May your noses always sniff out evil.
Let us revisit overpopulation today. Survival Acres has a new post up that requires our attention. Do visit if you can clear the underbrush in your mind long enough to understand the immediacy of the situation. Clearing the mind is not exactly an easy accomplishment during the reelection dogfights, ah, such choiceless mockeries of mockeries, shams of shams, put them in the ring with the mopmen and pressing crowds in formal attire cheering for blood. Are these events even worthy of your attention? Oh please. I look at the past few hours being online as futile except for John's confirmation of what we already know and refused to voice, as stated earlier... We'd better get real and soon. Although, getting real isn't an effortless accomplishment either, humans have some weird optimism trigger that kicks on as worse turns to dire and dire turns to imminent. We've all experienced "the delay" in the face of disaster. For some few, it is extremely brief, for others, a "do anything other than act" sets in which shortly is nonverbally expressed as trust and faith someone else will save your ass.
I moved yet again a few weeks ago, thus the delay in getting up a new post. While it may be seen as a running from, actually it was a welcome relief to hang out with more welcoming, intelligent people, not that there is anything wrong with the desert crowd, but isolation serves to distort one's perspective on just about anything. Lesson learned: sharing is what its all about. I've been doing things I never would have done previously and these are things such as attending open air theater under the backdrop of illustrious Spring Mountain, shown above, and back-breaking weeding on the home landscape neglected for years due to typical citizens' daily routines of ten hour workdays and drive-in takeaway before supine exhaustion. The idea is to help where real help is needed. There is a swimming pool beneath the twelve foot high dandelion greens, which until recently formed a hanging jungle, all of which is gone now including dangerous dead undergrowth matted atop soil. I still have much to do so please bear with me for another few weeks. What is most amazing are the number of helicopters passing overhead. They pass by in parades succeeding one another by sometimes a mere sixty seconds. It goes on all day, probably at night too. These are not news helicopters, these are something else and I have no idea what they are doing yet I've seen them as far away as Hoover Dam which means they are further south and then who knows where else. I expect they will shortly turn into surveillance drones with trails conveniently blazed in advance of their arrival. You have to ask yourself, what is the point? Does illegal immigration matter anymore? It seems to have given nourishment to these insane cartels which I do not think our peeps can control geographically. Indeed, there is a long standing moral about this kind of activity, something about barn doors and horses escaping ...
Do we really need to be surveilled? Or is this whole effort a boon to the security/weapons industries in the way healthcare is a boon to mega-insurers? Considering the disaster rate, insurers could lose their pants immediately and live/breathe avoidance of payouts. Perhaps to counter further failure of global economies, they've been handed the medical/pharmaceutical industries as the lifeboat of all time to stay afloat in our stormy situation. And still more gilded life rings are passed around in spite of their obvious hastening of the planet's demise! Do you believe this? Is it even possible? I really do not want to accept this as truth. They are so off the wall in freely passing out destructive opportunities for financial gain they are either deaf, dumb and blind or they don't believe the very words out of their own mouths, like wooden dummies, seated on the knee of Satan, clucking sarcastically at the gullibility of the dirty unwashed, diseased, whining, broke and broken populations stuck into repetitive patterns of gimme gimme in all its indulgent guises.
The tragedy is to see it when it never should have happened and now it cannot be stopped. In 1963, forty-nine eventful years ago, my child self asked my mother if I could use her aerosol can of hairspray to which she replied, sighing, "Well, do what you want, its your world now." THEY KNEW THEN. And they know now. And they're never going to tell us either because mass chaos would ensue, the mass chaos that makes humanity the object of surveillance. Equally sad is the gross underestimation of humanities' inherent goodness. It is that part especially that stands out as you attempt to do something normal, something decent, like foodshopping or walking the dog, and you can't help but notice the fabric of society in vast disarray, everywhere, caring is for the stupid you know, you are supposed to be at home watching the stations' rotation of news casters, enjoying freecell on your cellphone and singling out those who are not in compliance with the program of delusion, instead of watching live scams go down block by block showing raw evidence of where the money is going and vanishing as some are obliviously unconcerned behind frescoed walls while others carry their domestic anguish into the street. It is my observation, money is always the root of all problems. It may not appear so, in fact it rarely will show itself, but look deeper. It refuses to be acknowledged because such a root would be so crass. When the means of exchange for goods and services turned into paper notes, our end was, from that moment on, written in the wind.
I certainly have enjoyed blogging with such a fine tribe of friends. I see no reason to stop just because we've been lied to, cheated out of the future, cheated in every which way, robbed, trashed, humiliated and scammed, carpet bagged and incarcerated from birth into perpetual falseness as lifetime clowns in sad face, lingering these last few years for the distant roar of the crowd, the GMO popcorn, the Lions, what is left of them, breaking from their master's whip to foist centuries of anger denied them upon the innocent and stupid as the seams burst from overcrowding while the news choppers tape it all for the six o'clock hour where disaster is just another breathless ploy to score ratings which attract paying sponsors.
Jah Guide - and be the good person that you are regardless of circumstance. Do the right thing every time. Blessings abound.
35 comments:
Hi Nina,
Yup, survival acres has another good take on doom.
I sort of feel sorry for those folks with enough money to buy underground living when events finally catch up to us. What? To live for generations underground? Now there is something to look forward to. And, just what would they emerge to anyway?
I reckon it's time to get right with the universe, whatever that entails.
I guess that old homely "you made your bed, now sleep in it" has more meaning in today's world.
I feel sorry for them too. If it hasn't got windows and a porch to look at the stars, its just a another tomb.
I don't think a day passes when human extinction, and the temporal and spiritual implications, don't pass through my mind. We have already for a long time become aware of the rate of plant and animal species extinction, and our grief and sorrow has watered the earth daily for many years now. I keep on keepin on, not in denial or disbelief of the clear and documented evidence, but because of being unquestionably convinced of a personal 'destiny' to both 'be here' for the duration and to experience and revel as much as possible in the omni-sensual beauty of everything that's natural. When I bottom out in despair, there's always a reminder that shows up, and further convinces me of the divine order and 'leela' underlying our experiences.
I also just personally don't feel that 'overpopulation' is the 'root' of the problem, but that it is but a side-effect and symptom of a deeper root related to evil forces corrupting and attempting to destroy our indigenous souls via trauma and social engineering. How would it look here if there were 7 billion living sane and reverently in livity? What would it look like if, hell, humans had somehow in the past been victorious over the wetiko plague and remained in close collaboration with all the other life-forms in a way that balanced out all the species' populations, as well as continuing the evolution of real cultures? Anyway, maintenance of population balance in both human and animal tribes is well known in both the indigenous and scientific worlds. Maybe that whole scenario was/is the original vision in the mind of Gaia?
What blows my mind is the amount of alt-media disinfo, denial, and justification for the continuation of all the wacked-out insane practices going on day in and day out. And there really is no other sane option but to spread the truth of the situation by any means possible, while at the same time following one's own path of balance, simplicity, spiritual evolution, and overstanding with as much intensity as possible. Not manic intensity, but the intensity of the here and now, and the finding of your own source. Anyway, that's how I try to roll.
A couple of women and I did a wildlife lec-dem day before yesterday in our town, and we were pumped for it. The falcon, kestrel, great-horned owl, burrow owl, and the bull-snake were all consummate little showmen, and nothing compares to the excitement, comprehension, and ecstasy of little kids gettin to be up close to and look into the eyes of raw wildness. You know it'll stay with them forever.
Giving a drum lesson yesterday allowed me to throw down another piece of human culture for a young lady who is a music director for the schools. So, on it goes. I do the best I can. Some things continue, I believe, no matter where 'we' end up, in time and space.
The Hopi have also been telling us for years of their several previous sojourns underground for generations and their subsequent emergences, so there's a lot of deep mystery around this cosmic moment.
onelove to the righteous Tribe
"Too big to fail" takes on a whole new meaning when the big things we face are planetary disasters in one form or another. In fair weather or foul, the mortal coil only lasts so long, and then the trip is over. We're all getting a major lesson in personal authenticity and non-attatchment, which is always much easier said than done.
Best of luck to everyone.
Where one path ends, myriad others begin. The natural world always finds a way to new connections. Eywa's way of endlessly providing new opportunities and possibilities for life to carry on. So here in this image ( an algae mat in Yellowstone ) I see a worthy template for living, and wisdom :-)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotspringswizard/7474535262/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Excellent observation you have made Bholanath :-)
I'm currently reading the book, Choosing Simplicity, which discusses the experience and ideas of many participants in a study done by the auther ( Linda Breen Pierce )where she solicited ideas from contributors to share their " life simplification " endeavors.
One thing most definitely gleaned from it all, the simplified life means many differant things, depending on the vast variety of people, their unique circumstances and interest. Its certainly not a case of " one size fits all " when one seeks a more fullfilling life lived more simply.
I think in the image below is more guidance of the way forward for each of us. Other living beings are showing us the beauty and virtues of ways of being that are in balance with all things in the greater mesmerizing web of our magnificent cosmos :-)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotspringswizard/7469991566/sizes/l/in/photostream/
We have Dish TV and one channel I frequently look at is the Dish Earth channel, which shows the view from a geo-stationary satelite looking down from 22,000 feet, basically above the equator and North America is always seen in the upper top of the globe.
Best time to view it is mid-day when there is the most to be seen in a clear way. There is relaxing and pleasant music always playing with the constant live image. As the earth is turning at roughly 1,000 miles per hour I and my wife have both concurred that there seems to be just a noticeable/perceptible turning of the earth in the image, from left to right.
I'll just look at that beautiful image for some minutes listening to the music and it really has a way of putting things of " real " importance in perspective. All of the ills/travils of the human organism are not even a thing of notice when it comes to this point of view. Then turn aroun and look out into the infinity beyond our little blue island orb and the relative gravity/importance of things human melt away like some ephemeral vapor :-)
Regarding that satelite image, I was just realizing that the turning me and my wife think we see in the earth has to be an illusion, as the view is from a geo-stationary perspective. Funny that it appeared to both of us that there was movement :-)
"Become the most beautiful small thing you can." - Martin Prechtel
As we speak, the pool is filling up.
It is often said the mind can hold two points of view simultanously.
If we are always honest and forthright in any endeavor, any response, it matters none how much time is left. That's what we're here for anyway, to get it right and correct the bad karma.
We are not the first and won't be the last. There are a lot of former Earths out there and new beginners. What is happening seems to be how we vanish with our story. We all know well the reasons why it happens, a psychotic epidemic starts and the Sun's heavenly machinery of demise sends back to us all it will no longer take. Then Earth burns. You've heard of Mars? They say they found water underground recently. One day something will say the same about Spring Mountain.
Perhaps black holes are super chargers for dead planets and ill Suns sucked though for rebirth.
Here is a great CD, which would be just perfect if one were sitting next to this Zen Pool of smooth stones :-)
http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Mind-1-Calling-Wisdom/dp/B0001IXST6
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotspringswizard/7470119656/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Music has always been a great inspiring force in my life :-)
We owe our thanks to Gaia for the arrangement and to you HSW, for paying attention and calling it to ours.
Going for all three "Peace of Minds."
The nice thing about Amazon's used is, so far, they are equal to new and most times arrive faster. The ratings tell the tale.
I went for the used price on a pair of darkers and they came in two days, sweetly labeled in pencil by a human hand and all of it wrapped securely, all around, in duct tape. The darkers were brand spankin' new!
If you are north of Hoover Dam I am thinking there is not too much green around that area. It is kind of like the moon. It is a little more green than Yuma but not much.
There are at least some springs around Spring Mountain. It is a pretty area though.
Dubs, Its also like the moon south of the Hoover Dam too. Here is a photo I took this summer at the upper end of Lake Mojave, which is downstream about 30 miles from the dam:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotspringswizard/7180393052/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Nina, I have Peace Of Mind 1 and 3, and will be getting 2 shortly since I found the others to be so excellent. I think you will thorougly enjoy them all :-) I also have been getting the used ones when they are available, and have had no problems at all with them. Like you said they come usually very quickly. Amazing to get great music for only 2-3 bucks on some items!
Dubs, that is right. Its a false green from a distance, close up it is scrub, grit, pebbly, creosote bush, Yucca/Joshua and Agave in all their variations, all the way into the foothills and the mountains have very little or no vegetation. The visual phenomena of pools of water where there is none is very interesting. Urban concentrations kind of signal the divide between those who don't know or don't care and those who do by their lawn treatments because lush grass cannot grow naturally in this geography. To get the "Green", tons of water and chemicals are required day in day out.
This brings up the air conditioning situation, I'm convinced these SW cities should be using swamp coolers, but so far no takers. Weird, right? If the SW cities are moving away from green into adobe and clay, you would think they'd also see swamp coolers as FAR less burden on the grid and incredibly inexpensive. The cost to run one is truly negligble and they are so effective you have to turn them off overnight.
Beautiful shot Wizzy, a classic. Sparse vegetation, rich blue sky, deep water and the rocks reflecting the story of wind.
HSW this one is for you. I accordance with the book you are reading
http://www.homestead.org/BarbaraBambergerScott/WandaUrbanska/Simplicity.htm
Pool party.
Z
ZiderZee, I love the way you think.
Thanks for that link to the article about Wanda :-) That you Scrap? I have read Less Is More, and it provides excellent insights into the ideas of living simpler, more rewarding and sustainable lives. There are many common themes to just what this endeavor involves/means, and with these basic guidlines each person can use them to model their own unique way to simplicity of being/living.
Nina, regarding swamp coolers, there are many folks in the south west that use them, but as per your observation the predominant way of cooling is the use of the expensive electric type with their condensers.
When I built our home, I installed both a swamp cooling system and the more expensive type too. For home resale considerations most folks do not like the swamp coolers even though they require much less energy/expense to cool your home.
We have been living in our new home since 2004, and have never used our expensive electric cooling system and we have rarely used our swamp cooler system either, the later maybe a weeks worth any given summer. Last summer ( cooler than normal ) we didn't use either of them.
We live in the hot high desert, so of course you are wondering how we get away with this. I built a home with a very large actic space. The trusses across the whole of our home and large back patio, of a basically square home layout, are 65 feet with a 4 and 12 pitch, so in the middle of the home the roof is roughly 11 feet above the interior room ceiling, this way the heat is kept away from the house interior.
The full length of the east side of the home has a patio covered by the same trusses, and combined with the steep rocky mountain just east of the house, it means that essentially the sunlight never hits the house walls there. And there is a similiar situation for the west facing side of the house. In the summers the angle of the sun is basically overhead so the north side of the home gets no sunlight, and the south is only hit from a steep angle, less heat.
I also installed 24 roof vents of various types which allow the built up attic heat to escape easily. In the evenings when the outside temperature drops below the home inside temperature we open up all the windows of the house and I place three of those cheaply run box fans in windows where any natural breezes of the day will work with them efficiently to flow air through the house. Nights when there are good breezes the fans are not necesary.
In the mornings just before the sun hits the house I make the rounds and close up all the windows. In doing these things combined with the house construction features I mentioned, we maintain reasonbly comfortable temps in the summer. Even on the hottest days when its 100-110 the interior home will only get up to around the mid 80,s in temp.
continued
The temps from night to day move gradually from roughly the high 60's depending on the weather to the 70's or 80,s, and I beleive its better for the body to transition more slowly like this through the temperature range throughout the day.
And when the interior is the warmest in the home, I also installed ceiling fans in every room which provide additional cooling depending on where in the home you are spending time. In addition we have a 15 round above ground pool in the back yard we use often in the summer, of course :-)
So with these things I also signed up for a program with the electirc provider ( edison ) that provides a summer credit towards your bill. What they do is attach a device to your cooling condenser ( we have two because our home size required two seperate electric systems ) which allows the utility to cut off your air conditioner during peak usage times. Since we don't use our electric cooler, it doesn't affect us anyway. We signed up for the level of the program that provided the largest credit. Thus far what this amounts to in billing is that our cost for the whole four months of the hot summers is around $60, total, for reals!
Our neighbor on the other hand run their expensive air conditioner practically all the time in the summer, 24/7. Their bill each month is probably in the realm of a small mortgage payment :-(
So the lesson here is that there are legitimate ways to beat the heat, even in the hot desert like where we live. I also built into our home the means to go through the winters rather affordably too. We have the standard propane gas heating system ( unfortunately required by building codes just like the electic cooling system ), but we have never used it. I built in thicker walls with thicker insulation there and in the ceilings. We have high quility double pane windows, and all home spaces are sealed well from outside air intrusions. Ceiling light fixture are of a type so that warm air is kept from escaping into the attic. We do have a wood stove and thats what we use all winter, along with utilizing a couple of well placed, cheaply run box fans to circulate warm air to needed areas of the home. I really love seeing the flickering firelight in the large stove glass window :-)
I will come help you weed -
then we will drink mint tea in the shade.
then play with the animals.
then laugh our selves silly.
there is so much to be angry about -
yet there is more to be grateful for.
love you all.
Hi Nina,
I read up on Pol Pot yesterday. I always was taught to believe that he was some kind of a monster. When I read about his life, however, I thought, as I usually do when I consider the course of people who dare to make revolution, that he probably must have been, at least initially, courageous and well-intentioned. After he stepped forward to the choice of violence, it seems to have been a blizzard of struggles with agents on all sides, all of whom were also willing to kill for their agendas. It was sobering to contemplate. In that time and part of the world, the squeeze was on over the price of rice. Even simple agrarian peasant life was a field of terror, no drones necessary, with groups vying and killing for what seems from my privileged position to be "peanuts." I find myself hoping often for the "great reset," the crash of the paper world, but my vision is a naive one, because I tend to think that the catharsis will be exciting and the pain brief. I tend to underestimate the squeezing power of the pain-vice of this world.
The HYDRA is formidable.
On a hopeful and inspiring note, I just got Masanobu Fukuoka's latest work, SOWING SEEDS IN THE DESERT, and recommend it highly. The guy was fucking lucid! Also inspiring is the book, A DIFFERENT KIND OF LUXURY, containing profiles of people in Japan who are creating lives made out of a blend of art and simple agriculture.
I recently was in Italy and Sicily checking things out, weighing the "what if" of getting an old stone small house on a small piece land. But these people are Catholics and Mafia, so I'm not sure I fit in very well, haha! I am also considering Southern hemisphere locations like Ecuador, etc. Or India...Restless.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that A DIFFERENT KIND OF LUXURY came out just about the time Fukushima happened...ironically, most of the people in it met the author in the course of their involvements in anti-nuke political/social organizing in Japan previous to that disaster.
On the subject of Hot Springs which is frequently covered here, an interesting local development:
I heard yesterday that ownership of the Springs located 10 minutes from where I stay will be ceremonially returned to the local Pueblo tribe next Monday, after perhaps centuries of shifting status. Elder natives recall frequent tribal pilgrimages for ceremonies in 'the old days'. Locals generally feel it won't entail radical changes, but perhaps will be 'closed' occasionally for tribal purposes. I'm totally OK with the whole thing. Probably most hot springs of Turtle Island were once sacred ceremonial sites, and if some of that vibe is returned to replace the drunken tourist parties, that sounds good to me. We will see what the 'war-chief's council' comes up with in coming days.
onelove
I'm also reading Sowing Seeds in the Desert and recommend it highly. It is lucid and at times my equilibrium takes a knock! This absolute clarity and lucidity that I'm reading and what I see and sense around me - makes me quite dizzy (grins).
I wish someone had asked the hot springs, they might just be OK with that earnest dissipation, and not so much being demanding of something that is no longer being given, these days. It is not good to anger them. That is given to the vision pits that have eroded, or erased.
Now, tunnels, that is some negotiation, but surface things see what they will see.
That place, welll, there are some things that remain, only for shield teachers, mound priests, and others that this place wants to never happen. Not public, just wait for it, things will hide, not for any waste, just for invited ones.
I see Mr Greer is sharing some ideas about air conditioning in his most recent post today:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
The Wrong Kind of Magic
....Human beings evolved in an equatorial zone, without air conditioners, and billions of us get by in very hot climates without them today; given the opportunity to adapt, the human body can handle hot and humid conditions easily....
No need for air conditioning here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotspringswizard/7469960346/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Grand Teton is the pointed mountain in the middle :-)
From Brian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXJwNSkdTH0
Thank you.
Hello Nina...If you haven't read VivekAnands link to Cosmic Convergence, now is the time....OMEN indeed!....onelove
When you put your mind to such a simple, innocent thing, for example, as making a water color, you lose some of the anguish which derives from being a member of a world gone mad. Whether you paint flowers, stars, horses or angels you acquire respect and admiration for all the elements which go to make up our universe. You don’t call flowers friends, and stars enemies, or horses Communists and angels Fascists. You accept them for what they are, and you praise god that they are what they are. You desist from improving the world or even yourself. You learn to see not what you want to see but what is. And what is is usually a thousand times better than what might be or ought to be.
If we could stop tampering with the universe we might find it a far better world than we think it to be. After all, we’ve only occupied it a few hundred million years, which is to say that we are just beginning to get acquainted with it. And if we continue another billion years there is nothing to assure us that we will eventually know it. In the beginning as in the end, it remains a mystery. And the mystery exists or thrives in every smallest part of the universe. It has nothing to do with the size or, with grandeur or remoteness. Everything hinges upon how you look at things.
Henry Miller
Hi Nina:
Love the story about you, the hairspray (so novel back then!) and your Mom's reply. Glad you got through the move and have a pool. That is a miracle to enjoy, especially at dusk.... thanks for pitching my books so faithfully. I am perfectly happy if you feature others books in a revolving display or something....
A revolving display is a wonderful idea for whenever I get around to changing the blog's appearance, that may be coming soon. Thank you Charles! I promise to include more stories for you too.
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For readers, here is a superior link from Charles's newsletter: Guitarist plays 100 famous guitar riffs in one take
Scrap, the Henry Miller quote, thank you. I love it. I've often said how difficult it is for painters, even blind painters, to break away from what they think something looks like vs getting into it up close and discovering what it really is and does and its reason for being. The best works start there.
New post up:
dark clouds, silver linings
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