad your inner nature’s way is working for you

But don’t try to tell me it’s best for me too

There’s nothing my body needs that isn’t found in yours

It’s nature’s way

He says I’m not what they’re hiring right now

Perhaps I should try to use my “natural skills”

The pulse in his throat kicking like a baby tambourine

He’s on the menu

If I was in heaven and it was

The endless light where the screams don’t echo

Would their welcome say I had to endure it

I wonder if I could

Or if I’d come back here for more

Heaven’s a cruel place

I know I’ll never have the scars that you bear

But don’t try to tell me I don’t know what pain is

For I have watched you cut yourself up each day

One of us is bleeding

There’s a rose in my heart where my love has grown

Its thorns cut the veins in my arms and my legs

I leave bloody handprints where I lean against the wall

It’s more than worth it

But if I was in heaven and it was

The endless light where the screams don’t echo

Would their welcome say I had to endure it

I wonder if I could

Or if I’d come back here for more

Heaven’s a cruel place

The years run past like the snow on a river

My girls become women and my friends become gray

The waters turn cold and the eggshell moonlight

Washes me clean from the poison and pain

The years run past like the stars on the water

With ebon lotus making crystalline waves

The years are uncut gemstones of shadow

Tumbled and polished by memory saved

The years flow past like Poseidon’s daughters

Laughing and lovely but impossible to hold



And like handfuls of jewels I let them go

But if I was in heaven and it was

The endless light where the screams don’t echo

Would their welcome say I had to endure it

I wonder if I could

Or if I’d come back here for more



Heaven’s a cruel place

Unchained

“Fear is the mind-killer.”

--Frank Miller, Dune.

Real life and a new school semester have been eating up much of my time.  But with all the chatter about the upcoming 9/11 anniversary I wanted to put my two bits in.

I was listening to National Public Radio as I sometimes do, and they were having a discussion on whether their listeners were afraid of Al’ Qaeda, and why or why not.  I didn’t listen to the whole program, and at least several of the callers believed that fear was not the best response.  But it seems that, ten years later, some people are still afraid, reeling from the realization that “the oceans no longer keep us safe.”

Wow.  They don’t?  Really?  I mean, really really?  Blink.  Good heavens.

Back when G. W. Bush first figured that out for himself, I asked some friends of mine who were around during WWII  - especially during 12/7 - if they thought that was true.  They laughed.  Yeah, the young pup’s got a sense of humor.

Then I asked some friends of mine who had spent time with their families on the native reservations if 2001 was when their people first realized that the “oceans no longer keep us safe.”  That got me some belly-laughs, too.  Snowflake sure tells a good one, he does.  


Thank you, thank you all.  I am always happy to amuse.

Let’s do keep some perspective, please.

I wasn’t in a dojo yet when the twin towers fell.  But a few years later I was, and the anniversary rolled around as it always does.  Funny thing: nobody in the dojo was scared.  Nor, for the most part, had they been.  Angry, many of them.  But not afraid.  Which is one reason why I liked hanging out there.  Whether or not they thought they needed “street cred,” all the more advanced students there understood that life is dangerous, and that promises of safety and security are lies.  After all, that’s one reason why you study the Art.  Any adult who seeks it out has acknowledged, on some level, that life is not always safe.  Nor, in my opinion, should it be.

Scared people are easily led, easily whipped into a froth of anger.  And people who are hurt, desperate and hungry are ready to lash out at anyone who might be responsible.  Bush understood this.  Bin Laudin understood this.  The IRA understood this.  The modern-day Republicans and the Tea Party understand this.  And desperate youths who are promised security for themselves or their loved ones are ideal recruits for any radical organization

People who are content, or even just have food and medical care, are more likely to question what they hear and read, and more likely to be tolerant of other beliefs.  Once the basic needs are met, a person might feel he has the leisure to expand his or her horizons a little.  That leisure is the antithesis to blind obedience.  The great philosophers of ancient Greece weren’t putting in 50 to 60 hour work weeks, after all.  And only the Cynics spent all their time begging on the streets.

If the governments of the world really wanted to combat terrorism, they would combat those things that feed it: hunger, ignorance, sickness, and most of all fear.  But that would bite into their own profits.  Most of society’s rules and taboos revolve around restricting people, controlling their pleasures, telling them who to hate and what to fear.  After all, that’s where the money is.  Rulership is and has always been big business.  But as individuals, we can take away their recruiting grounds.  One magnificent moment of life at a time.

And what really keeps people from being ground up and crushed is mastery over themselves.

I dream of teaching martial arts in my neighborhood, on the road, even overseas.  Teaching people the Art so they can have that self-mastery, rather than be mastered and used by others.  There is nothing better or more pure than complete, true freedom of body, mind, and spirit.  And so I learn all I can, both for my own self-mastery and as a kind of karma yoga towards the day when I know enough to start teaching people in earnest.

And in the meantime, life’s too uncertain to spend it scared.  Let us do something constructive right now, this moment, something worth the life we put into it.  There are skills to share, minds to blow, mouths to feed, and women to love. 

Let’s go.

--Coyote

The Wind Remembers

First I remember the dead

Nektet, I offer him cool water

Wesir Djet Khyet Khepuru

I speak his Name

And remind him that he is remembered

Second I give my offerings to the others

Nameste, welcome in my garden

Some attended, some bereft

Their names engraved in stone

Thirdly I remember my ancestors

Usu, those who have taught before

Katas, names, a mounted sword

Remind me who shared their wisdom

I remember you and thank you

Namaste

The wind changes with every scent

But it is always the wind

Fourthly I give offerings to the Wheel

Dried leaves fall from my hands deusil

North, East, South, West

I sing silence unto those who will listen

Aho, see me working

I feed the Wheel

Namaste

My hands smelling of sage

I remember

Aho, Crazy Horse

You bushy-headed lunatic

Fearless, inspiring

Immortal only in battle

Aho, Eagle

Last-called by the Creator

Warrior, messenger

I bet those pinfeathers itch

Aho, Sitting Bull

Hard-headed old goat

Been nice to have met you

When you still wore your robe

Aho, Grandfather Coyote

You twin to the wise, you

It’s hard to hear your teachings sometimes

Over your laughter

I remember you and thank you

Namaste

The wind changes with every scent

But it is always the wind

Usu, my ancestors

I learn and grow

Aho, oh you spirits

See me working

Namaste, you old ones

I feed the Wheel

Namaste, Grandmother Spider

I have learned from your teachings

And still do not know you

Namaste, White Owl

I have learned from your teachings

And still do not know you

I shall never know you

My blood is not red enough

I shall never know you

But my blood is my own just the same

And I am brother to the wind

Stone temples with shaven monks

Sweet Grass and Bear Butte

Deserts, rivers, a golden palace

And a thousand thousand songs

Usu, my ancestors

I learn and grow

Aho, oh you spirits

See me working

Namaste, you old ones

I feed the Wheel

And I am brother to the wind