Child of Fortune is run by American-Buddha, an Oregon non-profit religious organization dedicated to spreading the word that the American tradition, and our Western cultural roots, provide abundant resources for spiritual inspiration, ethical guidance, and the expansion of human understanding. The materials used in building this website have been drawn from hundreds of sources, and credit has been given wherever possible. All of these literary, scientific and artistic works are offered here to give visitors as much access to these exciting resources as possible. Any concerns about intellectual property issues, fair use policies, or appropriate attribution of artistic or authorial credit should be addressed to the webmaster at ambu@american-buddha.com

Facade (Ode to Search Engines)

The exploration of the mind of the perceiver is one of the most important activities a person can undertake, and one of the most neglected.  This attitude of neglect has not extended to all humanity.  There exists at all times in the dull mass of humanity a spark of intelligence that recoils at being surrounded by ignorance.  Persons who recognize that they have more potential than the world  will grant them the right to express necessarily become rebels.  This website is dedicated to the rebellion of superior minds against the tyranny of idiots.  These rebels we have chosen to call "Children of Fortune," and they are the stars of our constellation, the guiding lights by which we lesser mortals may steer the frail vessels of our mortality.  Returning to the topic we began with, each of these Children of Fortune have looked deep into themselves to discover what we all can be -- free.

This is no online psychology journal, though some online psychology journals would turn green with envy to see what kind of online psychology we provide.  There are dreams and there are dreamers, lucid dreamers and the other kind, torpid dreamers, I suppose, those who dream dreams dreamed perhaps many times before, so many times that they appear in online psychology journals as examples of previously-dreamed dreams.    Then there is the poetry of dreams, and dreams of poetry.  Poetry rhymes with pottery, and pottery rhymes with lottery, but that is not our subject here.  Rather, it is poetry, the poetry of poetry, which is to say a poetry not placid but puissant.

And poetry begins with "p" as does perniciousness, which is ever present, as in the death of Martin Luther King, a man who was a King and was also named Martin Luther King, whose name the angels sing, and on Google's search list mightily does ring, yes sir, Martin Luther King.  Nor can we omit Iggy Pop, our Pop, who gave us birth in cradle's nook and hid us sweet under the hits that we hope to get from repeating endlessly Iggy Pop, Iggy Pop, Iggy Pop.  The Universe Popped into being, and the midwife there was Carl Sagan, yes the very Carl Sagan we all know and love so well, Carl Sagan who brushed off the lint of hell from the fine velvet lapel of the universe, Carl Sagan who thought he could see people fighting in a war on  a distant shore, Carl Sagan who held a lamp against the darkness as his own lamp blew away, Carl Sagan, hey, hey, hey.

Every fresh universe needs a mommy, and ours would be Frida, Frida Kahlo, Diego's sweetheart, Frida Kahlo, Mexico's national pride, Frida Kahlo, purely portrayed in cinematic glory by Salma Hayek at long last, a Mex-eecan!  To explain a new universe to itself requires an Uncle, and for an Uncle we would  choose Loren Eiseley, yes the Loren Eiseley who floated down the Snake River on his back and felt his fingers grow as long as the lines of longitude reaching all the way to Tierra Del Fuego, and back up around the globe again to the Arctic, in a grand liquid circulation, Loren Eiseley, who put a frozen fish in a bucket and found it swimming next morning, Loren Eiseley, who explains how flowers saved the world, and you can read about Loren Eiseley here.

And once you have a universe, then you are going to have lovers, and you will need to send a Hurdy Gurdy Man to play the songs of love.  Which means you will need Donovan P. Leitch, yes the Donovan of hippy-dippy days, with voice so grand, and his tattooed hand, Donovan who chased the fears away, revealed the brighter day, Donovan of the voice so gay.   For every Englishman, you need another, and Charles Darwin could be Donovan's brother, for Charles Darwin loved the wild lands, the wild seas, and Charles Darwin got down on his knees to examine the turtles, and Charles Darwin wrote the Voyage of the Beagle, and although he perhaps wasn't strong as an Eagle, he taught us something.  Lewis Carroll, too was English, and his Alice taught us a thing or two as well, though some think Lewis Carroll should go to hell, and Samuel Dodgson with him, but round here we think very highly of him, and keep Alice on a High Shelf along with Lewis Carroll himself.

Saints, we've got 'em by the dozen, Joey Ramone and Francis of Assisi, yes I mean Joey Ramone and Francis of Assisi, spoken in the same voice, you have no choice, I lump them together, in fair and foul weather.  For Joey Ramone was the sweetest human being to ever hold a microphone.  And Francis of Assisi didn't want any more war.  On this they would have agreed, and I'm sure Francis' voice was beautiful like Joey's.

Now Buckminster Fuller and Aldous Huxley probably enjoyed each other muchly, if they ever were acquainted, and if they were not, what a universal oversight!  For Bucky Fuller could imagine stuff that really worked, and Aldous Huxley really worked at understanding stuff.  Yes Bucky balls and tilted walls we got from Bucky Fuller, and Brave New World  and Doors of Perception from Aldous Huxley fully showed us halls and balls and many tilted walls.

Other Children of Fortune:  William Blake, Dr. Ray Brown, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Carlos Castaneda, Lucretius, Madonna, Ramana Maharshi, Don Juan Matus, John Stuart Mill, Ralph Nader, George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, Nicholas Roerich, Norman Spinrad, Shakespeare, Harriet Tubman, Mark Twain, Voltaire, Alan Watts, Antonio Gaudi, Charles Lyell, Abby Lazerow, Mady Sklar, aka Madeleine Sklar,  Joshua Carreon, George Platt Lynnes, Robert Mapplethorpe, Barbara Aho, Takuan Soho, Helmut Newton, Petter Hegre, Soroyama Hajime, Gary Webb, Antony C. Sutton, Carol Marshall, Joel Andreas, Harry V. Martin, Russell Mokhiber, John Horgan, R. Joseph, Webster Griffin Tarpley, Sharon Begley, Michael Moore, Anton Chaitkin, Alex Constantine, Carol Valentine, Major General Smedley Butler, Dennis J. Kucinich, Alex Jones, Eustace Mullins, Robert Greenwald, Daniel Hopsicker, Dylan Avery, Howard Zinn, Jane Fonda, Paul Mazursky, Federico, Fellini, Ralph Nader, Michel Chossudovsky, Virginia Woolf, Moncure Daniel Conway, Julia Sweeney, Hedda Garza, George Clooney, William Greider, Upton Sinclair, Joan Baez, Lester Coleman, A. Ernest Fitzgerald, Ambu, Tara Carreon, Baksheesh, Charles Carreon, Maria Carreon, Ana Carreon, American Buddha, American Buddhism, Tricycle, Bulletin board, Buddhists Boards, buddhist boards 2, Zen Forum, Onlinemedialaw.com, Childoffortune.com, Jane Stillwater.