gagablog 60: JFK-Obama-Gaga, Time and Timelessness

This is the 60th edition of the Gagablog and there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour. It's another magical "coincidence" that this one is all about time. There are events of this weekend to examine for magical connections; the anniversary of the assassination of JFK, Senate Democrats resorting to the "nuclear option" to change Senate voting rules, Obama's historic deal to halt Iran's nuclear program, and Gaga's Versace photoshoot and upcoming performance tonight of "Do What You Want" on the American Music Awards. It is not the first time she has performed the song on national TV but it has possibly a larger audience and more musically-minded audience than SNL last week. Everything Gaga does is artistically, historically, and mystically significant so exploring these connections reveals a lot about magic and especially the magic of time. Magic is essentially discovering, revealing, utilizing and strengthening connections. One of the simplest ways we notice magic is in what we call coincidence, and it is things that happen in the same time, two things sharing an incident. This can be a day or a moment or an era, but things are connected by time, or despite time. We notice things that happen around the same time and feel a natural, magical thrill to notice them, but we are trained to usually say such things are "just" a coincidence and dismiss them instead of looking for the magical meaning and this is what blocks magical understanding from emerging naturally, constructing a whole system of thought that denies it. But noticing coincidence is one of the basic ways we live and learn: when we push this button, this happens, etc. We expect and anticipate certain things to coincide but when something "weird" happens, revealing a new kind of connection, we pass it off if we aren't ready to learn the magic of it. I was already writing this in my head over the last few days, mostly inspired by some recent events that symbolized timelessness. Then last night I talked with some monsters in a chatroom for the first time in years and one of them was from Australia and told me some things about the dreamtime of the aboriginal people there. Also, last night the deal to halt Iran's nuclear weapons program was struck. It's a major historical event and fits perfectly with this theme so this is the day to write this edition - I could not have written it as well yesterday, because these perfect examples had to emerge. We usually think about time as past, present and future but the other side of time is something we can call timelessness or eternity and it exists in all things and all forms of time, connecting them and making them eternal and unified. This is how mysticism works and it happens all the time, in everything, but it is easier to notice in some things and undeniable when you start looking for it. Timelessness, eternity, is the magical quality that connects everything that seems to be separated in the "real", timely world. Time is change, magic, in a way, but seen from the perspective of timelessness then what we call time is just three aspects: the past is eternally unchangeable, the present is eternally changing the future is eternally changeable. The present is the boundary between the past, the real world, which is done and kind of like a ghost or illusion, and the future which is always developing and calling us like a dream or inspiration. The past is "dead", the present is "alive" and the future is "afterlife" or paradise, perfection. I call the future "Oz", I think Gaga calls it "fantasy" as opposed to reality, the past. She lives in the present that is becoming the future, perfect, not the present that is tied to the past. It's not like the past is bad but focusing on the past instead of the future, or tainting the future with belief in the past, is bad. Wanting to go backwards is bad because time is always progressing into the future and the future is always better. Yes, bad things will happen in the future but most of them are the result of people clinging to the past. We think of good things from the past and want them to happen again in the future, and we think of bad things from the past and want to avoid them. Even though all time is eternal and things from the past are connected to the present and the future, the essential quality is change and things are never exactly repeated but always change somehow, like you can never jump in the same river twice. The best experiences of the past are the ones that have the quality of timelessness, connecting us to all other such experiences and there will be more and more of them in the future. All ecstasy is a glimpse of timelessness, of the perfect feeling of the future, of paradise. The bad experiences we have to work to remember and remind each other of, to commemorate the tragedy and stay united by it. The good experiences we seek out naturally and when leaders emerge with qualities to make people hope for a better future it shows in the way so many people respond to them. When we fear things from the past happening again and focus on that fear instead of a better future, or when we assume that some things will never change or will always have the same outcome, we hold ourselves back from the best we can become, we slow ourselves in our progress to the ideal future. The best recent example of this has been America making deals with Syria and Iran to avoid war: the common knowledge was that we were on the path to war but we avoided it, and we can always avoid it from now on. The eternity of war can live on in video games and movies, that is enough, we don't need the "real thing" anymore. The past is considered real but we can't let ourselves be constrained by reality. Eternity, timelessness, is what is beckoning us forward and inspiring us to progress. Dreamtime says that all reality is the fulfillment of this mystical realm, all of time is playing it out, fulfilling it. Within time it seems as if all is changing but from the timeless perspective it is just blossoming into fulfillment. The struggles and conflicts ultimately reveal the beauty of the divine design, but we feel the most of this and go fastest into the future perfection by believing in the ultimate goodness we are all part of. Unity is eternity and we are moving towards it. We have had lesser idea of unity based on fear and looking toward the past, the idea of unity being sameness within a small group, be it a nationality or gender or religion or culture or fanbase. But real, ultimate unity, the essence of magic, is the unity of all diversity, the unity that includes all and excludes none, and this is something we are always working towards but also something we can make big an permanent strides to reach, the kind Gaga struts. Timelessness is not stopping time, it is the opposite: timelessness is accepting the flow of time from past into future via the perfect present, the idea that all are perfected in this unity and therefore there need be no fear of the future or concern for holding onto the past. The reason I thought of writing this was two events that I thought exemplified the difference between stopping time and timelessness. Time is progress, it is good, but some people are afraid of progress and want to stop it. They are focused on the past, and fears: they are conservative. Liberal is wanting more time, more change, more progress, more freedom and diversity and acceptance, more unity. The mystical examples of this are what inspired this edition: the Republicans shut down the government in order to continue their absolute obstruction of everything Obama tries to do and the basic functions of government. This was a few weeks ago but has long-lasting implications and one magical symbol I had to note: the clock in the Senate had run for as long as America has been around, over two hundred years without stopping, but due to the shutdown there was no one to wind it and it stopped for the first time in the country's history. What does this mean? I could be paranoid and say it has some implication of the death of the country but I prefer to think of it as symbolic of Republican desire to stop time, to stop progress, and hopefully the end of that party - because such efforts are always ultimately wasted, time won't stop, progress won't stop, and grasping or enforcing the past just causes suffering for yourself and others. I think of the lady who loved Ellen then found out she was lesbian and could not watch her anymore - just get over your old ideas and everyone is happier and enjoys more. Pleasure is a glimpse of paradise, leading us on to grow out of what holds us back and that lady should have focused on her laughter instead of her prejudice, the future instead of the past. Because hopefully she has reached the future, by now, when she is laughing at Ellen again, not missing out. Old ideas hold us all back but hold back the person who clings to them the most, making me like an anchor to the imperfect past slowing us from the perfect future. Timelessness is what connects us and stopping time, conservative thought (fear), is what separates us and holds us back from achieving unity faster. An example of timelessness that was recently in the news was JFK's Eternal Flame. It had been moved from its normal place for an upgrade to that, I think for the first time in history. The it was restored to the original place. when I heard this, I thought about the Senate clock and how the time it was stopped could be examined to coincide with an especially "stopped" time of gridlock, and also if the time, I think months, in which the Eternal Flame was moved would also coincide with a particular pattern. But I never researched the dates and decided the real significance was the clock stopping as an example of time stopping and the Flame itself, in any place, as an example of timelessness. Yesterday was the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of JFK and this is an important milestone, half a century is honored with a lot more than past anniversaries. The significance of this event says more than most about unity and a comparison with today says something about timelessness. Tributes call Kennedy the "First Television President" because of the role TV played in his story. Radio was the technology that gave Roosevelt the ability to unite the country with his fireside chats and Kennedy did the same with TV. Regardless of different opinions of him, Americans were united in the way they experienced Kennedy like never before, because of the TV. And of course TV was what made the assassination such a unifying event, the fact that half the country experienced it live and almost the entire country was watching coverage on TV that day. It was such a tragic, earth-shattering event that everyone alive back then remembers where they were when they heard the news, so much that it is like a cliché, THE "heard the news" event. When I was in 4th grade they gave us the day off to watch the Challenger take off. It's not something we talk about much, maybe a mention on anniversaries, but it was seared into our souls, maybe moreso as kids, and it is something that unites us, secretly. The September 11th attacks had the same impact on our generation, except that time the technology and tragedy of it all made it something that much of the world saw together, uniting us all in a way we still have not "taken advantage of" or seen the positive fruits of. Technology, architecture, religions and social structure and art - all development has been working towards unifying people, at least in groups of "sameness." But now that we have reached the global scale we can shed smaller conceptions of unity and really all work together. It is the best of ideals that we think of when we remember Kennedy, we idealize him as we idolize him. I've heard it said often that the tragedy of what people feel around the Kennedy assassination is the feeling of loss for what might have been. It is not just what he represented in what he did, but the idea of the future that he inspired in people, this is how he was already timeless within his time. The example of going to the moon is perfect - just as the example of Gaga performing the first song from space is perfect. This is where it connects to the present for me in a way that shows the eternity of these themes but also the way we have improved and can by comparison see more clearly what the problem really is. Obama's struggles with republican obstruction have me thinking "what might have been", with no less sense of loss than the loss of JFK represented to people fifty years ago. He is stopping wars and avoiding others, trying to get healthcare for folks, and so many other good things but what could he have done if we weren't held back by fear? I'm not saying I'm disappointed, in him, I'm really impressed by what he manages to do all things considered, I just wish those things had not happened to be considered, to hold us back. A few days ago I was just going to write about how I'm so glad no one assassinated Obama like you know so many of those assholes want to, but I still see it as a missed opportunity and tragedy that we could not fully realize what might have been under his visionary leadership. Because he has that visionary focus and does represent change, progress towards an ideal future - you can tell by how he speaks and inspires people, just like Gaga does, though she inspires from art and love as well as kindness and justice. The modern situation of American government is the perfect example of the past versus the future, with the past on the right and future to the left. And we just need to show how there is nothing to be scared about the future, like we are doing in Colorado by legalizing weed. The Senate used the "nuclear option" to change the rules just so Obama could appoint people to empty positions that have been going unfilled, slowing government at every level. I think they obstructed over a hundred of his nominees, half the number of blocks in the history of the country going against Obama. SO they basically changed the rules so they can't block any more that way, so at least things can make some normal progress in the face of extraordinary obstruction. And of course it is extraordinary because it goes beyond politics and is personal and racist and the result of fanatical conservatism - really to the heart of negativity and fear-based, past-clinging thinking. There is justice in the future and everyone can sense it, the only ones who fear it are the ones who profit from injustice. The best development that shows the past versus the future, the way of peace versus the way of war, is the agreement between America and Iran, between Obama and the newly elected president of Iran. I'm glad I wrote this today and can include this, since it happened "in the middle of the night", as so many things do, like Sexxx Dreams. You can tell by the people opposed to it, by who they are and what they are saying, that what they are really upset about is losing a faster path to war, and hopefully losing any path to war. What many had said was inevitable has at least been postponed and possibly avoided entirely, maybe due to a reconsideration on both parts. But even working together is a major breakthrough and reduces one of the great global political tensions. This is the fulfillment of what Obama represents, a creative and brave path to a peaceful future, and the ones who fear it make themselves plain and reveal that ignorance perfectly. You can't stop time or go back from progress, you just end up looking foolish. If we can just laugh about it, fine, but if you are in power we need to vote that away when you say certain things. Smoking crack a lot might make you unfit to govern, but believing in gun rights above all others and corporate profits and war definitely does. I am really glad a deal was reached with Iran and I really think it will lead to greater progress with them but also with other countries, and my great hope is that we, America, will realize that the best way to lead is by example and if we don't want other countries to have weapons we should get rid of ours. We don't need to keep a big nail in a stick just in case Kang and Kodos come down, that was funny but I don't believe in it that way. In fact, I'm sure that the technological key to space travel is cleverly hidden within the possibilities of global awareness only after we transcend violence, it's just how it works. More in my upcoming book "Oz Magic: from Radio to Gaga" about this and the real unified field theory. What is the connection with Gaga? The most important one is that while JFK and Obama represent the future in the sense of being idealistic and inspiring for people to hope for the best and Gaga does this too. Kennedy and Obama represent the ideal future and also the future seen from the present, hoped-for. The future that people imagine "might have been", or they realize for the first time might actually be possible, yet we are held back from it. Kennedy was murdered and in a way this connects him to an eternity of martyrs, but more importantly it connects him with all who were murdered for any reason and the terrible loss of future that killing someone, including yourself, represents. We should have been able to come together against guns after that terrible tragedy 50 years ago. Guns didn't solve or help anything that day or the next. And we have had so many tragedies since then but some of us still don't get over the fear of living without guns so that all of us can finally shed the fear of living with guns. Obama was mostly blocked by that backward mentality and the worst of their efforts to stop progress. But imagine, fakely, how different it would have been if Romney would have won, still at war with everyone plus Iran, Russia, and who knows who else. We are all making progress, we could just make so much more without obstruction and fear. it's not like Gaga lives without obstruction: she has had plenty of challenges and hardships and obstacles, maybe most notably her accident. But that led to composing Artpop, just as her other struggles and victories led to her other great art. The difference is Gaga "married the night" and embraced everything to overcome all the negative, uniting past present and future in that magical way by transcending fear and helping the rest of us do the same. She may have had other artists put her down but never condones negativity. The main thing is we don't wonder what "might have been" with Gaga because she is constantly doing so fucking much. She is making her own unique path, but on the other hand following the most unifying path that we all ultimately share, the main current of dreamtime, the Yellow Brick Road to Oz, the Glitter Way. She just had some beautiful pictures taken for Versace. Donatella Versace tweeted that Gaga was like family and the true spirit of the brand. This is like the Eternal Flame, how an ideal or spirit can move to another location or person but be true to just what it really is. The spirit of love and liberation represented by Buddha and Jesus and Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and so many others, including Gaga, has moved from person to person but keeps reviving the timeless ideal of love. There is maybe no quality more eternal than beauty, the sense of beauty that inspires love and art, that great art is made of. Gaga always represents this but in so many different ways, we have to eventually conclude that the variety of beauty is everyone - especially as more of us are inspired by her to show our true beauty. Art is this attempt to be eternal, and we call certain pieces of art and music and writing "timeless", just as we build special structures to evoke and represent the eternal. Gaga is her own example of a timeless artist with many timeless songs but is also connected to so may stars of entertainment and also of liberation and love, religious figures. She inherited Michael Jackson's legacy and others but is also more than those, taking us even further into the future. The immediate future with Gaga shows where we are going and connects with all of these themes from this weekend. She will presumably play "Do What You Want" tonight at the American Music Awards. This song, like most or all of Gaga's songs, makes you really want to fuck Gaga, make out with her and play with her and make love with her. This is a wonderful and inspiring message in itself since she is so beautiful and sexy and hot and perfect, but it also has another message that she mentioned after a performance at a show I saw a clip of on youtube. It really turns you on, especially to see her perform it, but it turns you on in another way when you listen to the lyrics. She said it is about no matter what they do to your body it is your spirit and message that lives on. This is the message Malala gave when Gaga said she would give her Glamour cover to her, that they can shoot her body but they can't kill her message. For Kennedy, they killed his body but it made his spirit and symbolism so much more powerful, more noticeably eternal. For Obama they keep trying to block the body of his efforts but his intentions and the progress he is making is getting through to the people. He tapped into our hopes for the future and gave many of us better ones, and we even saw the fruition of much of it and possibility for so much more. I think the fear is that changing the rules will work against the Democrats when the Republicans take office again, but the hope and future is that once we actually make some progress we will no longer want to go back, ever. With Gaga it is all systems go, full force ahead, "take me to your planet, take me to your leader." Love is the future, all unity is magic and love and it is where we are all going. Kennedy, Obama, and all other visionary leaders were visionary for being able to see the big picture, seeing into the future and a grand idea of what could be, positive for more people in more ways. Gaga sees this and has made and shown a clearer path to it, through the music and art that inspires others, and the words of loving kindness and encouragement that come from knowing we will reach that perfect future of love and belonging for everyone. Thanks, Gaga, I can't wait to see your show tonight, and forever, and I love how much better the world is getting now that you are writing the soundtrack. I love you! ****Addition, 11:15 PM.I forgot to mention something important about Iran/Gaga: the connection with Do What You Want is that America and the rest of the world "did what we wanted" with the body of the Iran nuclear program: we made sure, or are making sure, that their nuclear program will never take the body of a weapon. We need to really do this for the whole world by setting the example and disarming ourselves, individually and as a nation. But though the goal is to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, a key point of pride and validation for Iran was the idea that the spirit of their nuclear ambition, and the right to modern technology that it represents, be honored. It won't take the body of a bomb, thankfully, but the spirit of innovation and development will be honored and no one can keep Iran, or other countries, from technological advancement. We will all advance together, culturally and technologically, and the more hands we have at the work the faster it will go. But we all need to be setting the example of technology for good, for helping people, not for war. Climate change and the increasing power of natural disasters is going to show how much more useful our militaries are at helping people than hurting them, and while these will get worse until we have a global effort to reverse the causes, we can keep on the path of peace and reduce the need for violent military action until it disappears. I did not get to watch the AMA's after all, I just saw Gaga in the crowd. I watched the Simpsons instead and that was also a world-verification of the magical theme I am addressing: the episode where Lisa has a republican rival and the old school republican cadre of evil buys the girl the school election. The Simpsons genius writer's perspective is that the right-wing mentality is a phase, but it is also suggested that being liberal is a phase - though the full message is that it is the right way, but stifled by the old way. Someone on the radio tonight ont he way in to work mentioned that the US has been under conservative control for 40 years, with the only 2 Deocratic predidents before Obama being Southerners with the support of conservative elements in the south. Obama is a new direction, finally moving more liberal, and maybe only a turning of the corner so far. We really need to experience more of this future we are entering so we don't make the mistake of going back. We keep getting more examples of this, we keep getting better at it, but we can't ever get discouraged and must always focus on the future where the evils we face now just don't exist anymore. We can live in a world without war, poverty, or loneliness if we just believe and truly act in accordance with those beliefs. Gaga's latest effort involves a tweet she sent out promoting a social awareness movement, a cultural revolution. I don't even know the details of it, just what I suspect it is: the same message she has been carrying, the same revolution she has led all along, but this is the moment of calling attention to it and making the world aware of it. I also, somehow, forgot to emphasise enough that the difference between Gaga and Jesus or Obama or JFK is it is not about the possible future they showed us but did not realize, she will fully realize it, she will leave nothing left to wonder "what might have been." She is doing it all, with us, we will all do it in her example, and seeing it through. Gaga is our example of living up to our full potential, and we have different potentials but in the future she won't be the only one who stands out like this. I looked but did not see an article about whether or not Gaga actually sang "DWYW" tonight, but I saw she rode in on a white Horse. Epic. Miley was funny about being upstaged by Gaga on the red carpet and said she will have to ride in on a dragon next time. Some people complained in the comments to the article about it and I had to respond that it is Art, get used to it, it is the future and Gaga is obviously inspiring more and more of it, and more and more people will. It's individuality and uniqueness breaking out from a long era of gang and herd mentality and we need more of it. Gaga might be our best example, but as more and more examples emerge the change will grow exponentially and be a revolution of culture and values. We will have values in accord with the timeless, art and love, the future, instead of with the past, wealth and status, the old ways. Gaga, thank you for taking us into the future and showing the example of living fully. I'm just gearing up myself to make sure they can't say "what might have been" about me, to fully realize my potential, and ya'll are in for quite a show. Thanks Gaga, for the eternal inspiration, and for renewing our experience of it all the time.