“…when the joke’s on you”

“I know: it sounds so simple, and it’s so hard to do
To laugh when the joke’s on you”

so sings Spider Robinson in one of his songs (The lyrics to the song can be found in the novel Callahan’s Legacy, a book well worth seeking out) and tonight the song’s kind of up in my face. I find it so easy to advise people when they’re down or taking things too seriously that we don’t have to identify with our emotions. Just treat them like weather patterns across the face of our soul and that they too will pass. Words so easy to say and I do believe them I do. I just find it a little more difficult when the emotions are mine.
Free-floating anxiety. Sorrow. Wounded Pride, Resentment, Anger and of course the granddaddy of them all Fear. I can name the weather patterns just fine. Like anything else these emotions will pass through and I will regain equilibrium hopefully before I go to CT next week to celebrate American Thanksgiving at the Rosenberg compound.
I laugh at the knowledge that part of this seems to be associated with the weather as are most of my major emotional storms. Six days of rain, some really interesting and challenging Astrological Patterns (not a cause as much as a reflection. All causing a mini-Tower like effect.
Naming things help. Also knowing that this will pass also.
All part of clearing out the junk….

Masochistic Empathy

“Man goes to doctor. Says hes depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up. Man bursts into tears. Says But Doctor I am Pagliacci.

I am the clown….Laughing even when it hurts, tho usually finding it all pretty funny especially myself

anyway no new-agey fucking advice…I’ve been tuning my empathy too much,
and other people’s pain feels like tinfoil across fillings
Sorry bro, getting way too heavy

BWAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
PSYCHE
Life is hysterical
you don’t think i meant that do you?

Who let the damn clown in my head?

Oh yeah I did
One wonders tho-how to practice empathy in this world without becoming a masochist?
People seem so in love with their pain
How can I not love it a bit too
tho with my laughter perhaps
I can transmit the pain into joy
for them and myself
Can they forgive me?
What excuse will they have?

By what right did I do it?
Was not the pain their own
the stone they chose to drag
until they could free themselves?
What avenues of growth did I deny them?
Perhaps masochism might be the way to go

The Story

From inspired nothing…the one (the all)
From the one needing to express itself…the many
from the evolving many…the unified one
Magnificent ripples in a pond of nothingness
All that matters is the story
for nothing else has matter
but the stories we tell ourselves
the names change, the facts the figures
but the story lives on.
The King had a daughter
no the Emperor a son
and he or she was unhappy
for they felt their lives were empty
and they needed an object on which to express their love
Then a bird flew into his window
then a frog called to her
An enchanted kiss
An evil fought
and love won in the end
Do the names or places matter?
Not to the story
the story endures
Archetypes burned into our consciousness
in the language of dreams
so that we create ourselves
in their image.

The devil is in the details…
and that is good
because the story continues
and tho the outline remains the same
the lessons come from the differences
what each generation or people need to learn
and therein the teacher can be found
Saturn -The Plamet of lessons
Satan who tempts us away from the
path of the story
Crossroads can be tricky
but who can eschew (Eshu) them?

I meander from a straight path
but poetic truths are different
from ones of logic
and the Fool can go anywhere
It is ever a fool’s prerogative
to laugh at kings
to remind them
that they too are but a story
and will one day end
tho the story lives on….

Some lessons need to be learned more than once…
This one will continue