“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing, wait without love, for love would be the love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought. So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” – T.S. Eliot, Meditation.

Of all the writing about meditation, I love T.S. Eliot’s description the best. When I wait without thought, the darkness becomes the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Today, as our tortured, sometimes frightening civic life returned to the fore for a bit, I knew right I had to meditate; that’s where the darkness becomes the light for me.

I didn’t want to be in the darkness.

I consider meditation a talk with my soul. We had a lot to say to one another.

This morning, I was looking for the weather on my Iphone and came across a slew of headlines from CPAC ( or they came to me), the so-called conservative political conference meeting in Orlando.

CPAC used to be a showcase for conservative ideas; this year, it has become a showcase for the angry mob the Founders feared and for the Coronation of our Mad King and his schemes for returning to power in whatever way he can.

It should be noted – but wasn’t really – that the irony of CPAC is that real conservatives wouldn’t be caught dead in Orland listening to all those lies and from oily Ted Cruz trying to weasel himself out of his Cancun catastrophe.

And if they did show up, they’d be canceled instantly, or worse, run down and gassed by Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and retired cops.

Like the Republican Party itself, CPAC has merged with Donald Trump and his ascendant Christian White Nationalist Political movement.

I had several thoughts. First, it is simply not truthful to call this gathering a “conservative conference.”

True conservatives do not undermine our system of government by lying about elections, supporting horrific attacks on our Capitol, and embracing – now bowing to  – Donald Trump’s sick and hateful and unabashedly racist visions of America.

They do not pass laws to make voting difficult or refuse to accept the people’s will when they disagree.

Real conservatives are being driven from the party,  are in hiding, or running for their lives.  Thugs and infidels have stolen the term as well as the party. The Republican Party has become a cult, not a democratic political organization.

In the half-hour that I took to look at video clips from Friday, I saw what seemed to be a Hate And Lie Convocation.

I saw lies about the Electoral College, the Capitol attack, Joe Biden, and even the Muppets.

I felt myself slipping into the digital quicksand.

The governor of South Dakota, who did absolutely nothing while five thousand people died in her state from Covid-10, ridiculed Dr. Fauci as someone who was “wrong quite a bit.” She did have time to audition for her interest in running for President.

Covid, she said slyly, was no big deal. It’s true; if you ignore it, it’s no deal at all.

This is the politician who has proposed putting Donald Trump’s face and head on Mount Rushmore. She wants to be President. She won’t be.

But she’s on the right track for the Mad King’s support.

CPAC was mystical to me, a jumble of rage, hatred, unabashed ambition, and the fog of lies swirling over everything. It is the moment, the truth we all need to see, the home of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Trump and his supporters on the very far right are losing touch with ordinary people, just as the mainstream media has for years. Nobody cares about whining and “canceled’ politicians; nobody cares about Mr. Potato Head.

To my surprise, the only politician I can come across who does reflect what ordinary people are about is Joe Biden: ordinary people want to pandemic to be over, for their jobs to be safe, for their kids to be in school, for their bank accounts to grow.

Trump lost the election in 2020 because the only thing he cared about was himself. Now a lot of people will lose in their elections because they are blindly following his lead.

We are hitting the bottom, I’m not sure what lower is from here. But the truth is we can only go up.

I’m getting used to Donald Trump as the Queen of Hearts, the White Rabbit as his Chief Of Staff.

CPAC was a convention of sorts, a competition to see who could lie the most, hate the most, grovel the most. The worse you behaved, the better your chances are to be blessed by the King.

I was starting to drift back. I didn’t want to go back. I want to stay in a better place.

“Act passionately; think rationally: be Thyself,” said Aleister Crowley, British ceremonial magician, and mystic.

I saw quickly that CPAC was a trigger for me, it brought me back to the worst political moments of the past few years, and I didn’t wish to take that trip again. I pride myself on moving forward, I never consciously go back.

Writing about politics all Fall took a toll on me, even though I didn’t recognize it.

But of course, it had to. Who do I think I am?

Our media, mainstream and mad, are nearing hysteria over Donald Trump’s appearance and his re-emergence, or continued evolution as the rapist and kidnapper of the Republican Party.

They pretend to hate him, but they worship him, he is their salvation, and they know it. Without them, he would melt into the blue water outside Mar-a-Largo. But they can’t seem to let him go.

I can, although it isn’t simple.

I’ve been to this movie, Trump’s railing, lying, his eager lackeys competing for his approval, his roaring mobs urging that innocent people be locked up and showing their index finger to CNN camera operators.

I turned away from hatred in 2016; I turn away from it now.

Hatred is the hottest fire there is. It can wreak havoc, but it always – always – burns itself out. And singes the heart of the people who use it.

It seemed discordant for this Hate and Lie  Conference to be gathering down the road from Disney World, a place that is so much fun to so many people (O. Hunter Thompson, wherever you are, please come back to us. This is your time, your moment: Fear and Loathing in Orlando: A Savage Gathering At The Heart Of The American Dream).

Is listening to Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley really more fun than hopping on over to the Animal Kingdom?  Does anyone on the far, far, right love a dog? Can they speak without whining and cruelty?

Conservatives can.

I decided to talk to my soul while Trump was speaking and listening to more music on my new classical music app.

H.L. Mencken often pointed out that there has never been a shortage of liars or cowards in American politics or of fools and mobs eager to follow them.

I asked my soul for help in pulling me back as this chorus of grievance and rage hovered over us again. I wanted to hear a different chorus.

These thoughts went on a minute or so too long for me, and I decided to meditate. I got a new App this week – it’s called Primephonic, a classical music streaming service.

My sister recommended it to me. It’s quite wonderful.

I like all kinds of music, but carefully chosen classical music like chorale and Chopin and Gregorian chant have always calmed the waters in me and lifted my heart.

One thing I know that the Light has taught me.

This is not the vision America will adopt; this is not what will become of us and our grand and flawed experiment; I know it in my heart and my soul.

This is not America. It doesn’t fit.

For me, meditation is a conversation with my soul. I may have to be around haters, but I don’t have to be one. Meditation is where I go to take my own pulse, to stay even and grounded and hopeful.

From the very first, Donald Trump has challenged me to be better. And he has helped make me better. I owe him for this. And he hasn’t forgotten me.

I love choral and choir music, and I settled right away on The Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, a Constituent College of Cambridge (Founded by Marie de St. Pol, Countess of Cambridge, 674 hundred years ago.

I  put on my AirPods and sat on the sofa across

I listened to three beautiful pieces – All Things Are Quite Different, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, and O Nata Lux. I closed my eyes, set by the fire.

And my soul was glad to hear from me.

If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, wrote Amit Ray, live in the moment, live in the breath.

“I’m simply saying that there is a way to be sane,” wrote Osho, a spiritual mystic. “I’m saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you, just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.”

This is my truth. Simply by sitting quietly, by witnessing my thoughts as they pass before, not interfering or judging. I call it the miracle inside of my buzzing head. I am a witness, not a judge.

I’ve read that this process of witnessing rather than interfering in the very alchemy of spirituality and religion, the very thing so missing from the raging of Donald Trump or the posturing of the CPAC speakers, chosen not for their wisdom but their venom.

That’s the moment of enlightenment. That’s where I want to go. That is the moment when I come close to sanity, a truly free human being.

I started to go back there this morning, but I came back.

“The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.” – Thich Nhat Hanh.