Cedar Flats Island

The crest of this patch was 3 hours ago, and much higher!

     The road that passes in front of my house is named Cedar Flats.  Flooding from hurricane Irene turned the creeks into rivers and those rivers cut a couple of paths in the road, one to the north, one to the south, about two miles apart.  Cedar Flats became an island.
     The two temporary rives where running fast and wide.  Big standing waves made rafting down the water flow come to mind and then immediately the realization that it would get you killed.  Those waves were everywhere, born from stuck trees and lifted roadway.
     I did get a good feeling as I walked along our island.  It reminded me of the good feelings I have had while visiting real islands, Martha's Vineyard, Block, the Florida Keys.  I think is came from having my area of living reduced to a manageable size, "A reasonable Size."
  

entrance to the Parkway, the stream is to the left

  This area is populated with a few multi-generational families.  That kind of changes the feeling of the area.  Familiarity, and longevity breed tolerance and compassion, or so it would seem.
     The lack of motorized vehicles and the site of people walking and looking at the place where they live was very different.  Most days people drive by, fast, listening to radios, talking on cell phones, texting, but not looking at the trees, creeks, their environment.  Though people were taking pictures with cell phones, they were looking at the place where they lived.  We talked to and met some people we hadn't known.  We even met a couple who owned our house 30 years ago.  They moved a mile and a half away when they inherited their Grandmothers home.
     I had fantasized in the past about what it would be like if our road where cut off, usually on days when the cars or motorcycles came thru on mass, and at speed.  Thanks to Hurricane Irene, I got to experience it. It was good.  I am sure that long term, I might get challenged by getting things from the "outside world" transported over the water, but for the time, island living was a step down in pace and a step up in quality of life.  The quality came in the form of being able to walk the road with my dog and not worry about speeding cars coming around blind curves and threatening us.  It came from getting to know our community a little better.  It came from direct attention to our environment, local environment.  It came from the deep appreciation of the help we get from electricity to pump our well water and cool our freezer, though we got on fine without it.
     The 4 square miles of island that was Cedar Flats Island for a day was a small gift, a vacation, a disconnect from the faster larger world.  It was a day and an island of a reasonable size.

A Glass half full of Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

It's all about perspective isn't it?  The rule of the Jungle is "Eat or be Eaten."  The reality is that we Eat and are eaten.  It isn't a competition but a collaboration, a dependance, a relationship and an undeniable truth.
     In America, we seem to have embraced competition as our driving force.  Our economics are based on it, our recreation is steeped in it, even our educations are now ruled by it, and sadly our religions seem to be of this mind too.  The only problem I have with this is that in competition there is always a loser as well as a winner.
     If the rule of the jungle is the standard by which we operate, then how do we justify the simple fact that we all die eventually.  One way might be to step back and take a wider view, to look at the success of the race as opposed to the individual.  Ahhhh, now we are getting somewhere.  Our race has progressed and now the lions and tigers and bears, (oh my!) are moved down the food chain, though we don't really eat them, but they are threatened by man and man's technology.
     The wider view would also have us see that the advance of man and technology has allowed us to be at the top of the food chain, it has also threatened the other links on the chain, lions, tigers and bears included, and that with out those other links, it ceases to be a chain.  We do not, have not, and cannot as far as we can tell, exist independent of the rest of the natural world.  What we do unto it we do unto ourselves.  It will take a wider, more patient view, a less egotistical view to see this but once it becomes apparent, it will be as if we suddenly stepped back and where only then able to understand the scale of that thing we were standing next to.
     The reality is we are not in a competition with the rest of the flora and fauna of the planet, or with the rest of creation.  The reality is that we are in league with the rest of creation and dependent on it for the sake of all creation.
     For ages man has been working to remove himself from this undeniable fact of being a part of something greater than ourselves.  From taking our bodily wastes, our household waste, and our own bodies, after they have served us,  out of the system, we have desperately attempted to separate us, from the rest.  In the end, in a longer measure of time than just one human life, even those things that we have directed away from the natural cycles will eventually be reunited with the rest of the decay and rebirth, life and death that is our reality.
     When we have attempted to work around, or outside, or in spite of the reality of the cycles of nature, we have always created some kind of problem for ourselves and others.  The problems always seem to be greater issues to resolve than the original one that spurred our "innovation".
     One example, an easy one, is transportation.  The cheap fossil fuel that we use has created a huge problem that can be seen in the health of the air, earth and water as well as in our own personal health.  The previous methods of transport, horses, sail boats, human locomotion, all worked.  Their impact was not threatening to the life as a whole and in some ways supported it.  But, we wanted faster and farther.  Never grateful, never satisfied, never happy now.
     If one of us suffers, then we are all less for it.  True progress would not come in the way of faster, and farther for some, but might be more inclusive of all.  Isn't that what the foundations of our beliefs say?  Equality for all.  All are loved by God.  Doesn't the law of the jungle just reduce our existence to something like a football game for the Creator to watch?  Haven't our beliefs in the nature of God's creation been more like that of an artistic work rather than sporting event?
     We live and die and after us there is other life.  This is what we know, what we can witness as reality.  The scramble to compete becomes an uninformed and pointless path when seen with a lens that looks beyond our personal existence and realizes our connectedness to all things, before, now and in the future.

Foundations

Thomas Jefferson, who in turn shaped the way many nineteenth-century American homesteaders understood ownership of their farms. Jefferson wrote in 1785 in a letter to John Jay that

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, & they are tied to their country & wedded to its liberty & interests by the most lasting bonds.".

I'll Take My Stand

In reading a WB (Wendell Berry) essay, I found him mention the book "I'll Take My Stand" and specifically this introduction as the summary of agrarian principles vs. industrial principles.  I am not prepared to state myself as an "agrarian" (I don't want to limit myself), but I will say that it makes the most sense to me that we should, and need, to look in this direction of attitude in order to find "A reasonable Path" thru this world/country/life.  The piece gets going in the 3rd paragraph and if you are not aware of the Twelve Southerners, just wiki them.  This is from 1930.  I believe it is absolutely relevant today.  Here it is:





I'LL TAKE MY STAND
The Twelve Southerners

INTRODUCTION: A STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

THE authors contributing to this book are Southerners, well acquainted with one another and of similar tastes, though not necessarily living in the same physical community, and perhaps only at this moment aware of themselves as a single group of men. By conversation and exchange of letters over a number of years it had developed that they entertained many convictions in common, and it was decided to make a volume in which each one should furnish his views upon a chosen topic. This was the general background. But background and consultation as to the various topics were enough; there was to be no further collaboration. And so no single author is responsible for any view outside his own article. It was through the good fortune of some deeper agreement that the book was expected to achieve its unity. All the articles bear in the same sense upon the book's title-subject: all tend to support a Southern way of life against what may be called the American or prevailing way; and all as much as agree that the best terms in which to represent the distinction are contained in the phrase, Agrarian versus Industrial.

But after the book was under way it seemed a pity if the contributors, limited as they were within their special subjects, should stop short of showing how close their agreements really were. On the contrary, it seemed that they ought to go on and make themselves known as a group already consolidated by a set of principles which could be stated with a good deal of particularity. This might prove useful for the sake of future reference, if they should undertake any further joint publication. It was then decided to prepare a general introduction for the book which would state briefly the common convictions of the group. This is the statement. To it every one of the contributors in this book has subscribed.

Nobody now proposes for the South, or far any other community in this country, an independent political destiny. That idea is thought to have been finished in 1805. But how far shall the South surrender its moral, social, and economic autonomy to the victorious principle of Union? That question remains open. The South is a minority section that has hitherto been jealous of its minority right to live its own kind of life. The South scarcely hopes to determine the other sections, but it does propose to determine itself, within the utmost limits of legal action. Of late, however, there is the melancholy fact that the South itself has wavered a little and shown signs of wanting to join up behind the common or American industrial ideal. It is against that tendency that this book is written. The younger Southerners, who are being converted frequently to the industrial gospel, must come back to the support of the Southern tradition. They must be persuaded to look very critically at the advantages of becoming a "new South" which will be only an undistinguished replica of the usual industrial community.

But there are many other minority communities opposed to industrialism, and wanting a much simpler economy to live by. The communities and private persons sharing the agrarian tastes are to be found widely within the Union. Proper living is a matter of the intelligence and the will, does not depend on the local climate or geography, and is capable of a definition which is general and not Southern at all. Southerners have a filial duty to discharge to their own section. But their cause is precarious and they must seek alliances with sympathetic communities everywhere. The members of the present group would be happy to be counted as members of a national agrarian movement.

Industrialism is the economic organization of the collective American society. It means the decision of society to invest its economic resources in the applied sciences. But the word science has acquired a certain sanctitude. It is out of order to quarrel with science in the abstract, or even with the applied sciences when their applications are made subject to criticism and intelligence. The capitalization of the applied sciences has now become extravagant and uncritical; it has enslaved our human energies to a degree now clearly felt to be burdensome. The apologists of industrialism do not like to meet this charge directly; so they often take refuge in saying that they are devoted simply to science! They are really devoted to the applied sciences and to practical production. Therefore it is necessary to employ a certain skepticism even at the expense of the Cult of Science, and to say, It is an Americanism, which looks innocent and disinterested, but really is not either.

The contribution that science can make to a labor is to render it easier by the help of a tool or a process, and to assure the laborer of his perfect economic security while he is engaged upon it. Then it can be performed with leisure and enjoyment. But the modern laborer has not exactly received this benefit under the industrial regime. His labor is hard, its tempo is fierce, and his employment is insecure. The first principle of a good labor is that it must be effective, but the second principle is that it must be enjoyed. Labor is one of the largest items in the human career; it is a modest demand to ask that it may partake of happiness.

The regular act of applied science is to introduce into labor a labor-saving device or a machine. Whether this is a benefit depends on how far it is advisable to save the labor The philosophy of applied science is generally quite sure that the saving of labor is a pure gain, and that the more of it the better. This is to assume that labor is an evil, that only the end of labor or the material product is good. On this assumption labor becomes mercenary and servile, and it is no wonder if many forms of modern labor are accepted without resentment though they are evidently brutalizing. The act of labor as one of the happy functions of human life has been in effect abandoned, and is practiced solely for its rewards.

Even the apologists of industrialism have been obliged to admit that some economic evils follow in the wake of the machines. These are such as overproduction, unemployment, and a growing inequality in the distribution of wealth. But the remedies proposed by the apologists are always homeopathic. They expect the evils to disappear when we have bigger and better machines, and more of them. Their remedial programs, therefore, look forward to more industrialism. Sometimes they see the system righting itself spontaneously and without direction: they are Optimists. Sometimes they rely on the benevolence of capital, or the militancy of labor, to bring about a fairer division of the spoils: they are Cooperationists or Socialists. And sometimes they expect to find super-engineers, in the shape of Boards of Control, who will adapt production to consumption and regulate prices and guarantee business against fluctuations: they are Sovietists. With respect to these last it must be insisted that the true Sovietists or Communists-if the term may be used here in the European sense-are the Industrialists themselves. They would have the government set up an economic super-organization, which in turn would become the government. We therefore look upon the Communist menace as a menace indeed, but not as a Red one; because it is simply according to the blind drift of our industrial development to expect in America at last much the same economic system as that imposed by violence upon Russia in 1917.

Turning to consumption, as the grand end which justifies the evil of modern labor, we find that we have been deceived. We have more time in which to consume, and many more products to be consumed. But the tempo of our labors communicates itself to our satisfactions, and these also become brutal and hurried. The constitution of the natural man probably does not permit him to shorten his labor-time and enlarge his consuming-time indefinitely. He has to pay the penalty in satiety and aimlessness. The modern man has lost his sense of vocation.

Religion can hardly expect to flourish in an industrial society. Religion is our submission to the general intention of a nature that is fairly inscrutable; it is the sense of our role as creatures within it. But nature industrialized, transformed into cities and artificial habitations, manufactured into commodities, is no longer nature but a highly simplified picture of nature. We receive the illusion of having power over nature, and lose the sense of nature as something mysterious and contingent. The God of nature under these conditions is merely an amiable expression, a superfluity, and the philosophical understanding ordinarily carried in the religious experience is not there for us to have.

Nor do the arts have a proper life under industrialism, with the general decay of sensibility which attends it. Art depends, in general, like religion, on a right attitude to nature; and in particular on a free and disinterested observation of nature that occurs only in leisure. Neither the creation nor the understanding of works of art is possible in an industrial age except by some local and unlikely suspension of the industrial drive.

The amenities of life also suffer under the curse of a strictly-business or industrial civilization. They consist in such practices as manners, conversation, hospitality, sympathy, family life, romantic love-in the social exchanges which reveal and develop sensibility in human affairs. If religion and the arts are founded on right relations of man- to-nature, these are founded on right relations of man-to- man.

Apologists of industrialism are even inclined to admit that its actual processes may have upon its victims the spiritual effects just described. But they think that all can be made right by extraordinary educational efforts, by all sorts of cultural institutions and endowments. They would cure the poverty of the contemporary spirit by hiring experts to instruct it in spite of itself in the historic culture. But salvation is hardly to be encountered on that road. The trouble with the life-pattern is to be located at its economic base, and we cannot rebuild it by pouring in soft materials from the top. The young men and women in colleges, for example, if they are already placed in a false way of life, cannot make more than an inconsequential acquaintance with the arts and humanities transmitted to them. Or else the understanding of these arts and humanities will but make them the more wretched in their own destitution.

The "Humanists" are too abstract. Humanism, properly speaking, is not an abstract system, but a culture, the whole way in which we live, act, think, and feel. It is a kind of imaginatively balanced life lived out in a definite social tradition. And, in the concrete, we believe that this, the genuine humanism, was rooted in the agrarian life of the older South and of other parts of the country that shared in such a tradition. It was not an abstract moral "check" derived from the classics-it was not soft material poured in from the top. It was deeply founded in the way of life itself-in its tables, chairs, portraits, festivals, laws, marriage customs. We cannot recover our native humanism by adopting some standard of taste that is critical enough to question the contemporary arts but not critical enough to question the social and economic life which is their ground.

The tempo of the industrial life is fast, but that is not the worst of it; it is accelerating. The ideal is not merely some set form of industrialism, with so many stable industries, but industrial progress, or an incessant extension of industrialization. It never proposes a specific goal; it initiates the infinite series. We have not merely capitalized certain industries; we have capitalized the laboratories and inventors, and undertaken to employ all the labor-saving devices that come out of them. But a fresh labor-saving device introduced into an industry does not emancipate the laborers in that industry so much as it evicts them. Applied at the expense of agriculture, for example, the new processes have reduced the part of the population supporting itself upon the soil to a smaller and smaller fraction. Of course no single labor-saving process is fatal; it brings on a period of unemployed labor and unemployed capital, but soon a new industry is devised which will put them both to work again, and a new commodity is thrown upon the market. The laborers were sufficiently embarrassed in the meantime, but, according to the theory, they will eventually be taken care of. It is now the public which is embarrassed; it feels obligated to purchase a commodity for which it had expressed no desire, but it is invited to make its budget equal to the strain. All might yet be well, and stability and comfort might again obtain, but for this: partly because of industrial ambitions and partly because the repressed creative impulse must break out somewhere, there will be a stream of further labor-saving devices in all industries, and the cycle will have to be repeated over and over. The result is an increasing disadjustment and instability.

It is an inevitable consequence of industrial progress that production greatly outruns the rate of natural consumption. To overcome the disparity, the producers, disguised as the pure idealists of progress, must coerce and wheedle the public into being loyal and steady consumers, in order to keep the machines running. So the rise of modern advertising-along with its twin, personal salesmanship-is the most significant development of our industrialism. Advertising means to persuade the consumers to want exactly what the applied sciences are able to furnish them. It consults the happiness of the consumer no more than it consulted the happiness of the laborer. It is the great effort of a false economy of life to approve itself. But its task grows more difficult even day.

It is strange, of course, that a majority of men anywhere could ever as with one mind become enamored of industrialism: a system that has so little regard for individual wants. There is evidently a kind of thinking that rejoices in setting up a social objective which has no relation to the individual. Men are prepared to sacrifice their private dignity and happiness to an abstract social ideal, and without asking whether the social ideal produces the welfare of any individual man whatsoever. But this is absurd. The responsibility of men is for their own welfare and that of their neighbors; not for the hypothetical welfare of some fabulous creature called society.

Opposed to the industrial society is the agrarian, which does not stand in particular need of definition. An agrarian society is hardly one that has no use at all for industries, for professional vocations, for scholars and artists, and for the life of cities. Technically, perhaps, an agrarian society is one in which agriculture is the leading vocation, whether for wealth, for pleasure, or for prestige-a form of labor that is pursued with intelligence and leisure, and that becomes the model to which the other forms approach as well as they may. But an agrarian regime will be secured readily enough where the superfluous industries are not allowed to rise against it. The theory of agrarianism is that the culture of the soil is the best and most sensitive of vocations, and that therefore it should have the economic preference and enlist the maximum number of workers.

These principles do not intend to be very specific in proposing any practical measures. How may the little agrarian community resist the Chamber of Commerce of its county seat, which is always trying to import some foreign industry that cannot be assimilated to the life-pattern of the community? Just what must the Southern leaders do to defend the traditional Southern life ? How may the Southern and the Western agrarians unite for effective action? Should the agrarian forces try to capture the Democratic party, which historically is so closely affiliated with the defense of individualism, the small community, the state, the South ? Or must the agrarians-even the Southern ones-abandon the Democratic party to its fate and try a new one? What legislation could most profitably be championed by the powerful agrarians in the Senate of the United States? What anti-industrial measures might promise to stop the advances of industrialism, or even undo some of them, with the least harm to those concerned? What policy should be pursued by the educators who have a tradition at heart? These and many other questions are of the greatest importance, but they cannot be answered here.

For, in conclusion, this much is clear: If a community, or a section, or a race, or an age, is groaning under industrialism, and well aware that it is an evil dispensation, it must find the way to throw it off. To think that this cannot be done is pusillanimous. And if the whole community, section, race, or age thinks it cannot be done, then it has simply lost its political genius and doomed itself to impotence.

1930

reasonable Energy

Responsibility for oneself
Clean up your room
If you want something work to get it
No pain, no gain


And yet, we live in a society that seeks to do as little as possible in the way of seeing to ones own needs.  The hight of success is to have servants that do all of your work for you, to not have to work. We are all seeking a life of endless recreation.
Now I am all for having a good time, but a bit of reason, balance, moderation, REALITY, might be a bit in order.
For a very short time we have been able to avoid doing our own work in attaining our sustenance.  Cheap energy, has given us this "pass".  Before that, a few of us were using the work of other humans (slavery) to avoid the same work and individual responsibility.
A spin on the situation has gotten many of us to join the team of cheap energy, and industrialization, but the real benefit has been for very few.  The spin was that we too could become one of the wealthy and get someone else to do our work for us, while the reality is that most of us spend most of our lives chasing that idea and never ever really attain independence, economic security, or wealth.  Don't think that is true?  Do you own everything you poses, outright, no Debt????  If the stock markets crash tomorrow will your future still be secure???  If some corporate board decides to downsize, will you be fired? Lose you medical care, your kids education fund, your means for making an income, your energy source, your phone service, your internet access?......the list goes on and on and on.
This is not security, this is not freedom, this is not sensible.
Maybe a growing population, and an infinitely growing economy, and a industrial based society don't really fit well into the scheme of things on this particular planet, at this particular time?




reasonable energy


http://www.wunderground.com/blog/RickyRood/archive.html?year=2011&month=08

Posted by: RickyRood, 5:38 PM GMT on August 14, 2011

Climate, compost, and those plastic cups: Sustainability and Climate Change (1)

"It became self evident that forests and whale oil were not going to support a growing population, an industrial society, and a growing economy. (A nice history of energy, and interestingly Dolly Sods Wilderness.) These sources of energy were replaced with coal and oil."






Extractive ways of existing as a foundation for any species means that at some point, finite resources will be exhausted and that foundation will collapse.  The justification that technology will save us from technological emergencies is a great way to keep power and independence away from the individuals of this country, and planet.


You choices are 
a) to continue on and feed the monster what it eats and your future,  your money, your freedom 
or 
b) to remove sustenance from the very thing that holds you captive by spending your money locally, barter, conserve, or just do with out.


Corporations are not People.  Their mission is to make money.


People are people.  Our mission is to have a good life, be happy, serve our families, our God, our society.


Our Congress is selling our rights as people and our futures to the highest bidders, the large corporate interests of the globe.
Let your Congressmen know that you don't approve.  How you let them know is up to you.


Peace

The way of Ignorance

I just got another great book of essays by Wendell Berry entitled "The Way of Ignorance".  He continues to put into sensible, intelligent, and often artful words the thoughts and concerns of many of us who are troubled by what seems a country and world gone a bit crazy.  He is always hopeful in his essays while being firmly honest and concerned about our current path.  He is a voice of reason in a time of unreasonable directions and attitudes.  Reading his words often clarifies ideas and feelings I have, but have not yet been able to articulate.  I think that a copy of much of his work should be read by every one of our leaders and much of our citizenry, because it would be hard to continue on in the irresponsible direction that our government and each of us does each day, while someone has openly stated what it is we are doing to ourselves and our futures and the future of any who come after us.   I highly recommend reading these essays.


Peace

Sunday thoughts

I'd like to pass this along.  I found it in the Huff Post and I really appreciated it:
Fr. Richard Rohr: Nature and the Soul

Here is a cut and paste of it.

Fr. Richard Rohr Founding Director, Center for Action and Contemplation Nature and the Soul

"Just pay attention, and then patch a few words together, and don't try to make them elaborate. This isn't a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak." --"Praying" by Mary Oliver

We looked too long for God and truth through words alone. The fruit for humanity has been rather limited, it seems to me -- especially when I observe every day the extraordinary amount of unhappy and angry people in well educated and "religious" countries. How could this happen? Was salvation for the next world only?

I do not fault any one group, person or explanation, but on all of us together as we failed to pay attention. We removed ourselves from the Circle of Life and ended up talking in circles instead. This is so strange coming from a religion that believed "the word became flesh" (John 1:14), yet we have always seemed to prefer words to enfleshment, for some reason. As my very orthodox Church History professor put it, the church has usually followed Plato (body and soul are enemies of one another) much more than Jesus (body and soul work together as one). Sadly and tragically, that says it in one phrase.

It was a giant misplacement of primal attention to what was right beneath our feet, all around us and flying through the air. Enfleshment, embodiment, physicality -- the material world is the only home we know. Yet, we really "could not see the woods for the trees," and even worse we did not see the woods or the trees, but just our ideas about them and how they could be useful to us. They made paper for our books and shade for our reading, after all!

We all started reading books rather broadly once the printing press was invented (almost 600 years ago), and since then we have largely substituted ideas and words for observation and participation in life itself. Now I am afraid it will become texts, videos and screens that will shield us from reality. This leaves us all at least one step removed from The Real, and we get caught up in a static of ideas instead of the basic and healing symphony of life itself. To use Teresa of Avila's shocking phrase, we find ourselves undefended and alone and become willing to "sell our souls for a sardine"!

Words and ideas work in the short run to get you through school and to impress educators and employers. But they do not work in the long run or in the deep run. We soon find ourselves separate and without wonder. We find ourselves companionless (com-panion = one you share bread with) and lonely in a fully participatory universe, without bread to eat when bread is, in fact, everywhere.

"For what can be known about God is perfectly plain, for God has made it plain. Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and deity is there for the mind to see in all the things that God has created" (Romans 1:20). That is a pretty amazing quote that has not been given the immense importance that it deserves. In fact, read it again! It says the essential message is written everywhere and all the time.

Yes, the natural world is the first and primary Bible. We have not honored it, so how could we, or would we know how to honor and properly use the second Bible, when it was written. We mangled the written word of God for our own group purposes, instead of bringing to it reverence, silence and surrender, which the natural world "naturally" teaches us and also demands of us. If the word surrender scares you, let me tell you that surrender is not giving up, as we usually understand the term. Surrender is entering the present moment, and what is right in front of you, fully and without resistance. In that sense, surrender is almost the exact opposite of giving up. In fact, it allows you to be given to! 

For some reason, the whole created world, the animals and the seasons of nature allow us to surrender and trust much more than sermons, words or people do, where we seem to be much more defended, in our heads, and even afraid. Now we are learning that abused children can tell their story if they are touching their dog and those who are autistic and stutter do not hesitate or stutter when they are with their horses or cats. One starts to wonder who is taking care of whom? Who is the healer and who is the healed? Who has soul and who does not? It is not as neat and clear a distinction as humans once presumed.

So I entreat you to trust and learn from the awesome authors in this edition of "Radical Grace," not for their words, but because their words point beyond themselves to what is, to creation itself, to the natural world, to what is all around you -- all the time. The "first Bible" of nature is well written, filled with Mystery and invitation and has all that you need to know God, to know yourself, to know life and even to trust death. Reading reality from inside this circle of creation, and with the eyes of nature, you will inherently know you are already in sacred space, you will know that you belong and you will know that it is OK.

Creation is our first and final cathedral. Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing. The world is no "contest" any more, but as Mary Oliver says, "the doorway into thanks."

"Nature and the Soul" by Richard Rohr, OFM, copyright © Richard Rohr 2011, Radical Grace, Summer 2011, Vol. 24, No. 3. Used with permission.

Fr. Richard Rohr, the Founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is an international speaker and teacher. The author of numerous books, he is a regular contributor to Radical Grace. Fr. Richard will be presenting together with Bill Plotkin at the CAC-sponsored, 2012 year beginning conference, Nature and the Human Soul.

And there is this that I found in a piece written by Sogyal Rinpoche, also in the Huff Post religious section:

chu ma nyok na dang,

sem ma chö na de.

It means roughly, "Water, if you don't stir it, will become clear; the mind, left unaltered, will find its own natural peace, well-being, happiness and bliss..."

Peace

Reflections from Space

I just had another thought about the Science fiction/space Movie themes in our culture.  Recently, most of the movies in the SciFi genre have been about alien invasion.

Are these movies/tv shows a reflection of the concerns and attitudes of our society?

Star Trek, out of the 60's, had themes of equal rights, altruism, exploration, and logic and intelligence being the tools of success.

Star Wars, from the 70's, dealt with forces of good and evil and the battle for supremacy.

Current SciFi centers around the theme of aliens invading and destroying earth, or at least humans.

It is pretty easy and obvious finding the correlations between current events of each era and the popular scifi themes.

The 60's,  (Star Trek)
     Human rights, feminine rights, space exploration, hippie peace and love and eastern philosophy.

The 70's and 80's, (Star Wars)
     USA vs Communism, Western culture vs. Middle eastern culture, The expansion of Capitalism

Current times, (Alien, the Matrix, Terminator, Battle LA, MIB, District 9, Independence Day)
     In America, the perceived threat from illegal immigrants, muslim religion and culture.  New disease and drug resistance.  The rise of technology in our everyday lives.

Of course there are those Scifi flics that fall outside of this view, but this is just a observation of how our pop culture still can give some insight to current moods of our society.  It is also very interesting to see what kind of hopes, and ideas get stated in movies that can't be easily voiced when they refer to real events and situations in our lives.

Peace, Live long and Prosper, May the force be with you, Phone Home......

Trek or War?

Trek or War?  A journey or a confrontation?  A Path or a fight?

I have just recently revisited that historical debate, Star Trek or Star Wars?  and found it interesting, and funny.  The amount of time devoted to the actual details of the debate on the internet is impressive, and also defining of the true GEEKS invovled.  Geeks is not a politically incorrect term.  Most real geeks are self proclaimed.

So, which is it for you?
     A utopian quest for enlightenment and peace spreading through out the galaxy

or
     A violent struggle between good and evil where a mystical "Force" has control over all.

Do you favor a story that:
     Gives greatest importance to the main few characters, almost all of whom are of the same race and species, and a few robots.

or
     Characters of all races, and species are involved in story lines and technology is not as important as the beings who use it.

I guess you can tell where my alliances lie.  It may be my age and the fact that I grew up sitting on my living room floor after school watching Kirk and Spock discover new life, explore strange...........
or it could be that I just find more in common with my own life.

You may have more mystical experience in your life and the idea that "the force" is controlling all, may be more comforting to you.  Maybe I am just a left over from the hippie era and want us to rise up to our challenges and overcome them thru logic and intelligence and altruistic endeavor.

So, how do you deal with your challenges each day?  Do you rely on a higher power to get you thru, or do you use those gifts that are unique to you as an individual, a human being?  I would guess we each do a little of both. But it is kind of interesting to think about, I think.

As I try to make my reasonable Path thru my life, I try and use those qualities that I was born with and that seem unique to humans, to help me discern which way to go and how to go about it.  In every step of the journey I also try to remember that all of my being, and all that surrounds me seems a gift and much greater than me.  Their are mystical events taking place constantly.  This thought leaves me with an abundance of gratitude for being able to experience this life, this journey, this path.