Anything can happen

So much trouble in the world
So much trouble in the world

Bless my eyes this morning
Jah sun is on the rise once again
The way earthly thin's are goin'
Anything can happen.

You see men sailing on their ego trip,
Blast off on their spaceship,
Million miles from reality:
No care for you, no care for me.

So much trouble in the world;
So much trouble in the world...

Yes I.  Indeed.  Anything can happen ... and will and does.  As you know well, by now, at this time in this form in this particular go around on this spectacular Earthly plane.

Imagine, for example, what the next leaders of the multitudes of lives and lifestyles within our geography will be doing at their polished desks among all the rare antiquities surrounded by their special chosen Cabinet. Think about how they think of you - and then think about the generations to come.

Are we in agreement that it is absurd that the legal personhoods continue to flood coastal cities with waterfront development?  We wonder if the Blonde vs. Blonde voting populations also find it absurd.  I think not.  With one, we get to be subjects of the Roman Empire on Steroids, with the other, slave gladiators.  As in anything can happen perhaps nothing like what I've just described will happen. Judging by the American experience since WW2, a good bet would be no positive change, but an exponential growth of what we already have and see now - which will, naturally, unfold rapidly since this is how they already do it, momentum is increased at every opportunity and the opportunities are unlimited.  My friends, we are in uncharted territory. 

UNLESS

You see it for what you always saw it, lodged in buildings built by slaves housing the slickest of the slick, where they do what they think are slick things.  These things are rarely in and nowhere near our favor because people who make rules always make rules in their favor whether they know it or not.  Their favor means anything further separating them from those who are disfavored, be it status, power, visibility or loyalties favoring all whom they perceive to be just like themselves.

To live a happy life, forget about them and enjoy JAH suns and moons. Teach the children love and compassion.  Stay with your own creativity, it never fails to keep you high and away, above the BS and free.  Keep your mind open and learning.  Stay away from judgements, instead look for the overview. 

Surely there are many who sacrifice enjoying a happy life out of sheer gluttony for status, power and visibility.  They made their choices long ago and we should not expect them to change now, therefore, it is up to us to live our happy lives as best we can.  By using the term "happy life", I mean living a life in which you respect your own existence and everyone else's also.  If you have love for yourself, it radiates into everything you do, everyone you see, all species you come across, not just those with whom you are already close, but the "strangers" you frequently meet in your journey. More often than not, I am a little shocked and pleased to find new like minds where I never thought I would.  For Izzy who commented on our last post he wished it was easier to find like minds off line as it is for him online, I would think the more time you can spend offline, the more you give of yourself, you come across like minds.  Another thing that must be stated about happy lives isn't exactly Izzy's issue as he stated it, rather it is a common trait among human beings to create a pattern in the unconscious mind of just how a stranger must appear and sound in order to communicate with them.  It is extraordinarily beneficial to recognize that trait is a survival throwback to the dawn of Humankind and has virtually no basis in your mission on Earth within the Heavens.  All uncharted territory is opportunity.





Verse: So Much Trouble In The World
Bob Marley & The Wailers, from Songs of Freedom

the catalytic converter model of progress

There are no coincidences.  Keep that in mind when nine eleven's ten year global observance ceremonies come round.  We will be told the alerts are way up there, they will rub Breveik, Loughner and Ft. Hood in our faces while never mentioning Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Following the bomb's birth from Enola Gay's belly, right away the victorious occupiers began a study, now documented in the National Geographic Explorer series "The First 24 Hours After Hiroshima" as if it was an altruistic thing, a study concerning exactly what happens to detonation sites aka Ground Zeroes, for the good of the future.  I'll say that again so you can interpret what that was supposed to mean in the year 1945 AD ... The-Good-of-the-Future.  You would think, wouldn't you, having researched and tested and retested the incredible damage done to life and infrastructure from genocidal weapons of mass destruction that there would be no such thing as a Nuclear Lobby and nuclear power plants, anywhere.  But the satanic treasure chests these things bring forth have a hold like none other.  It is hard impossible for us to find anything altruistic and progressive about what was and is happening.  It is my hunch, Fukushima is played down because not only will the truth crush already waning public opinion, but also the Japanese don't want us with our gifts that keep on giving, anywhere around.  Certainly, plenty of people in Japan are reliving the hell on Earth they experienced as infants... all over again.

Regarding recent comments on "Simplicity" during our last posting here, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima, and all the people purchasing and using dosimeters, losing their homes and livelihoods, their families and their faith and the many who are already ill and dying of radiation poisoning, and for the remainder of their lifetimes live in paranoia cancer will one day take them down, birth defects, contaminated food, NONE of it had to happen, even Somalia's famine did not have to happen IF we had been a loving, compassionate, spiritual people from the start.  Now we have layer upon layer of unnecessary complexity (©John Michael Greer) jamming up the works so that nothing flows smoothly or efficiently.  Its almost as if we grew catalytic converters out of the tops of our heads to survive the Twentieth Century and no one pointed out how absurd and unnecessary it was so we went further and built monolithic exploding catalytic converters in  every vacancy the money was available to pay for it, and if the money wasn't there, the IMF was.  This is insane because a catalytic converter does not make a vehicle's engine run.  It is an unnecessary and expensive "part" that must be rigorously inspected every year or two depending on your state's DMV requirements in order to register a vehicle (again, that does not need it to "go") to be deemed legal, i.e.; free from impounding.  (Mandate alert) This analogy is only one of billions cataloging unnecessary parts, actions, expenses, activities, employments and improvements in progress, growth and market opportunities that make life for everyone a Brillo scathing hell on Earth.

Not a day passes in our lives we are not somehow impacted by senseless tragedy.  Every dead animal run over on our streets is another senseless tragedy.  Make way, its Man!  Run, run.

For the past two days there has been a curious discussion for the masses started by a NYT opinion columnist's piece concerning angry space aliens warring with Earthlings because we trashed this place and our trash threatens the balance of the galaxy.  The MSM is having a diversionary heyday with the idea.  Little do they realize how close to the truth they may well be.  Unfortunately, it is just another PR trick to 1. divert public attention and 2. deny responsibility.  Aliens have every right to be angry and you'd better believe if they were warring with us, you would not need the MSM to carry on in satire to tell you about it from their moral depths of sheer depravity and lush experiences rewriting history to suit the victors.

How can anyone call themselves a victor anyway when to achieve that label, entire nations lose everything?  Collateral damage is a nation.  There is no such thing as blowing up a region without civilian deaths, even at testing sites, if the bomb doesn't kill them, cancer will.  They have yet to design a selective bomb affecting solely combatants no matter how many joystick jockeys wearing cammies and jackboots guide the drones. Does it make the Victors feel good to kill and mutilate, is that feeling good the feeling of victory, pride, honor and glory?  Let's get real here my friends, those are not feelings descriptive of anything remotely simple, humble or compassionate.  Those feelings are only more of the full-on twenty first-century advancement in the catalytic converter model of progress.

For an exercise in what you do not need in order to live a kind and decent life, look around you at this very minute and count the many things, elements, situations, behaviors in your very own location of the moment that you do not need for your survival.  While I have said here many times we can boil the righting of most everything wrong down to Do No Harm, we should add to that:  Do No Harm and Unburden Yourself of Excess.  Be ready for anything, unconsciously, while everything you attempt becomes itself, doing it so perfection in action is achieved as you and "the attempting you" are integrated in the simplicity of one streamlined model of natural efficiency.

Has anyone read Eugen [sic] Herrigel's Zen and the Art of Archery?  Highly recommended.  You can find references to it, but good luck locating the work.  Just as wonderful is Gilbert Highet's The Mystery of Zen describing Herrigel's journey into archery under the tutelage of a Zen Master.  Again, that work appears to be only available in the Norton Anthologies, compilations of brilliant stories and essays, most of which are not available online.  If you should come across either work, you will discover a beautiful way to think about not thinking unnecessary thoughts and integration of your actions into the activity itself. 


Here is a very simple thing: The Wildlife Center in New Mexico needs our help.  As a wildlife lover, I have an insatiable desire to give over to the cause and ask you to join me.  This summer's horrific fires created a deluge of wildlife in need and we must help however, wherever possible.  While you are downsizing your lifestyles, please consider sending your extras to the location where they will be most useful.

The following is a quote from Cheryl at the Wildlife Center:

... For those interested in monetary donations, checks can be mailed to The Wildlife Center ... or donations can be made via PayPal on our website ...  For those who wish to donate food and other supplies, here is a current list of needs.  If somebody wants to donate produce, please have them check with us prior to purchase to ensure we don’t have too much of one thing on any given day, as some items cannot be frozen ...

          Dry kibble dog food – puppy and adult
·         Dark leafy greens (no iceberg or cabbage)
·         Celery
·         Carrots
·         Grapes
·         Bananas
·         Apples, other fruit
·         Honey
·         Gerber Rice Cereal Boxes
·         Apple sauce
·         Frozen mixed veggies (NO LIMA BEANS!)
·         Wild Dove Food (PetSmart)
·         Finch and Canary Seed (PetSmart)
·         Wild Bird Seed (limited amounts)
·         Bleach
·         Powdered Laundry Detergent
·         Paper Towels
·         Ziploc Bags – Freezer, Quart and Gallon
·         Copy paper

My note:  If you can get produce shipped with a one day delivery it might work, otherwise, I'd go for the less perishable items on the list. Injured bears are the heavy users of dry dog food. Our Animals and Avian bredren are gravely suffering and we must make it up to them or we will lose them forever.   Address, email, etc. at the website.

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

fever in the funk house

... Work and work for love and sex
Ain't you hungry for success, success, success, success
Does it matter? (Shattered) Does it matter?...
M. Jagger | K. Richards

It may be the wrong time to make a new entry here, or not.  Comments are still rolling along on the last one, I'm enjoying them, but we hardly talk about the posts, we always stray.  Therefore, I appreciate it when someone refers to the post in their comment, although that in no way negates the amazing things passing across our horizon having little to do with anything posted on this page that come around on each post's comment page.  I know I am just as guilty of going off topic as you are.  Our interests are remarkably varied and who can deny the abundance of things that require group discussion, especially in the Revealing?  A perfect example of what I mean would be Susanah's "home school or unschool" dilemma, or our Rasta's mastery of survival on his rain-riddled Jamaican property. This so called "blog" in more than a few ways is a mystery to me.  It almost self-sustains.  In the past, when comments slowed to a halt, I took it as a sign it was time to speak up.  Now, I don't know.  It is just a feeling that those who lurk and never break into the conversation would like to see something in this space, more than links to other blogs, more than changing art and photos.  And by this time, the other feeling that interferes with the first, I've learned that this is the wrong time of day to do what I find myself doing.  I have routines, like taking Bernie out, taking a treat to Chip the Appaloosa, bringing wheelbarrows of logs to the deck for easy reach as evening temperature drop and drop ... however, that gets solved in the same manner as always, I'm going to skip and jump around.  It may all turn out incomprehensibly off the wall as each new paragraph has nothing to do with the last, since I will likely recall  something important while pulling Bernie the Basset, translated bred  to be a bunny hunter, away from his intended prey.  I usually come to you late at night after the house is sleeping.  Today, I'm taking advantage of the last few mild days of fall before the snow descends and Arctic parkas must be snapped and zipped before stepping into the fog.  Besides, there is just too much to nail down in one post.  Its too much.  Overkill kills.  Life is now some low budget late night Halloween horror flick where the dude's head spins and his eyeballs fall in and out on springs as Darth inflicts perfectly legal steroidal blows drawing blood, prolapsing organs.

Charles is right again when he says what we have here is special.  Do you know how comfy it is to be able to say "my hard drive meltdown" and have everyone know what I mean?  BTW, our beloved bolanath is in that Vanilla Sky free fall at this time as well, but he assures me he has it under control for a soft landing.  Techology has its flaws.  Every now and then one of us crashes hard and it disrupts everything in our routines.  Then we gotta scramble and think and rework our values - again.  I still have not completely recovered having lost my very tidy painting system by way of the dog chewed printer cord, the loss of photoshop, hundreds of important links and only the Creator knows how many people's email addresses were fried.  But when we want something badly enough, we make do.  We workaround.  All of life is a workaround.  Tedious, laughable, infuriating, but bolstered by a barrier I refuse to cross which is that of regret over our personal tragedies, losses, unfortuate circumstances which are usually unfortunate only to us.  When that waste of energy creeps up, its best to concentrate on Haiti and Pakistan and earthquakes and floods and cholera and the idiocy of abundant medical supplies locked up only released to victims by having an official review of the paperwork generated by a healthy caseworker who takes no for an answer.  Lunacy.  Heartbreaking.  Are these things by design?  I don't know.  I only know from a few experiences with people who do casework and all of them were amazingly negligent personalities who resolved nothing.

The local and distant voting brawls are in crescendo this week.  I'm getting at least two pounds of glossy coated stock squeezed into the rural gangbox daily.  The printers and paper manufacturers and shippers are making a killing off this stuff.  My tip to them in order to further enrich themselves would be to haunt municipal dumps and recycle the trash. 

The only one I actually opened was one from the Meg Whitman circular file stack because she included photos of herself as a youth.  She was actually a beautiful young woman, you could see dreams in her eyes portrayed as a person of high integrity and inviolate truths.  And now, look what happened.  It is beyond sad that someone running for office is so desperate they resort to advertising their gubanatorial potential through depictions of a blond bombshell representative-self that no longer exists.  Is that how we got Arnold?  Mister muscle moviestar?  Is that how we got Obama?  When its all said and done is it just all (secretly) about physical appearances?  This is too gauche to mention, isn't it.  And Sarah Palin, murderer of wildlife?  This is what I meant about politicians being celebrities, they've managed to edge over the celebrities of tinseltown, it is fairly recent, likely by way of course, with shows like the repulsive, loud and painful Cops and broke municipalities scarfing at the stockyard auctions.  Rulers must rule or they are not rulers at all and will be subject, like everyone else, including wealthy actors/actresses, to the rules.  Sorry to bring that up, all the pillars of our old social order crumbled.  Every once in a while a ruler crosses the line into being ruled as a show there isn't really any discrimination to it, but you'll notice these marks victims are all back in action in the semi-elusive time frame of the short memory media as if no one really toe-tapped in the men's room or made love to someone not his lawful wife on a powerboat gliding over Bahamian waters.  Such Monkey Business is just another part of the new normal.  If you pay attention you'll see what I mean.  In the days of real rulers, people were drawn and quartered for less.  Now, in the new normal, astounding heights of real wrongdoing are on display every single day and the rulers of every stripe show themselves affected fundamentally with a necrotic case of double standards.  Why would anybody want to be a ruler?  Why would anyone spend billions on becoming a ruler?  It means they have completely lost their humility which explains a lot about the rules and the new rules they so love to create in showing their possession of ruling power.  Rules which change Nothing for the incessant flow of our collective humanity funneled into the pockets of those rulers breathing-in that rarified oxygen wafting across the pinnacle of civilization's most magnificent achievements.  No my friends, we live in Nancy Grace world these days, our new normal sponsored by Mussolini's nightmares and Jim Jones final hours.  I predict a drug will be introduced at some time in the not too distant future that wipes out memory, although the overload of media might well be that drug.  It bears all the hallmarks ... one trick to overcome the soma (In "Brave New World" (1932), the name of a state-dispensed narcotic producing euphoria and hallucination.) is go right to the last paragraph where it says something like the informant-turned-criminal cooperated with instructions.  Another would be to ask yourself "Does it physically hurt your own head when a protester's head is smashed by boot-stompings against the pavement?" 

A particularly irksome flaw in technology's short lifespan beyond the breakability of plastic parts and overheating CPU fans is the immediacy with which it outdates itself.  In spite of all the claims and rave reviews and beta tests and glowing comparisons to competitor products, it still isn't enough.  It must spawn new versions or become obsolete as unrealistic growth projections demand more - even though targeted consumer blocks are broke and looking towards hyperinflation.  We saw this interestingly with the extinction of XP (gone for good alert), replaced by Vista replaced by WIN7 while Chrome advertises on our websearches.  We saw this with the VCR.  We see this with cell phones as videocams and qwerty keyboards for those who can't text fast enough before their thoughts evaporate.  You might notice that the people associated with these advances are morphing into celebrity personalities worthy of headlines and entire sections in the media.  HP boss come lately caught in sexual harrassment allegations, oh, Meg Whitman would never do that.  We are to think she is the rare irreplaceable, ruler in waiting.

Its all too much to cast the Indigenous Grandmother's healing Net of Light over all of them and our remaining resources, although its certainly worth trying.  I have found through various efforts the best time to do it is when you begin meditation.  Actually, it takes you  into meditation as you are in tune with one love, one heart, relaxed in limb and wide open in mind.  Its best to do it in darkness, moonlight is good as are stars whether you are outdoors or inside.  There is something about the dark that allows the trillions of tiny lights within the net you are envisioning that illuminates and throws down negative forces, falseness, paltry and petty cancers of the soul, the growing void of living, loving, innocent bounty thriving on this planet.  The Net seems to work for everything you direct it toward, healing, compassion and overstanding.

And now, I hear the beginning of rumblings as the males ask in their various approaches, guinea pig wheeks, dog paws, nosings at the ankle, the Fireteacher peering into the fridge, "What's for dinner?"  I say a grace tonight for all those who have nothing to eat.

... end transmission ...

Post title from Exile on Main Street, Jagger | Richards

What are we doing?

One day I just won't do this anymore. Call me a self-hating blogger. Considering the amount of time spent surfing during a typical week, my headstone will read "nina, Blogger", that is if I get a headstone vs. an Amadeus paupers' crater. And yet, that would not be a bad thing. It would be a terrible thing to be buried in steel and gilded plastic. AGHHHHH. The contents of such expensive, claustrophobic casing doesn't allow the body to break down naturally into the process required to complete the journey above ground as one rejoins with Mother Earth's system. How thrilling it would be to have memory during the process and find myself a lucky acorn fallen into some undisturbed pasture in wet weather. And equally as wonderful, to be carted away in a horse drawn wagon, clip clops in the mud on a dark rainy day. I hope to watch it pass in the mist.

We're right where they want us and we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, at home, with our valued family values and spoiled pets which have a cute way of being beloved boats with holes. We're watching a million channels of all corporate marketing models - all the time TV and pouring our angst into blogs on our breaks from the blitz. The calm before the storm? Not if you actually read entertainment newslinks as if the protagonist was your next door neighbor. You reported him, huh? Who goes to theaters anymore? The convenience culture has squeezed itself into a home appliance. An electric wok. Ah, you might put away that electric can opener sitting over there on your granite countertop (cough cough). Its a little much for more than a few fragile megachurch enthusiasts.

After a post has been up say, around four days, I'm doing something else - and why not? I know and you know there is something terribly unnatural with the totality of life consisting of technology. When I get busy with the new horse down the road, making friends and feeding carrots, its ludicrous to break away just to open up the plastic box again. There is no end to the things I can do around here, like pondering the sage.

I found out tonight that horse is named Chip. nice. He could have been my consort in a past life. An older Appie, his spots moved to his face and trunk as he matured. We'd been calling him Freckles. Those spots are Dalmation-like, my favorite pattern. This is a guy I can talk to. I am quite serious, he pulls the angry whinny thing if I don't visit daily. Here is how I got him on my friend list: I brought him some 3rd cut Timothy hay I keep around for my elder Guinea Pig. Its hot stuff, Alfalfa hay is about as exciting as it gets for horses, the hay I brought appears to have affected him like fresh Coconut water and herb would effect us.

There's been a lot of talk about California legalizing pot. Its made it to the voting ballot. Heh. You are free to interpret that cynical Heh any way you want. Prediction: In less than one decade, it will be as common as viagra ads, with similar concerns tranched inside the romance scene.

A few years ago, some officially sponsored hikers found what was officially claimed to be the official original sage in one of our biggest official southwest deserts, apparently it was massive and did what sages do, spawned seeds in a circle around itself which prompted all the spawned little sage-lings to sprout in the same fashion until a mammoth circular ocean of sage spread into the foothills and up and down the mountainsides. Now, millenia later, we have sage canyons and sage flanks. Sage is THE moisture stealer par excellence, more brittle and hardy than competing species, and usually wins the competition for water unless a bulldozer comes along and flattens the land for development which is known as disturbing the land. Disturbed land can be good, as in dozers carving out firebreaks in grassland, evacuation routes and encircling wildfires as parts of containment strategy. However, disturbed land also creates habitat for unwanted species, such as fire ants who have taken to building underground tunnels floating a pavement ceiling, curbs and man-made structures, i.e.; home slabs, barns and outbuildings, strip malls, whole towns, extended cities underneath cities and suburbs, exurbs all the way into out there, deep into fallow pastures and rugged terrain far from the elbowing crowds.

The squirrels enjoy every area where the ants haven't built, employing a similar system of underground connections including personal sleeping pods connected to the great room. They are equally as industrious as the ants. There is life moving around, building, foraging and populating just underneath a thin layer of dirt and vegetation, all of it in competition with each other for survival. We're not really counting the birds' nests in the grasses, but we are counting prairie dogs, moles, voles, mice and gophers, centipedes and other underground/burrowing species.

Peak oil and the financial collapse don't really matter to survival. Throughout the world there are some cultures who have never experienced the glories of the industrial revolution and at the rate they are being eliminated, they never will. Surely the Yanamano tribes of Rio Amazona and its tributaries are on the to-do list. Anyone and everything not enamored with debtors' fever and petro sludge and its by-products, is being annihilated if not by spills and blowouts, by takeover, or as in COIN, counter insurgency i.e.; merger/hostile takeover. If the Earth hangs on another century, Saudi Arabia has potential to be the last standing superpower running this show (perhaps they already possess that distinction? There are many good arguments for thinking that) with backup from Russia's and Bolivia's fresh water resources. So who are WE? What ARE we? These are bold, sweeping questions, but as usual, I'm not concerned with the day to day, tomorrow and tomorrow creeps at this petty pace political details, rather a bigger picture taking into account what really matters for humanity's survival, beyond convenience and the remote control weeding out of everything standing in the way of the reach of Corporatocracy. What happens on the ground is how it is, that much we're forced to divine on our own. Obviously, there is nothing we can do about it either, no matter how many online links to anthropogenic mass destruction, extinctions, slow death, displacement, loss of livelihood and morality's demise. As many of you have commented, "What can we do?" The Earth is never still, cycling through stages of development on a timetable of its own, of course this latest turn of events would come about, and we, along with all life, will adapt as we are doing without realizing it. We are not conscious of the movement of the Earth as we live upon it, either. Learning creates change, educated change and because we have so much occupying our minds, it seems barely noticeable, if at all. Try to keep in mind we are still coming out from under having our brains malfunctioned in Bizarro World. Nothing happens all at once - and something is always happening.

I didn't read the news today, oh boy. I don't feel like messing up the morning with catastrophic horrors and scary tea parties. The news is just more torture, designed to threaten and phobiatize readers. You get the feeling its a softening up the target as if EVERY ONE in a decision making capacity knows exactly what you know and manipulates fact to fit agenda so that fact is falsehood. Try justifying your way through that. Its not easy unless you are Thomas Cromwell, First Earl of Essex, or fortunate to have some out-of-the-blue, blessed sartorial moment of truth in which clarity of thought prevails. Until such a moment occurs, all of us live in a subliminally depressed state of partial awareness knowing some things, the remainder elusive. That we do not know more is guilt inducing in having placed trust in beliefs that show themselves to be wishful thinking. In times like this, it is comforting to bathe one's being in bolanath's grandmothers' healing Net of Light.

While pondering sage oceans it came to me the reason we fail as a species is buried guilt. "So what?" we say, guilt is for criminals who deserve and receive justice, end of story. This gets confusing because media's definition of guilt is reserved for those who commit acts of wrongdoing. Our language partnering with pundits has co-opted depth of analysis, for example, the concepts of justice and wrongdoing. When I think of those words, it always brings Shirley Jackson's short story, The Lottery (p. 1948) to mind. As long as white people harbor guilt, the lotteries of life continue, suspended in wait are the crowd pleasing stone throwers eager to bury their bredren. The Wahabbi stonings are just us, or the former us before self-education, out in front of the frosting and lace put on justice and wrongdoing. Since the western world carries mountains of buried guilt for having massacred, executed, tortured, threatened, renditioned, lied and stolen property throughout recorded history, the western majority cannot and will not tolerate the weight of that guilt and must dispose of those free from denial of stoning or distortion of intent and action. In other words, if you speak what you see, you are not tolerated because you are naming blame, not owning blame. The real blame then remains stuck in denial aka defense of imaginary concepts such as states, borders, rules on movement, being in love with ideas of division which have no basis in reality. One Love.

Into this world we are born, little sagelings thirsting for survival, spawning and sprouting our ways though time, a blink in the eye of our planet which somehow survives us, minimalizes us, we are Aborigines looking into the sky waiting for God's care package to this day.

Behind each seed a string of seemingly small, but meaningful actions taken, involuntarily, and worse, actions not taken at all, guilt builds for participation in the competition for survival in nothing more than an ego construct. It would help if we just dropped the pretense and spoke in semi-monosyllables, to ourselves and to the Universe. I'm sorry. I love you. I never wanted to hurt anything, nothing! The real wrongdoing here is how few get that AND live it. You think the SCOTUS can fix that with justice?

... All language is a system of symbology, that is, sounds strung together that mean something relating to the external reality we experience.

This symbology is unique to the individual person due to the fact that all of our individual experiences are normally unique events relating to the individual, with same exceptions. But, in almost all cases, the interpretation of those events will be different than other individuals sharing the event. This has been tested over and over again to the same conclusion. .... murph

The list of ego constructs grows in perfect proportion to humanity's helplessness. To acknowledge disingenuously or not to acknowledge at all is the greatest wrongdoing throughout history, our existence predefined for us, soap operatic in scope and lack of something real, where does one draw the line? Is anyone angry? Or, are our laptops the epitome of the addicts' compromise? Slowly, ever so gradually, we arrive at this point each in his own time. Tattered, torn, straddling the the chasm between the real and the great lie, we participate in slowing adaptation which spreads the guilt around enough to keep the big lie going, and growing, a little longer.

artwork: Fritz in Hibernation
transparent watercolor inks on Arches
18" x 24" | 2005
concept c. Helga Sermat

Ital vs. the Tudors, the beauties of collapse

I must apologize for not tending to the blog or I should have told you I was not going to put anything up for awhile, but those are the ruinous musts and shoulds so let's just get on with it. We have some lovely weather here these days, last week was deep snow and cabin fever. The more I go out, the better it feels. Then I don't have to twist my mind around why I am doing or not doing what I must or should, you understand. None of that changes the course of destruction we are on regardless of wanting to be involved, or wanting nothing to do with anything under the heavy, pressing webbed paws of the Illusion.

I dislike TV with the exception of the Tudors series. Last Sunday night's episodes were just as backbiting and evil as anticipated. The courtiers and titled ladies all seem to be working towards the goal of getting someone's head whacked off or conniving to see a supposed seditionist, heretic or treasonist burned at the stake. To do this, first they must curry favor with His Majesty, while behind his back, lay a trap for whomever it is that is felt to need a good lesson without allowance for an aftermath in which they might have been able to show repentance, although, as the sentenced head up the stairs to their execution, purse in hand to pay said executioner for his labors, you can imagine the pleas and denials, the promises, the apologies, the beggings for forgiveness and so forth. Detail for detail, trap for trap, it runs a course parallel to what we hear unfolds in the Palace of the Illusion among the your graces and lords. The only difference is the costuming and candelight. An important aside, you will note, if you watch carefully and if you've traveled through Europe, incredible cathedrals and castles are shown to have been built eight centuries before the industrial revolution sucked dry the easy oil. The scriptwriters know this - why have they not made it known? I'm thinking eight centuries because the Italian Renaissance c. 1400's due in large part to lavish sponsorship from the Medicis, took place two hundred years before such grandiosity (mastery of frills and frosting) spread to other parts of that continent where THE Renaissance, two hundred years later, was recognized as the only one of its kind throughout all of time. While we think of the history of the Humanities, and all that was accomplished long before big oil/big ag put a key into the ignition of the overpopulation machine (more people, more sales) let's look at Charles's wonderful discovery of a 1905 postcard, a real life photograph of Market Street in San Francisco.

To me, this finding is of equal importance as the photo I received of our Rasta's spar, Neil, just cooking food. It is a blessing to be sent such reminders, its is a blessing to have faraway friends who like to throw reality checks at the little people from time to time. I lived Ital as well in my youth. Returning to the US remains a culture shock in more ways that I can describe. I still suffer somewhat from the weirdness of our contrived lifestyle and revert to common sense simplicity when necessary just to get something done that in America means generally trying to work with something broken, dysfunctional, can't get a part or replacement because X company merged with Y company who was bought out by Z company in China. A lot of gadget distress has to do with plastic being breakable, it wears out much more quickly than old fashioned cast iron, wood or bamboo. I think just about everyone busting their chops at one of these outsourced corporate manufacturing sweatshop assembly lines knows this, too. Do they think we're silly? No, they think we are extremely rich and silly. They can't wait to get here. It is a measure of Illusory progress that our Rasta tells me they aren't so hot to expatriate anymore, because ... sigh ... because they can just fly back and forth to the great mall that is the US. Many have seen the light. (Those that live in ignorance to this day are those who are ignorant of their history as Arizona will show them soon enough. You can come to spend and go, but you may not come to hang around and drain the system unless you adopt the system in full = pay heavily as you go or go.)

Last time in heaven, I mostly hung out with a longtime Beekeeper, on his land in the unmapped jungle, with his extended family, under a galvanized roof held up by four wood poles under which a large cast iron cookpot fed everyone and anyone who happened along. If the mood struck, and something about being outdoors with people you know and love is the right mood for a little jungle jam, there were huge drums and a wooden/bamboo xylophone, flutes and more. But the most interesting thing of all was the Beekeeper's coffeebean shelling apparatus. He's taken a washboard and cylindrical grater, more about graters in a minute, attached a handcarved wooden crank to the grater so that each bean's coat was lifted off as it funneled through, rolling down the washboard and passing under the grater much the same way the early washing machine squeezed wet clothes into a tub. He gave me a thick chunk of beeswax to chew while we discussed how his machine worked. Nice. His granddaughter, everyone in the extended family lives at home, was an angelically beautiful three year-old child born deaf, but fell right in with everyone else working or playing, it seemed not to hold her back in any way, but allowed the elders to smother her with open affection. No one, I mean no one, would ever think of removing her from the tribe and sending her away to some official center for special needs children. I carried her in my arms and we danced to the pounding of the percussion instruments. She feels it. At one point, the Beekeeper got us involved in moving a mature chocolate tree to a more spacious location in which to branch freely out of the way of its neighbors. Everyone joined in, you would have thought it was the Alabama chain gang building a railroad, the rhythms and the chants made it easy to do a chore most little people insist on doing with lifts and pulleys, gasoline chain saws and tractors. You push on the down beat and hang back on the up. There is an art to it which is to remove the me from the moment. A little beeswax, a little chocolate tree moving, a little dancing with the baby and the me vanishes without knowing or thinking about it at all. You are just there, with the moment, of the moment. With them, of them.
It took a month or two to realize I had completely lost any sense of skin color, other than to be in the habit as all were, of using it as a tool for definition: "You know who I mean, the clear skin girl." or "No, he's the red one." In the beginning, I was pretty young then, fresh from the states and thought everyone looked alike. This of course, caused a lot of confusion, having an idea of whom I was conversing with only to discover we'd never met before, so too often I'd find I was on familiar terms with a total stranger, however, this half-bond turns out to be a fearless way to make friends. Sometime later, wading and rock climbing alone at sunset it struck me I was recognizing everyone all the time and then more, I had lost my white. I tried dreadlocks, but they didn't suit me at all, I always looked like I just fell out of bed. This goes over badly when you have some sort of bureaucratic mission to accomplish.

In complete reversal, in Bubblovia, I find I remain the clear-skinned girl only to myself, not really at home in civilization and often irritated to be pressured into dependence on plastic, convenience and entertainment technologies. Somehow its not fair. But then what is fair? If you watch the Tudors next weekend you'll see nothing was ever fair. The story of Cain and Abel isn't fair, either. Collapse is not fair. Life in full is not fair. I prefer a world where there is no unfair or fair, where things just are because they give and take with Nature - naturally. A grater for citrus peel or cheese is a square foot of galvanized aluminum pounded to remove the ripples, and pounded with nails to make holes. Take the "holed" galvanized and roll it into a half cylinder so the scratchy side faces outwards and secure each end with a single piece of wood, nail each strip of wood into place tightly across the ends making handles and securing permanently the half-cylinder shape. (If you're really good, you'll use wooden pegs.) You can grate comfortably for at least an hour as well as pass it down to your daughter for her household, etc. I've mentioned some of these "differences" in the comments section at various times and I think it is important we realize we don't need to keep stocking our lives with useless gadgets with brief lifespans in order to get something done. The same principle applies equally well to communication devices, unnecessary when people gather casually among each other on a daily/nightly basis. They love to gossip - and what is writing about and commenting on the activities of the Illusion but gossip on a plastic and precious metals communication device that makes lots of money and provides jobs to sweat labor in "developing" countries? Word always gets around.

More to come on this subject, in series - eventually. Collapse can be beautiful.