June gloom Tarot * homeless * lovers

Personally I have been “Carless Santana” more than a time or two in my life, have slept in my car more times than most would care for, and albeit was in Santa Barbara, have driven a cab for long enough to see the street life up close and personal. It is nothing one would choose for oneself.

Recently I have befriended a homeless woman that spends her days at the local library and her night cooped up in her car, despite that she can barely walk and has to find a way to fit not one, but sometimes two wheelchairs in her small, broken down sedan, and a walker as well. On top of that she claims that since she is not the victim of domestic violence or the like, that she doesn’t qualify for assistance. And this is in Newport Beach, wherein it was rumored that our local police department rounded up most all of our homeless population and had them bussed up to Santa Barbara. Out of sight, out of mind.

The same said woman also told a story of where she had parked overnight in a seemingly sympathetic church parking lot, only to wake in the morning to a churchgoer that asked if she was homeless, and ever so politely threatened her and told her never to come back there again.

She is in obvious need of medical assistance and apparently there is none forthcoming, and far as I can tell per the Trumpsters and our social Darwinist city council members, there will be none so in coming.

Another amazing tale was of a well 2 do biz man who had fallen from grace and ended up homeless, mostly staked out at the rear of a Venice Beach restaurant, and of who were gracious enough to feed him regularly, and upon the bum’s suggestions that they alter this or change that with the makeup of the food, he was eventually invited inside to work and help cook and prepare food. The story goes is that he now drives a Porsche and is back to being comfortable.

One of my last encounters was hiking up Pike’s Peak and spending the night up the mountain and befriending a woman on the couch who was apparently posted up a bit outside the lodge in the forest and without her own lodging nor food. The lodge was accommodating to her in terms of bread and some other foodstuffs and apparently had lent her a tent and tarp for her troubles. I also left her a fair bit of foodstuffs upon departure from the mountain the next day and have remained friends on fb since. She is a brilliant wordsmith and still on the lam from what I know.

Another time I was headed up the hill from the beach to La Honda to visit a spring rainbow gathering at the house of Ram Dass, and had noticed someone pedaling up the hill, of which in hindsight was prolly headed to same locale, albeit I had neglected to offer him a lift. Upon seeing him there and chatting him up for a short bit, I made sure to leave him a bag of almonds with a decent sized bill hidden in amongst the nuts.

While driving a cab, I met plenty of peoples on pensions and military pay outs that were short of a thousand bux/month, and just enough to get them around town and pay for some foodstuffs, but not enough to pay for rent, in a town where international interests owned the majority of rentals in town, and hence controlled the rents, and of which the only lowering that happened was of the boom.

As a sidebar, peoples would pay for hotel rooms so the homeless would have a place to sleep for the night. Obviously that didn’t happen every night, let alone very often at all.

Many of them won’t or can’t take handouts, as to get caught panhandling or “flying a sign” will cost them any government benefits that they might be eligible for/worthy of collecting. And that’s not to mention regular police intimidation, and young hoods and sk8 punk violence if and when you might be sleeping alone in the park overnight.

And thank god for food banks and many of the local churches, albeit some towns even forbid sheltering the homeless unless it drops below thirty degrees. Many peoples live carparked streetside, some in unsightly campers and trailer trucks, or in overtly broken down cars. You’re living large if you have transportation, i.e. a bicicleta, or perhaps a shopping cart to your avail.

Otherwise you are most guilty by association, with most not giving a hoot as to what your story might be, or to have a care as to how we might help the many who are emotionally worn down.

There is also a whopping percentage of peoples that are forced to get a second job because minimum wage is below the Mason Dixon line as far as a dignified lifestyle might enjoin them, forcing them away from their families and endowing them with 50, 60 and 70 hour work weeks.

Meanwhile our America the Beautiful gives one of every two dollars to our military industrial complex and their subversive government programs, and whilst peoples without housing and/or food, go to bed without our help and oft without a care in the world from anyone else.

We are all guilty by association, and can’t help but think we all pay the piper somehow and some way. We fall in love with each other’s vulnerability. To think that we can’t come up with something that works for all. ‘Tis truly a schizo/bipolar Americorps that we charter for ourselves.

Lovers * six * Voyager Tarot by James Wanless * Way of the Great Oracle

Do not resist those to whom you are attracted to, help and care for. See from another’s point of view. Refrain from overthinking things and instead empathize, and pause to feel what another feels. Heal thru touch and share of yourself. With nonjudgmental acceptance use your relation ship skills to be a conflict resolver. Use your knack for sociability, communicativeness and creativity, to build bonds and synergize, and in all kinds of partnerships. Employ teamwork so that we may learn of our dependence upon others. See the interdependence of this life.

Seek out the different and you will become more whole. Recall that opposites are two sides of the same phenomenon. Maintain a philosophy of oneness, and recall again that we are all carved out of the same block. Real eyes that another person’s situation mirrors in some way your own situation, and that no matter how baffling or mind boggling, they are a mirror for us.

Consider new ideas this month. Consider to care for someone in your family or community, someone that perhaps cannot live with the uncertainty and ambiguity of their situation, someone that might be on the verge of being schizophrenic, and even tho it breaks your heart.