Martin LeFevre

The Next Step Is a Great Leap

Martin LeFevre — 2008-07-09T11:10:00Z

You don't have to be a prophet to know a global train wreck is imminent. You just have to put an ear to the rail to hear the train is coming, and look down the tracks and see that the line has run out. Is there no other choice but to stand here and wait until the derailment and calamity occur? (...)

Hellish Fires Threaten Paradise

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:50:00Z

A pall of thick gray smoke continues to hang over northern California. Hundreds of wildfires are burning in this region, and nearly half a million acres have burned. The air quality is as bad as it's ever been, and the fire season is just getting going. (...)

The Lessons of Mugabe

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:45:00Z

The failure of the so-called international community, including African leaders, to stand up to Robert Mugabe, again demonstrates how inadequate the 20th century international framework is in the 21st century global society. (...)

Meditation Is Attention, Not Concentration

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:40:00Z

An unhappy looking fellow exits his SUV as I approach on foot. Two dogs spill out, and he heads up the dirt path in front of me. Of course he turns off the trail at my favorite sitting spot by the stream, so I walk on to the alternate place. (...)

What Kind of Revolution?

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:35:00Z

In August, Barack Obama will be the first person of color nominated by a major party in the United States. It is looking like Obama is destined to be president. But something much larger than him, indeed, much larger than America, is going on. (...)

Regarding Sacrileges and Sacrifices

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:30:00Z

I am about to commit the worst sacrilege a person can in America today. You can rob banks or start wars, but crossing this line will land you in social Siberia. Especially on Memorial Day, which purportedly commemorates the men and women who have died in military service to the United States. (...)

Animal Encounters

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:28:00Z

The wind has burnished the air, and every cliff, hillside, slope, and rock stand out in sharp relief, accented by fine streams of white clouds that fill half the sky. The beauty is so overwhelming I can hardly string two thoughts together. (...)

Sub-Humans, Humans, and Human Beings

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:25:00Z

New findings and nuanced theories have been coming out recently regarding the clash in Europe between Neanderthals and the first fully modern humans, the Cro Magnons, tens of thousands of years ago. These findings speak of the last great breakthrough in human evolution, highlight the darkest impulses in human nature, and point to the next, urgently required leap in consciousness. (...)

Is the Tide Turning?

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:20:00Z

Now that it's all over but the shouting and crying for the Hillbillary campaign, America is faced with the stark contrast between Barack Obama and John McCain. Of course, Hillary will only bow out when the party bosses, led by the likes of Diane Feinstein of California, push her out. (...)

The Big Bang Is Not Creation

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:15:00Z

Though the sky is clear overhead and sunshine bathes the land, clouds have banked up against the foothills, with the look of an impending thunderstorm. Alongside the creek at the upper end of the parkland, the wind suddenly roars in, whipping the new foliage and dumping a lot of spring matter into the stream. (...)

In the Light of the Earth

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:10:00Z

“In the Shadow of the Moon” is a documentary film that captures something of what it was like to go to the moon. In it, the astronauts recount their experiences and give their perspectives and insights. And the most interesting astronaut of the first trio is Mike Collins, who circled the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin were on the surface. (...)

Why Meditate?

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:05:00Z

Living in a cultural desert, as we all do in the West, and as every one increasingly does in this meaningless, consumeristic global society, meditation is the art of digging one's own inner well daily. It's become a matter of survival. (...)

The Democratic Primary is the Main Event

Martin LeFevre — 2008-06-30T13:00:00Z

The Democratic presidential primaries in the United States will soon be in the hands of the fabled ‘superdelegates.' For them it will come down to one simple question: Who is more electable in November? Who can beat John McCain, the Republican nominee—Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? That's a no-brainer; Obama would win, and Hillary cannot. Here's why. (...)

The Enlightentment of Hillary

Martin LeFevre — 2008-04-25T20:55:00Z

The most interesting thing said so far during the torturous Democratic campaign came, improbably, from that sage, Hillary Clinton. Intoning in Pennsylvania on Obama's remarks in San Francisco about people “clinging to guns and religion,” she said, “I don't think it helps to divide our country into one America that is enlightened and one that is not.”

She's been consulting with the philosopher in California with whom I had a discussion around this same subject before her husband become president, I thought. We were talking about the possibility of a psychological revolution in our lifetimes, and this fellow, a Marxist, said, “that would divide people into those who are enlightened, and those who aren't.” (...)

The Action of Unknowing

Martin LeFevre — 2008-04-25T20:50:00Z

It's amazingly quiet for a Saturday afternoon in the municipal park, even at the upper end, furthest from the city center. A nice place overlooking the stream is unoccupied, and I sit down with my back to the sun, surrounded by the new foliage of spring.

A pair of mallards, who obviously make their home at this spot, nonchalantly drift downstream as I walk up, but stop in an eddy only 20 meters away. A quarter hour later, obviously feeling the human is safe, they paddle back upstream to clean, preen, sit, and sleep directly across from me. (...)