Monthly Archives: November 2020

A Secular Prayer out of Time

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And he dreamt a strange dream, a powerful dream, a beautiful dream but at the same time, a very humble dream and interspersed within the dream where the sounds of pilgrims intoning the ohm, but not only the ohm but other ancestral sounds from before we became human, intoning the alpha and the omega and a multiverse without beginning or end, quanta becoming quantum and quanta again.

And he lay down his countenance and recalled that he was a part of the great whole, and being a part of the great whole, he was the great whole and the great whole was him, and that we were each part of the great whole and equally so from the most humble to the most mighty, but that too many among us had forgotten this great and primal verity, but it was so, is so and will be so, from before the beginning to until beyond eternity.

And she dreamt a strange dream, a powerful dream, a beautiful dream but at the same time, a very humble dream and interspersed within the dream where the sounds of pilgrims intoning the ohm, but not only the ohm but other ancestral sounds from before we became human, intoning the alpha and the omega and a multiverse without beginning or end, quanta becoming quantum and quanta again.

And she lay down her countenance and recalled that she was a part of the great whole, and being a part of the great whole, she was the great whole and the great whole was her, and that we were each part of the great whole and equally so from the most humble to the most mighty, but that too many among us had forgotten this great and primal verity, but it was so, is so and will be so, from before the beginning to until beyond eternity.

And they dreamt a strange dream, a powerful dream, a beautiful dream but at the same time, a very humble dream and interspersed within the dream where the sounds of pilgrims intoning the ohm, but not only the ohm but other ancestral sounds from before we became human, intoning the alpha and the omega and a multiverse without beginning or end, quanta becoming quantum and quanta again.

And they lay down their countenance and recalled that they were a part of the great whole, and being a part of the great whole, they were the great whole and the great whole was them, and that we were each part of the great whole and equally so from the most humble to the most mighty, but that too many among us had forgotten this great and primal verity, but it was so, is so and will be so, from before the beginning to until beyond eternity.

And then the he-she-they awoke and a great sorrow was in their hearts for the dream they had lost and the dream was drawing away from them faster and faster and becoming smaller and smaller and more and more dim until it was just a memory and then an echo, and then just an echo of a memory, and then just a shadow and then, it was gone, as though it had never been, but it had been, it was and it would always be, whether they remembered it or not.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2020; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently a strategic analyst employed by Qest Consulting Group, Inc.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.

Thoughts on a Strange Thanksgiving

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November 26, 2020, one more shopping month until Christmas.  A strange Thanksgiving.  But then again, as an American holiday, it is always oxymoronically strange.

This year, at the macro level, orchestrated polarization is the rule, distrust and an utter lack of confidence in the existence or importance of veracity.  Half the population is thrilled that the “despicables” have been taught their lesson and put in their place and who cares what the cost was while the other half is more bitter than ever and their worst instincts are probably honed for a rematch.  Not a pretty sight nor one that generates feelings of gratitude.

At the micro level however, we have our families and loved ones, our hobbies and pet projects, and for many, albeit perhaps not for most, the delight one feels when tangibly helping others by sharing what we have. 

Perhaps the latter defines that for which we can be thankful on this very complex and perplexing holiday, one with distasteful historical roots based on colonists deluding naïve indigenous peoples from whom they would shortly steal everything, spreading murder and mayhem in the name of a beneficent deity who, in their strictly enforced opinion, sentenced all who would not follow puritanical dictates to perpetual torture.

Columbus Day has undergone a drastic transformation in many places, now a day of mourning for the European invasion of the Americas and destruction of indigenous cultures. I ask myself: what will indigenous Americans celebrate today? Or what will the descendants of those Europeans who did not share Puritan religious perceptions and paid for their heresies in flames celebrate? Perhaps someday Thanksgiving Day too will become a day of mourning, mourning our own Holocausts.

The Puritans seem to be making a comeback although on a sociopolitical rather than spiritual level, with condemnation of nonconformance in the name of tolerance in vogue, the nouveaux “enlightened” supporting, with their votes, those who, in the name of democracy and liberty, spread death and destruction all over the world.  An echo from our past that never seems to end.

So, Happy Thanksgiving everyone, history is not everything and sometimes, out of the depths of evil good things come.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2020; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently a strategic analyst employed by Qest Consulting Group, Inc.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.

November 22, 1963

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Fifty-seven years ago the day dawned normally, and then some hours later, out of Dallas, shocked the Hell out of us, for an instant levelling the walls of polarization that then infected us, for a few days turning Americans into one people, hiding the tons of coalescing ugly realities, realities of the Great Chicago march of the Dead to vote for a handsome young president, and of his subsequent betrayal of the Mafia and the Deep State that placed him in the apparent seat of power, and then, the “unfortunate consequences of that betrayal. 

During the ensuing years of that decade we were traumatized by even worse polarization as the emerging Deep State brutalized idealists on both the left and the right until the traditionalist politicians in both major parties acted like Ray Bradbury’s firemen and calmed things down.  For a while.  But they did not capture all the sparks and today, just like that dawn in Dallas on November 22, 1963, we are at each other’s’ throats, cleverly manipulated by an evil corporate media. And the Deep State, more omnipotent now, moves on over a highway paved in billions.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2020; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently a strategic analyst employed by Qest Consulting Group, Inc.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.