Happiest day, beloved Joy Train Rider! Bless you! I love you and hope you had meaningful experiences over the Easter weekend. Our ardent prayers go out for everyone who is suffering, especially those expelled or under threat from the land of opportunity they considered heaven. God rest the soul of beloved Pope Francis.
For decades I’ve been practicing to control my mind, since learning that it plays a primary role in what I experience. I’ve become fairly adept at catching negative thoughts before they build up, and expunge them by affirming my mantra: “I AM One with the I AM Presence (God) and I AM One with the I AM Presence of all humanity.”
This weekend I discovered a further step, when I realized that I could make friends with my mind. Instead of working to try and control it, I thank it for its help and even its hypervigilance. I ask it to submit to the higher awareness and take guidance from it, do what It would have us do. It’s amazing how rested I feel now. Instead of regretting a lapse, I call my mind back to focus like it’s a happy puppy coming back from play.
I’m also learning that time may be perceived as circular, with similar events recurring. That’s not hard to accept at this moment when we are threatened by an internal “king.” I’m glad we had the example from the Revolutionary War 250 years ago when we literally had to throw off the shackles of a monarch. The eerie relevance is captured in this statement I saw on Substack: “Every 250 Years We Have to Shake Off a King.”
Our current President may genuinely believe he’s a King as his father seeded in his mind from a very young age, “You are a Killer! You are a King!” Yesterday millions of Americans in every corner of the country sent a strong message that our Democratic Republic does not suffer “royalty:” No Kings: Protestors Across Country March Against Trump, Musk.”
I’m stunned how few stories I’m seeing in my newsfeed about the protests. and why: “Not Very Compelling”: How NPR’s Public Editor Dismissed the Largest Protests of 2025.”
The deliberate blackout requires our response. On the other hand, members of the National Park Service are doing stellar service to our country, most exemplified by Will Pattiz and his colleagues at More Than Just Parks. I follow them religiously.
In a very pure sense, the fact that “the past is prelude” is the entire reason behind the National Park System, which protects the places where events marked a turning point in the development of America. Last Friday’s tour took us to the hotbed of Revolution in Massachusetts, beginning with Paul Revere’s midnight ride.
But today I had the dazzling realization of THE PIVOTAL ROLE that MILITARY SUPPLY CHAINS played IN TWO DIFFERENT AMERICAN WARS, 1777-78 and 1864-65, AND IS PLAYING OUT AGAIN IN 2025! What are the odds of us facing a tyrannical American president waging a war on our democracy, using SUPPLY LINES as a tool?
I felt a little weak realizing that and swiftly rallied in the realization that TO BE FOREWARNED IS TO BE FOREARMED. There are lessons we can take from the fact that General George Washington’s lack of a supply line at Valley Forge National Park almost doomed the nascent revolution, but he came out of it with an organized, integrated United States Armed Forces. General Ulysses S. Grant disrupted the confederates’ supply line at Petersburg National Battlefield Park in 1864-65, pushing them back to Appomattox and effectively ended the Civil War.