I often recall my education in grief counselling, many years ago, where it was noted that everyone has a spiritual dimension, they may not have a religion, but they do have a spiritual dimension...and after all these years I must admit I disagree. I have found that some people do, and some people don't, have a spiritual dimension. To me, a faith or a spiritual dimension is a particular ability, or talent, much like musicality. Some folk are musical, some are not. Some can learn to sing a bit, as I would like to, but there are also true native singers and players of music. Some people are very good at mathematics. I am not. I am good with words, and many are not....but the numbers really do elude me. I think the capacity to have a spiritual dimension is much like that.

Change is Coming to America

It is very interesting watching the show on the legacy of Barack Obama...to see how things change.

I guess the most remarkable thing about Obama's "Change has Come to America" is that it didn't come.

The differences between Obama and Trump are just so fascinating...Obama, the Cerebral, and Trump, the Primal.

The challenges faced by Obama were legion and the biggest was the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, a sequence that fanciful Americans thought would be over in about 2 weeks time...but these massive financial adjustments take at least 20 years, and always have.

After 8 years, with Trump still yet to formally become President, the Financial Crash of 2008 rolls on, and will do so for at least another decade, or maybe two.

Trump's rise is acknowledged to some extent as stemming from that (ongoing) Crisis. How do you reverse, fundamentally, an Economic Depression? No one ever has and I highly doubt that Trump can.

The next decade will be very hard for the USA and for other countries of the West, including Australia. That's what happens in a long economic downturn...and it happens for a long time.

What the ascendancy of Trump means is not a nation divided by race etc, the same as Brexit doesn't mean a hatred for immigrants in the UK, but because of the ways in which the complex 2008 Depression arose and occurred, and continues, people world wide are suffering, and seeking something simple to blame, so as to fix things and not suffer.

With Trump, interestingly, the term 'Change Has Come to America' could be applied. No one knows the outcome of this change at the start, or in the middle, of it, and we are not yet even at the start of it.

the desk is empty now. packing up 25 years ain't no easy thing

Fiona Apple - Across the Universe (Official Video)

The packing up of the life lived here begins

It is nice to see Trump going around on a Thank You tour across America. That's unheard of, to thank voters. Nicely done.

I note the 'Secret Deal' between the Australian Govt and the Obama Administration to send 2500 Iranian and Iraqi refugees, mostly men, to settle in the USA from Nauru/PNG etc seems to have run into a bit of a bump with the incoming Trump folk saying "Hang on, hang on a minute...just hang on a tick..." Australia announced the secret deal as soon as Trump won to try to legitimise it and get it done fast whilst Obama was still in 'da House'...and it still may happen if they are really quick...which would be something unknown for the US Immigration Dept... but then the Australian Govt hasn't yet announced to Australians that the deal involves Australia settling 2500 Central Americans, not legit refugees per se, who the USA has totalled refused settlement to. The Oz government was so certain Hillary would continue the Legacy of Obama and they didn't see Trump coming. Australia may actually have to work out its own immigration issues and talk to Australians about it. "Oh what is that thing ahead? Isn't that a deer caught in the headlights?" "Oh, no, that's just the Australian Prime Minister."

I note the 'Secret Deal' between the Australian Govt and the Obama Administration to send 2500 Iranian and Iraqi refugees, mostly men, to settle in the USA from Nauru/PNG etc seems to have run into a bit of a bump with the incoming Trump folk saying "Hang on, hang on a minute...just hang on a tick..."

Australia announced the secret deal as soon as Trump won to try to legitimise it and get it done fast whilst Obama was still in 'da House'...and it still may happen if they are really quick...which would be something unknown for the US Immigration Dept...

but then the Australian Govt hasn't yet announced to Australians that the deal involves Australia settling 2500 Central Americans, not legit refugees per se, who the USA has totalled refused settlement to.

The Oz government was so certain Hillary would continue the Legacy of Obama and they didn't see Trump coming. Australia may actually have to work out its own immigration issues and talk to Australians about it.

"Oh what is that thing ahead? Isn't that a deer caught in the headlights?"

"Oh, no, that's just the Australian Prime Minister."