proof/editing Book Review - A Rumor of War

Wasted

In January of 1961, President Kennedy challenged the youth of America to “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”  One young man in particular took that statement to heart and enlisted in the Marines, ready to fight for his country and return home a hero.  Little did he know how the next sixteen months of his life would transform him from an innocent boy to an accused murderer, only to return home opposed to war altogether.  A Rumor of War is the factual memoir of the author, Philip Caputo, and his experience in the Vietnam War.  The reader will see how Caputo struggled with the war and the meaning of it all.  He began by explaining he will not apologize for his acts of war, but cannot condone it either.  With the details to follow, the reader would understand why.

From the start, Caputo’s style of writing effectively draws the reader directly into battle with him.  Told in first person, one can readily identify with the up and down feelings of Caputo.  He uses details which appeal to every sense, drawing the reader into the jungle and every battle alongside him.  He described the stifling heat, the non-stop insects, the monsoon, the fatigue coupled with the constant fear of instant death.  With the first casualty of Sullivan in their troop, they were all hit with the reality of death and their own mortality.  Later, Caputo summed it up so well when he discusses how thousands of people died each week in the war, and the sum of all of their deaths did not make a difference.  The war went on without them, as it could go on without Caputo.  His own death would not change a thing.  He wrote he could not remember having felt an emotion more sublime or liberating than the indifference towards his own death.  Even away from battle in a different position, death took on a uniform look in his number crunching of the dead each day.  Every person looked alike, just a number.  After three men from his company were reported dead, Caputo saw himself as the Officer of the Dead.  Others were dying, being killed, killing themselves, and he just kept adding the numbers.  In the field, anxiety, depression, and fear became the additional enemy.  Men’s loyalty to their country became loyalty to their men.  He described several times the “lack of release” they felt and the anger that accompanied it.  As a reader with a family member who served in combat, they may better understand why that person behaves as they do because of now knowing what they may have been through.

The book quickly became dark around Chapter 3 when characters were introduced and the deaths began.  One of the main themes of the memoir is how the characters, along with Caputo, are desperately trying to learn who they are.  Caputo was just a boy when he enlisted, yet yearns to be the hero of the war in the end.  What he learns is that the few years he spends at war will change who he is forever.  They didn’t express that they had fought in the war, they had shed blood, and they had become men.  Instead, in a way they could not express, they were aware something significant had happened to them.  Had they truly become men because of their experience, or had they been psychologically damaged for the rest of their lives?  Would they hear artillery fire with every thunder crack?  Could they ever enjoy the rain on their faces again?  As they were losing the war, they were also losing their innocence, their morals, and their sanity.  They were learning to hate.  They were in a place where ordinary men could become crazed killers under extreme conditions.  Where dead men only meant a gap in the line that needed to be filled.  Where it was quickly forgotten that each pool of blood meant a person, a real person had died; a person who had a mother and father, who would be missed, and who was gone forever.  The word “wasted” was the term used for someone who was killed, and how fittingly it was.  A life was wasted, all that it had been and all that it could have been. 

The book was written two years after the end of the war, while events and emotions were still fresh in the mind of Caputo.  He wrote it as he lived it.  It makes one wonder how many others sunk within themselves, forever attempting to bury the memories, how many other stories and experiences will never be told.  Whereas Veterans were not treated well upon their return home from a war considered a loss, Caputo’s book helped change the mind of many Americans by illustrating just what they were put through while defending those critical of them.  It is definitely recommended for any reader who knows anyone who has served in the armed forces.  It certainly reveals an inside world one would never want to experience, but can better understand those who have.

proof/editing Book Review - Sitting Bull

The Bull Who Would Not Sit

While there are many history books we study today who tell a tale of the Battle of Little Big Horn from the side of the United States and its loss, there are few who tell the side from the victor who refused to stand down, Sitting Bull.  Gary C. Anderson’s biography entitled Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood might just fill in this gap.  The title of the book would suggest this book is not just about Sitting Bull, but suggests an interesting paradox will be illuminated.  Anderson details for the reader the contradictions regarding how hard and long the Lakota had to fight to be established as independent from the government, and the contradictions that are visible when they are finally pronounced as a “nation.”  Even though the government eventually made this pronouncement, they historically continued to fail to recognize them as such.  They actually withheld the pronouncement until such a time when the Lakota Nationhood was least capable of acting as a nation.  Thus, the paradox.  Anderson felt there was much sentimentalism already surrounding Sitting Bull, which wasn’t his goal.  He wanted to tell a less biased account of his rise to chiefdom and what was accomplished under his leadership of his people to attempt to simply survive as they always had.

As the U.S. government used its army to attempt to reign in the “hostile” members of the Lakota people and bully them into adapting to their own culture, Sitting Bull refused to allow this to occur.  He fought against the U.S. Army in many battles as a result of the attempts to use Manifest Destiny to claim the lands moving west.  The U.S. wanted gold, they wanted to expand their railroad, and the Indians were in their way.  By the massive slaughtering of the buffalo, the tribes were depleted of their food source and died off.  By the use of Manifest Destiny to take over the lands and their treaties forcing them to register or be considered hostile, the government continued to press west, with no concern for the claim of the land the Indians had always populated.  Most tribes refused to fight against the government and were unable to defend themselves against their overtaking of their lands.  While others were sitting down and allowing this to occur, one leader refused to comply.  Sitting Bull used his strong, spiritual leadership abilities to battle against the U.S. and their forceful ways of taking the land belonging to his nation.  He refused to sit back and allow this to occur.  Anderson stresses the historic Battle of the Little Big Horn was won not so much as a mishap by Colonel George Armstrong Custer, but more so due to the past successes of the Lakota Nation and the leadership of Sitting Bull, himself.  Finally, a story told from the other side.  Anderson stresses how Sitting Bull’s stand against the American government and its armies has left an impact that has shaped the culture of many Native Americans’ way of life.  While he does not give an in depth look at the life of Sitting Bull, he provides many highlights which make the reader want to know more.  While his political and cultural sides are discussed, there are many areas left unexplored in this short, quick read.

While that may be a plus if you are looking for just an overview or what occurred during a specific time period, it could be a negative for many readers.  Some readers who may not be well-versed in American history may feel as if they are missing the background necessary to get a full understanding of the ideas Anderson is attempting to convey.  The condensed life of the Lakota Sioux during the time of Sitting Bull’s leadership is only covered.  This leaves the reader having to possibly refer to other references in order to get a full understanding of what happened before and after.  Many areas are only touched on by Anderson and not explored as in depth as some readers may desire.  As the title encourages someone to wonder what the “paradox” is going to be, Anderson does not get to that subject until the very end.  This leaves the reader wishing they had that information at the beginning so that they are better able to relate it to all of the material they are reading.  Some may have to go back and re-read the book to get a better understanding of this issue in Anderson’s layout of this writing. 

Whereas individual readers have various purposes for the desire to know more about Sitting Bull, this short read is a start to get an overview and a thirst to know more about his leadership and his attempts to lead his people to independence.  Highlights of his relationship with the U.S. government and his battle to defend their land are covered well, while Anderson also discusses aspects of their culture, such as the Ghost Dance, and Sitting Bull’s importance in that culture.  This biography discusses a crucial conflict in history, the Battle of Little Big Horn, from a new and different interpretation as normally seen.  Anderson felt Americans should acknowledge the willpower, leadership, determination, and courage of a man like Sitting Bull before he and his impact on Native American and American history are forgotten and lost, like much of other history.  This book would be recommended for the reader who wants to know more about the specific time period of the reign of Sitting Bull and the story of his people from their view point.  It is not recommended for the reader desiring an in depth look at the overall life of Sitting Bull.  The reader might want to have other resources available to understand many issues only touched upon, and explore those as well. 

proof/editing Review - Eleanor Roosevelt

Meet the First First Lady

With grace and the voice of a caring mother, Eleanor Roosevelt greeted each wounded soldier as if he were the first and only soldier she had come to see.  Not content with remaining in the White House as a simple hostess, Eleanor Roosevelt traveled to the South Pacific during World War II to interact with those serving their country.  This is just one example of how we meet the first First Lady in J. William T. Youngs’ Eleanor Roosevelt:  A Personal and Public Life.  From before her birth to the time beyond her death, the author describes how she overcame hardship and loss and came out stronger each time, and in the end, redefined the role of the First Lady.

Youngs’ biography is successful in hitting all of the main points of Eleanor Roosevelt’s life and accomplishments from her birth to her death and beyond.  It portrays a real look at the amazing woman she was and her many accomplishments.  It details her overcoming loss, such as losing her parents and brother, all within two years.  She is portrayed as an amazing woman, way ahead of her time.  Youngs creates this easy read in a focused manner which begins and ends as it should, not skipping around.  Although it is a historical and factual novel, it reads more as a work of fiction where the characters come to life and are relatable to current times.  The reader is educated beyond the normal facts known regarding Mrs. Roosevelt, such as her feminist views she shared with her husband and how they influenced her work; her disagreements with some of his policies, which she make public; her grief when she discovers his ongoing affair with her friend; her struggle with his polio causing him to be wheelchair bound; her making public appearances and speaking on his behalf after he became ill; and how she continued to support her husband all the way to becoming president despite all of his downfalls in their marriage.  It appears the more he fell down on his duties, the stronger she became politically and personally.  She maintained a positive outlook despite all of the challenges in her life, termed an “American saint” by the author.  This shows how he viewed her, as well as how she was admired by Americans at the time.  She became the “mother” of America.  Not just the First Lady, she performed way beyond her basic duties.  She was the first spouse to speak at a national political convention!  In a time when women were socially to remain in the background, she rose to the front and recruited other women to join the Democratic Party.  She wrote for a newspaper and was paid to speak as a lecturer, two roles never heard of for women at that time.  Even after her husband’s death, she didn’t fade into the background.  She remained active in the political arena, serving on a panel in the Kennedy administration and worked closely with the United Nations.  She was thought of as one of the most influential and respected women of the 20^th Century.

As a book in a series, formatting decisions must remain the same throughout all of the books.  This formatting may not be appealing to the reader, as well as how the footnotes are structured.  As a short read, if more in-depth information is needed as to any aspect of the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, a reader would have to seek additional reading material.  This book would be suited more as a great supplement to a history class where the series is utilized to explore biographies of figures in American history.

A brief biography focusing on a person whose ideas, actions, and refusal to fade into the normal role as those before her, the author provides a wonderful look at a First Lady who redefined that role and set the standard for those who followed.  While it is a brief peek, a reader wanting more in-depth knowledge regarding her life would need to seek other reading material to supplement the information provided.  However, this book is a great start and overview of very interesting facts regarding her life which may have not been shared in other writings.  Youngs described how she influenced the course of American history in many ways through her outreach and asserting herself publicly in the political arena.  He describes her roles throughout her life in a broader sense as to how she was involved in each change presented and in the lives of Americans.  He paints her as being almost a hero and worshiped by Americans as a mother figure, which she instilled in herself through her actions.  This book is strongly recommended for anyone wanting to finally meet the real first First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

proof/editing A Division in Slavery

A Division in Slavery

There are numerous opinions and excellent facts to support those opinions as to why the South lost the Civil War, but the repeating theme continues to show that the South lost as a result of the same division that caused secession:  slavery.  The issue of slavery in itself caused severe separations within the South, which led many Southerners to eventually oppose slavery. 

The South, itself, became divided over the issue of slavery, which brought in the factors of the Border South states, and their having to decide for whom to fight.  Even prior to the Civil War, Border South Whites, and to a lesser degree Middle South Whites, did not have the same sentiments about the institution of slavery as did Lower South Whites.  One reason could have been due to the discrepancy in slave population.  The Border South contained a 12.7 percent slave population on the eve of the Civil War, compared to the 46.5 percent in the Lower South.  Many Border South Whites did not have daily interactions with slaves or slaveholders, nor did they rely economically upon either of them. (Freehling 18-23)  Simply, Border South Whites did not have as much invested into slavery as did Lower South Whites.  This resulted in an increased division between Border South Whites and Lower South Whites at a time when they needed to be united.

The lack of connection between Border South Whites and Lower South Whites became ever more visible during the Civil War.  At the outbreak of the Civil War several Border South states maintained a position of neutrality.  These attitudes would not sustain for long, and eventually all Border South states voluntarily joined the Union, including the new state of West Virginia.  What was more important was the enlistment of Union soldiers from these states.  The Union was able to garner over 200,000 border-state Southerners, along with another 100,000 Middle South Southerners for its cause. (Freehling 61)   Losing over 300,000 southern troops to the enemy was devastating.  In addition, when one adds the inertia of possible soldiers within Kentucky, the 71 percent of Kentucky’s white males of fighting age who decided on inaction during the Civil War, it becomes obvious that anti-confederate white Southerners severely injured the Confederacy’s chances to win the Civil War. (Freehling 54)

The inability of the Confederacy to align itself with the border states reduced its industrial capabilities.  St. Louis and Baltimore were the primary industrial cities in the Border South.  St. Louis was vital for its ship building and repairing expertise, while Baltimore was even more important because of its railroad industries.  Baltimore had the ability to construct railroad bridges, cars, engines and countless miles of track.  The failure of Baltimore to join the Confederacy would prove to be devastating.  Baltimore was a main railroad hub that could deliver troops throughout the South.  Confederate soldiers were spread all across southern territory.  As military action fluctuated from theatre to theatre at different times throughout the Civil War, the South needed the capabilities to transfer soldiers effectively.  The failure of the Confederacy to move soldiers to their desired regions significantly injured southern efforts for victory.  If the South could have garnered the Border South states they would have doubled their industrial output; nevertheless, it was the North who emerged with additional men and resources. (Freehling 61, 63)

The issue of slavery also caused many draft riots, draft dodgers and deserters in the South.  The Confederacy introduced their first military draft law in 1862, which contained the “twenty nigger” rule. This rule stated that a southerner who controlled twenty or more slaves did not have to fight in the Confederate army.  This aggravated the growing tensions between non-slaveholding Whites and slaveholding Whites.  Some Southerners looked at the war as a “rich men’s war and poor men’s fight.” (Freehling 145)  The South was fighting to uphold the institution of slavery, but the institution itself was dividing the ones who were fighting to protect it.

As the South became divided over the slavery issue, it opened the doors for the Union to take advantage in many ways.  The Union’s ability to persuade Border and Middle South anti-confederate White men to enlist against the Confederacy was a major factor for their victory.  This, along with the integration of freed slaves into the Union army and economy, helped their already superior numbers and resources.  Furthermore, the Union’s capability of controlling Border South cities improved its aims toward victory.  It was with the help of these anti-confederates and runaway slaves that the North was able to win and sustain occupancy in the western theatre of the Civil War, thus allowing for a greater concentration of Union men and resources to be allocated to the eastern theatre.  Additional explanations for the outcome of the Civil War have attempted to focus on other external and internal causes to the South’s demise.  However, there are serious questions about the validity of these arguments, which deserve some additional discussion.  Despite these other attempts, the evidence remains:  just as slavery was the cause of the Civil War, it would also become the reason behind southern defeat.

Anti-confederate Whites were only one part of how the Union would exploit the issue of slavery against the South.  Another was assimilating runaway southern slaves into the Union army.  At first the Union was hesitant to incorporate former southern slaves into the army.  Although there was the introduction of Henry Halleck’s General Orders #3, which stated that runaway slaves were prohibited in the Union army, this order became impractical to follow as many Northerners either soundly rejected or often ignored it.  They saw too many benefits in allowing runaway slaves to join and help the Union.  Rejecting slaves and returning them to the South would only help the Confederacy in its bid to win independence.  If the North did not use the slaves, the South surely would have.  In addition, slaves provided the best resistance against southern guerilla attacks.  Slaves had inside knowledge and knew where Confederate soldiers hid and when attacks would take place. (Freehling 101-102) 

In all, over 178,000 black soldiers joined the Union army against the Confederacy. (Freehling 121)  Largely, they maintained and resisted Confederate guerilla attacks over areas recently won by Union forces. For the North to secure an area, primarily an area in the western theatre, only to lose it again to the South did more harm than good.  The North needed to sustain the gains they made in the western theatre.  Leaving behind tens of thousands of white soldiers to protect forts, contraband camps and railroad tracks would injure the Union in future battles. (Freehling 150) The Union army needed the expertise and training of its white soldiers on the front lines.  The North answered this question by substituting the black soldier for the white soldier.  Black soldiers garrisoning conquered territory became essential to Union victory.  Garrisoning work was often unpleasant, boring and dangerous, which white soldiers despised.  Thus, they welcomed the idea of black soldiers performing them.  Most importantly, this concept allowed for more trained white soldiers to fight among the armies of Grant and Sherman.  Their addition also offset the need to draft more Union men.  While the North drafted around 200,000 white men, they gained about the same number of freed slaves. (Freehling 146)  Even though the North did suffer from draft riots, one could make the case that they would have been far worse if not for the enlisting of black men.

Although, not as prevalent as garrisoning forts, but nevertheless equally as important, many Black soldiers also fought on the front-lines in battles for the Union army.  Such battles as Fort Wagner, Milliken’s Bend, Port Hudson and Nashville provide evidence of success due to their assistance.  Even Ulysses S. Grant used black soldiers at the Battle of Petersburg against Robert E. Lee. (Freehling 135)  Whether it was protecting captured land and resources or fighting against the southern army, freed black soldiers were crucial to northern victory. 

Former slaves also expanded the economic capabilities of the North, while diminishing the Confederacy’s ever more.  Freed slaves could produce for Northerners what they had been supplying to Southerners.  Former slaves produced cotton and sugar for the northern economy, only adding to the growing economy the North witnessed during the Civil War.  The Union army also benefited by consuming the food the former slaves produced.  As ex-slaves were boosting the northern economy, the South’s already frail economic situation was worsening.  Many plantations became unattended because of the freed slaves.  This resulted in severe bread riots throughout southern cities and Confederate army units.  This shortage of food compounded the resource disadvantage the Confederacy already faced at the beginning of the war.

With the added naval resource from the obtained border states, the Union was able to control the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.  This prevented European intervention and limited shipments leaving the Confederacy to Europe.  Cities such as New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchez and Vicksburg did succumb to the dominant Union navy, thus providing the Union with the opportunity to perform its other military objective.

            With the fall of New Orleans in 1862 and Vicksburg in 1863, along with other major western theatre cities, the North severely divided the South’s landmass.  The Union’s next step was to encircle Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia in the eastern theatre.  The North’s ability to leave behind tens of thousands of black troops to uphold their military gains in the western theatre allowed for more trained white soldiers in Sherman’s army to march east to confront Joseph E. Johnston’s and eventually John Bell Hood’s southern army.  As Sherman advanced eastward towards the sea, Grant gathered his 120,000 soldiers in Virginia and headed towards Lee.  Sherman devastated several southern states while Grant was able to surround and force Lee and his army to surrender.  The ability of the North to have additional men and resources to keep Lee and his army occupied in the eastern theatre for the early part of the Civil War while the North fought and won the western theatre, proved to be the final reason for northern victory on the battlefield.  The North had the added men and resources ultimately due to the South being divided over the issue of slavery, and the many outfalls of that fact.

Historians’ interpretations of why the South lost the Civil War extend over a broad spectrum.  Each popular explanation attempts to show either some sort of internal or external cause for southern defeat.  And since there is not consensus on why the South lost the Civil War, it becomes necessary to address the different arguments and dispute their validities.

            Many historians believe that the South lost the Civil War because it “lacked the will” needed to win, despite the evidence that suggests otherwise.  The authors of Why the South Lost the Civil War believe that “lack of will constituted the decisive deficiency in the Confederate arsenal.” (64)  For these authors, Southerners did not have a firm sense of their own “nationalism” to associate with, thus causing Southerners to lack in conviction for their cause.  These authors point to the fact that the Confederacy’s Constitution was nearly verbatim that of the United States Constitution, the Confederacy had many of the founding fathers on their money and stamps, and the Confederate flag resembled that of the American flag.  What these authors fail to understand is that the Confederacy believed they were the rightful heirs of American nationalism.  The Union was the one that had departed from the founding fathers’ ideals, not the Confederacy.  The Confederacy seceded from the Union to preserve these original American principles. (McPherson 30-31)  If the Confederate money, stamps and flag were not enough to show a sense of “nationalism,” then the fighting on the battlefield was.  Confederate soldiers were fighting for their home, land and family.  Most battles and fighting were on southern territory, making southern commitment more conceivable than that of their enemy.  Even Confederate soldiers’ letters and diaries from the battlefield referred to their country as “my country,” “our nation,” and “the South.”  (Gallagher 63)  “Nationalism” proved to be a strength for the Confederacy, not a weakness.

            Kenneth M. Stampp’s hypothesis of southern “lack of will,” goes beyond that of the previous authors.  Stampp does agree that the lack of southern “nationalism” was one motive in southern defeat, but his main reason for defeat is that Southerners “lacked a deep commitment to the southern cause.” (Stampp 255)  For Stampp, this “southern cause” was slavery.  Stampp argues that Southerners were “tormented by guilt about slavery,” and that many welcomed defeat to escape from this burden. (Stampp 264)  The main problem with Stampp’s concept is that most of the evidence suggests otherwise.  As Gary W. Gallagher explains in his book The Confederate War, “direct evidence that sizeable numbers of Confederates harbored serious doubts about the morality of slavery is scarce.” (Gallagher 46)  Another problem with Stampp’s assertion is:  if Confederates were “tormented by guilt” over slavery, why did they fight for so long? (Stampp 264)  Even in the last years of the Civil War when it became clear that the North would win, Confederate soldiers continued to fight.  If Southerners did have an inner guilt about slavery, their actions before, during, and after the Civil War did not show it.

            Some historians, namely Frank Owsley and David Donald, have held firm to the idea that state rights caused southern defeat.  Owsley’s main contention was that certain southern governors withheld men and arms from the Confederate government just to strengthen their own state militias. (Owsley 1)  Donald, in addition, reasons that democratic practices kept during the Civil War within the southern army and the Confederate government led to the South’s defeat.  The difficulty is, once again, the evidence confirms the opposite.  As the authors in Why the South Lost the Civil War illustrate, “The tangible effects of state rights…had little negative effect on the Confederate war effort.” (Beringer 429)  These same governors and others were the same governors who mobilized men and resources for the Confederate army.  As for Donald’s proposal, the case can be made that the Confederacy did as good a job as the Union did in enforcing the draft and suspending civil liberties; and the Confederacy was harsher on dissenters than the North. (McPherson 25)  When the Civil War began, southern states did not allow state rights or democratic procedures to interfere with their main objective, which was to win the war.

            For many historians it was inevitable that the North would win against a weaker opponent.  The North held a large advantage in men and resources. The Union had a far-superior navy and held a more substantial amount of railroad trains and tracks.  Not only did the North have more resources, but their production capabilities were greater.  (Current 34) Also, most of the fighting and devastation would occur on southern territory and in southern cities.  For historians like Richard N. Current, he seems to find it is obvious to see why the North won:  they had the far-superior numbers.  Yet, there are several problems with this thesis.  First, the Confederacy knew the disadvantage they were up against.  Nevertheless, they believed and fought as if they would win.  Secondly, there are numerous instances of the smaller opponent defeating the favorite.  A prime example was America’s war of independence against Great Britain.  Lastly, the South nearly won the Civil War on a few occasions.  If the South had won a few more battles earlier in the Civil War, or if even one battle, the Battle of Gettysburg, would have ended differently, then the history of the Civil War might be different.  As the evidence confirms, the North winning the Civil War was not inevitable.

            Each explanation fails to live up to its claim as the reason for southern defeat, thus, bringing one back to the original assertion.  The South lost the Civil War because of the issue that created it, slavery.  Slavery divided the Lower South from the border states, and to a certain degree the Middle South.  This allowed for 450,000 anti-confederate Whites and freed slaves to join the Union army.  This does not count the tens of thousands of anti-confederate Southerners and freed slaves who helped in the factories, in the cities and on the plantations for the war effort.  It was with these extra men and resources that the North was able to conduct its military objectives, first in the western theater and eventually in the eastern theater.  Slavery had embodied Southern society and had led the South to secession, but slavery would also lead the Confederacy to defeat.

Proof/Editing Critique

Critique:  The Confederate War by Gary W. Gallagher

            According to Gary W. Gallagher, the reasons for the South’s defeat were not a lack of will, a deficiency in nationalism, or a flawed military strategy. Although these theories have been widely suggested by numerous historians, Gallagher argues in The Confederate War, that the Confederacy lost because they were soundly defeated by a far-superior enemy.  The North had greater human and physical resources than the South, and most of the war was fought through the invasion of southern territory.  Even with these difficulties facing the Confederacy, Gallagher provides a sizable amount of evidence that suggests southerners had and maintained their will for the war and found their nationalism in Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia.  Gallagher believes the military action Lee employed was what was necessary to sustain the support of his soldiers and of the southern people.

 Gallagher presents numerous statistics, letters, and diary entries that demonstrate the determination of Confederate supporters.  Despite a higher mortality rate than the Union, threats from Union soldiers occupying vast areas of southern land, and the realization that European intervention was not going to happen, many southern soldiers still fought to win and civilians still believed they would.  Even after the summer of 1863, which Gallagher believes is when many historians claim the will of the South began to deteriorate, many southerners still held out hope for Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.  Gallagher suggests that it is in this hope for Lee that we find Confederate nationalism.  Apart from all of the other evidence, including the battlefield victories, letters, diary entries and reenlistment statistics that Gallagher offers to support his idea that southerners felt that their Confederacy was a legitimate nation fighting for its independence, national identification can be seen no further than Lee.  He became their hero, their symbol for their national identity.  He became that sense of nationalism. With their victories, Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia gave encouragement to the other soldiers fighting and to southern supporters, while at the same time showing European nations they were capable of maintaining their sovereignty.  This is why, Gallagher argues, the South had to perform an offensive war strategy.  The Confederacy needed to sustain internal support and possibly garner European help, and a defensive or guerrilla-style warfare was not suitable for their purpose.

            Based on the information provided, Gary W. Gallagher’s interpretations of other historian’s views on why the South lost the Civil War appears to be accurately presented in The Confederate War.  It was not a loss of will or a lack for nationalism that led to the Confederacy’s defeat.  They lost simply because they did not have the manpower or physical resources that the North had.  The North could replenish men and supplies faster than the South could, and the devastation and controlling of several southern cities further diminished the few resources they had to begin with. Gallagher’s examples of the Confederate will to fight by its soldiers and civilians during the Civil War and his belief that the South found its nationalism in Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia is highly plausible and is demonstrative of the type of human behavior still seen to this day.  These people were defending what they believed to be their country and their institutions from a northern enemy who had invaded their territory and sought to change their ways of life.  As for Lee, southerners revered him as their general, and hope for victory rested with him and his offensive strategy.  Southerners might have lost the war, but they never lost the will to fight or their belief in their purpose.  

Proof/Editing Comparative Book Review

Comparative Book Review

Brechin, Gray.  Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin.  Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.

Righter, Richard W.  The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America’s Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

             It is enlightening to read these books together, because the similarities and differences between each book become readily apparent. Although Brechin’s book is wider in scope than Righter’s, both give a great illustration of how the development of a city affects the nearby environment.  Brechin focuses mainly on the environmental effect that mining caused to the city of San Francisco and its local environment.  For him, the institution of mining promoted other activities within the city and developed a local society of wealthy elites.  For Brechin, it is the wealth and power of these elites that caused San Francisco to advance the way it did. 

Righter’s book focuses mainly over San Francisco’s attempt and eventual victory in securing an adequate water supply in the Hetch Hetchy water system.  For Righter, San Francisco’s success as a metropolis depended on the acquisition of a secure water supply.  Righter takes the reader deeper than Brechin does by noting the severe opposition that the city of San Francisco faced in its fight for the Hetch Hetchy Valley.  On the argument that wealth and power had a significant influence over the development of the city, Righter agrees with Brechin.  The environment did not determine how a city developed, wealth and power did.

 Most important to Brechin’s thesis is the “Pyramid of Mining” theory.  This theory suggests that mining, being the apex of the pyramid, promoted the activities on the base of the pyramid.  These base activities included mechanization, metallurgy, militarism, and moneymaking or finance.  This is important to understand because the Pyramid of Mining theory differs from the more widely accepted agricultural theory.  As Brechin states, “the miner’s realm is necessarily dead, divisible, and detached, a treasure trove for the taking and leaving.”  Mining was more destructive to the earth, whereas the agricultural theory consisted of less-destructive activities and encouraged the repeated use of land.  For miners, it was normal to mine the land and discard it after use. Deforestation, damaged rivers, or wastelands left behind were of no concern to mining supporters. 

In Brechin’s book, a common attitude among wealthy capitalists towards the environment emerges.  For these capitalists the land is theirs for the taking, and they will decide how the land will be used for the city.  When critics opposed mining activities, mining advocates argued that mining brought in large amounts of capital into the city, state, and national economies.  Supporters also claimed that new industries and technologies were developed because of mining.  Critics could not argue with this.  The development of metallurgy and mechanization industries was because of the mining industry, and mining had helped to invent cable cars within the city.  But on January 7, 1884, Judge Lorenzo Sawyer of the Ninth Circuit Court issued a permanent injunction against the North Bloomfield mining company for dumping materials downstream.  With this injunction, the mining industry within the state of California ended.       

Righter illustrates that when the gold rush began to slow down in the 1850’s, many wealthy elites who had made huge fortunes because of the mining industry looked for new investment adventures.  One such adventure was the acquisition of an adequate water supply.  Water had always been a problem for San Francisco.  San Francisco was situated within the arid West, and its location on the Pacific Coast made the city even more vulnerable.  Surrounded on three sides by salt water and no obvious local choice for water, San Francisco looked to distant areas for supply.  The first source of water came from Mountain Lake and Lobos Creek, but over time, these water sources became inadequate to meet the needs of an expanding city.  What made San Francisco’s water situation worse was that the water supply was controlled privately instead of publicly by the city.  This meant that the water company, Spring Valley Water Company, could determine the rates and thus held significant power in politics of the city.  As Righter suggests, “San Francisco watched the expansion of the Spring Valley system with ambivalence.”  As the city needed more and more water because of expansion, the power of Spring Valley grew.  Finally, in the 1890’s with the election of James Phelan to mayor, San Francisco became determined to locate a new water supply in which it owned.

The solution that San Francisco discovered for its water supply was the Hetch Hetchy water system.  What Righter does over the next few chapters is to illustrate the potential destruction the city wanted to cause to the Hetch Hetchy Valley.  Within these same chapters he discusses the complicated situation involved with the acquisition of the Hetch Hetchy water system from Yosemite National Park. 

The city of San Francisco’s main objective was to dam the Tuolumne River within the Hetch Hetchy Valley.  This would establish a reservoir further up the Tuolumne River, which would allow for more storage of Sierra Nevada snow water and provide the city with the opportunity to generate hydropower for the city.  Why did people object?  For one reason, the Hetch Hetchy Valley was a part of Yosemite National Park, and in 1890 the Yosemite National Park Act required the government to preserve the natural state of the park.  Secondly, it was beautiful.  As Righter illustrates, with the writing of John Muir the famed naturalist, Hetch Hetchy was a sacred place rivaled only by Yosemite. Any alteration to Hetch Hetchy would damage its sacredness and beauty.   The city’s main contention was that in 1901 the government passed the Right-Of-Way Act that authorized the Secretary of the Interior to grant water development for beneficial purposes.  It is in the interpretations of these two acts that the battle over Hetch Hetchy would take place.

The process associated with the acquisition of Hetch Hetcy is long, and one that is outside the scope of this essay, but there are a few points that should be noted.  With the occurrence of the San Francisco fire and earthquake of 1906, the need and desire of an adequate water supply escalated.  The city was severely damaged, and many people accused Spring Valley Water Company of not having an appropriate amount of water for a disaster of that size.  With a destroyed city and sympathy from all over the country, San Francisco attempted to capitalize on the fire and earthquake of 1906.  In 1907, the new Secretary of the Interior, James Garfield, gave San Francisco what it wanted.  With the Garfield Grant, San Francisco was allowed to develop Lake Eleanor and the Hetch Hetchy site.  The fight against the city for the Hetch Hetchy Valley continued, though. 

In January 1910, the new Secretary of the Interior, Richard Ballinger, ordered San Francisco to “show cause” as to why the Hetch Hetchy Valley was needed for their water supply.  With the burden of proof on the city to prove that they needed and not just wanted the Hetch Hetchy Valley, the city’s wealth and power proved too much for the opposition.  The city employed John R. Freeman, who was the most prominent hydraulic engineer in the United States, and with his Freeman Report, San Francisco was able to “show cause” for the Hetch Hetchy Valley.  Finally, with the passing of the Raker Act in 1913, San Francisco was allowed to obtain the Hetch Hetchy Valley for water purposes. 

As Righter notes, the fight for Hetch Hetchy was long and had many twists and turns throughout its duration.  But who were the people trying to save Hetchy Hetchy?  It is in the description of the opposition that Righter’s book excels over Brechin’s.  For Righter, the proponents for the development of San Francisco were easy to identify.  Most were wealthy elitists and middle-class that desired growth and prosperity.  These were men like James Phelan, William Randolph Hearst, Michael de Young, and William H. Crocker.  On the other end were men like John Muir, Robert Underwood Johnson, and William Colby.  These men represented the Sierra Club, an organization designed to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley.  Righter argues that these men and this organization represent the first environmental cause to attract national support.  The Hetch Hetchy controversy involved many women’s organizations and it garnered support from multiple geographical areas.  It was the first time that men and women came together to prevent the destruction of an environment.

Nevertheless, the Hetch Hetchy Valley and other environmental hinterlands succumbed to the city of San Francisco.  Why?  Throughout both books, each writer contributes a significant portion of San Francisco’s success to the wealth and power of its elite class.  Brenin suggests that this elite class started during the gold rush years.  He argues that as mining activity declined, wealthy capitalists moved their interests and money toward other activities.  These activities included water, real-estate, oil, and electricity. 

Righter and Brenin take the influence of wealth and power a step further.  With little government interference, wealthy capitalists in San Francisco were able to manipulate and abuse city, state, and national laws.  Whether it was to delay the enforcement of a law or to ignore it completely, San Francisco capitalists did whatever was necessary to continue their operations.   As both authors note, corruption within San Francisco’s city hall was not uncommon.  Many politicians were associated with the North Bloomfield mining company, the Spring Valley Water Company, and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company.  The power that these companies and wealthy elites had on the development of San Francisco cannot be understated.

            These books, along with books such as William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis, contribute significantly to the field of environmental history.   All of these books provide great examples of the relationship between environment and city.  Within each of these books it is easy to understand the importance that nature had on the development of the city of San Francisco.  What makes these two books stand apart from other environmental history books is the great description of what power and wealth can do for a city, and against the environment.  Each author details the progress of the city and how influential people influenced that progress. The environment does not determine how a city is built, money and power do. 

What is also remarkable about these two books is that both are able to describe different “varieties” within the field of environmental history.  As J. R. McNeill stated in his article “Observation on the Nature and Culture of Environmental History,” there are three main “varieties” within the field of environmental history.  One is material, another is cultural/intellectual, and the last is political. McNeill also stated that many authors restrict themselves to one variety of environmental history while others are able to move around in all three successfully.  This is why Gray Brechin’s Imperial San Francisco and Richard W. Righter’s The Battle over Hetch Hetchy are excellent books.  Both books are able to discuss the material and political varieties within environmental history.  Each author is able to illustrate the physical and biological destruction of the environment and how it related to the development of the city of San Francisco.  Then each author takes their books a step further by providing significant details about the men and laws that helped to dictate the growth of San Francisco and the damage to the surrounding environment. It is the successful ability of these authors to navigate through these different varieties that make these books interesting. 

As a final point, Righter’s book contains an important viewpoint that Brechin’s does not.  Righter illustrates the influence that one environmental controversy had on an entire nation.  It is Righter’s belief that modern environmentalism is directly associated with the fight for the Hetch Hetchy Valley.  The controversy of the Hetch Hetchy Valley brought people together from different genders, multiple social classes, and from diverse geographical locations.  Hetch Hetchy encouraged people to defend the environment against the urban exploitation.

College Paper - Editing/Proofing "The Chrysanthemums"

Imposed Historical Societal Boundaries on Women as Exemplified by John Steinbeck’s Symbolism of a Single Soul in “The Chrysanthemums”

At any given point in time, there can be examples of societal boundaries placed upon any given person, group, race, or culture.  In John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums,” he symbolizes in many ways and with many examples of how society imposed certain boundaries and expectations among women during a certain period of time in the past.  Within these boundaries, he demonstrates the desire to move beyond them by one woman, yet her fear of the unknown causes her to settle for what she knows, what is expected of her, and disappear back among her own boundaries she has created.  Presented with several events, such as an unplanned guest, several conversations regarding what women should not do, and her own strength seen and verbalized by her husband, Steinbeck demonstrates the inner struggle of one struggling for equality.

Paragraph 1 discusses how closed off they are from the rest of the world – “fog of winter … It was a time of quiet and waiting” (Steinbeck 237) – like her liberties were at a standstill and all shall remain as is, waiting for equality to come. We see her gardening and snapping heavily at the chrysanthemums, dressed heavily in men’s clothing.  However, she took care of the delicate flowers, as a woman would do – a woman’s job.  It ironic that she can dress like a man but not do anything a man can do.  Her clothing is symbolic of how she represses her situation as a woman not able to live in a man’s world as she would like. She is described as “heavy and blocked with a face that was lean and strong, but eyes as clear as water, as if they were clear and ready for the future” (Steinbeck 237). Then she has the wire fences which “protected her flower garden from cattle and dogs and chickens,” but it also protects HER from the boundaries of the outside world (Steinbeck 238).  The outside world was not one she was supposed to be exposed to in any way except what was expected of a woman.   When attending the fights in town is brought up, her husband asking how a woman could have fun at such a gruesome event quashes her temporary moment of excitement, her desire to do something out of the norm for a woman in those days.  She is quickly struck back down again, reminded of her “place” in society.

As suggested by Gregory J. Palmerino, the conversations between husband and wife demonstrate further issues of dysfunction in the lives of the two – a lack of real communication.  “For everywhere is there a conflict in ‘The Chrysanthemums,’ but nowhere is there a fight.  This absence of friction prevents Henry and Elisa’s relationship from progressing, whether it be as lovers, partners, or parents.” (Palmerino 164)  He goes on to say the initial dialogue between the two “sets the tone for subsequent encounters and reveals the couple’s fundamental problem: they do not know how to fight.” (Palmerino 165)  Even when Henry brings up seeing the fights, “he is incapable of directly stating his desires, too, so he couches his true feelings in a ‘joking tone.’” “Henry and Elisa are neither capable nor willing to pursue a dialogue that might produce discord.” (Palmerino 165)

The stranger’s appearance brought upon a strange and unexpected situation for her.  Leroy Thomas describes the event as a “symbolic sexual experience.”  (Thomas 50)  She slipped into somewhat of a fantasy for a moment with thinking about doing what the man did, living on the caravan, traveling and free.  When she spoke of such a desire, he reminded her it’s not good for a woman, but she snapped back asking how he would know?  Steinbeck’s description of the man and carriage portrays a crazy, haphazard, and dirty, yet free life. They have a discussion about how he doesn’t feel that’s the life for a woman and she states in several terms how she can keep up with the best of them – sharpening her own scissors, fixing pots, yearning for the caravan life (Steinbeck 242). Thomas describes her initially being antagonistic towards him until he asks about her chrysanthemums. (Thomas 50)  The man grows quiet, then changes the conversation to showing interest in and begins to question her about her flowers, which created an excitement inside her she could hardly control.  When he asked about bringing some to a person down the road, her excitement grew even more, quickly yet carefully describing how to care for them for the person he was to bring them to.  She cared for the flowers as if they were the children she did not have in her life.  She shows so much passion when discussing something someone seems actually interested in, a passion not seen when she speaks with her husband.  She lives such a simple life with him, yet inside there is so much more waiting to get out.

At one point she almost touches the man, wanting to intimately know a man that lives this life, “…her hand went out toward his legs in the greasy, black trousers. Her hesitant fingers almost touched a cloth. Then her hand dropped to the ground. She crouched low like a fawning dog” (Steinbeck 241).  He was allowed into her garden, “perhaps a symbol of penetration.”  “It is as if Elisa and the tinker, through a symbolic sexual experience of sorts, have created the chrysanthemums that Elisa puts in the pot for the tinker to take with him.” (Thomas 50)

When she went inside to bathe, “she tore off her soiled clothes and flung them into the corner”, as to rid herself of the ideas she had, “then she scrubbed herself with a little block of pumice, … until her skin was scratched and red” to scrub off even more of the ideas she had had (Steinbeck 243). How silly of her to think she could ever live a life like that.  What on earth was she thinking?  Slipping back into where she was supposed to be as a woman during those times, she put on “the dress which was the symbol of her prettiness” (Steinbeck 243).  She took a lot of time making herself up and transforming from the rugged person outside to the feminine woman she was supposed to be.

While waiting for her husband, “she sat unmoving on the porch” staring toward the river road for a very long time (Steinbeck 243).  What was she yearning? Was she thinking she might see the man on the road at some point?  When her husband finally approached her, he questioned why she looked so nice?  She was puzzled and he went on to described her as “different, strong, and happy” (Steinbeck 243). This was a great shock to her.  She had not realized what she felt inside was showing outwardly. Steinbeck exemplifies the theme of the story further in paragraph 104: “For a second she lost her rigidity. ‘Henry! Don’t talk like that. You didn’t know what you said.’ She grew complete again. ‘I’m strong,’ she boasted. ‘I never knew before how strong’” (Steinbeck 243).

In Steinbeck’s story of this woman, she gets temporarily lost in a moment when the stranger appears and somehow falls weak to his ways, even giving him some of her precious chrysanthemums to bring to someone else.  Her spirit is lifted by this encounter then further lifted by her husband’s describing her as strong.  As they are going to town to eat, her heightened spirit is crushed.  “When she sees her ‘babies’ at the side of the road where the tinker has thrown them, she is catapulted into sadness.” (Thomas 51)  It was as if everything was just a lie.  “The temporary fulfillment that she has experienced with the tinker turns void.” (Thomas 51) When she says “he might have thrown them on the ground”, that would have at least given them a chance to live, but he didn’t care about them at all (Steinbeck 243).  They passed him on the road and she couldn’t even look at him, as if she wanted to deny and forget that the entire event had ever happened.  She had exposed her passion to him, threw off her hat, took off her gloves, and had almost touched a man who falsely showed interest in anything she had to say or who she was.

In the last paragraph “she relaxed limply in the seat”, showing she succumbed to her demise as a woman with limitations and boundaries most cannot cross (Steinbeck 244).  She feels doomed to live in this repressed state she knows all too well. In John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums,” he symbolizes in many ways and with many examples of how society imposed certain boundaries and expectations among women during a certain period of time in the past. Although three times in the story she is declared “strong”, her weakness shows through with her frustration of being trapped in her simple life with all of her skills and passion going to waste.

Works Cited

            Steinbeck, John. “The Chrysanthemums.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. University of Southern California: Pearson, 2014. 237-244. Print.

Review - A Toast to Edgar Allan Poe

A Toast to Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

·         As much as he was a part of American literature as a whole, he was one of the first to be known also for his short stories. 

·         As far as his life and career, he was one of the first well-known American writers to earn a living through writing.

·         Poe was born in Boston, Ma.  His father left his family when he was only a year old and his mother died a year later from tuberculosis.

·         John and Frances Allen took him in and raised him as their own.  They never formally adopted him but gave him their name.

·         Poe attended the University of Virginia in 1826 to study ancient and modern languages.  The university was just a year old and Poe left after only one year.  He began doing odd jobs and writing for a newspaper.  He used the pseudonym, Henri Le Rennet.

·         His odd jobs were not lucrative, so Poe enlisted in the Army in 1827 under an assumed name, Edgar A. Perry.  He was only 18 but claimed to be 22. 

·         During this time, he began his writing career.  His first collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), was published anonymously as “A Bostonian”.  There were only 40 pages to the book and only 50 copies were printed. 

·         After his second year in the Army, he had attained the rank of Sergeant Major.  He wanted to end his enlistment early and thus revealed his real name to his commanding officer.  He was subsequently discharged in order to receive an appointment to West Point Military Academy.

·         Before entering West Point, he went home to Baltimore and reunited with family members, including his brother Henry, his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, and her daughter, Virginia Clemm.  He published his second book, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, in 1829. 

·         Poe entered West Point and less than a year later was ready to leave.  He decided to be kicked out and in 1831, he was tried for “gross neglect of duty and disobedience of orders for refusing to attend formations, classes or church.”  He was found guilty.

·         After failing at West Point in his ranks as a cadet, he decided to become a full time poet and writer.  He released a third book of poems entitled Poems. 

·         He first became a literary critic working for literary journals and periodicals.  His style of criticism immediately set him apart from others.  During this time, he began work on his only drama, Politian. 

·         In 1833, the Baltimore Saturday Visitor awarded him with a prize for his short story, MS. Found in a Bottle. 

·         Poe became assistant editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, but was fired after a few weeks for being drunk at work.

·         In 1835 at the age of 26, he secretly married his 13-year old cousin, Virginia Clemm.  She was listed as 21 on the marriage certificate.

·         He returned to Richmond and begged for his job back at the Messenger.  He remained there until 1837, where its circulation grew from 700 to 3,500. 

·         In 1839, he became the assistant editor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and enhanced his reputation as a critic.  During this time, his collection, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, was published in two volumes and had mixed reviews.

·         In 1845 at the age of 36, he published The Raven, which had instant success and made him a household name.  He was paid $9.00 for its publication.

·         Virginia died two years later of tuberculosis.  His frequent theme of “death of a beautiful woman” throughout his writings may have come from the loss of so many women in his life:  his mother, his foster mother, his wife.  After her death, his drinking increased.

·         In 1849 at the age of 40, Poe died in Baltimore of an unknown cause.  Many have speculated over the years of what could have contributed to his death, such as alcohol, drugs, heart disease, suicide, cholera, or grief.  He had been found on the streets in dire need of medical attention and died four days later. 

·         Adding to the mystery of how he became so ill, why he was in the streets, and why he was wearing someone else’s clothing when found, an unknown visitor began to pay homage at his grave beginning in 1949 on the anniversary of his death.  At his grave marker was left a toast of cognac and three roses.  This tradition is now protected by the members of the Edgar Allan Poe Society as the “Poe Toaster”. 

·         Even after such a short life and career, his writings influenced literature around the world.  

Transcribed Piece - Negating Nagging Needs

Michael A. Singer:   He is known for lacking alliterations.  He once gave a talk called Maligning Malignant Moods.  I remember that, a lesson from the ‘70s, Maligning Malignant Moods.  Tonight we’re going to have a talk called Negating Nagging Needs. 

Negating Nagging Needs.  People don’t understand needs.  They don’t understand needs.  And in general, your friends, psychology, various disciplines and teachings, are really aimed at coming in tune with your needs, understanding your needs, copping to your needs, being honest about your needs, and then learning how to satisfy them.  Learning how to find jobs, relationships, financial situations, et cetera; now that you have come in tune with your needs, that you can be a happier person, and a fuller person, and a more complete person by satisfying your needs.  That’s the truth.  I know it’s frightening to hear, but that’s your culture.  That’s what you’re taught.  That’s the underlying basis of what’s going on.  

People break up relationships because they say things like, “My needs are not getting satisfied anymore.  He or she used to satisfy my needs.  Now they don’t satisfy my needs.”  People leave jobs because they sit there and say, “At the time I took the job, my needs were different than what they are now.”  And I see that.  I’m very in tune with myself.  I won’t discuss that anymore.  Now we’ll leave that lying there where it belongs, and let’s talk about the truth.  

The truth is very hard for people, very hard for people.  But ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.  The truth is like a sword.  It cuts through things.  The truth is you have no needs.  Now people always say to me if I ever say that, “Well, I have to eat.”  Not really.  “I have to sleep.”  Not really.  “I have to breathe.”  Not really, but I’ll give you those.  He used to say "throw the dog a bone."  That’s what’s meant by throw the dog a bone.  You want that?  You can have at it.  You want to think that a need is a need to eat, a need is a need to breathe, and a need is a need to sleep and carry out your bodily functions and so on.  That’s fine.  You can have those needs.  The body has needs.  

Put that aside, because those are not your needs, guys.  You don’t deal with those needs.  You’re so far past those as needs.  You need to not eat.  You need to not sleep so much, all right?  That’s the problem, you guys eat too much and you sleep too much, right?  So then that result is -- that’s not it.  But yet, there’s a lot of needs, and needs cause a lot of trouble.  Needs are not natural.  Needs are not natural.  Needs are a sickness.  Needs are a disease.  And that’s the truth.  They are not a disease of the body.  They are a disease of the psyche.  When something is wrong with the body, it behaves certain ways.  It gets a runny nose.  It gets aches, pains, can’t do things, it’s a problem.  It’s a problem you have to deal with.  You have to go to a doctor.  You have to stop bowling.  You have to stop playing golf.  You have to get an operation.  You have to do all kinds of things because your body is not okay, because your body has a problem.  You don’t consider that good.  You don’t consider that healthy.  You don’t sit there and think you’re supposed to adjust your life around it, you’re supposed to fix it.  That’s what you do with your body.  I watch you all the time.  Your body’s supposed to be healthy.  You’re not supposed to be bothering.  You’re not supposed to have aches and pains.  And you go places to do what?  To make it go away.  To get it back to the state that you believe you have a right to have it in, which is the state of health.  That’s all.  

You first try to fix these things.  You do not just say, “Okay, I have a runny nose.  I wonder what kind of handkerchiefs I should buy from now on” or something like that.  In the end, you might say that because you can’t fix them, but your attitude is this is not supposed to be this way.  It is not natural.  It is not good.  It is a disease.  It is improper, and I should fix it.  Needs are a disease of your psyche.  And you know what needs I’m talking about.  I have to list them for you.  Those needs, the ones you deal with every minute of your life.  Needs are a disease of the psyche.  They are a sign that the psyche is sick.  If you have a need -- I’m going to get real strong.  If you have a need for love, if you have a need for companionship, if you have a need for confidence, if you have a need for acceptance, even those, the big ones, it’s because something’s wrong.  It is because something’s wrong.  It is not that you’re starting position with your body is -- my leg is not working well, so I need to get into a relationship with a big woman who can carry me.  No, that’s not your attitude.  Your attitude -- I want my leg fixed.  I can get into whatever relationship I want.  

I’m not going to sit there and let my damaged leg run my life.  If your psyche is broken, if your psyche is not healthy, if your psyche is not whole, you feel that.  You know what it feels like for your leg not to be well.  What does it feel like for your psyche not to be well?  You feel a hollowness.  You feel a hurting.  You feel a pain.  You feel an emptiness.  You feel urges and drives and impulses that are uncomfortable.  You feel uncomfortable.  You don’t feel well.  Just like your body doesn’t feel well, your astral body, your psyche body, your energy body does not feel well.  It is not healthy.  When the physical body is not healthy, it attempts to compensate for it.  And it communicates to you through pain, and it does the best that it can.  

Those are really, in truth, what the physical body does.  If this leg is not doing well, it transfers responsibility to this leg.  It attempts to compensate.  What is a limp?  A compensation for something that’s wrong.  A limp isn’t fixing it.  A limp is compensating for it to try to make it not hurt so much.  So what the body does, because it’s very intelligent as an organism, is it attempts to compensate so it can continue going forward.  And I’m stressing this word compensate.  In other words, take energy from elsewhere, bring in other factors, change things to compensate, and adjust for what is going on.  And it sends pain, all right?  Just in case you didn’t notice something’s wrong, well they add some pain to it.  Well, that’s very smart of it, isn’t it?  You have to respect it for what it does.  It’s an animal.  It’s a living being.  It’s a living creature.  And that creature compensates and sends messages.  Your body is stupid compared to your astral body, compared to your energy body.  Now, your energy body is brilliant.  That’s your body of light.  That’s your body of shokti.  That’s your of chi.  That’s your energy body.  That body is much more just like your -- just like your brain is much more intelligent than your liver.  Even though the liver should be respected a great deal, the brain is much more intelligent than the liver.  

Your psyche body, your mental body, your astral body, called your energy body from now on, your energy body is way more intelligent, way more brilliant.  It’s a body of light.  It’s a body of juice.  It doesn’t even have the grossness of your physical body.  It’s a body of intelligence.  At chi that shokti intelligent.  If there is something wrong with your energy body, it does the same thing, just at a very deep level.  It compensates to try to be okay, to try to keep operating, to try to keep going.  It has its ability to compensate, and it sends pain.  It sends signals and signs of disturbance.  So the consciousness can know something’s wrong here.  How does it compensate?  It’s so beautiful.  Your energy is blocked.  I tell you energy -- it’s an energy body.  Nothing can go wrong with energy.  Energy can’t get sick.  Energy can’t do anything.  It can only get blocked.  There can only be a lack of it.  You understand that?  It’s not like a bone that can be physically broken.  Energy cannot be broken.  It can just be less or more.  It can just be flowing or not flowing, like water.  You can’t break water.  But you can dam it up so it’s not there, and you can flood it so that it’s not comfortable, right?  It’s a question of, more or less is, all you can do with water in the normal usage.  Your energy body is just like that.  

When there is a blockage to the flow of your energy, then the body is not well.  Your healthy energy body is an even and open flow of showered energy pouring and flowing healthily and evenly and constantly through every single – we call them knotties(sp), these thousands and thousands of centers through which the energy distributes and flows.  We call them knotties(sp).  And of course, in acupuncture you have all of the meridians and all of that kind of stuff.  Who cares?  You don’t even want to get down to that level.  You just want to understand.  You do have energy flowing through you.  But sometimes it’s not.  Sometimes it gets blocked.  When your energy is blocked, that’s the sickness of the energy body.  When is blocked, both of two things happen.  One, it dams up in the areas where it can’t flow and it dries up in the area where it didn’t flow.  And that’s how you get your blockages and that’s why your meridians will tend to work in pairs where you will have a high and a low.  You’ll have a meridian that’s too strong.  It’s an excess.  You’ll have a meridian -- if you study acupuncture, you’ll have a meridian that is low.  And you have points that you can take, great low points and high points, set stimulation points, where you stimulate energy to certain meridians, and you bleed energy out of other meridians.  You attempt to balance them.  And that’s in essence what acupuncture is doing.  The whole point being, your energy can become blocked.  When it is blocked, there will be an attempt to compensate, to bring about a full sense of balance that’s better than what’s happening, and there will be a sense of disturbance.  

They’re the same as your body.  What does it feel like if your energy is blocked?  Well, let’s take one meridian.  Let’s talk about -- I’m not really talking acupuncture.  I’m just using that term.  Let’s say that energy coming up into your heart is not well, is not flowing well, it’s blocked.  Well, then we need a compensation.  There’s not enough energy coming up into your heart.  You feel that.  That’s what’s so funny.  This is not mystical.  Everybody feels that.  You feel that.  You feel it as an emptiness in your heart.  You use that.  My heart feels so empty since he left me.  Ha!  Far out!  I don’t understand.  There’s blood pumping through there.  Where is this emptiness?  Why do you use that term?  I feel hollow.  There’s an emptiness.  There’s a hollowness.  I feel like my heart is dropping.  Have you ever felt your heart drop out from under you?  You feel -- oh -- just like that, and then you don’t feel strong anymore.  That is your shokti.  That is what that is.  So when it is blocked, the energy can’t flow up into the heart.  And it blocks many different ways, and therefore you experience it in many different ways.  Fine.  It is disturbing, is it not?  Your heart can feel like it’s catching fire.  Your heart can feel like it’s being ripped out of you.  Your heart can feel like it’s completely hollow.  That is what I’m talking about.  

So there’s the message of disturbance.  What is the compensatory, the compensation attempt?  You start to feel -- I wish I could say it but I can’t, because I would like to.  Right now it would be a musical and I’d break out into a Righteous Brothers -- I need your love.  Oh, I need your love.  I was like you could just feel it, man.  It’s so beautiful, right?  That is a broken heart and we use the word, right?  That is a heart that is not filled with shokti and filled with chi and flowing in a healthy way, trying to compensate for the energy that is missing inside of it.  How do you like that?  It may sound romantic.  Maybe it sounded romantic that I got to get myself a big woman to carry me because my leg hurts.  Instead of laughing, everybody said oh, that’s so sweet, all right?  You could.  You could consider that romantic.  Oh, look how much they need each other.  Isn’t that cute?  No.  It’s not cute, right?  We should get fixed and be able to go about our business and, you know, not have to be together because my leg is hurting and somebody has to carry me.  Likewise, what you call romantic, a great being called sick.  You’re sick.  You’re not doing well.  If you need somebody, you’re not doing well.  

People who need people are the sorriest people in the world, if you haven’t noticed.  Just become a person who needs a person.  Come back and talk to me about how you’re doing.  How’s it work out?  Never well.  You don’t understand.  The compensation that attempts to take place is I’m going to try to take your energy, literally.  I’m missing energy flowing through my heart.  I am lonely.  I am empty.  I am lacking.  Instead of having the intelligence – and it’s not your fault no one ever taught you anything.  Not in school, they never talk with us, nothing.  Instead of having the intelligence to say what’s wrong with me?  Why don’t I have energy flowing through my heart?  I guarantee you, the reason you do not have energy flowing through your heart is not because Sally didn’t call you, or because Paul went out with somebody else.  That has nothing to do with your energy, nothing.  They are outside of you.  They are other people, places, and things.  They have nothing to do with you.  Be serious.  You don’t have energy flowing through your heart because you are blocked.  And when you are blocked, the chi cannot flow properly.  And when it cannot flow properly, you feel a lacking.  And when you feel a lacking, because it’s intelligent -- this is all very brilliant -- your system doesn’t just limp, it asks us to do something about it.  Our system starts feeling, “All right, I’m not doing well in my heart.  I need to figure this out, and I need someone.  I need to change the relationship.  We need to get divorced.  I need to do this.  I need to do that.  I need to have a kid.  I need to do something to give meaning to my life because I feel a lack of meaning in my life.”  It’s like it's just brilliant.  You know, your bones can’t think.  They can just hurt.  

Unfortunately, your energy body can think.  Your mental body can think.  It doesn’t just stand like a lump on a log, all right?  It starts coming up with answers, doesn’t it?  And so it sits there and says, “I need a relationship” or “I need to change my relationship.  I need to do something.  We need to do something.”  To do what?  To do what?  And the truth of the matter is, when you get to the bottom line of all of it, the answer is I need to get energy from somebody else into me so that I feel whole.  And you know what?  It works a little bit.  That’s the problem.  But you know what?  So does having her carry you from place to place.  You got it?  It works a little bit, too.  It just has side effects, especially on my ego.  It doesn’t work out real well, all right?  

And God knows how long the relationship lasts because I doubt that, you know, she really enjoys that thing.  At first she seems -- feels needed.  But then, it’s a pain in the butt.  Believe me, having to carry somebody around.  But, the net result is -- the net result is -- I’m lacking and I can take energy from somebody else.  You know you can.  I can get into the presence of somebody who admires me, somebody who loves me, somebody who respects me, and stand in their presence -- I don’t have to do anything, just be in the presence of someone I know that likes me or loves me -- especially love.  Man, that’s -- what does it mean when somebody loves you?  Their heart goes out to you.  What does that mean?  The heart literally comes out?  I don’t think so.  Doctor!  No, that’s not what happens.  What happens is, the energy inside of their heart, their chi, their shokti, comes up in their heart, and it overflows.  And when it overflows -- can a heart overflow?  Look the other way, my heart is so full when I’m around him that it feels like it’s going to burst.  My cup runneth over.  That’s what that means.  So your chi, your shokti comes up in your heart, and it can flow out.  And when it flows out, the other person can actually get it.  You can actually get a transfusion from somebody else.  This is why laying of hands works, why it heals.  

This is why prayer works.  You’re sending energy out.  This is why they say happiness makes healthiness.  It does.  I’m not knocking this stuff.  Don’t get it wrong.  I want you to understand the laws, so that you have a right to use them for yourself instead of being at the mercy of them.  Somebody else’s energy can and does enter your energy system.  And when you are feeling lacking, you can start to feel whole in somebody else’s presence.  When you are feeling a lack of love you can feel fulfilled and feel love in somebody else’s presence.  The problem with that is as follows -- I’m lonely.  I can’t hardly work.  I’m having a bad time.  But tonight, tonight, I’ll see my love tonight.  And tonight – yeah, see?  I’m looking forward to it.  I can feel, that’s right.  It carries me.  It carries me through the day.  Even the thought of her.  Maria… It’s beautiful.  Even the thought of it raises the juice inside, doesn’t it?  Beautiful stuff.  Now, I got into your presence.  When I go into your presence, when we’re together, my life is whole.  The sun shines.  There doesn’t need to be anything else.  That sounds so good, but every one of you are older than 12, and so you know that what I’m going to say next is going to happen.  Let’s just take it in fast motion.  Being in your presence brings love and joy to my heart.  You are the sunshine of my life.  You bring -- everything’s so -- where are you going?  Can I go?  Uh oh.  Oh.  All of a sudden, the “n” word showed up.  Nagging needs.  The very fact that that transfusion is happening because you need it means you’ve become addicted.  Means you’ve become dependent.  

Let’s use the psychology words properly.  Ever heard of they have a co-dependent relationship, or a one-sided dependent relationship?  Yeah, that’s right.  That’s right.  You become dependent, just like I would become dependent on this young lady carrying me around because I can’t get there elsewhere, just like I would become dependent on transfusions if I’m not doing well with my blood, become dependent on drugs, become dependent on anything.  But in our society, if you’re dependent on cocaine to be happy and to get confidence, we say that’s not good.  And in our society, if you’re dependent on somebody else to feel love and feel inspired, we say behind every great man is a woman.  But behind every drug addict there’s a drug, right?  Dependency is dependency.  Let’s get that straight.  People won’t talk like this.  Why?  Because they don’t understand the truth, which is that you are whole and complete within yourself.  And the only reason you had the need to start with is because you’re blocked.  And because you’re blocked, you have a lacking.  And if you want to consider it romantic when this drug addict is going through withdrawal and somebody shoots him up – ah… Maria…  Like, look how much better he looks.  Look how much better he’s doing.  That’s not romantic.  It’s ridiculous.  And if you want to call a romantic somebody who is completely and utterly dysfunctional unless they’re in a relationship with somebody who pays them attention and opens the door for them or cooks the right meal for them or gets all excited when they come home during the day after a hard day, if you want to call that romantic, I’m going to tell you it’s the same thing.  How’s that?  No one else will tell you that, and will burn the tape.  But, net result is it’s almost antisocial to talk this honestly.  That is the honest truth.  

You are whole and complete within yourself.  You do not need anything.  You do not need anybody.  Now, does that mean you should be antisocial, that there’s something wrong with relationships?  That it means that nobody should get married and nobody should have children and -- nobody said that.  You want to talk about a healthy relationship?  Let’s talk about a healthy relationship.  Here’s a healthy relationship.  Everywhere I go I feel so filled with love and beauty.  Everywhere I see, the world is my family.  Anyone I see, I mean child, I see any person, I see any man, I see any woman, I just get so filled with love.  It’s so beautiful.  I see the sun.  It blows me away.  I see a tree, it blows me.  I see an ant, it blows me away.  It is so fulfilling, and it’s so beautiful that I can feel so open that I don’t have to hold back from this flow that’s coming off of me when I’m in your presence because I know you’re that way, too, and you don’t need me.  And you’re fine within yourself, so I don’t have to worry about you becoming dependent or having to be in my presence or needing something from me.  I can just let this juice flow in your presence.  You better be careful when you’ve got juice flowing in other people’s presence, because they like that stuff, and they try to get addicted to it, right?  Well, wouldn’t it be beautiful if you were a high being and you were that way and you could be in the presence of at least one other person in the world that didn’t need your energy, and it didn’t bother them or affect them, and you could just let your love light shine in their presence, and you could come when you come and go when you go, and nobody’s clinging and nobody’s holding on and nobody’s saying – can’t I go and you used to do this for me and why don’t you do it now and blah...  And there’s a relationship.  

Nobody said there’s anything wrong with relationships.  They’re beautiful things.  They’re places to share your energy.  But they’re not places to take energy.  They’re not places to need energy, because if you need energy, you do not have a healthy relationship.  You have a dependent relationship, and it will be ugly, and you know that.  That’s what’s so funny.  It will be ugly.  It will be ugly.  That’s what will take place.  There will be times when your energy is flowing a certain way, and that is offensive to the other person because they need when you don’t, and you need when they don’t, and all of a sudden we’re doing this [hitting hands together] and butting heads and doing all this kind of junk.  And somebody -- I’ve literally, literally heard people say to other people what does it mean to be in a relationship if you’re not satisfying my needs?  I mean, they mean it.  They literally mean it.  I mean, like, why would I bother?  That is how somebody in need thinks and talks.  And they mean it.  They mean it so deep, they don’t even think anything is wrong with it, because they’ve never seen others in that.  And all they know is I’m not doing well inside and why would I not want somebody or something that compensates or takes care of that which is not there.  You’re to be there when I need you.  People ruin marriage.  What is marriage?  A license to need.  You sign a marriage license and you say okay, that’s it.  We’ve agreed to serve each other’s needs.  I’m here to serve your needs.  That’s it.  I’m there to serve your needs.  That’s what it means.  If you have problems, I’m there and if you have needs, I’m there, and I supposed to satisfy your needs and I’m not satisfying your needs.  It bothers me, because I feel you’ll leave me.  I feel you’re not happy with me, and it bothers you because I feel your needs are not being satisfied.  So now we have a bothered relationship.  

Well, no wonder people have so much trouble with relationships.  Another person cannot satisfy somebody else’s needs.  They can temporarily compensate for them.  But if you’re sick, you’re sick.  Unless you fix what’s wrong, you’re just going to run around grabbing and taking from other people, and it’s not going to work.  Even if you try, if you devoted every minute of your entire life, and you were the most brilliant, giving person that ever lived, you could not satisfy somebody else’s needs.  Impossible.  Why?   You have nothing to do with their needs.  Their need is because they have a blockage inside themselves.  In a moment, we’ll talk about what caused the blockage.  I guarantee you it wasn’t you.  They had that blockage before they got into a relationship with you.  That’s why they got into the relationship with you, all right?  It’s because they need it.  And that blockage has roots that go back throughout this entire lifetime.  It has nothing to do with you, nothing.  So how could you possibly satisfy their needs?  And the other aspect of it, which is really fascinating, is that their needs do not stay the same from one day to the next.  One day you’ll find they want to be doted.  They want everything all over them.  They want to be kissed and loved.  The next day they want to be left alone.  So anything you try to do would not satisfy their needs.  You can’t satisfy their needs.  It’s almost as though, and I’ll let you decide if you’ve seen this, the need is very deep.  It’s due to a blockage.  It really can’t be compensated for by borrowed energy from outside.  

But they want them, right?  They want to get the shot.  They want to get the juice.  The only thing that gives them the juice is something new, something unexpected.  You wore something and it blew them away, or they had a different day and it was -- something happened that wasn’t the same.  If you know what I mean, it wasn’t just hum-drum drum drum, same old stuff.  It has to be something that shocks the energy in order to open them enough so there’s receptivity to what’s going on.  So the exact same thing that you ended up wearing or doing, you know, three weeks ago that didn’t do anything, all of a sudden because of what they saw on TV or what movie they watched or what took place blows them away and they feel -- oh my God, you’re so wonderful.  You’re so special, so wonderful, right?  If you kept doing that, if you kept serving that meal, if you kept wearing those clothes, if you kept bringing those flowers home, if you kept doing that, I guarantee you it would get old.  Everything gets old.  That’s why you can’t satisfy somebody else’s needs.  Does that mean you shouldn’t serve and take care of people?  No.  No.  You should do all kinds of things.  It just means deep underneath, you understand the truth.  And the truth is, if you have a problem, you have to fix that problem.  Can you help them?  Sure you can help them.  Maybe that’s a healthy relationship.  Instead of helping them compensate for their needs, you work together to work out your problems, you know.  Each person works you their own problems with the help of the other person.  There, that’s healthy or could be.  But that’s not the same as sitting there saying that I’m in this relationship to get my needs satisfied.  That’s like saying I’m in this relationship to help work out my problems so that I don’t have needs.  That’s a very different relationship, and very few people are in that relationship.  You understand that?  

There are very few people who think that’s the purpose of a relationship, to go through your own stuff.  If I want to go through my own stuff, I’ll do it by myself.  That’s how it is you start to understand.  And the basis of understanding of this entire thing is to understand there are no needs.  Needs are a sign of sickness.  And the stronger the need, the sicker it is.  And that’s true of everything.  And that’s deep, that’s deep yoga, especially if you take it to some area that people think are natural needs.  All needs -- and there’s nothing wrong with them -- but all needs, when it’s said and done, if the shakti’s flowing properly, are transmuted into joy.  The energy just starts flowing right.  And when the energy starts flowing right, there is not a single need inside of you.  All you feel is rushes of joy and high and upliftment and so on.  And you are whole and complete within yourself.  That’s what takes place.  It’s a very high state, but at least understand that that is yoga.  That is the spiritual path.  Does that mean that you don’t get married, that you don’t have sex, that you don’t do this?  No, it doesn’t mean any of that.  It has nothing to do with that.  But that’s the key, that it has nothing to do with that.  Right now, you’re making it have something to do with that, because you’re trying to use all of those external things, the external energies, to compensate for what’s wrong with your energy.  If you do, you will become dependent.  And if you become dependent, you will end up disliking people.  You will end up needing people, and need breeds contentment.  Do you understand that?  Not familiarity.  Need.  

If you need – the last thing in the world you want is for someone else to need you.  You used to think you wanted people to need you.  I want to feel needed.  You do not want to feel needed.  You do not want somebody else to need you.  If somebody else needs you, they become dependent upon you.  While you have your own problems, you don’t see it as dependency.  You see it as a tension.  You see it as security.  You see it as a feeling of importance.  In a very short period of time, when you start to feel a little whole-er(sp) within yourself, now you’re feeling more confident.  You want to go out and do some things, to express yourself.  You won’t be able to, because somebody needs you.  Wait, I need you to be here.  That’s what need means.  I need you to do this.  I need you to be here.  I need you to pay more attention to me.  I need you to not go out and do this.  Take me with you.  Blah…  And the next thing you know, that which was lifting you up, it will hold you down and it will do it every single time and there are no exceptions.  It’s almost as though it’s guaranteed to fail.  I’m insecure so I’m clinging to you.  It worked.  It worked.  My God, you put so much attention into me.  You doted.  I feel much more secure.  What does that mean?  That’s a major change.  Somebody who is totally insecure and needs to be holding onto somebody else has now felt much more secure.  Well, if you feel much more secure, you don’t need to be clinging, do you?  You don’t need to be holding on to anybody else.  Now that you feel more secure you want to spread your wings a little bit, don’t you?  All right, you want to go and experiment, express, and do different things that open up your energy.  But the other person is so used to you being there all the time and taking them with you and being dependent and asking them all the time about their opinion and what’s happening.  The relationship was very different before.  So the relationship evolved, not devolved.  The relationship evolved.  But if one person evolves more than somebody else, you’re in big trouble.  And there’s no way in the world you’re evolving.  

Now can you see why relationships are so complicated?  They’re complicated because they’re really deep.  And they’re really complicated and really deep because of what you’re doing.  Because what you’re attempting to do is use the other person to compensate for what’s missing inside of you.  Don’t do it.  But I’m telling you, that does not mean we abandon our relationships.  It has nothing to do with that.  It’s all about what you’re doing.  Maybe you have relations, maybe you don’t.  It doesn’t matter.  What matters is what you’re doing.  And you come all the way back to the beginning, the foundation of this conversation, which is -- energy gets blocked.  And when the energy is blocked, you feel hollowness.  You feel lacking.  You feel need.  You feel drive – even drives and urges are not natural.  Drives and urges are –- and real drives –- okay, there are strong drives and urges and needs and all that kind of stuff are equivalent to sticking metal inside of a socket.  All of a sudden that very quiet electricity that was just minding its own business and just flowing, you know it’s always flowing.  There’s always power in that outlet.  Go stick some metal in it.  A short circuit is what lets you see the energy is in balance.  

Ever feel short circuited inside?  That’s what that is.  Stop calling it a need.  It’s a sickness, a disturbance, a blockage.  So the hollowness is that.  The angry energies are that.  Everything shy of high, and you know how I mean, so everything shy of, “Whoo, I’m doing great, right?  I’m doing great.  It’s just beautiful.  It’s beautiful.  It’s unbelievable.  I’m challenged.  I’m stimulated.  My juice is flowing.  I’m enjoying every second.  I’m enjoying my problems.  I’m enjoying my successes.  I’m enjoying every bit of what is going on.  I am high.”  That’s the energy flowing.  So you get back to realizing that you can negate nagging needs.  But the problem is, the way we try to negate them is by suppressing them.  Even if we catch on that needs are a problem, you feel more dependent now than when we first started.  You want more space.  Okay, I know I better give it to you.  I know I’m insecure and the relationship will break up so I start suppressing my needs.  But I need to be with you.  I need to spend more time with you.  Why don’t you come home early?  Whatever the heck it is.  Well, I know you want me to be like that, so I start suppressing that.  And that’s how we try to negate nagging needs.  Well, blockages don’t work.  Compensation for blockage doesn’t work.  And suppression doesn’t work.  Believe me, suppression does not work.  You might, periodically -– let’s be mature -– if you have energy that are really disturbing inside, and you have nothing else you can do with them, you might have to hold them a little bit rather than throwing something at somebody.  If you really want to pick up that frying pan and throw it, you might just have to suppress those urges.  Do it.  Better than throwing the frying pan.  But be conscious, totally conscious and in control of what you’re doing.  

Do not ever keep those energies down.  If you ever push energy down, let it up.  You better find a way to go out in the woods and yell or run or do something.  But consciously release the energy that you temporarily held so that you didn’t become over indulged in energies.  Suppression does not work.  Suppression is an extremely sick thing to do, and sitting there pushing these energies down that are coming up because you don’t feel whole and complete, is complicating the situation, not solving.  It’s equivalent to the fact that I don’t want to be weak, and I don’t want to limp, and I don’t want her carrying me, so I ain’t limping.  She ain’t gonna see me limp.  She ain’t gonna have to do nothing for me.  I’ll carry her.  You’re going to lose your leg.  No good things are going to come out of that if there’s really something wrong with your leg.  That’s suppression.  That’s what suppression does.  It can never do any good to sit there and push back down the energies that are stimulated because you’re blocked.  It just complicates the issue.  So what’s your choice?  It’s pretty complicated and it’s pretty neat, isn’t it?  That energy body is something else.  You don’t even know you have one, not to mention how to drive.  It’s like you’re in a car going 7,000 miles an hour and you don’t even know you’re in a car.  You’re bumping into shit, all kinds of things going on.  Hello?  What?  What?  You’re like half asleep.  Hey, you’re in a car.  There’s a steering wheel.  There’s a gas pedal.  There’s a brake.  That’s how you understand your energy body.  You are inside of this energy body and everything you feel, all your urges, all your drives, all your needs, all your lacking, all your depressions, that is your energy body.  And don’t you dare tell me that’s not running your life.  That’s what runs your life, isn’t it?  

All right, what’s going on in your energy body?  You will behave and interact and you will like and dislike in accordance to what is going on in your energy body.  So eventually you wake up.  How do you wake up?  One step back, turn around.  Turn around, take one step back.  Simon says.  You step back and you start noticing you have an energy body.  And you stop being involved in it so much.  If your heart feels hollow, you say, "Oh, I must be dependent."  If you feel all these drives and urges and disturbances go on -– short circuit again.  Look at this juice.  Okay, kind of neat.  And you learn to sit comfortably inside of the car.  You learn that you’re in a car –- energy body.  

You learn that you’re in an energy body.  You learn to feel what it feels like to be inside of an energy body.  And you learn to be able to withstand, to sit in the presence of, the different shifts of energy that takes place inside of you.  That’s a big step for people, isn’t it?  Instead of running out there and trying to compensate or blaming people that your energy body is that way, there is no shame, there is no blame, there is not attempted compensation, there is just awareness of what it means to be sitting inside of this thing, which is a pretty dynamic thing, isn’t it?  You can sit in there.  Why can’t you?  You’re just sitting in there.  Just sitting in there, you know?  I’ll just quit, or I’ll just leave, or I’ll just –- don’t.  Don’t let your mind try to compensate for your energy body.  That’s another trap, too.  Just relax.  Relax in the presence of whatever it is your energy body is going through.  What will happen?  One, you won’t be in a codependent relationship with the people around you, right, because you will have dealt with your problem at the starting point.  And then second, you will notice –- why is it so weird in here?  It is weird in here.  Why is it so weird in here?  That’s what happens when you just watch instead of trying to fix what can’t be fixed from outside.  You just sit in there and you realize there’s something underneath all of this.  It’s like you’re watching the rapids, the water flows down a river, and it gets rapids, it gets swirls and all kinds of things.  And you used to try to have it –- you stuck your hand in it and tried to iron it out and you were upset whenever it swirled.  Well, okay, while you’re doing that, that’s what you’ll do for the rest of your life is fight the natural forces that cause the swirls.  Then all of a sudden, somebody shows up -- the master, or at least the disciple, who is not touching the water.  They’re not doing anything.  They’re noticing and watching the behavior of the swirls and the currents and the rapids.  

The day that you’re able to do that, you know what will happen?  You will notice at some point - that is a rock underneath the surface, right at the place the swirl is taking place.  I wonder if that rock is causing the swirl?  Now, you don’t just throw yourself around in the water.  You stick your hands in.  It’s hard.  You withstand the tendency to try and be upset by the swirl, and you remove the rock.  And the swirl goes away.  Oh my God, look at that.  That swirl was there every since I was little.  That’s like, wow.  That swirl was caused by that rock.  And you just realize that underneath the energy body you’ve been dealing with, there’s these causes.  There’s this underlying structure.  And it is the chi, the shokti, flowing through that underlying structure that manifests as your energy body.  Your energy body, your aura, is a result, not a cause –- well, of course it’s a cause.  Everything goes on past that, right?  But it is a result, and what it’s a result of is the blockages and the paths and patterns that are carved underneath through which the chi flows.  And then it causes this manifestation of a particular way of being.  So you get upset when you see this and you get turned on when you see that and you get turned off when that happens.  And we’re all different, because we all have different carved patterns underneath.  That’s the start of your spiritual journey.  

Now you understand what deep means?  He’s really deep.  He’s a deep being.  You’re working at a deeper level.  You’re not working at the surface level, trying to get people, places and things.  You’re not working even inside, trying to work with your psychology, you know, and not have these energies, and suppress, and hold together, and do this, and use affirmation.  Just do something to make the energy a little nicer.  You’re deep.  You’re deep.  You’re working at a very deep level.  That’s what happens when you start to work with the blockages themselves instead of the result of the blockages, or compensating for the result of the blockages.  God, I hope you got that.  There it is in one line.  You decide what level you want to work at.  Drown me in the shallow waters before I get too deep.  Wasn’t that somebody’s song, all right?  No.  No way, because that’s what you’ll do is drown.  You do not want to drown in the shallow waters before you get too deep.  You want to go very deep, very deep.  That is the only place a solution exists is underneath you, nobody else.  Now what happens?  All of the attention, all of the energy, all of the consciousness, all of the struggle, all of the awareness, all of that that used to go at trying to compensate for the energy that are out of balance, is now every minute of your life, focused on seeing the rock.  It’s just focused on seeing, seeing, seeing.  You’re just a seeing being.  It is conscious and aware.  How do I remove the rocks?  It is so beautiful.  It is so beautiful that my mouth goes dry to even tell you the answer to that beautiful question.  You don’t.  I don’t?  No, you don’t.  What you will find out very soon, if you watch this very carefully, is those rocks are there for one reason.  You’re holding them there.  The stream of shokti flow will wash away in one moment, in one second, every blockage that is inside of you, if you stop holding those blockages inside of you.  So it’s not that the rock is down there and the water is disturbed and you’re going to go down there and take the rock out.  When you go to stick your left -– right hand -– left hand in to take the rock out, you’re going to hit something -– your right hand that’s holding the rock there.  There’s nothing that stays inside your energy flow by itself.  It doesn’t have the ability.  There are no hooks.  It is your energy, your intention, your will, your chi, your conscious force.  Just like I told you don’t suppress - what’s in there today is what you suppressed yesterday.  But yesterday was all the way back.  It is your energy that’s holding these things in there.  They will not stay in there by themselves.  Therefore, it is not that you go in there and try to take it out.  You practice letting go.  

Letting go of what?  No.  No.  Wrong question.  Wrong.  Just letting go.  It is not that you find what you’re holding on to so that you can let it go.  You just take a step back inside, you withdraw your chi from down there back to its center, and it all falls off.  Your energy must go down to that level in order to hold it together.  If you center your energy back in the witness, in the self, in the being, these other things will just fall off.  They just fall off.  They shed like the skin off the snake.  That’s how deep this path is.  As those things fall, the swirls stop and you start feeling peace where you felt disturbance.  You start feeling wholeness and completeness where you felt need and lacking.  You start feeling love where you felt hate.  You start feeling the ability to give where you used to take.  Why not?  You’re whole.  All of those other things are what you were doing because you weren’t whole.  You would never dislike or hate anybody unless you needed something from them.  What do they say, you only hurt the one you love?  You don’t bother hating people you don’t even know or care about.  It’s when you need something and people are not taking care of that aura or disturbing your ability to get your needs, and you feel hate.  It’s the same disturbed energy that’s turned back on itself that creates all these disturbances.  So eventually you will get to the point of seeing that you’re entire life, including your relationships, are very, very holey.  Everything, your work, your relationships, all your interactions at every level are very holey, whatever they are.  Why?  Because if you are working on letting go, they give you an opportunity, all right?  They will under all conditions show you where you haven’t let go yet, won’t they?  

You want to see where you haven’t let go yet?  Just pay attention to your interpersonal interaction with other human beings.  It doesn’t have to be a personal relationship.  It could just be a normal, everyday relationship.  It doesn’t make any difference.  You’re going to see where you haven’t let go yet, aren’t you?  You walk into a 7/11 to a person you’ve never met behind that corner, and find where you haven’t let go yet.  It’s so funny.  You’re just feeling self conscious or this or that, you just -– whatever the heck -– afraid to ask a question to who the heck knows, to somebody you don’t even know, who you’ll never see again in the rest of your life.  And you’re that way, aren’t you?  You just honestly look and see how blocked you are.  Those blockages need to go.  And the way they go is by just letting go constantly.  So any time any thing creates a disturbance, it’s your friend, not your foe.  It’s showing you where you’re still blocked.  What do I do if I start to get disturbed?  You let go.  You let go.  Let go of the person outside and the relationship because I can’t handle -– no, it has nothing to do with the person outside or the situation or the place.  It has to do with you being willing to let go instead of struggle.  And you just relax your heart and release your shoulders and you don’t invest your energy where it used to go.  And over time, and it does take time, this stuff will go and you will start to become who you are, which is an extremely beautiful being who needs nothing from anybody, but has the natural tendency to give.  When you’re whole and complete, all you do is give.  They don’t even call it giving.  

A flower, when it blossoms and opens up in the morning does not think, oh, I think I’ll give to the people that are walking by.  It is its natural tendency to open.  It doesn’t need to take.  It’s healthy.  It opens.  Your heart will open to everything and everyone, no matter what they do to you, no matter what they say, nothing will close you anymore.  Why?  If you don’t need anything, then nothing can bother you.  Things bother you because you have need, and they’re going to interfere with your ability to get it.  If you don’t need, nothing matters.  This is what it means to transcend.  So, there, negating nagging needs.  Can you?  Yes.  Can you?  Yes.  Your ego says no.  Your psyche says I’m not there yet.  I can’t do that.  I’m not ready yet.  I can’t do that.  That’s B.S.  That is not the truth.  Of course you can’t do it all at once.  It won’t come up all at once.  It’s not doing that.  All it’s asked is every day a piece will want to come up.  You raise your hand and say well how will I know what piece?  You’ll know, won’t you?  That’s the problem is that you’ll know.  You’ll feel it.  You’ll feel it.  You’ll feel something wrong.  You’ll feel a lacking.  You’ll feel a disturbance.  You’ll feel something bothering you.  Good.  That’s the piece that needs to let go today.  

What do you do?  Relax and release through it.  But I won’t -– my life will be over.  Oh, it makes such a melodrama, right?  I won’t get what I need and I’ll never be happy and oh my God, what will I do?  It’ll go just like that.  And you’ll say oh, that’s exactly the way it used to go.  It’s a little melodrama maker that thinks it has to run it’s life and it won’t be okay unless it gets everything.  You don’t need anything.  That’s your mantra.  I am whole and complete within myself.  But I’m not a rock.  The ending is so subtle, it’s so beautiful.  I’m not pushing it away, but nor am I pulling it.  I’m just letting go of whatever comes up.  And over time, you become the most beautiful thing there is on this Earth, a whole being.  And a whole being is a rarity.  Isn’t that funny that health becomes a rarity?  You’re a rarity.  You have a psyche that’s not bothering you.  How would you like to have a psyche that’s not bothering you all day?  Whoa.  That’s something serious, isn’t it?  Well, that’s all that health means -– you’ve got a body that’s not bothering you.  You should have a body that’s not bothering you.  And you should have a psyche that’s not bothering you.  Work with these things.  Nobody else will tell you this.  It’s like antisocial, illegal to talk like this, but it’s the truth.  And you will be a better father, you will be a better mother, and you’ll be a better husband, you’ll be a better wife, and you’ll be a better non-husband, a better non-wife, and a better non-father and a better non-mother.  Do you understand that?  It doesn’t matter.  What matters is how are you doing.  And today the answer is wonderful.  I mean, wonderful.  Yeah, why?  No reason, just doing wonderful.  It’s fun. 

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