Globalove Think Tank

I dream of a Star Trek world. This think tank will focus on creative actions
designed to initiate a global paradigm shift towards a world where racism, poverty
and war will be a thing of the past.

Month: October 2009

One Dead Singh

The Star Trek World had its Hitler and its Caesar. Twenty-five years ago, almost to the day, my husband, my 13 year old son, two of my seven brothers and two cousins, as well as my preborn twin girls, were murdered in the anti-Sikh Delhi Pogrom of 1984. This post is about another man from another family.

On 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, was shot and killed by her Sikh bodyguards reacting to her ordering the Army to storm the Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib) in Amritsar, killing an unknown number of pilgrims gathered there in honour of the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev Ji.

There followed several days of mayhem directed against the Sikhs of India, especially in the city of Delhi. Many Sikhs were doused with fire and burned alive. these are my thoughts on one of the dead. (What follows is reprinted from The Road To Khalistan.)

Who is he? Who is this Singh? I have spend countless hours staring at this photograph asking myself questions. Whose son is he? Whose husband, whose dad, whose brother, whose uncle, cousin, friend? Is someone waiting anxiously at home for him, waiting for a footfall that will never come?

Where is he from? Does he live in Delhi or is he just visiting? Where was he born? What is his pind? When was he born? How old is he?

What is his occupation? Is he an engineer, a doctor, a professor? Or is he a taxi driver or a trucker?

What are his politics? Is he an Akali or a member of Congress? Is he a Khalistani or a Bharata Mata lover? Or is he political at all? Is he just trying to live his life and not really concerned about the niceties of the larger world.

Why is he keshdhari? Is it just habit, following family custom? Or is it deeply meaningful to him? Does he pray each day, do naam jap, love Vaheguru? Or are those just incidentals that have fallen by the wayside of his life? Where is his turban? How does he feel as it is ripped from his head and his kesh is exposed?

How does he feel as he realises the mob is coming for him, chasing him down the street or dragging him from his home or his car or from the bus? What goes on in his brain as the petrol is poured on him and set alight? What is he thinking as his body burns? Or is he beyond thought? Is he aware of the laughing jeering mob around him, enjoying watching his final agonising moments of life on this earth?

What is his last awareness as he dies alone, surrounded by merciless thugs?

Questions without answers. Whoever he is, he deserves to be remembered. I doubt he had even a death certificate, so I have made him one.

(Click to enlarge)

There is something so very final about the certificate. And, of course, I realise that all I have written is wrong and must be rewritten to reflect the truth of 25 years later…

Who was he? Who was this Singh? I have spent countless hours staring at this photograph asking myself questions. Whose son was he? Whose husband, whose dad, whose brother, whose uncle, cousin, friend? Was someone waiting anxiously at home for him, waiting for a footfall that never came?

Where was he from? Did he live in Delhi or was he just visiting? Where was he born? What was his pind? When was he born? How old was he?

What was his occupation? Was he an engineer, a doctor, a professor? Or was he a taxi driver or a trucker?

What were his politics? Was he an Akali or a member of Congress? Was he a Khalistani or a Bharata Mata lover? Or was he political at all? Was he just trying to live his life and not really concerned about the niceties of the larger world.

Why was he keshdhari? Was it just habit, following family custom? Or was it deeply meaningful to him? Did he pray each day, do naam jap, love Vaheguru? Or were those just incidentals that had fallen by the wayside of his life? Where was his turban? How did he feel as it was ripped from his head and his kesh was exposed?

How did he feel as he realised the mob was coming for him, chasing him down the street or dragging him from his home or his car or from the bus? What went on in his brain as the petrol was poured on him and set alight? What was he thinking as his body burned? Or was he beyond thought? Was he aware of the laughing jeering mob around him, enjoying watching his final agonising moments of life on this earth?

What was his last awareness as he died alone, surrounded by merciless thugs?

He was our brother and he was one single human being, one Sikh among the thousands murdered during the madness of those days in 1984.

He is our brother and he deserves justice.

One final, unanswered question: When?

The Science of Waiting

Within the long
meandering queue for services
provided by the state, reluctantly
we wait.

Life put aside
like an old dilapidated
pair of shoes,
ennui elevated to a high art,
silence secured within the
din of worried and desperate thoughts.

There is a science to waiting
that has eluded me for these many years.

Lifeboat

This is a photograph

taken by Apollo 8 at the moon

Enlarge the image

and experience that feeling

when they saw their precious

lifeboat

Missing Link

Flamboyant bouquet thrills

In color bursts and sunshine

Leaning into the sky

Dancing in tune with the breeze

Petal shedding with cool moon change

In unison, bouquet sighs


Rain splish-splash drip-drops

Swirls, twirls, and slides down from the sky

Pools in puddles and slimes into mud

Rivets of rivers run down the hillside

A mountain of droplets unleashed all at once

Together they depart; together they shone


A flock of birds flies in overhead

Bunches of ants all scrounging for food

Lions, gazelles, and antelope herd

And sparrows each year convene all at once

Learning and hunting, storytelling for all

Community structured love orientation


Human boy sits alone in his yard

Plucks grass blades in batches of fives

Interprets clouds as they each pass him by

Sighs ever so sadly, and all to himself

Pours concrete resolve into heartfelt foundation

Depending on no one for fun’s exaltation


He grew older while he stood there all alone

Surrounded by ones all arranged into twos

Boy built a big house on foundation he started

Filled it with things and then called it a home

Interprets himself in shiny glass mirror

Feels saddened, alone, and afraid of the dark


At some point, we lost it:

This lesson of life – the reason for life

Broken hearted and blinded and dying from pain

Outreaching is hollow, a hug is the same

Unlike all the flowers and creatures and stars

We’ve forgotten how to let “ours” simply be ours.

We are destroying the Earth

We are poisoning

our planet and ourselves!

The-15-most-toxic-places-to-live

The Pledge of Allegiance


The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy (1855-1931). It was originally published in The Youth’s Companion on September 8, 1892. Bellamy had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country.

In its original form it read:

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Here’s my version from a post I did a year ago:

“I pledge allegiance, to the Family of Man and to the Freedoms for which it stands, One World, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”

Peace is a Word

Peace is a word
Of the sea and the wind.
Peace is a bird who sings
As you smile.
Peace is the love
Of a foe as a friend;
Peace is the love you bring
To a child

Searching for me
You look everywhere,
Except beside you.
Searching for you
You look everywhere,
But not inside you.

Peace is a stream
From the heart of a man;
Peace is a man,
whose breadth
Is the dawn.
Peace is a dawn
On a day without end;
Peace is the end, like death
Of the war.

Words by Peter Sinfield from a song by King Crimson

My Fish Book



A long time ago, someone remarked to me that

“A seeker who has not yet found
What she is looking for
Is like
A fish gasping for water in the air.”

I have always felt that there is a story there, although I wasn’t sure what it might be. Finally, I know. I have long wanted to write something to make sense of the events of June and October/November 1984 to us Sikhs, most especially to children.

(For those who do not know, the Army of India attacked our holiest shrine Harimandir Sahib (Golden Temple) in June, killing a disputed number of pilgrims and several thousands of us were murdered in Delhi following the death of Indira Gandhi in October. For my personal story, you may go to Our Stories From 1984 ).

After many years, I finally feel that I have the experience and – I hope – skill to write this story. My book is not dark and gloomy. It is a short novel, a fantasy for children, very loosely based on events in my own life above a very strange little goldfish who is given the name Brave. OK, there are some dark parts to it; what is a good story without some dark spots? It is currently on line.

Perhaps you will take a read and let me know what you think. I hope it is as much fun to read as it was to write. On second thought, if you are one of those adults busy with important matters and if talking fish annoy you, perhaps you had better skip this one. Brave and her adventures can currently be found a t The Brave Little Fish.


The Wizard Of Oz

Who is that man

behind the curtain?

Sssssh

Careful what you say…

Big Brother is watching you…

Look At Your-Self

Be the change

you want to see in the world

…Mahatma Gandhi…

(video clip)

The Chemical Edge

This little piggy went to market,

This little piggy stayed at home,

This little piggy had roast beef,

This little piggy had none…

And this little piggy is an example

of what chemical and toxic pollution

is doing to biological life forms,

meaning us, the cause of it all,

we are the little guinea piggies,

and we will be the ones that go…

“Wee wee wee” all the way home.

(read more)

Prison Planet

The United States has 4.6% of the worlds population and nearly 25% of the worlds prisoners……what’s wrong with this picture?

In 1983 Corrections Corporation of America founded the private corrections industry. Despite having been outlawed nationally for over a century, private prisons have been turned into a money making proposition. Traded daily on the stock exchange, the profit for prisoners business is growing by leaps and bounds, incarceration rates have soared. Should this be a for-profit business?


The continued prohibition of legalized marijuana provides a convenient source of fodder for the prison-industrial complex. An American is arrested for pot every 38 seconds. Since 1965, more than 20 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana offenses, 90 percent of them for simple possession.

Keith Stroup, Executive Director of NORML said “In fact, the war on drugs is largely a war on pot smokers. This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that should be dedicated toward combating serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism.”


And despite baby boomers being in charge in recent years, annual pot busts have tripled since the non-inhaling Bill Clinton took office. The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeds the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

It isn’t only marijuana consumers who want to see weed legalized. (None other than William F. Buckley was for it.) Ending prohibition is also a popular cause for at least 10,000 cops, narcs, judges, and others who make up the membership of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.


From LEAP’s down-and-dirty perspective, prohibition exacerbates rather than ameliorates America’s drug problem. Prohibition not only diverts resources from the pursuit of more-serious crimes, it empowers criminals and enhances black-market incentives. Money spent fighting what adults seem to want could be better allocated toward education and rehab.

It is well known that alcohol and tobacco related health effects and deaths by far eclipse any detrimental effects of occasional recreational marijuana use by adults. Common sense would tell you that, if anything, alcohol and tobacco should be prohibited and marijuana should be legalized.


The benifits of legalizing pot would be a double-triple-whammy in that it could create a substantial amount of wealth for farmers and industry, increase revenue through the regulation and taxation of hemp and marijuana sales, it would free up much needed police and judicial resources, put a significant dent in the income of criminal black-market forces, it would keep non-violent consumers out of jail, and create a sustainable resource that could replace many of the items now made of plastic.

The Marijuana Policy Project advocates taxing and regulating the possession and sale of cannabis, arguing that a regulated industry would separate purchasers from the street market for cocaine, heroin, and other hard drugs. You can’t legislate morality, adults should be allowed the freedom to pursue their ideal of happiness as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Legalizing marijuana would be a fabulous way to “Go Green!” There’s no reason we shouldn’t legalize pot, it’s just a plant.

(excerpts from Kathleen Parker and skeptically.org)

Abandon All Hope

There is a supermassive black hole

at the center of nearly every galaxy…

…you haven’t got a chance

Whale story

Notes from Big Sur,

October 14, 2007

I’m sitting in the hot springs, having another late night discussion with Gregg, a psychiatrist from Ann Arbor (U of M). He’s doing research for a book he’s writing that claims that we humans are not the most intelligent species on earth. At best, we come in a distant third .. whales and dolphins are much smarter. In fact, he says jokingly, whales evolved wireless Internet millions of years before Al Gore .. they communicate with each other by sending ‘sonar messages’ that can be heard by other whales in any ocean on the planet. Back at the cabin, he shows me 8 by 10 glossy photos of a whale’s brain. Pretty impressive I say (once he explains what I’m looking at). They have a much larger, and more convoluted, cerebral cortex than we do. I ask him if that’s because they have much more body area to control. He says no, very little of it is ‘motor cortex’ .. those functions were distributed to areas outside the whale’s brain a long long time ago. Now humans, he believes, operate from a much lower part of the brain .. what’s known as the ‘reptilian brain’ .. and that’s what drives our’ rational brain’ .. not the other way around .. as we would like to think. He goes on to tell me that these lower brain areas assign ‘addresses’ that link ‘powerful emotions’ to information entering memory. That’s why we remember what other people tell us much better than what we read in books. I sit fascinated by all of this. Afterwards, he gives me a book called ‘Up from Dragons’ by Dorion Sagan, the son of the late Carl Sagan. I remember reading ‘Dragons of Eden’ in college and was fascinated then too. Gregg has been one of the most interesting parts of this trip. I tell him so the next morning, and we hug before he disappears down highway one. I must remember to send him a copy of “Defending the Cavewoman” when I get home.

Seasonal Vertigo

Hemispheric change would be gentle
An opposition of what used to be
Winter is summer and fall is spring
Sounds perfectly logical to me!

Nightmare Before Christmas style
Mixed up jumble of holiday cheer
Halloween is Easter, Christmas for St. Pat’s
Still keeping the imagery clear!

Much harder to process, in my mind
The seasonal vertigo of paradise
Rainforest greenery and sunshiney days
No turning leaves, nor snow, nor one shred of ice!

We live in Never Never Land
What day is this? What time of year?
How old am I? Has time gone by?
Total eradication of doomsday fear.

Earth Creatures

We were here

before you were

To the moon

Overhead, crows are shouting ..and drowning out the music on my deck. I look up and see them clustered in the trees and scenes from the Hitchcock movie ‘The Birds’ flash by and I feel a twinge of ‘can that happen here’. Something tells me no so I howl back at them. There’s a momentary pause as they lift off .. cluster in another group of trees ..and crank up the volume. Crows are not my bird of choice to take with me if I ever had to live on a deserted island. I start reading an article in the news about future space colonies on the moon ..and mistake the term ‘reconnaissance orbiter’ for ‘renaissance orbiter’. For some reason, I think the word renaissance is more fitting. Then a movie scene from early-childhood comes to mind (from before we walked on the moon) .. where one of the astronauts goes crazy ..breaks away from the pack ..crosses over to the ‘sunny side’ and immediately disintegrates and turns into a skeleton. I cringe when I think about packing the kids and the dog and moving there. Now I’m worried that everything I know comes from either the movies or television shows.

V for Vendetta

Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici

By the power of truth I

while living

have conquered the universe


ART ?


I’ve been wondering lately about what exactly, or generally, to consider the definition of “ART”.

I am leaving the question open and collecting opinions, including my own, in an effort to coagulate thought and suggestion into a workable definition.

Oddly enough,since I have begun thinking about this, I have noticed references to this question in the media that I am usually exposed to. Pops up in newspaper, magazine, and even cartoon jottings. It’s uncanny but probably just that I am noticing these coincidences when I normally wouldn’t see them.
But to consider presentations of painting, metalwork, photography, mixed media,sculpture,printmaking, wood, ceramics, fiber, digital renderings, and glass; not to mention music, theater, dance, and building construction — we must consider the possibility for each to be an exhibit of artistic value either to us alone or to us all in general.

The above art by Camille Rose Garcia from Subterranean Death Clash series ,2006

Let it roll around in your head for awhile and please let me know anything that collects in the corners,

Pluto’s neighborhood

Admittedly, Pluto is a fringe dweller. It orbits at the outer-most edge of the solar system. Lately, however ..it’s been seen passing in and out of mainstream consciousness .. like the punks and the freaks we see in high school. Now, we may diss’ Pluto, and even question it’s right to exist as a planet ..but we can’t deny its presence. It’s there ..way out there ..twisted and possibly trans-gender .. but definitely there. And it’s not alone. It travels with a swarming pack of fellow Plutinos and other planetoids we still haven’t been able to identify. We know one of its peers is Neptune ..or what the early Vedic Seers called Varuna ..the goddess of the oceans. Another companion is Tau ..or what the local tribesmen call Quaoar .. a formless, genderless force that brought into existence some of the cosmic beings we know as Father Sky, Mother Earth and Grandfather Sun. I’d say Pluto lives in a pretty respectable neighborhood. I wouldn’t dismiss it as a backwater space entity any longer.

North West Passage

The ice age is melting and the Arctic is turning into water. On some days temperatures can hover around 70 degrees fahrenheit ..turning ice shelves into tropical zones. For me, this conjures up images of smooth sailing, sunbathing on sandy beaches and swimming in emerald lagoons. But I’m a fucking dreamer who needs to see things the way they are. What this really means is greater opportunity for fortune-seekers looking for trade routes to China. What is now home to Eskimos, who still hunt whales and live in igloos ..is about to become an international trade zone ..occupied by oil barons ..land developers ..and casino operators. I have the feeling we are looking at the next wild frontier. Now I picture myself sailing through the North West Passage like it was California during the gold rush ..shooting polar bears instead of buffaloes.

Permanently Protect the Arctic Refuge!


Click here ~> Urge Congress to Permanently Protect the Arctic Refuge! – The Petition Site

Head case

A model for the fabric of the mind has been tentatively settled-on. It’s one that characterizes what’s inside my head as a 3-dimensional network of delicately connected instances of prior experience and feeling. Under ordinary circumstances, incoming sensory and verbal events produce ripples that spread out over this fabric, like stones on a pond, activating network-connections until a clear mental representation is formed. However, when something goes wrong, and there’s a disturbance in the fabric, activation may become amp’d, unfettered and diffuse ..compounding insubstantial phenomena until, what may have started out as a gentle hummingbird, for example .. becomes a ferocious beast. Sometimes I think it’s only a matter of degree between clarity and delusion ..especially when I consider how many times I mistook a perfectly innocent remark as hostility.

Synæsthesia

I wake up with badly congested information-channels ~ I see shifting patterns of different colors entering an open window ~ and watch the walls dissolve into orange dots before they reach the ceiling. I sit up and swing my feet over the edge of a pillowy sensation I comfortably rely on as my bed ~ but now the floor has dropped out of sight. I count the number of times this has happened and figure the odds of landing with both feet on the floor are in my favor. I decide to play it safe ~ take one step at a time ~ stopping frequently to make sure I am where I’m accustomed to be, and not where I appear to be, because I know my senses are deceiving me. Downstairs, scattered waves of light travel in every direction ~ except through the channels of my visual receptors. I find something likely to be my CD player and punch it in the vicinity of the on/off switch. A punk rock CD, left in there from the night before, starts to blare. The light waves begin bouncing to the rhythm, and, like little drops of colored water ~ they enter into the proper channels and float down streams of sensory-energy ~ until they fall into pools of stored-memory ~ and form the image of what I’m supposed to see. Like adjusting the focus of a camera lens ~ it all becomes clear. I drop to my knees and pay homage to the deities of music ~ then crank up the volume and go in the kitchen to prepare myself a thermos of coffee. Looks like it’s going to be a good day.

High above

High above
on a switch back trail.
Drinking ice cold glacier ale.
There’s a half frozen lake
at twelve thousand feet
with smooth boulders to sit on
in a cathedral of jagged peaks.
The sky falls into shape
Water rises up
to fill the space
and lap the shore
rising and falling
always full
always finding
a level of it’s own.
In a place so simple and pure
shards of bitter memory
form on my tongue
I spit them out and think
Those are what make things taste
so complicated and unclean.

Buddha road

Buddha’s observations on the nature of the mind come closer to modern-day neuroscience than any other philosophy I’ve read ..and his investigations did not end there ~ they had just begun. He saw how mental activity was mostly noise. A mixture of chatter ..imaginary offenses ..anticipatory dread ..feelings of betrayal and other fabrications. For six years he practiced watching this stream of debris flow by and vanish ..until he realized that there was nothing substantial or permanent about any of it ..and that believing so only created suffering. He continued down this road ..going past the conceptual ..through the neuro-sensory ..and beyond the phenomenal layers of consciousness. The further he went ..the freer he felt ..until he punched a hole through the ceiling and found an ever-expanding universe where all living beings are interconnected ..and he saw, first-hand, how the true nature of existence lay beyond the momentary vicissitudes of thought and feeling. He felt relief .. the fear of separation vanished. He chose to return and help others find the way out. We still hear the echo of his teachings resonating today. I do anyway.

Coastal poem

I hike up to a shady grove
and sit beside a wandering stream.
Watch water splash over polished stones
of silver, red and green
then disappear through the ferns
and whatever else that grows
under a canopy of redwood trees
somewhere above the coastal zone.

Slipstream

There’s a stream running through my head. I sit and watch it go by ~ one instance after another. When I try to push it ~ or tweak it ~ I disperse it. Now I’ve got several streams running through my head. I see images of my father holding me on his knee ~ Jisho Perry stops by; but can’t stay for tea ~ my neighbor Don appears telling me it’s going to be a good day. I see images of Big Sur smoldering after another fire and I start to feel anxious. Now I’m trying to peek at instances that haven’t arrived yet. I hear Jisho’s voice gently reminding me that I’m leaning forward too far ~ but it’s too late ~ I’m tumbling head over heels ~ hoping I’ll land someplace soft. I’m lying on my back when Dr. Jones leans over and says I gotta’ get a grip ~ I’m having an out-of-sequence experience. Now I’m behind the wheel of a jeep and the warning signs are coming up fast ~ curva peligrosa ~ I swerve to avoid them when I hear sirens begin to wail. But ‘la policía’ are all in my head ~ it’s my wheels that are screeching ..spraying dirt and sand from the desert bed.

Self medication

I’ve learned through experience that delusions, brought on by capricious mental activity, are best left ignored. Like passing clouds, there’s not one worth hanging on to. There’s a practice I learned called ‘grounding’ that I find valuable. It helps me disengage from delusional thinking by anchoring to something in my immediate surroundings. The goal is to bring myself out of the grips of a delusion, or an intrusive memory, by way of the senses. Anytime symptoms come on, whatever form they may take ..it’s a good time to practice this exercise. I start by looking at five things nearby and begin naming them ..being specific and detailed. For example, I see my dog and say: “ ..shaggy brown hair and wet nose ..” or “..black computer speakers with silver lettering” and so on. Next, I name five things I hear, like the humming of a fan or the whoosh of passing cars, and so forth. Then I name five things I feel by sense of touch, like the jeans against my legs; the soles of my feet on the ground, and so on. I concentrate on sensing things the way they actually are ..careful not to replace them with the way I think they should be. I repeat the whole process a couple of times ..earning extra points if I become so wrapped up in my senses that I lose count. The idea is to make delusions disperse and fade into the background like the meaningless noise that they are.

Coastal zone

We used to call them swamps. Oil companies dumped sludge into them. Real estate developers excavated them ..and built pricey coastal communities like Marina Del Rey. Just north of there, surfers in Santa Monica began getting sick ..with symptoms ranging from skin rashes to heart attacks. I used to get ear infections. Investigators discovered high levels of toxins in the water ..both natural and man-made ..and began closing beaches for like months at a time. We don’t call them swamps any longer. They’re ‘estuaries’ ..and they serve a purpose .. filtering runoff before it goes into the ocean ..removing contaminants .. keeping the shoreline hospitable ..and the ocean sustainable (ask a fisherman). The Bolsa Chica wetlands is the only one remaining in Southern California that hasn’t been developed to the point where it’s lost all of that. A 40-year old feud between developers and environmentalists has kept it that way. Fanatical environmentalists. I’ll bet you there’s not one person surfing the nearby river jetty who hasn’t gotten sick.

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