On Turning Fifty-Nine -- Like a Fine Wine?

Turning fifty-nine years of age is as good a time as any to reflect on where one is at in their life.


The last half of the last decade of my life was an especially 'picaresque' one (picaresque: realistic, and often humorous details of the adventures of a roguish hero of low social degree living by his or her wits in a corrupt society).


Yep, that about sums it up. Though, as per the definition, it begs for details:


That last half of the last decade of my life started out in a rather auspicious way. I traveled to India to join Yogi Amrit Desai (Founder of Kripalu Yoga) and a small entourage of people who were taking a 'lineage tour' of the places in India that were of seminal importance toYogi Desai's formidable spiritual development. Among the places we visited were the village where Amrit Desai grew up; the Temple in Malav dedicated to his guru, Shrii Kripalvanandji; and, the final leg of the journey for me, the Temple of Kayavarohan. Kayavarohan is a very special place' so please check out the video I linked it to.


It was the last leg of the journey for me because, while we were in a brief layover in Mumbai, I telephoned my 86-year old mother. She was completely disoriented, and living alone. I was writing a book on Yogi Desai and Kripalu, and I'd done the research I needed to do, so I decided to skip the next leg of the tour and return home.


While we were in Kayavarohan, Yogi Desai was gifted with a large Shiva icon to take back to the Amrit Yoga Institute in Florida. Yogi Desai didn't want to continue traveling with the 80 pound base of the statue in tow, so he asked if I'd take it back with me and then ship it to him in Florida.


Sure.


Shiva icons are made from Joytilingams -- black meteorite shards in the shape of phalluses. They are essentially Penises from Outer Space. What I was taking back with me was the base for one of these phallic icons, or it's female counterpart, Shakti. Essentially an 80-pound vagina. Yogi Desai explained to me in great (mind-blowing) detail what to tell customs agents if they asked about it.


So here I am returning to the States with an eighty-pound vagina to take care of my ailing eighty-year-old mother. (Dr. Freud, I dare you to take this one on...). Needless to say, when I got to customs in New York and was greeted by a gruff Brooklyn customs agent, I said 'It's just a freagin' rock.'


I should have expected things to get 'loopy' after that, though there was no way I could have predicted how much so.

My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers, and I had to make the decision to either take care of her in her home, or give in to the prevailing cultural (and familial) whim to have her institutionalized.


I decided to keep her at home and take care of her myself with the help of local social services. This so infuriated another member of my family, an older sibling, that I was literally in and out of court every three months or so protecting my mother's right to stay in her own home, and my right to take care of her.


In the end, I was not only exhausted emotionally and physically, but rendered destitute. I no longer had a place to live and I was broke.


I then had to lean on social services again, and learn how to humbly rely on 'the kindness of strangers'. I document this experience in a memoir, 'An Odyssey in the Great American Safety Net'.


So what does all this have to do with turning fifty-nine and fine wine?


I guess it's okay when you are in your thirty's and forty's, and you've practiced yoga or some other spiritual discipline, to set up shop somewhere and hang out a shingle declaring yourself a spiritual teacher. But I think that at some point in your life it's time to take down the signs and just live it.


If there is someone in your life you love who is terminally ill, don't let them be placed in a 'warehouse for the infirmed and aged'. Take care of them. There are many social problems that need addressing in our culture. If any of them affect you personally, then commit yourself to changing them. My personal experience of dementia and destitution has made me acutely aware of how inadequate our social services system is in regards to responding to people with these needs, along with seeing how difficult and painful it is to live in illness and/or poverty in our society.


Fine wine? Well, you can't even make a mediocre wine without crushing some grapes.


Please share a 'crushed-grapes' story on my Facebook Page: An Invitation to Odyssey.


Or, if you feel inclined, join my group: Advocate for Economic Fairness!




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An Ode to the Petition Slinger

The idea of creating a petition to reform some aspects of Social Services did not come to me until I received a suggestion to write one from SignOn.org -- the petition-initiating branch of the populist progressive group MoveOn.org.

So now that I've agreed to launch it, what do I hope to get from doing so?

In a word, CLOUT.

Okay, then why do I want CLOUT and what do I expect to do with that?

First of all, it is very difficult for a simple private citizen like myself to get the attention of the politicians and bureaucrats who run a large entity like Social Services. (Throwing a brick at their window didn't help -- but that's another story/play...).

Now, the above mentioned 'Pols' and  'Crats' make a fairly decent income for running Social Services.   I, the petition-slinger, have no interest in doing their jobs for them for free (nor would I want to do it even for money). Nor do I want to get personally involved in the homelessness situation (again).  I'll explain that shortly. 

A person working in/for the Social Services system is not in a position, nor does he or she have the power, or CLOUT, to initiate changes.  If you have ever had the pleasure of being in the Emergency Services office of Social Services, then you know that the people working there feel pretty much like they are the small band of Injuns getting overwhelmed and run over by the Calvary in an epic John Houston Western.   Reform What?!

Those who work there also have never been on the other side -- receiving Social Services. They know how to dole out what the state has to offer someone in an emergency situation, and how to smile and say 'Good Luck', or 'Have a Nice Day,'.  But they have no actual idea of what it would be like to try to not only survive on the assistance given, but, and even more importantly, to try to get one's life back on track so you won't be visiting them again -- soon, or ever. (Now, that's a Nice Day!)

So the social worker doing the ground work is too overwhelmed by the sheer number of people they have to serve in order to have time to think about how to change things. Plus, they don't know what to change because they have never experienced what it is that might need reforming ( or changing). And certainly the higher up politicians and bureaucrats don't have any better perspective on the situation.

So then who or what is to step in?  'It's a bird, it's a plane...'. Nope. Wrong movie again. It's your humble petition-slinging private citizen.  

And how did the petition-slinger get such a special perspective? Well, this petition-slinger also happens to be an author, and perhaps a bit of a masochist, because he wrote a book on the subject: An Odyssey in the Great American Safety Net. So if you enjoy gory details, read that; but suffice to say, as the title of the book indicates, that the petition-slinger has first-hand knowledge of the workings of Social Services. (Or as Jimmy Hendricks would put it:  He's Experienced.) 

But as this petition-slinger wrote earlier, he does not want to either work for Social Services or be personally involved with the homeless.  Well, that certainly deserves some explaining?

In a nutshell, (again I refer you to the book if you prefer the fruit of the nut) if you've ever lived through it --an 'Emergency' -- you do not want to revisit it, up close and personal.  It is simply not healthy to do so.  

Which gets us back to the petition. If the petition-slinger can get enough signed petitions to earn some CLOUT,  he can then, from a safe personal distance, explain to the 'Pols & 'Crats' about some very simple changes they could initiate that would allow the state to get more bang for its bucks, and those in need to get more realistic and fruitful help.  

Here's the petition. Please consider signing it and passing it along:

Help Improve Social Services to Reduce Homelessness

Thank you.

The Petition-Slinger.