The Chariot is numbered seven and usually depicts a warrior driving a chariot triumphantly home. The chariot is drawn by powerful and wild creatures. These creatures are our Will – a wayward beast to control at the best of times!
The Chariot represents the principle that the human Will functions only when the whole being is behind it. This card is about the struggles we have with ourselves and with life. It promises that with diligence, honesty and perseverence we can overcome the most insurmountable of obstacles.
This is a hopeful and encouraging card, reminding us that we can climb to the heights if we want to. Here we are taught how to master the opposing forces within us, in order to bring them and thus ourselves into harmony. We are cosmic warriors, unfurling, learning and growing – divine and vital parts of the Universe.
Asaf Braverman Apr 12, 2023 From the very beginning, when he meets his first Russian students in 1912, Gurdjieff speaks of formalizing his work, of raising funds to buy equipment, and of eventually hiring a permanent place. But the political environment of Russia prevents this…
Power grabs, partisan stand-offs, propaganda, and riots make for tantalizing fiction, but what do we do when that drama becomes a reality all around us? For a country founded as an escape from British tyranny, the United States seems to have devolved into a land where tyrants rise to power, sycophants blindly follow, and the entire nation suffers.As ancient Greek philosophers warned us, chaotic tragedy unfolds in the absence of reason, and the only cure is a return to wisdom and virtue. America’s founding fathers knew this lesson all too well and dreamed of an enlightened citizenry guided by better-than-ideological dictators. Using contemporary events to illuminate universal human weaknesses, Andrew Fiala charts the perennial history of tyrannical takeovers and the masses who support them and ultimately suffer under their rule. Ultimately, Fiala also points to a solution. Knowing the cyclical nature of tyranny, we can build safeguards against our worst inclinations and keep alive the freedoms our founding fathers envisioned for this nation.
Nothing, not one thing, hurts us more — or causes us to hurt others more — than our certainties. The stories we tell ourselves about the world and the foregone conclusions with which we cork the fount of possibility are the supreme downfall of our consciousness. They are also the inevitable cost of survival, of navigating a vast and complex reality most of which remains forever beyond our control and comprehension. And yet in our effort to parse the world, we sever ourselves from the full range of its beauty, tensing against the tenderness of life.
In consonance with neurologist Oliver Sacks’s insight into narrative as the pillar of personal identity, Saunders examines the elemental impulse for storytelling as the basic organizing principle by which we govern our lives:
The instant we wake the story begins: “Here I am. In my bed. Hard worker, good dad, decent husband, a guy who always tries his best. Jeez, my back hurts. Probably from the stupid gym.”
And just like that, with our thoughts, the world gets made.
Or, anyway, a world gets made.
This world-making via thinking is natural, sane, Darwinian: we do it to survive. Is there harm in it? Well, yes, because we think in the same way that we hear or see: within a narrow, survival-enhancing range. We don’t see or hear all that might be seen or heard but only that which is helpful for us to see and hear. Our thoughts are similarly restricted and have a similarly narrow purpose: to help the thinker thrive.
All of this limited thinking has an unfortunate by-product: ego. Who is trying to survive? “I” am. The mind takes a vast unitary wholeness (the universe), selects one tiny segment of it (me), and starts narrating from that point of view. Just like that, that entity (George!) becomes real, and he is (surprise, surprise) located at the exact center of the universe, and everything is happening in his movie, so to speak; it is all, somehow, both for and about him. In this way, moral judgment arises: what is good for George is… good. What is bad for him is bad. (The bear is neither good nor bad until, looking hungry, it starts walking toward George.)
So, in every instant, a delusional gulf gets created between things as we think they are and things as they actually are. Off we go, mistaking the world we’ve made with our thoughts for the real world. Evil and dysfunction (or at least obnoxiousness) occur in proportion to how solidly a person believes that his projections are correct and energetically acts upon them.
Over time, our stories harden into certainties that collide with each other every time we engage with another person, who is another story — another embodiment of the unreliable first-person narration known as skaz that permeates classic Russian literature. With an eye to the inescapable fact that “there is no world save the one we make with our minds, and the mind’s predisposition determines the type of world we see,” Saunders contours the commonplace tragicomedy of colliding in the mind-made world of skaz:
I think, therefore I am wrong, after which I speak, and my wrongness falls on someone also thinking wrongly, and then there are two of us thinking wrongly, and, being human, we can’t bear to think without taking action, which, having been taken, makes things worse.
[…]
The entire drama of life on earth is: Skaz-Headed Person #1 steps outside, where he encounters Skaz-Headed Person #2. Both, seeing themselves as the center of the universe, thinking highly of themselves, immediately slightly misunderstand everything.
Trying to communicate across this fissure of understanding yields results sometimes comical and sometimes tragic, always affirming that reality is not singular but plural, not a point of view but a plane of possible vantages. With an eye to Chekhov — who was a physician by training and an excellent one, but an even better writer because a diagnosis is a forced conclusion of curiosity but art is the eternal sandbox of doubt — Saunders writes:
In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often slanted) information, where certainty is often mistaken for power, what a relief it is to be in the company of someone confident enough to stay unsure (that is, perpetually curious).
After a close reading of Chekhov’s short story “Gooseberries,” he reflects:
It’s hard to be alive. The anxiety of living makes us want to judge, be sure, have a stance, definitively decide. Having a fixed, rigid system of belief can be a great relief.
[…]
As long as we don’t decide, we allow further information to keep coming in. Reading a story like “Gooseberries” might be seen as a way of practicing this. It reminds us that any question in the form “Is X right or wrong?” could benefit from another round of clarifying questions. Question: “Is X good or bad?” Story: “For whom? On what day, under what conditions? Might there be some unintended consequences associated with X? Some good hidden in the bad that is X? Some bad hidden in the good that is X? Tell me more.”
This openness to more — to truth beyond story, to beauty beyond certainty — is precisely what teaches us how to love the world more. With a deep bow to Chekhov as the master of this existential art, Saunders writes:
This feeling of fondness for the world takes the form, in his stories, of a constant state of reexamination. (“Am I sure? Is it really so? Is my preexisting opinion causing me to omit anything?”) He has a gift for reconsideration. Reconsideration is hard; it takes courage. We have to deny ourselves the comfort of always being the same person, one who arrived at an answer some time ago and has never had any reason to doubt it. In other words, we have to stay open (easy to say, in that confident, New Age way, but so hard to actually do, in the face of actual, grinding, terrifying life). As we watch Chekhov continually, ritually doubt all conclusions, we’re comforted. It’s all right to reconsider. It’s noble — holy, even. It can be done. We can do it. We know this because of the example he leaves in his stories, which are, we might say, splendid, brief reconsideration machines.
Chicago’s Washington-Wabash station opened in 2017 – the first new stop on the city’s elevated rail system in 20 years. Photo: Chicago Transit Authority
Public transit systems face daunting challenges across the U.S., from pandemic ridership losses to traffic congestion, fare evasion and pressure to keep rides affordable. In some cities, including Boston, Kansas City and Washington, many elected officials and advocates see fare-free public transit as the solution.
Federal COVID-19 relief funds, which have subsidized transit operations across the nation at an unprecedented level since 2020, offered a natural experiment in free-fare transit. Advocates applauded these changes and are now pushing to make fare-free bus linespermanent.
Free public transit that doesn’t bankrupt agencies would require a revolution in transit funding. In most regions, U.S. voters – 85% of whom commute by automobile – have resisted deep subsidies and expect fare collection to cover a portion of operating budgets. Studies also show that transit riders are likely to prefer better, low-cost service to free rides on the substandard options that exist in much of the U.S.
The KC Streetcar is a free two-mile route running along Main Street in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The city also offers free bus rides, but infrequent service is a concern.
Why isn’t transit free?
As I recount in my new book, “The Great American Transit Disaster,” mass transit in the U.S. was an unsubsidized, privately operated service for decades prior to the 1960s and 1970s. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, prosperous city dwellers used public transit to escape from overcrowded urban neighborhoods to more spacious “streetcar suburbs.” Commuting symbolized success for families with the income to pay the daily fare.
These systems were self-financing: Transit company investors made their money in suburban real estate when rail lines opened up. They charged low fares to entice riders looking to buy land and homes. The most famous example was the Pacific Electric “red car” transit system in Los Angeles that Henry Huntingdon built to transform his vast landholdings into profitable subdivisions.
However, once streetcar suburbs were built out, these companies had no further incentive to provide excellent transit. Unhappy voters felt suckered into crummy commutes. In response, city officials retaliated against the powerful transit interests by taxing them heavily and charging them for street repairs.
Meanwhile, the introduction of mass-produced personal cars created new competition for public transit. As autos gained popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, frustrated commuters swapped out riding for driving, and private transit companies like Pacific Electric began failing.
In the early 20th century, Los Angeles had a world-class public transit system – here’s how it went off the rails.
Grudging public takeovers
In most cities, politicians refused to prop up the often-hated private transit companies that now were begging for tax concessions, fare increases or public buyouts. In 1959, for instance, politicians still forced Baltimore’s fading private transit company, the BTC, to divert US$2.6 million in revenues annually to taxes. The companies retaliated by slashing maintenance, routes and service.
Local and state governments finally stepped in to save the ruins of the hardest-strapped companies in the 1960s and 1970s. Public buyouts took place only after decades of devastating losses, including most streetcar networks, in cities such as Baltimore (1970), Atlanta (1971) and Houston (1974).
These poorly subsidized public systems continued to lose riders. Transit’s share of daily commuters fell from 8.5% in 1970 to 4.9% in 2018. And while low-income people disprortionately ride transit, a 2008 study showed that roughly 80% of the working poor commuted by vehicle instead, despite the high cost of car ownership.
There were exceptions. Notably, San Francisco and Boston began subsidizing transit in 1904 and 1918, respectively, by sharing tax revenues with newly created public operators. Even in the face of significant ridership losses from 1945 to 1970, these cities’ transit systems kept fares low, maintained legacy rail and bus lines and modestly renovated their systems.
Tax policies and subsidies have promoted highway development across the U.S. for the past century, creating car-centric cities and steering funding away from public transit.
Many systems are also contending with decrepit infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives U.S. public transit systems a grade of D-minus and estimates their national backlog of unmet capital needs at $176 billion. Deferred repairs and upgrades reduce service quality, leading to events like a 30-day emergency shutdown of an entire subway line in Boston in 2022.
Despite flashing warning signs, political support for public transit remains weak, especially among conservatives. So it’s not clear that relying on government to make up for free fares is sustainable or a priority.
For example, in Washington, conflict is brewing within the city government over how to fund a free bus initiative. Kansas City, the largest U.S. system to adopt fare-free transit, faces a new challenge: finding funding to expand its small network, which just 3% of its residents use
A better model
Other cities are using more targeted strategies to make public transit accessible to everyone. For example, “Fair fare” programs in San Francisco, New York and Boston offer discounts based on income, while still collecting full fares from those who can afford to pay. Income-based discounts like these reduce the political liability of giving free rides to everyone, including affluent transit users.
Some providers have initiated or areconsideringfare integration policies. In this approach, transfers between different types of transit and systems are free; riders pay one time. For example, in Chicago, rapid transit or bus riders can transfer at no charge to a suburban bus to finish their trips, and vice versa.
Fare integration is less costly than fare-free systems, and lower-income riders stand to benefit. Enabling riders to pay for all types of trips with a single smart card further streamlines their journeys.
As ridership grows under Fair Fares and fare integration, I expect that additional revenue will help build better service, attracting more riders. Increasing ridership while supporting agency budgets will help make the political case for deeper public investments in service and equipment. A virtuous circle could develop.
History shows what works best to rebuild public transit networks, and free transit isn’t high on the list. Cities like Boston, San Francisco and New York have more transit because voters and politicians have supplemented fare collection with a combination of property taxes, bridge tolls, sales taxes and more. Taking fares out of the formula spreads the red ink even faster.
Nicholas Dagen Bloom Nicholas Dagen Bloom is a Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College. His research analyzes long-term planning outcomes in essential urban systems such as subsidized housing and mass transportation. He is the author of Suburban Alchemy (OSU, 2001), Merchant of Illusion (OSU, 2004), Public Housing That Worked (Penn, 2008), The Metropolitan Airport (Penn, 2015), and How States Shaped Postwar America (Chicago, 2019). He is co-editor of four edited collections, including the prize-winning Public Housing Myths (Cornell, 2015) and Affordable Housing in New York (Princeton, 2015). Professor Bloom has been quoted extensively on housing and other topics in media outlets, including WNYC, The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post. As a frequent contributor to Gotham Gazette, he has written extensively on issues related to public housing; his editorials have also appeared in Newsday, The Daily News, and City Limits. As a co-curator of housing exhibitions at Hunter College and the Skyscraper Museum, he has highlighted overlooked dimensions of community life. Bloom frequently joins panel discussions on issues of concern to planners, historians, architects, and the general public. He has taught urban affairs courses to thousands of students in previous positions at NYIT, NYU, and Tulane. His new book, The Great American Transit Disaster: Austerity, Autocentric Planning, and White Flight (University of Chicago Press) will be published in May of 2023
The Hermit (or sometimes Lord of Time) is numbered nine and is usually depicted as an old man, carrying a lamp or staff. He picks his way carefully through the terrain. The Lamp of Knowledge he carries is a magical receptacle for all the knowledge and wisdom he has acquired through many years of study and meditation. The staff represents the weight of his experience, upon which he leans for support.
The Hermit lacks human company, as the teaching/learning process is often one of aloneness and solitude. He is an adept, someone who knows the inner mysteries of life. He has reached the point in his journey where nobody else can help – he must rely on inner resources, previous experiences and sheer faith in the light which leads him.
When we walk the path of the Hermit we travel deep inside our soul. Here we discover the name of the god or goddess residing within us and bring back the keys to self-knowledge and mastery. After this, we live from the centre of our self and become content with our essential aloneness. And perhaps, after this, we will be ready to teach others what we have discovered.
Commonwealth Club of California • Apr 4, 2023 • SAN FRANCISCO OpenAI’s question-and-answer cha tbot ChatGPT has shaken up Silicon Valley and is already disrupting a wide range of fields and industries, including education. But the potential risks of this new era of artificial intelligence go far beyond students cheating on their term papers. Even OpenAI’s founder warns that “the question of whose values we align these systems to will be one of the most important debates society ever has.” How will artificial intelligence impact your job and life? And is society ready? We talk with UC Berkeley computer science professor and A.I. expert Stuart Russell about those questions and more. Photo courtesy the speaker. April 3, 2023 Speakers Stuart Russell Professor of Computer Science, Director of the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public, and Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI, University of California, Berkeley; Author, Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control Jerry Kaplan Adjunct Lecturer in Computer Science, Stanford University—Moderator
A Calabash of Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times is a collection of tales featuring the Orishas and the wonders of the natural world. Suitable for adults and children, artists and teachers, readers of all cultures will discover in these retellings of traditional tales a resource that illuminates the mythic and the real, the ancient past and the emerging present. An offering of spiritual wisdom and cultural celebration through stories that have and will continue to endure the test of time.
“If only a world-wide consciousness could arise that all division and fission are due to the splitting of opposites in the psyche, then we should know where to begin.” ― C.G. Jung, The Essential Jung: Selected Writings
Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875 – June 6, 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung’s work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology, and religious studies. Wikipedia
Consciousness, spirituality, biography, sexuality, androgyny, futurism, space, the arts, science, astrology, democracy, humor, books, movies and more
The instant we wake the story begins: “Here I am. In my bed. Hard worker, good dad, decent husband, a guy who always tries his best. Jeez, my back hurts. Probably from the stupid gym.”
