D E E P I N T O A R T L I F E WEST

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

As the world implodes

First up, I read that the mood swinging BofA has decided to go ahead and displace more families swaggeringly confident they are in the right to do so. Their long legal arms must have assured them they've got it covered. We'll soon find out how as this latest 911 works its way through the courts. Between you and me, I've known all along there was something fishy going on because there was a chart published in the LA Times made by Realtytrac that showed all the homes in foreclosure with the typically horizontal red line zigging up a little and zagging down a little until year 2007 where that red line went straight up through the top of the chart - off the charts indeed. I saved it and looked for it many times since, but it was lost in the hard drive meltdown from last year and appears to be deleted from media archives. The past week's staggering revelations about the legalities of the paperwork on property ownership renewed my study of the situation and discovered the problems coincide with the advent of MERS. Shocking. Not. Of course you know about MERS.

From Wiki:
... MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) ... is a privately held company that operates an electronic registry designed to track servicing rights and ownership of mortgage loans in the United States.[1]

MERS role in facilitating mortgage trading was relatively uncontroversial in its early days a decade ago but continued fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis has put MERS at the center of several legal challenges disputing the company's right to initiate foreclosures. Should these challenges succeed, the US banking industry could face a renewed need for capitalization.[4] ...

Right away, you get the picture, technology (progress, growth, electronic TRACKING) eavesdrops again, without warrants. Corporations don't need warrants? When personhood doesn't need a warrant, perhaps they can just make some citizens arrests? Hey, its not really spying, naw. An elephantine disaster has re-emerged that We the People must be responsible for cleaning up, no one has said this but that is the only way it will ever be resolved exactly as everything else is resolved, the burden of proof and the burdens of the poor pitted against huge could-care-less giants require WE have to stand over their shoulders and physically point out what is wrong with this and what to do about it and do it. We the People do not have an in house crack legal team waiting in our backyard sheds. Now all these human beings affected by this disaster are on the bandwidth all the time desperately looking for answers when the answer was there all along. While MERS is not Angelo Mozilo, MERS part in this crisis is telling: Suddenly there rose on the horizon a roster of all the humans in houses and malls. Now when you want to be very, very wealthy, all you have to do is buy the lists and pick a few obvious marks. Start with unemployed, non-English speakers and so forth. And when that kind of marksmanship runs dry, why you can switch right over to CRE of which the entire landscape of North America has been filled-in as convenience services for all the barrel-tiled gated communities with central vacs in every room.

Does anyone recall how excited the real estate industry was when they'd been trawling the populace for more potential home purchasers and proudly announced their new targets were to be single mothers and illegal immigrants? For so many, it was love at first site.

While I'm at it, I credit Charles for his introduction to MERS. Its so perfect a tool for the Bankers it could go down in history as important as the Pasteurization of cows' milk. It is where we are going with everything, and in this I include the preferred customer discount card readers, credit card records, electronic medical records, etc., all of which give rise to yes, identity theft because as nice an employee as Joe Schmoe appears, you never really know who you are dealing with until its too late and as with Robo Signers, former burger flippers, it was too late on the grandest scale ever. And you thought Choicepoint was something. Wake up. Ice Nine time.

Many blogs and real news sites are working this one, so visit them and get informed. I'm not a news site really and the whole thing tends to nauseate me. When are they going to bloody knock off this shit? It is a miracle of God I am not in that world at all. What l've read and seen is replayed over and over every bi-monthly trip into a tiny, but densely populated area for supplies and still it brings on nausea. I see it live playing out among the people, many of whom think problem solving consists of forgetting about the problem and driving faster and more dangerously to get nowhere.The weirdest are usually in front of the box store which has taken to putting a quick-sale section in their oversize and empty parking lot. There wandering in a daze, are the snaggle toothed in flip flops with curlers and their daughters and vacuous husbands arms loaded with dollar plastic junk and family size bags of potato chips. Guess they're not cutting back. For people who have been poor all their lives, nothing has changed, however, inflation followed by hyperinflation will change all that. Where will they go? Some of the farmers sold their livestock because they could no longer afford the feed. When people get raw to the bone, when there is nothing left to sell, then we are in Migrant Mother territory with a company store where you can owe your soul. Yes, I will paint it. Now these new Okies, formerly home owning innocents caught in someones idea of oneupsmanship, could be anybody from anywhere so all the rules still apply. I.e.; some still won't get it. Order will have to be maintained, so Darth and Erik will have their people on the scene just in case you were romanticizing about freedom at last.

What is going on in France, in its 6th day, are some very angry human beings gathering and holding signs in large numbers because the retirement age is being raised meaning delayed expectations. It is interesting these protesters are being labeled as dock and refinery workers and any article you read soothingly explains in the ending paragraphs they have many ships waiting to offload plenty of fuel oil, yet, planes are diverted from landing and many gas stations dry. Hmmmm. It wouldn't be that some of the protesters are fuel oil people and some of them are everybody else that sees trying to survive on reduced pensions with severely limited fuel supplies spells the end of any creature comfort no matter how small?

... Fuel shortage fears
Since September 27, strikes against pension and port reforms at oil depots in the south of the country have left 63 oil, gas and chemical tankers waiting off the Mediterranean coast, Marseille port authorities said. ...
Strikes put pressure on petrol and diesel supplies across the country, notably when supplies to Paris's regional and international airports were cut on Friday, but the pipelines running south from Le Havre were reportedly working again by late on Saturday. ...
Christine Lagarde, the economy minister, urged people not to panic over petrol supplies, as the country had ample stocks for now. ..."We have reserves," she told France's RTL radio, adding supply problems had affected 230 petrol stations out of a total 13,000 in the country. "People mustn't panic."...
Police were able to break up blockades at three fuel depots in southern France, easing some of the pressure at petrol stations, but that has not eased fears of a fuel shortage.
"People are panic buying. We’ve seen long lines of motorists queuing at filling stations," Al Jazeera's Harry Smith, reporting from Paris, said. ...
Lorry drivers are heavyweights in the realm of French protest movements and have announced their intention to join the protests. ...
Maxime Dumont, the head of the CFDT union's lorry drivers' section, said drivers could block fuel depots and food warehouses and clog roads by driving slowly.
Trash collectors in Marseille have also joined in the strikes, burning rubbish in the streets. ...

They could be us. In the not too distant future. One thing we do not have in common with the Great Depression is the end of easy oil. I am convinced everything that is a crisis and the reason it is mushrooming is because we are past peak, which some would compare to our Saigon moment, but again, it is not comparable as we are witness to the slow death of humanity/integrity, lost in an electronic detour on the way to self-extinction. Worse, all along we knew it did not have to be that way. There was a better way, just not corrupt enough to satisfy the representative-selves of the courtiers currying the King's favor, the King's representative-self, of course, being under the delusion he was high born. High-born. Heh. That will make lots of difference when we're all gone.

... These are the big fish
Who always try to eat down the small fish,
just the small fish.
I tell you what: they would do anything
To materialize their every wish....

from Guiltiness by Bob Marley | Exodus LP

55 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amazing, 6 billion stuck on a tiny planet and we come up with such foolishness. A cow for three sheep was straightforward and had human connection. Worlwide Swapping Network!? Freight costs, $ and carbon, are major limiters. Trust and honesty others.

Rain, rain, three weeks now. Ready to go to my land and erect workshop/dwelling and put up fence to keep dog/s in. My dry village there has been flooded. Deforestation has not helped. I'm upland and on the edge of the last forested land. Yea, reforestation is part of the plan.

Later, turey.

'revol' Word Prophet becomes radical.

nina said...

It comes down to that, you have to replant the forest, but if you look away will it still be there?

Worldwide Swapping, beautiful.

Sounds like you might be facing some mud problems. No matter where we are, the work of living is never done.

Anonymous said...

"Return to the state of the uncarved block
When the block is carved, it becomes useful"
The Tao

A block of wood is fairly useless until it is carved into a shape that fulfills some desired function. Our societies carve people into complicated shapes so that we can be used to fulfil the roles that have been socially formed for us. Only after this shaping can we be manipulated. The discipline of Tai Chi helps the student return to the simple, natural state of existence that he had before the complex, fixed ideas of his society were forced upon him. When such simplicity is attained, he can no longer be manipulated by others. He is useless in other people's efforts to achieve fame and material gain.
John Lash

Thought this pertained to the more spiritual aspect of your new blog post Also being a carver/woodworker any mention of wood get me going. Bernie pics bring me joy for a second day. He is a handsome fella.

Love
Scrap

Jacob Gittes said...

Going to yoga again tonight. It has helped to add to some kind of very positive change for me.
That, along with new friendships. I say new, but started to meet them in January. They are all musicians, or friends of the musicians. They don't really "reject" our society, they just live on the outskirts of town, so to speak. They just want to live and create and play music and be together.
And they allowed me to join their circle.
What has amazed me is that my spiritual and psychological state has continuously improved since I reached out to others who held similar ideals. I thought this improvement would reach a plateau, but it has not.
Oh sure, I still have struggles.
Just living in this system is a struggle, even for the elites. They have to worry about finding good help, for example, from the masses of resentful peasants that make up their fellow citizens.

Love is truly transformational... at first I couldn't understand, on a deep level, why they could be so free and accepting.
I had to allow my programming to dissipate, and that takes patience, time and space.
I don't think most people can do this alone. As Charles Eisenstien has pointed out, we ARE our relationships. And when one relationship improvces, I find they all improve. My son really loves these new people, and they are, for people so young, amazingly "into" children.

I'm intrigued by the new relish I have for the simple things of life. I'm even starting to unload my superfluous audio equipment (sure, I'll keep items I will actually use, it's not about total abstinence, which is only for those who are called).

Even the latest foreclosure "scandal" (it's not a scandal, but a monstrous crime against humaity, considering the families and children who will actually become homeless and die, or become victims of the inevitable domestic violence and predation) hasn't gotten me depressed. I'm angry. Anger can be a simple emotional fact, like a rock in a pond. The pond continues to live.

Anyway, I've accepted the fact that whatever it is we call a nation is going down, and the citizens are going down with the ship while the elites man the lifeboats, how brave of them.

I think that those who choose a communal, tribal life in which sharing, love and acceptance are the motivators for working together and mutual protection will have a chance of living human lives.
Will nature cooperate, though? Does nature care whether or not humanity survives? I am afraid to even ask the question, let alone ponder the likely answer.

Until recently, I haven't had any desire to write blog posts, or much of anything. I think I can handle a reentry into the blogosphere without letting it de-materialize me.

nina said...

Scrap, you have outdone yourself this time.
I am grateful.
It is one thing to identify tools and quite another to identify the underlying message.
>Respects<

nina said...

Publius, such good news, I am very happy for you. You are right, love is transformational. A long as we are confident in its transformational ability, we can do anything, without fear, without hesitation. It goes hand in hand with truth. Something truly wonderful is going on and your understanding of the manner in which it spreads into every realm of your existence is enlightening and beneficial for all who know you, especially Eero. Here's a secret, it will never leave you now. It is always there waiting for you.

Anonymous said...

thats really good stuff peoples,..neil

Izzy said...

Common sense tells us that when you push someone into a position where they have nothing left to lose, you have created a dangerous individual. And now we have literally millions of them. Perhaps billions.

Maybe I've just been enjoying a sheltered life, but it seems like the world is ready to explode.

Anonymous said...

Will never know Nina. It will be more 'forest' when I look around again. It took me 7 years to transform my grandfathers dry and brutalised front lawn into a semi wild sculpture garden.

When it took off we had a tree circle and other hideaways, hawks appeared. Their food, birds, were plentiful. This was the first 'madness'. Half the people cheered, the other screwed or sent reports to my people abroad.

Neil wakes, was dozing watching Lord Tee Vee. Rain Rain and more on the way. Dogs and ravenous pup sleeping.

Later, turey.

Anonymous said...

banksters strive
sell war and strife
feed their pig
then they hide
hide inside
deep in lies
all is theirs
if they can buy
well they try
get nowhere
transforming paper
now men dont care
well some do
but they are a few
and like nina
their are ladies too.

..peace..

nina said...

Oh turey, in my personal code of justice it says where the boy is making sculpture, he is growing love so leave him be.

The tattlers thought themselves willing to take on Nature? In Jamdown? Oooooo.

If there is one thing that should never be interfered with it is Nature. Yes, it happens all the time and see the karma come down?

Vword: proyer = proper prayer, more twisted nonsense from word profit.

nina said...

..neil.., my special jewel. Have you read Survival Acres today? AGHHHHH, turns out the banksters have new and extremely lucrative angle.

nina said...

Hi Izzy, you came back! Thanks. You've summed it up perfectly, the sheltered life we ALL led really was a Dream and you know, they said so all along.

Anonymous said...

sorry about that poem people,sort of hovering between stupid land and exhaustion but happy mode at the mo,
good tao stuff scraps,...neil

Pangolin said...

Aha, so Bank of America has discovered it has the Midas touch. How long till they discover that you can't eat gold? When they foreclose on all those homes they're going to sell them to who exactly? Not the former owners. Not recent college grads moved back in with parents due to no job offers and crippling debt. Not the vast ranks of unemployed and under-employed. Who buys?

In France the youth are in the streets vigorously protesting extending the retirement age? Why? Because, until the older generation retires there will be no jobs for them. Turns out capitalism has been a zero-sum game all along.

I just took a bus ride through Petaluma California today where the century-old, greek columned Sonoma County National Bank abandoned by the finance industry and is a seed store.

Or you can go to the Kung Fu bank in San Francisco.

Interesting times.

nina said...

You know I always love your comments, Pangolin, so I just emailed your links around. I titled it Abandoned Banks from Happy Banky Rescue - a no kill shelter.

What a wonderful plan! It hold great promise for artist lofts and performance studios.

nina said...

Hey ..neil.., this is a come as you are event. :O

nina said...

I noticed a grievous faux pas in my essay. I meant Choicepoint, not Checkpoint, sincere apologies.

Anonymous said...

do they never tire,..neil

Charles Hugh Smith said...

Nina, thank you for the credit on MERS but I have to re-credit you for "representational self"--that reducing real property into paper that is electronically "registered" and traded for obscene profits--it is an example of the reification/ alienation of financialization.

In a way the entire economy is a MERS fraud.

Anonymous said...

Growing Love. That's all I ever wanted to do. The wait was worth it, lots of practice in what seemed like false starts.

A patois explanation for the current instability: "Dem baalhed a ginnal, long time Bob did se fi run dem outa town".

Seems like Paula has done a 360 degree and may touch us again. Beyond wet. It'll be a green Xmas.

Best, turey.

'jurist' Willingly; at certain trials.

Jacob Gittes said...

I'd like to suggest that y'all check out one of the "New No Depression" Minnesota folk scene people out, he's on tour, and maybe stopping at a town near you.
In light of Nina's latest post, listen to the poignant song, "Ruckus on Wall Street".

Jack just got his first CD out the door of the printer. I'd been doing a lot of Polaroid photography with some old cameras and film, and Jack requested a bunch of them that included him, for his album cover art. When I opened his CD, I was pleased to see he had used some of our Polaroids for his cover art. When I checked the actual original photos, I saw that two of them had actually been taken by Eero. So a four year old is now the proud music scene photographer. At first I didn't think he cared, but I saw him showing his grandparents the photos.

Turey: I' proud of you. Plant those trees or seeds, and protect them through the first delicate and vulnerable years. Kind of sounds like nurturing children, doesn't it? It would seem that everything worth growing and fostering is vulnerable, while the vampire squids don't need much at all.

nina said...

Charles, brilliant observation, the minute you told me about them I got the same picture. All of this leads me to ask just what is the point of government anymore? Its not even a cohesive corporate structure. WE are the shareholders and might as well have Bernie Madoff at the helm. I was hoping somehow I misunderstood MERS, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The freeze on foreclosures appears to be melting, meaning this situation is nowhere near its zenith. I've got a bad feeling about this, too. Technology has no conscience or sense of responsibility. And that was perfectly illustrated in the Wapo article - the big room with widescreens, everybody stepping on everyone else. It has now so deeply embedded itself into our existence we have not the ability to halt what we've begun and will not be live long enough to see it dismantled.

nina said...

Rasta, maybe you can get a couple of large cisterns going? Or an above ground pool (for speed) you can cover and keep the water from rapidly evaporating? I know you don't have much time, but you will be doing yourself and others and Nature too, a big favor. Severe and Prolonged Drought May Threaten Much Of The Globe Within Decades

nina said...

Ah, Publius, keep your son in cameras. Think Annie Leibowitz and where film photography could take Eero.
Off to your link now, and congratulations.

Anonymous said...

Yes sis, setting up a catchment pond and off roof storage, probably plastic (I know) barells.

t.

nina said...

Great turey! Yes, I know, plastic tubs are ubiquitous in the Caribbean and might be plastic's perfect use except for things like heart valves. Save the tubs too. Tell the washing ladies. They will soon enough be too expensive or nonexistent. Porcelain, pottery, aluminum vats are too heavy to carry on one's head when full, but when not used for water, goods can be carried in a shawl, pillowcase, laundry bag, etc. Soon there won't be lawn & leaf bags either and who can afford plastic garbage bags anymore? What a silly wasteful trip we've all been on. I hope you don't have any Chinese unbrellas that fly up inside out in the first gust of weather.
>one love<

Jacob Gittes said...

Nina, you claim in regard to these evil systems that leverage high tech, "we have not the ability to halt what we've begun and will not be live long enough to see it dismantled."

I disagree. Systems of empire wield great power, but they depend on power/energy in ever increasing amounts, at the same time they are destroying the energy base. The Roman Empire depended on agriculture and slavery, but destroyed it's source of energy and collapse. The same with the other big empires: Spain, British... Spain depended on gold, but soon found out that it was truly a fool's gold.

Our fools gold is the worst yet, because it provided a bigger high: oil, real estate, high tech, finance... but the oil's running out, nobody is left to buy the overpriced real estate, and high tech and finance can't feed anyone. I believe most of us will live to see it collapse.
The smoking ruins will be so carbonized, that it won't be useful for anything except for fertilizer.

Anonymous said...

Soursop, mangoes, aloe vera, sweetsop, avocados, naseberry, star apple, vetiver, lemon grass ready to be transplanted when things get rolling again. Many roads washed out or flooded. The Gov Depts seem to be as on top of it as resources allow.

I'm still in MoBay hills waiting for things to line up for me to be able to eat and sleep on the land.

Started to read the instructions on the 3KW inverter. Have to design the correct circuitry and layout. My friend the wood lathe master wants to come and work with me next year. We'll need sufficient panels to run the 2+ hp motor for hours at a time. Use wood, plant trees. Even if it's 'recycled' stuff.

Thanks Publius, working with the green ones is love-ly.

Later, turey.

chickory said...

you've got the best blog labels in the business.

"infinite cyclone of cataclysmic catastrophe"

the thing about the delinquent taxes really worries me. first of all - what a joke. you own a piece of property and then you pay rent on it to the state? so in effect you do not actually own your home or land. heck, you could be eminent domained or have the taxes raised to some insane amount - which is why my sister had to move away from her beloved house in sarasota florida. could not afford the taxes. and they can just be raised on a whim. and now the feds want to take that from local?

then you have the death taxes. after paying taxes on a lifetime of earnings, the state gets half upon your death? i love how people write that this is good so you dont have paris hilton situations. i guess they didnt consider all the family farms that will be lost because it will have to be sold to pay the damn taxes. wont that be nice perk for big ag?

enjoyed scrap's wood lesson. i have experienced its truth already in the little steps i have made. i didnt expect the hostility and resentment though when i stepped off...i have been given the "most people have to do this or that" talk. and what? so i should have to too? are they saying if i inch along on a highway to my cubicle and eat a monsanto meal contained in a deadly plastic microwavable tray we can be friends again?

great to see everybody here tonight. always the best commentary.

Susannah said...

agreed chicory,
the brightest, most embracing constellation.
i came upon this and have laughed ever since ... i bring it here -

"If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it or see it.
Would Israel still blame it on Iran?"-Ry Dawson

Anonymous said...

What is going on over here?

The news gets more amazing all the time. Now cancerous plasticizers highly dangerous to human health as they are proven to be carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic. 63% found in shoes, children"s toys and sex toys.

You can't be too careful these days.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/oct/22/tesco-carrefour-dangerous-chemicals

Anonymous said...

This thing in France also keeps rolling along. Fuel workers on strike, gov orders them back to work, unions say quit working and go to the streets, burning up the train tracks, railroad stations shut down, passengers at airports are having to load and unload their own baggage, universities shut down and they called the city of Lyons an urban guerilla warfare zone.

Sarkozy the killer dwarf may have to resign before it is all over. I wonder what his next order from the banking elite will be.

nina said...

I will be around in a little while. Thanks girls, Mick, turey, etc.

Later.

Wow, my Vw: jahsa

BOUT TIME!

Susannah said...

posted this on trout clan but thought i would post it here as well.
maybe an idea can wing its way through.


my partner went off on a find yourself retreat and came back a different person.
suddenly felt the need for the kids to be 'schooled'. the need to make money. the need to move closer to the city and taste culture and all that shit.

once the shock had abated and i found my way to the core of my being i came to a rather selfish conclusion.

that if he felt that this was the answer and they agreed with him, then i could step away from my current role.

i could only watch from the outside.
when i see on a daily basis their ability to think, imagine, explore in the freedom of 'unschooling' it would destroy me to see them chopped up to fit the system and learn the drivel that i have seen as the curriculum.

his argument which could have validity is that they have become themselves by now and cannot be unformed or destroyed -

i can see that they perhaps need to experience something new - i fully appreciate that. it is just how to manifest that.
how on earth do i get them to experience a different culture, a different life - life itself, without having to wrench all asunder.

i cannot in my heart of hearts put them in the system. i know in a week they would be bored to death and their arses would be numb from all that sitting. that would truly be leading the lambs to slaughter.
and i ain't no judas goat.
so what do i do?

Susannah said...

what a storm is brewing in the land of the free.
what a ominous electoral symbol that raging outer storm portrays.
to all those at the mercy of the unknown right now - i send love, courage and understanding.

turey, are you still being rained upon.

here too the weather is somewhat ominous. heavy cloud cover, a strange wind and some other nuance that i can't quite name.

love and respect to all.

Charles Hugh Smith said...

Su, thank you for sharing your personal situation, which parallels the experience of all of us. This is more heartrending, though, because it's choices being made for one's kids.

FWIW (not much) IMO the only skills that will matter in the future are the ability to learn, the ability for truly independent thinking and the ability to be authentic with oneself and others.

That means avoiding the marketing machine at all costs: skinny jeans, TV, videogames, most of the teen-oriented Web, etc. That is tough to do when peer pressure accounts for so much of a teen's worldview.

Susannah said...

it is interesting how they see that trap from where they are here and now.
the other day someone lent tao some popular mechanic magazines.
at first i thought wow and then i opened them.
perused 20 pages, absolutely nothing but 'stuff' for sale.
shiny gadgets , gimmicks.
he reads one advertorial and tells me of this new keyboard that you can hit 26 keys at the same time.
wow how amazing.
until i asked him why on earth would you ever need to hit 26 keys at the same time.
his answer was - gaming.
my reply was not a very high skilled game to just require a keyboard slap.

brains that have never done route learning have a greater flexibility.
no calcification into set ways.

anyway i am probably going to hatch up a wickedly devious plan.
can't take anything lying down.
yes time to hatch a counter move.

word: haccish - i swear not.

Anonymous said...

Rain seems to have stopped Su.

'Cultural' visits to cities are great. Long term, I can't see the advantages if you are well rooted in a village. Wonder what kind of retreat? Mind bending/washing is straightforward for them that want to do it. Coercive persuasuion and cousins. See if the spell fades in a few weeks. And watch the retreat people. A little paranoia is good, keeps us alert eh.


Packed and ready to go work land and grow love.

What are they planting in Washington. And London, Moscow ....

One Love, Many Ideas, turey.

'care-v' Every step of the way.

nina said...

If it comes down to it, let them try it out SusyQ. Its my opinion they are so free already they will feel restricted and lessened as human beings and insist on returning to the unschool. People tend to place value on situations and people they see from afar, up close and long term it becomes a different story and the good old days are remembered with great desire to return to them. If you don't sell the house and move to the city, locking yourselves into the system, you can be that happy return and with greater appreciation for all that was always there just waiting to be experienced by the unschool.
Also, I think its human nature to learn things the hard way - maybe we do this so we have a basis for comparison. Its normal.
Try not to see it as a setback. rather "another learning experience" along the way to the groups' maturity. It doesn't matter really what we think about what they want, they have to go through it for awhile and find out why it is destructive and damaging. You probably never made a plan for this part, but it is to be expected. Think of it as a sabbatical in the ugly truths of civilization. I know you can handle it with grace and love, coming or going. Perhaps you are unconsciously seeing their natural desire to explore as a rejection of your whole raison d'etre? Which isn't so at all, its just another phase.

I'm with turey on concern about that retreat Peiter attended. Are they nuts? Cons? CIA? Hmmmmm.

nina said...

That "retreat" reminds me of the missionaries come to Chinua Achebe's Umuofia destabilizing the tribals, spreading their rigid, cruel ideas for superior living. We see how well THAT turned out.

Ras turey, weather chaos. I sympathize. We've been under a rain/fog/strange dark cloud mist for almost two weeks. Weird, spring green is sprouting under the fallen leaves and summer-dried layers of bleached out tumbleweed. Fifty miles away they are in bright sunshine.

Jacob Gittes said...

Weather here: yesterday a record low pressure vortex, a record for our recorded history, 28.02 inches of mercury, equivalent to a Cat 3 hurricane. 60 mph winds all night. Rain, strange moisture.
Very odd.

What else? My wife has told Eero, in dealing with his anger, to "let the anger melt away."
Last evening, I heard him say to her, right after she said that phrase again,
"Mommy, let your bossiness melt away."

Jacob Gittes said...

I basically lost a friend last year who started a huge row with my wife and I over the fact that we just posted a Salon.com article by someone who home schools his kid in NYC. Some of you may recall that. Boy, did that reveal a dark side...

Strangely, or perhaps logically, that friendship loss (at least lost for now) led me to go out on my own and meet my New No Depression musician friends and associated travelers. They've turned out to be some of the most intense new friendships and relationships of my life. I didn't think that people past the age of say 30 could form intense, caring friendships, at least not easily.

The researchers and pundits tell us that we lose that desire or ability to plasticity. I say bull$%^&. Fear, stress, and habit may suppress and subdue it, but the soul's vitality can never be destroyed. Why do so many let it be entombed, until life becomes so flavorless?

The school thing is starting to cause me concern. I'm afraid I'm on the deschooling side of things, and lord knows that's just the next brewing family conflict.
And I no longer really back down about things I think are important. That's a sure way for family harmony. Not.

nina said...

Publius, think through your arguments very carefully, have all the information at your fingertips, go easy and present your case with love for all involved. Don't stress, be calm, prepare yourself to win a rational debate. This is not for your in-laws consideration.

Susannah said...

beloved anin,

ah the voice of wisdom that is pure intelligence.
you are so right. of course it must happen, unfold.
just reading your post produced an immediate acceptance.
and of course with that release, humour arises. and with that a curiosity of how it will all morph and dance as life always does, always has. even the stuck, scratchy parts.
remaining open, remaining here. growing crops, watching the vines.

and to all those in cloud and under water i send you the most brilliant sunshine. untainted, pure, warm and nourishing.

publius - good luck :)

nina said...

I'm already chuckling with you. Scratchy and stuck starts from day one, even earlier in the anticipation. There will be an abundance of crises requiring your balance such as placement, team sports or not, to false histories and religious overtones, makeup, comportment and popularity, lineage, it will require every tenet you ever clung to being dismantled and rebuilt. And then there's the part I dislike the most - being the new kid. Praise Jah you will hold down the fort and continue to nurture the animals and plant life. One by one, the unschool will wander back tentatively seeking that which wasn't available to them anywhere else on Earth. If it happens they go, it will be a great, but brief chapter.
When your daughter was on the edge of the abyss, I reminded you WE are still alive, WE made it though, regardless of incessant stuck and scratchy... and she did. And they will. This reminds me of the pecking order in Nature, some birds do not migrate, others migrate with their tribe, testing, using learned survival skills. And reminicent of Echo the Elephant, too, the family always returns to the mother and tusks are crossed in great love and happiness. Nature tells us complex and simple vegetable matter congregates where conditions are supportive to their particular needs.

From Scrapwood: ... Our societies carve people into complicated shapes so that we can be used to fulfil the roles that have been socially formed for us. Only after this shaping can we be manipulated. The discipline of Tai Chi helps the student return to the simple, natural state of existence that he had before the complex, fixed ideas of his society were forced upon him. When such simplicity is attained, he can no longer be manipulated by others. ...

Susannah said...

here is lighting a candle for zoner and publius.
i can't imagine what it must be like to meet a power of thae magnitude they are meeting.

what do i say other than let us send them whatever we know .....
and turey, i trust the rain has abated somewhat.

as i write this an ominous sky rolls in here.
lately a lit bit disquieting.
the climate no longer seems to have isolated regions, it seems the whole world is raining right now.

Anonymous said...

The last? dark clouds went west this morning. My body craved hot sun esp when I had flu for the first week of the rain. I soaked myself in solar energy for the couple hours it showed then and started to come alive.

Lined up transport of self and workboxes to the land. Will report.

Best to All, turey.

'unate'. Nearly WP, missed the 'i'.

Anonymous said...

oh I love them weird clouds,who ever took that picture must of been gobsmacked,looks like a crown round the moon...neil

nina said...

Yes, ..neil.., it was gobsmacking. I never would have know there was such a word as gobsmack, but looking it up it means something similar to blown away.

Anonymous said...

I thought that was an internationly known word gobsmacked,sos nina.neil

Pangolin said...

Nina_Your OP was definitely worth a re-read. I was struck by this....

I am convinced everything that is a crisis and the reason it is mushrooming is because we are past peak, which some would compare to our Saigon moment, but again, it is not comparable as we are witness to the slow death of humanity/integrity, lost in an electronic detour on the way to self-extinction

I think we are well past Capitalism's Tet but we are not yet at the 'Saigon moment.' At least not in the U.S.. The pretense that it will all go away if somebody else just works harder still prevails.

As to Skippy's statement. When such simplicity is attained, he can no longer be manipulated by others... I feel this is equivalent to the 'may you live in interesting times' curse. Accepting the manipulations of others is how most people come by the means to survival. Even being unusually resistant to manipulation makes you a threat.

The Truth has low poll numbers.

Anonymous said...

What weather in your latest Nina, beautiful or...

Christmas breeze has stared to blow. So sweet. I know; we're into breezes, winds, drafts and chills, even in this tropical country. It's those quick temperature changes when wet that get me.

Sea water soon. The aquifers are full now and springs flowing strong. Lots of chemicals washed to sea. Too bad they will be replaced. There is a feeble gov support for organic farming. They are aware at least.

Later, turey.

Anonymous said...

watching cloud
passing storm
gathered seed
light in drawn
warming heart
with deepest essence
rising free
climbing tempest
up the height
round the flow
stirring peace
internal glow
growing goodness
charging life
electrifying
rising light
light in one
the light of all
from the greatest
to the small

..peace..

Jacob Gittes said...

Pangolin: right on.
I have never had much of a knack for sticking with anything other than being "resistant" to manipulation. At first I would just get too depressed to function in the awful situation I was in (grad school, relationships, etc.) Finally I am able to have enough insight to know consciously when a situation is bad. Sometimes.

Latest on the schooling front: my wife loves the Quaker Friend's school, which sounds absolutely amazing. Amazingly nurturing, creative, non-hierarchical.
And only $12,000 per year.
I guess they offer financial aid.
Somehow I see a setup for disappointment here.
The illusion goes on: that we could even conceive of sending our son to a school that costs more per month than our rent.