Atlantis off the starboard bow

Sometimes we miss important things because we are shown something else. Now, that something else has validity too, or we wouldn't be pointed in that direction, the best action being to look everywhere and ye shall find - that is if you are interested in finding. I'm not talking intentional diversion here, I am speaking of trusted sources that want us to know what they are thinking about a situation. As always, we, the readers, are expected to make of it what we will. We've seen a lot of worthy sources slammed and you know, anything positive can be argued to its negative if you happen to be arguing truths with a good con, a better con than yourself. Me, I don't take cons well, I don't know enough about anything to be good at debating the opposite side from which I stand which means I will fiercely defend the side on which I stand. A case in point would be a site I visited until recently, recently because I've since removed any reference to him, where the author took it upon himself to point out rudely why the views belonging to a noted member in good standing with our little love community here were flawed. This pissed me off no end because it was a con job in action revealing that the con artist had never taken the time to examine our friend's views in their entirety as well as revealing the con artist's motive which was to make himself appear all knowing, all seeing which to the best of my knowledge are not exactly human traits. "Out of context" hearsay does not make a case. Another example that comes to mind is one friend with some literary weight slamming another friend's blog, a tome of nothing but hard truth on the basis that the author was a heh, spook, like who cares? If spooks are telling truths, sign me up. Whenever I run into these things, its hurts me, saddens me, to see that so many forget what we are doing here at all. Now here we are on a new post today and I'm planning on using a few links for a little more in-depth analysis and I want to make it clear, please read them with your own interpretations. Put aside hearsay and pay attention to the content. That is all I ask, make up your mind about the content under discussion for yourself. Perhaps it is best to let go forming any opinions at all and just digest the material. After you do that long enough, an opinion will come about on its own and it will be all your's, no one else's. And once you have opinions based solely on your own interpretation, you will have something fairly close to the truth. It almost doesn't matter where the information comes from as long as you've taken in a broad spectrum so that a bigger picture emerges.

Here is a typically large batch of binary numbers representing a terrible truth from a source that is somewhat questionable only because they do not, for the most part, pass the famous Wikileaks litmus test. Yet, I go there anyway and very often find something worthwhile in the mix, which today is this essay by Hirose Takashi. It is translated from Japanese and a little sketchy at first, but the message is completely clear. I liken all of us busy or not so busy human beings doing whatever we do, however we do it, to life in the final days of Atlantis. In doing so and seeing ourselves as compassionate people, can you put yourself in the shoes (gaeta) of the Japanese? Try it. Imagination is integral to compassion. Feel it? There they are, living inside the bizarre circumstance of globalism along with the rest of the developed nations and doing the best they can, as we do, with the little they have, as we do, going about the business of ordinary life, as we do, until one normal evening suddenly everything not sucked into the giant washing machine of the homicidal tsunami went up in radioactive steam. For real, my friends, as the evacuation zone widens, more and more human beings are getting the word, you can never go home again. Worse, this condition is growing exponentially as the Pacific Plate refuses to settle down and the globe is dotted with egregious cauldrons of death. Adaptation to instant annihilation is a state of existence we need to explore and grow comfortable with since there is little doubt it will happen, at anytime, anywhere, which includes it happening to every one of us. This state of existence presently binds most of the Japanese population, whether its on the schmooze or not. In fact, when it is not stated or understated, it is deliberate because in the event all the innocent and trusting simple folk get the idea they've been super-conned, who knows what could happen? A lot more people know subliminally what is going on than we realize, be assured the deniers have made a pact with themselves not to think about it. It doesn't exist. Nuclear energy is the way of the future. That much IS true since in the future entire continents will be uninhabitable.

We are already bumping up hard against what is coming, its too obvious for the outspoken among us to stay silent for long. We are seeing the death of species, the land, the oceans, its too much to destroy all at once, and too hardy while seemingly delicate. Life is fragile after all. Without an Earth-sized asteroid crashing into our planet taking everything out at once, the hit and run style we are witnessing commits its own suicide, here, over there, in front of you and behind you. It is a miracle you have been spared to this moment. But will you be spared in the next? If we look too long, or dwell on impending and current disasters too often, are we setting our own table for disaster? No, when we look as long as we feel is necessary, we invite compassion into our hearts regardless of what may or may not happen to us.

Meanwhile, the mighty shuck and jive train keeps a rollin' as if Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun will come out tomorrow, its only a day away. Lots of money and a purchased judiciary make fine insulators from fate, temporarily I might add. Holograms, stunt men and tinseltown special FX don't have feelings or intelligence. You can, in your hour of need, like now, just tune it all out. Oh indeed, you have that magical ability unless you are being gang-raped in the hoosegow while under interrogation from hired mercenaries. Sometimes it appears our masters of the Universe would like us to feel sorry for them and sympathize with their shameful platter of impossibly difficult decisions. And certainly, it must be a hard thing to save the people, keep everyone calm, satisfy their needs, feed the hungry, the poor, if that was actually the case except its not. The Judas' shortcuts are too easy and convenience IS the hallmark of western democracies. These so-called democracies are the exact opposite of true democracy, which we could have had and will not live to see. We could have been great, we could have done it right, we could have had peace on Earth and good will instead we exist in a flimsy multi-generational toxic bubble readying to burst.

If you have ever seen some of the Discovery Channel documentaries on how life began you would be awed that we turned out in the forms we did. We could have taken any form, or shape, we could have had two heads for example although Nature is not random, Nature is too efficient knowing two heads would spend a lifetime trying to kill each other for sole control over the one body. Evolution an interesting concept to dwell on while you are struggling to keep your one head above water, what a silly little world we have made to play on, how cleverly ergonomic we are with our digitized hands built for survival the same way Mountain Goats' hoofs work for their survival and birds/insects wings allow them to fly to nutrition atop the tallest trees, but those fingers of mankind are useful for molding weaponry, pulling triggers, yanking the joystick, slaughtering whole families and thumb texting, overdeveloping and then calling in the wrecking ball, rather like building little communities with those tiny German toy blocks in the mesh bag complete with farm animals, schools, work buildings and clock towers. It was fun, wasn't it, until somebody came along and jackbooted it all sky high. Well, it wasn't permanent anyway, nothing is, with the exception of course, being love.

There is a remarkable Oak up in the mountains where we live, it has grown itself around an old stag, a former Oak, now a Woodpeckers' acorn bank. I previously posted it uncropped when the emphasis was on the newborn Lambs. Only lately have I stood under it to figure out just exactly what happened there. The whole ensemble stands as living proof that Nature has a will of its own, and yet the ignorance and lust of humans in this tawdry epoch never gave it the credence it deserves and now it is too late. This is no longer a matter of revolution against tyrants or undergoing a revolution within ourselves. Mankind has no power over the Tectonic plates. And, hey, while we're at it, tell me what power mankind has over the sea? As a longtime sailor I can tell you what we used to tell ourselves in dread weather, no land in sight, radio broken, lost in uncharted territory, down to half cup of water per day, dreaming I was on land and waking to see sunlight pouring in the hatch above my bunk knowing the dream was a brief escape from the living nightmare, you can survive the sea, but you can never master it. Which is very much the same place we find ourselves today, on or off land, wherever you happen to be. You might survive disaster, but you can never control it. Interpret that any way you want interspersing any conditions lying in the minefield of these times.

I recommend seeing a beautiful Mongolian documentary, The Weeping Camel. You can watch it in full at the site. Leaving our roots behind and following along with the nonsense of unlimited growth and progress while warring against those who do not participate, is just one, but likely the dominate fault causing our demise. The truth is we're not good enough to deserve this planet. We didn't love it enough, and now we are losing it.
Sayonara

Oaks and Lamb photograph, c. 2011 Deep into Artlife West
Weeping Camels Photograph by Juliane/nationalgeographic.com

darkness before the dawn

There used to be an amusement park ride called the Mad Mouse. There were bright colored two person mouse cars, someone belted in front and someone belted in back, on a roller coaster-style track, high up, sliding waaay down, the whole experience at breakneck speed. The Apocalypse kind of reminds me of this ride. We paid with our lives and we can't get off once it's started. This ride will jerk you around, take you to the top and dump you on a downhill race to the bottom only to careen sideways into a detour where the track abruptly ends, you back up and then you're gone again, faster, higher, twirling into a downward spiral, slamming into another detour, yanking back suddenly to the main track and so forth. It made a lot of people sick and sometimes pretty angry. I didn't really care for it either and went once to see what all the shouting was about and again, to confirm it was as bad as I remembered.

We are in a little lull right now, while one Apocalyptic disaster unfolds planet wide another is brewing, poised to shrink Fukushima as we exhaust ourselves racing ahead of simultaneous eruptions, i.e.; the crises of corruptions gone wrong, miscalculated, underestimated, excused, weakly justified, but lucrative and layered with complex levels of extreme profit. I am shell shocked, not about anything you would assume, but about the stunning, spectacular, overwhelming stupidity and lack of foresight which has created a world of in your face greeeeeeeeed. The hypocrisy knows no bounds and Iran has a lot of oil.

Who in their right mind celebrates the 150 year anniversary of the Civil War for example? Oh, yes, let's make a parade, bring on the fireworks, let's tear down the drapes and make velvet frocks with corsets laced tightly by our beaten, whipped, raped and Stockholm syndromed human possessions and then let's drink the fruited wines they made us and lie in rows upon the railroad tracks of ancient Terminus, now a gentrified shopping mall turned tourist attraction. A century and a half after the ugly facts, we come to find the same Wetikos hangin' round, still, working the same old stories of hate and paranoia. Its all too much for the love people, I can't imagine how the rest of you are handling the latest developments. I can barely open the plastic box anymore. To visit news sites or hear the pundits screeching in the background between grotesque, high pressure come-ons must be what it is to be insane, all of it mashed together as one long monotonous vision of obsequious fakery. Who do they think they're fooling? The burger set? Maybe as that set gorges its way to the recruitment hooks and perhaps a short half-life is a better life than the life of victims, children, elders, ordinary shack dwellers who never knew the land upon which the dust twists daily is Terminus all over again. At some point, lies backfire bringing on karma, Bring it on. The wait for love people is agonizing because we feel it coming, in spite of the decrees and altruistic covers designed to keep us in rags so our pockets have irreparable holes through which every penny dribbles out as if the single copper cent lying in our tracks is a sign around our necks "Take it, take it all, and take me too." Whenever I check in with the little box, its amazing to see everyone at it still. I ask why? What are you looking for that you don't already know? Perhaps you are looking for something you don't know, something impossible and suddenly, sigh, there it is. Hmmm.

How many nuke plants exist on Planet Earth? And is each a foil for Earth shattering weaponry too? Or just some of them? Like the allies. How would we know? We would not. Especially when every headline is about prostitutes' skeletons and sports doping or Charlie Sheen or heh, the movements taking place on the campaign trail. Or the budget deficit. That's a favorite, hunh. That'll keep all those nosy armchair economists glued to their screens, keep their noses out of things that really matter cuz we down here in Loveville don't have any economy left at all. When the Wetiko plan finally comes into full bloom, we'll go first because our entire lives have been gradually stripmined to make room for the gargantuan wallets of Monopoly (tm) money. Don't look now, but the little people everywhere, the love people, the love people in-training, the good and the innocent have either lost everything held dear to them or they are in the process of having it forced away through torture, radiation, disease, through lack of awareness, empty pockets and various interesting schemes in which the person victimized is not a consideration, never was and never will be.

Frankly, I confess to holding out some exceptionally small sliver of faint desire that there would be some vague turnaround of humanity by now, as in a general collective-unconscious looking for the bright side, oh, how foolish of me. In fact, what has been our collective life since the awakening of the Bu-ad godzilla is now our zeitgeist-in-full, rounded out, obtuse and obese. This is the way it is. Today and evermore until no more. And being that it is this way, what, I ask you, is there to look forward to? Ah, yes, at last, the plantation overseers are back in the saddle whipping the steed faster this time aided by monster technology and mushroom clouds. Dare you let on your anguish unless you want to see the new evaporation tool microwave your entire existence into instant ash and minuscule sprays of blood and mucus running in rivulets down that velvet dress.

Every single time the Wetikos turn on their campaign shows, I've always thought, hey, its too soon. You might have noticed its never too soon. Decades before the actual festivals begin, the presidential hologramed hopefuls are plotting four, eight, twelve years ahead. In between the vast, colorful ,nauseating, corporate-funded, chain-linked urban takeovers, we get to see our falling rock stars show themselves to never have been worthy of all that adulation. Is big business to be adulated? Must they leave us too early like Stevie Ray and Bob Marley in order to get out from under the giant Earthmover's dirt dripping claws? Leaving us to stand alone in shock and awe cherishing their memory, we point still to their example, how is that different than martyrdom? Surely there are secrets there too, better we do not know. We have too much already bringing us down and deeper. Why has no one come forward to state unequivocally we are in the thick of the energy wars, which are different than the turf wars of old in that those wars ended, why hide the motivation now, everyone knows what's up. Ten days ago I bought cheap gas for $4.09 pg. If that isn't a dead giveaway, I don't know what is. Who knew so many multitudes of so-called humans are pigs. Lipsticked. Armed to the teeth. Sporting comb overs resembling wet, used mops upside down over their skulls, perhaps that is a Wetiko thing to the tune of here today, gone tomorrow. Dancing with the stars, falling off the stage, who will Lady Gaga sue? What do you think Bristol pays in property taxes? Out of who's pocket? Do these ahem, people have underground bunkers equipped for twenty four thousand-years worth of privileged living? Listen, if you don't, you'd better think about what you're doing.

Often I ask myself who is driving this ship and what happened to them that they grew up with SFbrains, why would they parade and preen before media portraying themselves in possession of expert opinion, a deluxe opinion, the opinion of better, more skillful, superior, more worthy persons? That somehow they were finely crafted human Bentleys of excellence with extra-prescient perception where everyone apart from them is unworthy, evil, atheistic, witches and warlocks, to be feared and eliminated, out of sight, out of mind? Are they all abused children acting out, finally in position to "get their's"? That they were so ill-treated in youth ruined any possibility for the existence of compassion or clarity of values? No, it isn't that. I've known personally too many people with horrible back stories and lingering scars of abuse and found them to put truth to the idea suffering creates enlightenment, so deeply feeling, so deeply understanding of the plight of others for abuse to be a core reason. More likely it is obsessive power corrupting, creating laws by the minute overriding other laws created by competing powers, all of it designed to enrich and self-sustain while creating even more control, always selectively blind to the consequences because once tainted it turns to permanent stain out of all proportion to the original act - like Ponzi schemes, like serial killing. There can be no turnaround from here, its gone too far. It is illogical to trust planting a garden and going small and local as a means of fending off nuclear winter lying not too far in the future. Its not us driving this ship my friends, unfortunately the Captain rammed the iceberg out of choice and should the ship right itself, who is to say the first mate won't attempt to complete the effort? When you see these Wetikos making their Wetiko claims inspiring hatred, prejudice and egging on the Gods of war, you see a frightened little freak worried they will run out of gas in the dark on an unlit overpass crumbling into a swift moving river, wide and deep.