A00219 - Three Days with Disney, One Afternoon with Gandhi
Last week was my return to Disneyland after an absence of 19 years. My wonderful daughters treated me to a three-day ticket that allowed me to visit Disneyland twice and, new to me, to visit Disney's California Adventure. On the positive note, the iconic Castle was lit up for the holidays and it was spectacular. Also, my favorite ride It's a Small World was wonderful. it seemed to have expanded the characters and, for the holidays, extra decorations and music were added to reflect the Christmas season. And the fireworks show in Disneyland, with its Christmas music theme, was also spectacular.
On the downside, what is described as the "Happiest Place on Earth" was not for me. The park was jammed packed with people and the lines for many of the rides were extremely long. It may be a sign of being a tad older, but the crowds and the long lines certainly did not make me happy. In the end, I think sitting on chair overlooking Nanoose Bay or enjoying a hot spring in Rotorua made me happier.
Nevertheless, I was glad to have gone, if for no other reason than I was able to spend some time with my daughters. And in many ways, it was like being a kid again. A strange thing happened in the 19 years since I last visited Disneyland. My daughters have all become vibrant adults who seemed to walk fast to cut through the crowds. I, on the other hand, seemed to have gotten slower and not so able to cut through the crowds. As a result, during this time, I seemed more like the child being the slowest of the group, while my children were now the adults. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come. Aaargh!
Sadly, this may be my last visit to Disneyland. I will never be 70 again. If it was, I feel satisfied. There are more places to visit and things to do that can spark the imagination and invigorate the soul.
One such place I visited after my stay in Anaheim fit the bill. On my drive back north, I stopped at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades. The Lake Shrine is a beautiful sanctuary located on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades.
Having read Autobiography of a Yogi, and having frequented the Self-Realization Fellowship retreat in Encinitas, California on many occasions, I was very interested in visiting the Lake Shrine because, in addition to its beauty, it also contains some of the ashes of one of the great inspirations in my life, Mohandas Gandhi.
The Lake Shrine is as beautiful as advertised. However, it is not quite the quiet meditative retreat that one would expect. The traffic on Sunset Boulevard is quite heavy and the sound from the passing vehicles intrudes into the Lake Shrine. So, the Encinitas facility is a more meditative place than the Lake Shrine. However, the Gandhi memorial was an attraction not only for me for an odd group that I found myself attached to for much of my stay there. By fortunate coincidence, I happened to have arrived at the time that a couple of Buddhist monks along with three Indians who were presumably Hindu were being led by SRF docent through the park.
We arrived at the Gandhi memorial at about the same time. To my surprise, the Buddhist monks stopped in front of the Gandhi memorial and proceeded to prostrate themselves in front of the shrine and to commence a chant. The Indian contingent also knelt and seemed to stay in meditation.
Fascinated I stopped and watched and listened. I even began a silent meditation of my own. After about fifteen minutes, the chanting ceased. I approached the monks and tried to engage in a brief conversation about what I had just witnessed. The taller monk seemed a little surprised by my interest and simply noted that there were some African American ministers that he had met and wondered if I knew of them. Of course, I had not.
We were about to leave, when the European American docent suggested that they take a photo to commemorate their visit to the Gandhi Memorial. And since no one else was around, I volunteered to take their photo for them. I did a fairly good job with their photo. In a return gesture, the tall monk agreed to take a photo with me bracketing the Gandhi Memorial.
These gestures of peace and brotherhood, while brief, were some of the most memorable times of the week. Indeed, if I were to say what the theme of my three days with Disney and my one afternoon with Gandhi was it would be: "It's a small world after all."
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
Fairfield, California
December 6, 2023
----- ForwardTed Message -----
From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 05:03:35 AM PST
Subject: A Return to Disneyland, A Return to Tomorrowland
Today is November 28, 2023, and it is my 70th birthday. To celebrate this milestone event, my three daughters have arranged to take me to the magical land of Disneyland so that I can be a kid again.
I am looking forward to my return to Disneyland. I have not been to Disneyland since 2004 when the big event was the nighttime Mulan parade. My daughters, two of whom come to Disneyland every year, tell me that there are many changes to the park. That may be, but for me it is still A Small, Small World that I am most looking forward to seeing. And The Pirates of the Caribbean... and a return to Tomorrowland but perhaps with a more jaundiced eye.
"The year was 1954. Walt Disney had clear-cut 160 acres of orange and walnut trees in Anaheim, California, to construct a massive theme park. He'd planned the park around four anchoring "lands": Fantasyland would be centered on Sleeping Beauty's castle; Adventureland would replicate "the remote jungles of Asia and Africa"; Frontierland would put the visitor in a Davy Crockett cap and lead via covered wagons, pack mules, and a mine train through the wilderness; and Tomorrowland would look like ... actually Disney had no idea. What would the future look like? What could it look like? Disney was apparently stuck. What could he put in Tomorrowland?
"Disney consulted his animators, one of whom suggested he look to a recent issue of Collier's magazine about the possibility of space travel. On its cover, a rocket plane traverses the earthly horizon, leaving a bright red blaze behind it. In its pages, the nation's top physicists explain the current state of rocket science and insist that if the US doesn't embark on a formal program to attain "space superiority," the USSR will beat them to it. This eventually became the argument Senate Majority Leader {Lyndon} Johnson used after the launch of Sputnik to spur the creation of NASA and that President Kennedy used to insist that America be the first to reach the Moon. But out in Anaheim, the space race was doing ess politicizing than imagineering, building the popular infrastructue of America's God-given future in space.
"The chief contributor to this Collier's issue was Wernher von Braun, the former Nazi rocket engineer who was granted amnesty in 1945 in exchange for his scientific service to the US military. Von Braun's lead article was called "Crossing the Last Frontier," and it inspired everyone from Dwight Eisenhower to Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry to extend the metaphor (you don't have to be a Trekkie to shout back, "Space. The final frontier"). And even in von Braun's original formulation, the image of "the last frontier" was calibrated to hit with its fullest emotional, political, geographical, technological, and yes, religious force.
"In the short years following his immigration by means of the CIA's then-secret Operation Paper Clip, Wernher von Braun had become a fervent believer in the Pax-Americana. As he integrated his newfound US patriotism with his astrophysical aspirations, he became convinced it was America's duty to extend Western civilization not just across the globe but into outer space. And just as generations of European Americans had done, von Braun justified his imperialism by calling it a vehicle of freedom, democracy, and eternal salvation.
"If that last bit comes as surprise, it's because very few people tend to talk about von Braun's postwar conversion to evangelical Christianity. During his de-Nazification on American soil, the rocket scientist became "born again" in nearly every sense of the term, ultimately deciding it was incumbent on the US to spread the Gospel not just around the world but to "the heavens themselves."
"In other words, von Braun explicitly framed US space travel as a vertical extension of Manifest Destiny. Just as God had allegedly endorsed and even demanded the westward expansion in nineteenth century, God was calling European-descended Americans to the twentieth to conquer a new frontier -- a bigger frontier, even an infinite frontier -- in outer space.
"How did this former German citizen know so much about American Manifest Destiny? Unfortunately, this particular road passes through Adolf Hitler, who defended his plan to swallow Eastern Europe by comparing it to the US westward expansion. Hitler's notion of Lebensraum, or expanded "living space" for the burgeoning German people, was an updated German version of Manifest Destiny that had destroyed and displaced Indigenous America. In fact, as he invaded Russia, Hitler declared, "There's only one duty: to Germanize, this country by the immigration of Germans and to look upon the Natives as Redskins." In von Braun, then, a Christian American political doctrine was filtered through its Nazi German revival to produce a born-again American astrophysical dream of colonizing the cosmos, a dream powered by the V-2 rockets built by enslaved concentration camp workers to destroy mid-century London, Paris, and Antwerp. And it was these rockets that finally solved Walt Disney's Tomorrowland problem.
.....
"...,it was therefore Disney and von Braun who drummed up the popular support JFK needed to escalate the space race. By plugging into the sacred myth of the American frontier, Disney's park and films presented outer space not as the site of military rivalry, endless surveillance, nuclear escalation, or even improved telecommunications but as the extraordinary destiny of ordinary people. Folks like you and me, who will one day live with our movies and theme parks on Mars." (Astrotopia, pages 75-78.)
******
Happy Birthday to Me ... and Onward to Tomorrowland.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 02:54:11 AM PST
Subject: Book of the Month for the Month of November 2023: Astrotopia by Mary-Jane Rubinstein: The Descent into Hell
A few months ago, my middle daughter sent me a text message and asked that I listen to the following podcast:
Podcast | Mary-Jane Rubenstein, "Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion… (newbooksnetwork.com)
After listening to the podcast, I was thoroughly depressed and felt like resigning from Star Fleet Academy. I encourage all who can to listen to the podcast to do so and to contemplate what this means for the future of mankind. As my middle daughter explained, the issues set forth in the podcast are some of the profound reasons why I only have fur babies as grandchildren.
As for those who are reading the book and pondered the connection between Astrotopia and Native American Heritage Month, well Professor Rubinstein makes the connection between the current space quest with the spirit of Manifest Destiny that defined America and with the spirit of divine command of conquest that was previously mandated in the land of Canaan. As Professor Rubinstein writes;
"If you think back to the creation stories in Genesis, you'll remember that this God makes human beings in his image, telling them to "be fruitful and multiply" and to have "dominion" over the rest of creation. According to these stories, humans are created creators. They are told to continue the work God began by ruling and filling the Earth. As we have seen, however, the biblical narrative and its Christian interpreters prefer some of these human beings over others. God allegedly gives Canaan to Israel, Africa to Portugal, and America to Spain. So it's not just that "humanity" believes it has dominion over the "fish of the sea" and the "birds of the air" and the mammals of the Earth; it's that certain humans believe they have dominion over all other humans as well." (page 61)
"Considering the raw, undeveloped, and effectively unpopulated nature of the westward expanse, the original "manifest destiny" editorial assured its audience that the United States could subsume the continent's "untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past." This is the same sort of "clear conscience" that space colonizers now assure us we can have for real this time, because after all, there's nothing there to disturb. But one might ask the spaceniks the same question we'd ask the frontiersmen and conquistadores of yore: if there's nothing there, then why do you want the land in the first place?
"The answer, of course, is and was and always will be "resources". Gold, spices, fur, ore, helium-3, hydrogen, platinum, animal flesh, human labor -- whatever might open a new economy for the benefit of the extractors. As far as the American settlers were concerned, Indigenous nations "had let their resources go to waste," neglecting or even refusing to "own" and "improve" the land as God directed Adam when he told him to "till the earth and keep it" (Genesis 2:15). And so as the West was "won," it was lost to its original caretakers, who were driven from their ancestral lands onto reservations. Even these areas were reduced and relocated when white settlers found them to be more valuable than they'd initially calculated. Cut off from their land, unable to move freely, corralled with rival nations, and often forced to convert, wear European dress, abandon their languages, and attend English schools, Indigenous Americans faced attempted extinction at the hands of the people of God.
"You shall annihilate them -- the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites -- just as the Lord your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods (Deuteronomy 20;17-18)." (pages 66-67)
*****
One of the sad facts of studying history is that you see patterns occurring over and over again. The conquest of Canaan, the conquest of the American West, the conquest of Palestine, and now the proposed conquest of space, all seem to repeat a pattern that in the long run does not produce the world of peace or lasting prosperity that such conquests were designed to achieve,
Something to contemplate during this Native American Heritage Month while we watch Gaza descend into Hell.
Peace? ... I can only pray,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Mary-Jane Rubenstein
Mar 3, 2023Astrotopia
The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 2022
We are in the midst of a new space race that pairs billionaire space barons with governments in an effort to exploit the cosmos for human gain. While Elon Musk and SpaceX work to establish a human presence on Mars, Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin work toward mining operations on the moon, missions to asteroids to extract resources, and millions of people living in rotating near-Earth satellite dwellings. Despite the differences in their visions, these two billionaires share a core utopian project: the salvation of humanity though the colonization of space. But we have already seen the destructive effects of this frontier spirit in the centuries-long history of European colonialism.
Philosopher of religion and space enthusiast Mary-Jane Rubenstein wants to pull back the curtain on the not-so-new myths these space barons are peddling. In Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race (U Chicago Press, 2022), she explains why these myths are so problematic and offers a vision for how we might approach the exploration of space in ways that don't reproduce the atrocities of humanity's previous colonial endeavors.
Listen to more episodes on:
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Friday, November 3, 2023 at 08:24:50 AM PDT
Subject: Book of the Month for the Month of November 2023: Astrotopia by Mary-Jane Rubinstein
November is Native American Heritage Month, also known as National American Indian Heritage Month
In recognition of the month, I had planned on reading Blood Memory: The Tragic Decline and Improbable Resurrection of the American Buffalo. However, a book that has been on mind for some time seems to be more appropriate for this Native American Heritage Month.
The book I have chosen for this Native American Heritage Month is Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race by Mary-Jane Rubinstein. I think you will find the connection once you begin reading the book.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2023 at 04:19:31 AM PDT
Subject: Book of the Month for the Month of October 2023: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: The Book of Everett, Volume One
Over the years, I have had many Zen daily calendars which contain quotes that tend to have a Zen theme. During those years, I have tried to collect the daily quotes that particularly resonated with me. They have been a personal collection that I call The Book of Everett. There are now two volumes The Book of Everett. Volume One of The Book of Everett happens to contain three quotes from Marcus Aurelius, the Philosopher/Emperor of the Roman Empire. The three quotes in my book are
"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."
"He who sees what is now has seen all things, whatsoever comes to pass from everlasting and whatsoever shall be unto everlasting time."
"When you arise in the mornning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ... "
88888
Over the weekend, while living amongst the Joshua Trees, I finished reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. There is a great deal to contemplate in this book. Two of the segments that I include are
"40. Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.
"41. "You are a little soul bearing about a corpse" as Epictetus used to say."
"42. It is no evil for things to undergo change, and no good for things to subsist in consequence of change."
Meditations, Book Four.
"13. I am composed of the formal and the material. Neither of them will perish into non-existence, as neither of them came into existence out of non-existence. Every part of me then will be reduced by change into some part of the universe, and that again will change into another part of the universe, and so on forever. And by consequence of such a change I too exist, and those who begot me, and so on forever in the other direction. For nothing hinders us from saying so, even if the universe is administered according to definite periods."
Meditations, Book Five
There is so much more to say. However, it is October 31 and I must get ready for November. However, before leaving, in response to a query from my Victorville cousins, "Yes, I believe in immortality." And to all one of the more recent additions to The Book of Everett is this quote from Richard Jefferies:
It is eternity now, I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the sunshine; I am in it; as the butterfly in the light-laden air. Nothing has to come; it is now. Now is eternity; now is the immortal life.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2023 at 03:55:53 AM PDT
Subject: Book of the Month for the Month of October 2023: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Last week, I finished reading Surviving Death by Leslie Kean, and on September 30, I finished reading The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel. Surviving Death was interesting but a bit disappointing in not exploring the rather abundant documented afterlife beliefs and practices of other cultures and the prolific afterlife beliefs of many established religions. In conjunction with these worldwide beliefs and practices, it seems clear to me that there is life after death. And The Song of Bernadette simply confirmed that an afterlife consciousness can continue to exist thousands of years after the body is gone.
It is now October 17, and there is not much time left in the month. So, for October 2023, I have decided to read a small book by a very important man. The book for the Month of October 2023 is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Those who venture into its pages will understand why.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
Comments
Post a Comment