More Maps! "I Am"

It's is still in the DVD player.  I had to write this to tell you about it.

I Am
     A movie from Tom Shadyac, 2011

In one movie what has seemed to me like influence from many different directions, saying similar things, all converge, literally right on the screen.

John Francis, the author activists who took a vow of silence and abstention from motorized transportation, FOR 18 YEARS, and walked across the country, wrote 2 books, got his PhD....
Daniel Quinn, who I have just recently read and blogged about.  Then there are the more historical persons who's ideas and messages have driven me to not settle, not quit, not give up hope, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King Jr.,   and the younger new scientist and thinkers who are at a unique place in our history to be able to collect this thought and information and fearlessly add it up to something different, unconventional, a shift from popular thought and action.


What is wrong with the world?  I am.

But, when we realize this we are on our way to being able to say:

What is right about the world?  I am.

I wish you love

Maps

On this path to find the reasonable, the more balanced and sensible way in my life, I have been helped, maybe even guided along by the lessons of so many others, who I believe, were on the same journey.  I have a son.  He is a young man now 20 years old.  I was able to teach him little as he grew from a child because I did not raise him.  I would like to start what I believe will be a re-occuring entry that lists the sources I have read and watched that I believe to be very important and inspirational, and educational, and even enjoyable.
     I will start with this entry and with what I am now reading, but I will make entries in the future that will actually be about thoughts I have encountered in the past, before I got the idea to list them here.  I list them here so that my son, as well as anyone else, can find these thoughts and ideas and inspirations too.  Enjoy, learn, contemplate.  We all need guides and so many minds better than mine with wills stronger than mine have asked, researched, mused and put down articulately so much.

Right now I am reading:

The Practice of the Wild, by Gary Snyder
     originally published by North Point Press, 1990
     I have just finished reading Good, Wild, Sacred, page 84 and think this is very worth reading.  Gary Snyder is someone who is better just to read than to try and have explained.  Important, brave, human and compassionate work.

One of the best things I read a few years ago was:

The Art of the Common Place, The Agrarian Essays of  Wendell Berry
     Counter Point Press, 2002
     Wendell Berry is a wonderfully talented writer, both in fiction and non fiction essay.  I have read most of his books and will return to them often.

A few weeks ago I read two books from one author, back to back.

Ishmael, Daniel Quinn

The Story of B, Daniel Quinn
     Bantam Books, 1996
These two books are related, maybe best called part of a series.  They have had a very strong affect on my perspective of the religion, the living community, our culture and the future of our species, all species.  In many ways the ideas put forth in these books has put agriculture up as an ill, or a vice of man, which is so contrary to how reading Wendell Berry makes me feel about it.  I believe the key is that there are vastly different types of agriculture, despite the conventional view.  I have finished reading these books and found myself in a very different relationship with the rest of our culture and society.  Not for the weak of heart or mind, it will challenge you.

I just watched these DVD's:

Being in the World, a film by Tao Ruspoli
     Alive Mind media, 2011
     Being in The World movie trailer - YouTube
Heidegger's philosophy in our lives as artists, & as humans.

Surviving Progress, a film by Mathieu Roy & Harold Crooks
     Cinemaginaire, 2011
Surviving Progress - Official® Trailer [HD] - YouTube
What is progress, what is truly beneficial to us verses what we believe these things to be and how we act.

   So, for my son and for all others who dare to step off the tarmac of the interstates and onto and into the trails that wander thru the woods, fields, deserts, and mountains, twisting around rocks streams and trees, rather than blasting thru or paving over them, here are some maps to help you find your way, to help you understand what and where you are, to give you insight as to where it is you might want to be headed and where it is you may actually be able to go.  Happy reading, happy travels.

Sandy

Sandy

As I walked around the property, again, to see what else I could do to secure the place against the probable strong winds, heavy rain and falling trees, I heard voices down the way.  From up on the rock ridge on the north side of my place I could see my neighbors family all out around their pond.  They were duck hunting, but not with guns, it looked like they had a big fishing net, maybe a towel, and a few kids with flailing arms.  They keep about 5 or 6 white ducks with orange beaks in their pond and they seemed to be gathering up the ducks to put them in the coop, with the chickens, hopefully out of harms way, before the storm hit.  I also noticed that the pond was a few feet lower.  He must of taken out the boards to the spill way to lower the level to prevent flooding, should heavy rains come.

Later, I got a call from another neighbor.  He wanted to let me know that he wasn't going off to any of his jobs, he's in construction, and that he'd be staying put during the storm.  He let me know that if I needed anything, he was there.  He had plenty of gas for the generators, so if I needed some he had extra.  He sounded quite unhappy about the weather that was coming and a bit worried about how it might knock down trees and cause all kinds of damage.  He had been here thru hurricane Floyd and that was a mess.

It seemed like most folks around here were taking the threat of the hurricane seriously, and I was glad, because I was sure taking it seriously.

My morning routine is to check headlines of the new search engine, Google news, see what people are interested in, then my email, then the current earthquake activity around the globe.  I like to see what's shaken, how hard and when.  The news outlets don't talk much about the earthquakes unless they create a bit of damage.  I've gotten to feel as though there are some patterns, or reflections I call them, from larger quakes that happen in the days following.  Don't know that it is useful data, at this point, but it might be eventually.

Next I turn to the weather.  I routinely check not one, but four weather sites every morning, as well as looking out my door and looking at the sky, and sniffing the air.  The 4 different weather sites have slightly different reads of the models and data that are available, and they have 4 very different ways of presenting the data.  They all use graphics and numbers that are close to the same thing, but they present it very differently.  One is just plain facts, no drama, that's NOAA.  NOAA is pretty accurate, but not always as explanatory and sometimes not as early in the forecast.

Of course there is TWC, The Weather Channel, and they are very good to, but very sensational, lots of graphics and hype and the whole feeling of the site is a bit tedious.

Then there is AccuWeather, and they are somewhere between NOAA and TWC.  The guys at Accuweather keep blogs that are very educating, both about weather and about how geeky weather guys are, though the last part is probably unintentional.  The guys here are really good, and they aren't afraid to put out there opinions early, and they are usually pretty accurate.

The fourth site is Weather Underground, who sadly, have just been bought up by TWC.  I say sadly because I appreciate the independent analysis and freedom to put out statements with out the larger corporation figuring liability and how to present a uniform front.  The heads of this site seem like real scientist and researchers and educators.  I respect their opinions and that they are the ones who provide easy access to weather imagery of the entire planet, not just North America.  The weather on the planet is all related and they present it that way.

A week before Sandy hit New Jersey and rearranged the barrier island map, the computer models were saying this could happen.  The braver or more brazen weather forecasters were saying it was going to happen.

When I look at the weather maps I always favor the worst case scenarios and plan for that.  It is easy to plan for the best case scenarios and be right most of the time and go on as if nothing happened.  It is just as easy in my opinion to choose the worst, be wrong and go on living.  It is kind of hard to choose the best case scenario, be wrong, and go on living, sometimes it is even impossible.

One could say that by making my choices I am missing out on life and that I might be running around scared.  My attitude is the same one I had when I was climbing 2000 vertical feet on a rock wall, or sailing single handed in heavy weather or skiing in the mountains or riding a motorcycle across and up and down the country.  I don't think this attitude kept me from having a good time or living my life, and in fact, I think it allowed me to live it more fully.  I think it allowed me to be prepared for much of the things that would go wrong and otherwise end my fun.

We had a 50 foot tall tree on the place that was uphill of the garage/shop and I had been worrying over it coming down and crushing the place of one of the vehicles.  I wanted to take it down but hadn't because it is a sassafras tree and they can be so weak as to make them risky to climb.  Well Sandy took it down for me and it did hit the garage but only glancing.  It didn't really do any damage, but to the gutter.  I am glad that I moved the mast to the boat, the tree would have crushed it.

We put fuel in the vehicles on the weekend before the storm and that is now paying off because people have panicked and there is a rush for fuel.

I guess I could divide up people into two categories, those who prepare and those who don't.  The people who live out here on the edge of the park, in the woods are maybe a bit more independent and plan to have to take care of themselves, while it seems that the folks who live one on top of each other or in crowded neighborhoods are more dependent on public services and the flow of electrons, or petrol, or money from the atm and the flow of information on the internet.

I count on the flow of the water, the flow of the jet stream and the winds it brings.  I count on the flow of things from high to low as the affects of gravity work on them, and the flow of the tide from low to high as the moon pulls on the sea.

Given the choice of $5 or an apple, most of us would choose the $5, but for different reasons.  Most people would figure with $5 they could buy an apple and have money left over.  That is probably true, as long as there is enough food of some sort around, but if not, $5 may not buy an apple and a $5 bill isn't very much to eat.  The reason I'd choose the $5 over the apple is because I have access to apples, they grow in my yard, and I have access to a lot of food already.  I also know that I can walk outside or into the woods and find more food to eat.  I have a harder time getting $5 these days, but then again, I don't need for much money when I have access to food, and water, and I know how to get more, with out money.

the chant to rebuild started before the water has even receded.  These castles made of sand can be rebuilt, and probably will be, and they will probably be pulled down again by the sea, or fire, or shaken down, like all things will.  But these homes and lives that we built around these places might be better built elsewhere, or at least more reasonably.

Quiet Mind

There is a peace that comes with being on a boat, single handing it.  More so when the ice in the water, and the cold in the air has driven off most of the other boats.  The pendants and halyards and sheets are frozen and stiff.  The water is like the glass of a mirror, but is not still as the tide goes out to meet the ocean.  Bits of ice drift past us.

December on the Hudson river, just before the freeze up.

Some of us are children of Autumn.  The sweet sadness that happens during this transition time is what is most familiar to us.  Memories of the warmth and abundance of the time just past, mix with imaginings of pushing back at the cold and grey of the time yet to come, mix together like coffee bitter yet warm, like whiskey soothing yet strong and bracing, like bread, like sex, like this human life.

There are those that prefer Florida, or Phoenix, or LA with their consistency, their sunshine, their warmth, but those places, for me, avoid the every changing nature of our situation, the aging, the dying and then the rebirth and renewal that seems constantly upon me here.

The dance of Spring is measured by the quiet of winter, the cold air of Autumn reminds of the hot winds of Summer.  It all just keeps happening over and over year after year after century after century, millennium upon millennium.  We are just a moment.

The realization of how brief and in some ways insignificant we are in the greater scheme of life, makes my life all the more appreciated and removes the stress that can be consuming about my own little problems.  They just don't mean that much in the bigger picture and to me, my insignificance is a relief. It is also a reason to make my life a celebration, an expression of gratitude, a compliment to all life, and to cause as little suffering, for all life, mine included.

This is peace, this is quiet, this is a gift.

On time and money, again

I have just read "The story of B" by Daniel Quinn.  I don't think I have ever read anything before and had the same kind of reaction.  How could I?

We have roamed the planet for millions of years, but only in the last couple hundred has the need for an energy source other than the sun, the rivers, the wind, the plants and animals not been enough.  All of those energy sources can go on and on and support each other.

The idea that after this life we will become enlightened, or go to heaven, or achieve some sort of salvation, has allowed for our entire culture to turn it's back on our current means of existence and survival, with out concern for the consequence of immediate gratification.

Evolution?  Drop out entire population into a time machine, take us back 50 years and see how we do.  then go back 100 and see how we do.  then go back 200, then 400, then 800, then 1600, and see how we do.  By the idea of evolution, the further we go back, the greater we should be in each situation.  We should have evolved into something Greater, a higher being.  Isn't this what we are taught, that the world, the universe is made for us and we are the being that is created in the image of God.  Aren't we led to believe that with each passing era, and with greater knowledge we have grown towards our ultimate version of ourselves?

Drop us back 800 years and most of us would be dead or suffering in very short order.  Think about what it would be like with no Drugstore, no fast food, no grocery.  How would we cope without our cellphones with out cars, with out industry?   Have we evolved or become more dependent?  Are the two opposites, or at odds with each other?

If we have been walking the planet for millions of years, as is the conventional idea, then we got on well enough, for a long time, most of that time, with other than what we deem the absolute necessities of survival today.

The idea put forth at the beginning of this blog was to find some reasonable way of existing and going forward, given all that I know and all that I learn along the journey.  There is no reality or reason to thinking about trying to living now, as humans lived 1000 years ago, or 100,000 years ago.  But there is I believe reason and logic to living differently than we live now, in a manner that reflects the knowledge of what we have come from, how the rest of the living community lives, and the direction the current path of living has us set on.

For how we live upon this planet, we are to many.  For as many as we, are we kill or subjugate other life to readily.  For the intelligent beings we fancy ourselves to be we fail to see the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life and life systems.  For all our concern for our own welfare, we fail to see our own responsibility in the creation of our own suffering, not just our own self destruction as a species, but as individuals.

When my own death is accepted, understood as the way things will be, then life, all life, becomes the most appreciated, magical, perpetual and beautiful thing.  It is a very simple and obvious realization, that once found can not easily be lost.

The 800 lb. Gorilla in the room!

Where does an 800 lb. gorilla sleep?  Anywhere he wants to!
Something so powerful that it can do what it wants to, it is unstoppable.   Gravity, is like that.  We can't get around it.   So too, are the laws that govern the way life works, the way lives interrelate to each other, the way species survive.  The human story, our story, is subject to a law that is unstoppable, unchangeable and the way we live in defiance of that law will prove, is now proving this out.  If we continue to live as though all of creation is about, and for, just us, just our desires, the law that governs all living things will have it's affect.

The Law of Limited Competition is: “You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete, but you may not wage war.”

I have just had another of those occurrences, when I read a book and find in it, the articulation of many of the thoughts that I had been mulling over and wishing I could share with others in a way that would be interesting to them.
The book "ISHMAEL" by Daniel Quinn, is a book that should be read by all of us.  One does not have to agree with or even enjoy it, but the ideas within are ones that we should all be conscious of, at least, for a moment in our lives.  There has never been a moment in human history more appropriate for considering these ideas.  Human future, will be directly affected by our consideration of these ideas now.  Consider reading this book.

Time is Money, or so it seems

If you were given ten million dollars what do you think you'd do with it?

If you were given more time in each day, free from just sustaining yourself, what would you do with it?

Some of us might mention how with money or time we'd do those things that we don't have enough money or time to do right now.

Do you know anybody who ever made a bunch of money and then stopped endeavoring to make more because they had made enough?

Do you know anybody who has gotten enough help from technology to save time with the "chores" of the day and now spends most of their time just enjoying life?

With Technology we have less need to actually do those things that make our lives possible.   Machines do a lot of work and do the work faster than we could.  Still we have lives that are scheduled to the hour and minute, and we never seem to be able to do all that there is to do in the time available.

Why is it that the mega rich just keep living lives that seem focused on making money?  How is it that we now have cars that will get us from here to there many times faster than we could get there under our own power, but we still have schedules, so tight, that we have to do our make up, eat our meals, text or read the paper while driving?

Somebody else said, "You cannot save time, but only spend it wisely" and I agree.

About "going backward"

It seems that rather than "going backward" in time and technology, the choice is to go forward, but away from certain things, given the experience of having both, I can make an informed and thoughtful choice between the two paths of living.
It is not a guess or an intellectual exercise, but a choice made from experience and observation.  After all I have history to refer to, as well as the present.  Because of my situation of being born in this time, and this place, I have examples of the most technologically advanced methods of living that man has ever contrived, as well as the most ancient and simple methods of being that have been practiced.

With this kind of knowledge, it is not really possible to go "backwards" nor does this description give full credit to the thoughtfulness of the choice.  100 years ago, the choice not to use certain technology, or seek certain medical prescription was not a choice or even an awareness.  I can now make choice knowing what each option offers.

"Going Backward" is not accurate to the choice, choosing an "alternative Path" might be a more appropriate term.

The new old math!

Especially when it comes to things Human:

1 + 1 > 2

The sum is always greater than the parts.

One

Equals

infinity

Facing forward looking backward

Somebody said to me that we are so much better off now, in the technological age than we were before it, and wondered if I really believed that we should all go back to a pre-industrial lifestyle.

The question is kind of a pointless one, in that it would be difficult, if not impossible to go backward, to forget what we have come to know.

I do believe, that if I choose to "go backwards" in time, or at least in my way of living, I am making my life better and possibly, the world a better place.

For example, by choosing to use a push mower that uses only my energy, and mechanical advantage to cut my lawn, I get exercise, I get the pleasure of movement, I get time spent out on my land with out the noise of a gasoline engine.  Because of this I hear things I wouldn't had I used an alternate energy source.  I slow down and notice the other living things in the grass that I might not want to cut down.  I save money in many ways in that the mower was free, rescued from somebodies trash many years ago, and it needs no additional fuel.  The world benefits in a bit less noise pollution, a bit less air pollution, less of a need for the fossil fuel and the infrastructure that brings it to us.  It also makes young kids, and some grown ups as well,  point and smile or laugh as they drive by in their cars.  That is a big help to the world when we can make anybody smile.

This is only one, and a small example of how living a life that follows a path that more closely resembles the paths of those who came many years before us can make the world better for all of us.  A life lived with many little efforts and considerations can have a significant impact on the world, especially if many lives choose similar paths making small but deliberate and meaningful choices.

Stop Making Sense

It is that which is beyond our 5 senses that we value most, love, peace, security.  If we have these things, we tend to disregard the things which are measured by our sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste.  Yet, we spend most of our lives involved in attaining only that which can be sensed, that which we can measure.


It seems the common mis-perception that the attainment of those things we can measure, money, material possession, sensual stimulation will result in the attainment of that which we can not measure.  All around are examples of the false nature of this concept.


Yet, we continue to feed our 5 senses which are never to be sated.




".........mathematical science after all has to do only with what is quantitative; where the qualitative begins, there its domain ends." - Rudolph Steiner, Mathematics and Occultism, A lecture, Amsterdam, June 21, 1904

Maintaining my mind, and the pond

morning on the pond.

As I walk along the shore of the small pond I recognize the many different sounds. I hear the bird calls.  I hear the croak/grunt of the frogs.  I catch the splash of a fish as it jumps.  I hear the plop, plop of the turtles as they dive off their sunny logs to hide from me as I approach.  I hear the wind as it pushes the leaves in the tree tops.  Even the sound of my own shoes crunching the twigs or squishing in the mud seems to have a place here that fits with the rest.

But I hear more.

The sound of combustion engines in cars, in lawn mowers or digging machines.  A helicopter as it passes miles away along the river.  None of these sounds makes me happy, or makes me smile, or seems to fit in a way that seems to add to the larger picture, the larger thing.

It is a strange thing to try to understand, this love for my life, my gratitude for this moment to be a human being.  Because I am a human being I can know how wonderful the rest of the world is.

Because I am a human being I can also know how ugly, how unlike the rest of creation, and how unpleasant I can make the world.

Why has man seemingly turned his back to the gift that is this situation we find ourselves in.  As if ungrateful, even vengeful, humanity seems to put itself upon the world as if to destroy it.  The very systems and cycles and relationships that give us life are constantly and increasingly threatened by our dissatisfaction with our place and our industrious genius as it is put to rape and destruction.

How many times will we destroy a existing relationship, entity, and then make an inferior and problematic means to replace it.  How many times will we hunt the buffalo to extinction, and then create feed lots full of hormone laden cows that live in horrible conditions and cause pollution rather than contribute to the larger cycle of living and dying?

Ships driven by wind and tide once carried us to the far reaches of the planet, extending our range for exchange and experience.  That wasn't enough, so we make great tankers that pollute the atmosphere and spill poisons upon the sea and require us to dig and drill and rape the planet of it's oil that has been locked up for thousands of years.  What highly destructive thing will we replace these things with when they are no longer enough?

My path, the one I am trying to discern thru all the noise and blurred vision of this speed inhuman,  is one of acceptance and gratitude and vision of things greater than my own self interests.

As I walk the path around this pond and pick up the broken glass, the shot gun shells, the plastic bottles, I am inspired to leave none of that behind myself.  Leave no wake, like a sailboat, use what is already here and leave no trail behind me so that another, many others can come and discover on their own, and recognize the beauty that will out last each of us.

It's not easy in this modern world to leave no ugly trail behind. To leave nothing behind that can't be reabsorbed easily into the world and is not toxic to another being.  But I have it in mind.  I keep it in the front of my mind.  Time spent near the pond helps me to keep it in mind.

We as human beings seem to have an amazingly large amount of access to power, but we also seem to lack the wisdom to use it reasonably.

A twisting circular path

I woke with a feeling of purpose.
Some how during my night of rest a part of me was thinking, pondering, planing.
On the motorcycle and off  I went, with a path in mind, but not sure about how the going would be, if it would be, but allowing it to unfold in front of me.

On this part of the path I learned that when the goal is not for my benefit, it is more likely to benefit others.  Seems simple enough, right?

I learned that most of us know just what are own biggest challenges are and we have ways of managing them, but we don't always choose to use those means.  That choice can only come from within.
I learned that the phrase "an inch is as good as a mile" can be used to decrease the distance between us, or to ignore the fact of that distance, especially in this modern time when we have such extreme means of communication and transportation, and thus we can find the community that we seek in with people we may never actually stand in front of because they are so many miles away, and with those down the road with whom we don't seem to be able to find the time to share a meal with, for our busy schedules.

"into every life a little rain must fall"  was once said, and I have found that "on every motorcycle ride, a little rain usually falls" is accurate.  Planning for it, embracing it, and sometimes stopping and watching it rather than trying to push on can make the difference between a great time and an epic misery.

Returning to home after a ride is a wonderful moment.  I'd fully intended not to leave home all day but instead made a big circle just so I could come back and really appreciate the place, and people (and dog) I'd left earlier.  The big circle trip allowed me to extend and strengthen the circle of that is my community.

Traveling with, Living with, "AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE."  Thanks for the day.

A foundation

Just thought I'd pass this along.  The originate from this web page:

The 10 Elements of Urban Homesteading | Urban Homestead ® - Path to Freedom  or http://urbanhomestead.org/urban-homestead-10-elements

Jules Dervraes is one of my heroes and in my opinion, should be considered a national hero.  His attitude reflects Integrity, Independence and Freedom, the founding principles of this country, so I have been led to understand.

He does not appear to be out to "conquer" anything except maybe sloth, unhealthy dependence, ignorance.

If only a tiny fraction of us could attain, what he and his family have, the world and our society would reflect the difference on countless levels, and thrive.

It isn't harsh or zealous, or dogmatic, but it does seem to be

Reasonable.

little things

Simple joy of a job done well,
Time well spent,
and no harm to others.

As we drove to the lake for the launching of my winter project, we made our way past loud, and shiny chromed motorcycles, as well as carbon fiber and titanium bicycles and their spandex clad riders, rolling thru the beautiful forest.

I've ridden across and up and down this country on a very high end motorcycle.  It was a good experience, but it was an expensive one too.  I put a lot of pollution in the air, used up a few sets of tires and spent resources that took me a long time to earn.  I can't do that anymore, I won't do that anymore.

In the back of my truck was a little red row boat, that cost me about $150 to build, maybe.  Lots of scrap wood in that boat.  Lots of stuff that was just lying around the shop.  Some left over paint and hardware.

In that boat were many very well spent winter months dreaming and scheming and figuring.  Many minutes of pulling a saw, screw a fastener, drawing lines on wood.  Many more hours puzzling over a way to make something fit or how to make it work best.  That was time well spent.  Messing about in or with boats has been some of my best time.

I will put my muscles to use to make this boat move, otherwise I may use the wind and tide.  All of these clean, renewable, sustainable sources of energy, gifts to us in this lifetime.

I can't find my recreation any longer in activities that pollute the planet, and possibly cause the sufferings of others by the machinations of those who would rip apart the earth, refine it and then sell it back to us at a cost so great as to be unmeasurable by us at this moment.

My boat is simple, but good.  I can use it and feel good about the trail it leaves in the water, just borrowing space for a moment and then the wake closes up behind, invisible, unnoticeable.  In time, hopefully many years from now, when I am done with it, it's wood will decay and melt into the earth again leaving little behind.  In the mean time I will pull at the oars, use this body I inhabit for the time, feel my muscles work, feel the sun, smell the forest, the water, hear the birds and frogs and fish jumping and be a part of the world around me, but not be put upon it as a scar or scourge.

When we learn a thing, we then become responsible for that knowledge.  If we know something to be true, but still ignore that truth, then aren't we hurt ourselves as well as others, possibly?  I have learned, and I hope to live responsibly, compassionately, in that knowledge.

Somebody show me a another thing man has created as beautifully smart, clean, and practical as a sailing boat.  Show me something as rewarding as being the captain of ones own ship, upon the water, upon the planet, not taking from the world anything that need harm, and yet receiving such joy, thrill, comfort, adventure, experience, humility, security, peace, perspective, freedom, enlightenment, education, companionship, hope, understanding......

'Simply messing about'

`This has been a wonderful day!' said he, as the Rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. `Do you know, I`ve never been in a boat before in all my life.'

`What?' cried the Rat, open-mouthed: `Never been in a--you never--well I--what have you been doing, then?'

`Is it so nice as all that?' asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him.

`Nice? It's the ONLY thing,' said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. `Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING--absolute nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,' he went on dreamily: `messing--about--in--boats; messing----'

`Look ahead, Rat!' cried the Mole suddenly.

It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.

`--about in boats--or WITH boats,' the Rat went on composedly, picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. `In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not. Look here! If you've really nothing else on hand this morning, supposing we drop down the river together, and have a long day of it?'----Kenneth Grahme, "The Wind and the Willows"

Living Music

The birds at the pond are

chirping,

squawking,

tweeting,

honking,

warbling,

trilling,

calling,

singing

The pond in the woods

 flying,

floating,

foraging,

standing,

diving,

preening,

dancing

Mr. & Mrs. Mallard

 waiting,

mating,

nurturing,

hatching,

staying,

leaving,

growing older

Does the beaver know which way the tree will fall?

Good company,

for me,

and

my dog,

on a cloudy day

Live music!

Went into the big city to hear some and see some musicians, guitarists, play.  I had heard some of their work on recordings previously, and though I enjoyed it, the experience of being in a small room and watching these artist make the most beautiful, fun, and magical sound come from their instruments takes the appreciation of their talents to a different level.

Pino Forastiere @ Rockwood Hall, NYC.

This is something of a paradox with technology for me.  Though we have so much more access to so much more of everything thru technology, and though it is possible for us to make recordings,  and to create in the digital medium, I think that it threatens a general appreciation for the work and dedication and creativity that many artists invest to be able to do what it is that they do.

I don't think this is true in all situations and certainly so much more art is accessible to so many more, but it is one thing to create a piece of music on a computer program and another to make a guitar speak to a room full of people via such artistic commitment and work.

I think about the music of Steve Reich, which I really love.  This music or something akin to it could be made on this computer which I type on, with a program on it called Garage Band.  It is Reich's composition that moves me, but to see and hear musicians perform his works makes it truly something  beyond what we can create as individuals.  That collaboration between human beings takes it to a level of the mystic or spiritual that cannot be achieved by simply playing a work back on a computer or recording device.

By the time we had navigated thru the insane traffic of NYC on a Sunday evening I was ready to just stay in the car and return home.  I felt terrible for my contributing by driving a car into the mess.  I felt exhausted by the chaos.  Of course, it was all worth it.  Seeing, hearing, laughing with and experiencing these artists was so uplifting and inspiring.

I got to purchase some CD's of their music, from the artists directly.  Money from my hands to theirs, music recordings from their hands to mine, expressions of deep gratitude from one to the other in broken english and italian.  People to people, no middle men or corporations, just human beings sharing human art and appreciations.

Next time I think I will travel in by the motorcycle or the train!

Rockwood Hall is a nice venue on the lower east side of NYC.  CandyRat records is the label that presented the artists:  Pino Forasiere, Craig D'Andrea, Trevor Gordon Hall, & Sergio Altamura.

Thunderstorm

As the thunderstorm builds,

and each drop of rain is formed in the clouds,

High up in the cold atmosphere above,

Lightning heats a line of sky,

Thunder vibrates thru the core of everything

A drop of rain falls from the cloud where it was born

and drops upon the ocean,

from which it came

One drop of rain

a million drops of rain

infinite drops of rain

all part of the ocean, the ocean itself

None separate from the other,

they never were

Why would time matter to a raindrop,

in it's ever continuous cycle of sea, to sky, to cloud

to sea?

Sometimes a raindrop, sometimes an ocean, sometimes moist hot air

always the same,

always one

It's gray outside today.

It may look like a lot of instruments but more than half of them were found & salvaged from the trash, or a gift.  I'm not afraid of posting this little piece of mine, mostly because I am not a musician and I don't claim to be able to play the guitar.

The time I spend trying to create always seems like time well spent.  I am happy afterward, tired, but happy.

A reasonable Path

 Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.   Fromm, Erich

Organica

Three Peaks

Over the past few years on this path I have noticed 2 very strong evolutions in, or around, me.  They seem at time, contradictions to each other.

As I have aged, and become more physically frail, I have become less attached to this physical state.  I think that I am more appreciative of being a physical, feeling, sensing creature.  I have lived long enough to have experienced many truly enjoyable moments that were of this body I live in.  From the simple joy of the warmth of sunshine on my skin, to the complexities and mystery of physical/emotional love, as a witness to art, as a creator of art, as a son of another human being, as the father of another human being, in deep sorrow and in extreme joy, in fear and in peace I have experienced a truly wonderful existence.
And I am pretty sure that this will end with my death.  At least I have nothing to show me other than this mind/body relationship will cease at my death.  So, I am deeply appreciative, but not attached to these things, this way of being.  Nor am I held by the suffering of this same condition.

In this growing awareness of my own experience in this life, I have also become more aware of the experience of others.  Aren't all people, all things in this same temporary condition?

As I raked the leaves and dried twigs away from the large boulder so as to create an area that I could land on easily, and not possibly twist an ankle as I practice my climbing, I notice the small plants that are just coming up with the arrival of Spring.  I also notice the beetles and ants crawling, and the holes in the peat that are probably the burrows of small animals, voles, mice and such.  I hesitate, and hold the rake.  I consider the work of these animals, the efforts of these small plants.  I consider the lives that I will disturb, disrupt, and possibly end by my actions.

All life exists only at the cost of other life.  That is the defining part of our situation.  Though we cannot change this situation we can consider the suffering we are responsible for in our efforts as we go thru in  this life.

Most of "Organica" (a term I am using to refer to all things. beings, my knowledge of this world) appears to kill to live, the suffering that is brought about by this act could be referred to as necessary.  As a human being, the killing and suffering I cause has little to do with my need to live.  I need water, air, and food, yet most of what I do, like writing this blog, costs so much beyond what those basic things cost in the death and suffering of the rest of "Organica".

Humanity, our societies, have pretty much removed the possibility of living a simpler, more direct life, if it were what I were to choose.  How does a person walk the planet with out a job, paying taxes, being a citizen of a country, owning things.  Who would want to.  Well some would, do, I suppose.

This does not prevent me from considering the way I live, the way, and to what degree, I cause the suffering and death of the rest.

We as humans seem different from the rest.  We are either gifted with a communication skill set that puts us outside of the rest or we are handicapped from a communication skill set that keeps us outside the rest.  No one can say.  But we do have the ability to think and choose and communicate within our own species.  We do have choices in how we go about this life.  We may not be able to exist with out taking other life, but we can choose what we would choose for our own lives, which I would guess something to the effect of "though I know I must end this way of existence at some point, I would like to suffer as little as possible and be given respect and love while here".

How much do I need?  At what cost?  At who's expense?  What do I do that causes the suffering of others (as others might ask what they do that is suffering to me) ?

At some point we might ask ourselves why we would cause this suffering in others, but that is a much more difficult and complex question, with many paths to explore, like a clown car that has more clowns coming out of it than seems possible or reasonable.

Habits

After a recent conversation with a family member I was a little disappointed with myself, with what seemed to me to be a lack of compassion for the person on the other end of the telephone, with the way I was quick to being annoyed or frustrated with the things I was hearing.
I fell into an old familiar attitude with this person I have known all my life.  I stopped hearing what was being said, stopped trying to understand the place of this person and instead went straight to old assumptions and attitudes about what was going on.

It is a hard thing not to do with people who we think we know so well, or have been around for so long.  We believe we have seen all these scenarios before, and understand the motivations behind them.  We recognize reoccurring themes and patterns of disfunction and fail to really listen or look at what is going on right now with them.

If I felt as though I were being treated this way I would end the conversation quickly and feel a bit offended.  I would not appreciate that I was not being seen in real time, as a living growing and changing person, but instead was given only a superficial recognition of who I am or what I was going thru, or how I may have changed and grown.

In my rereading of "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche, I came to the section on Dying.  In it Sogyal Rinpoche writes about how one might relate to the dying, their real needs and the considerations of what it is that they might be going thru.  The insight is and need of compassion seems most important at this time.

I consider the idea of living a good and happy life, fulfilling and full of love, but then ending it in a drawn out fear filled, suffering and painful way and this affirms to me the need of true compassion by those attending the dying.  Would ending ones life in such a suffering and frightened way diminish the significance of the happiness of the life lived?

While I was reading that section of the book, I had in the back of my mind the trouble I'd felt with myself after getting off the telephone with my loved one.  I had a thought.  Aren't we all dying?  Aren't we all on a trip of unknown duration thru this life toward it's end?  If we look down our individual paths in this life, don't they all converge at this same spot, end in this same place?


If this is so, then don't all people deserve to be treated with the same level of compassion, all of the time.  For who of us can know that  we will be here tomorrow, really, or tonight, or 5 minutes from now?

Those who are facing there end in this life can be frightened, angry and can act out in ways that don't seem to make sense, or direct that anger at people who seem underserving.

Well, this is all of us isn't it?

If I go about treating all people with the respect, dignity, and compassion that I would if they had just been informed that they were about to die from a serious illness, then I might be a little bit closer to treating people the way I'd like to treat them all of the time anyway.  It is a way I'd like to be treated, with honesty, dignity, compassion, love.

We are, each of us, facing the same end of this life, with just about the same information as to what it all means, what happens next, with the same basic questions that cannot be answered.

We have great halls of learning and education that focus on all the different disciplines we might undertake while in this life, but we seem to have so little in the way of education on the matters that are common to each of us, and that truly make us all who we are, human, thinking feeling beings, with some very common challenges.

Fire on the Mountain

After a very dry and breezy month, the forest we live in caught fire this past week.  The smoke could be seen for quite a distance and at night the sky in the north was a glow, as if the sun had decided to set in a new direction.

I scouted the fire, going to a ridge a half mile north and could see that the fire was within another half mile of the ridge.

We had to take a moment to think about what we would do should we need to leave our home if the fire came our way.  Where would we go, what would we take.  Then we thought about what it would mean if we lost what was left behind.

It is an exercise in thought a assessing ones values that proved quite comforting to us.  We realized that there was little we would actually need to take with us, that there was little that we could loose that would devastate us.  A car load for each of us to drive away with was really all we came down to needing, and then most of that was not need as much as want.

The things of real value are not tangible.  All those things that could go up in flames are just things and have no real lasting value.

We eventually got to talking about the positive side of having the property cleared by fire and then starting over from the ground up and how we'd be free to plan a house that we'd build rather than making the one we bought work for us, which it has and does quite well.  In the end there was a kind of freedom in the idea of loosing every thing that we had accumulated over our lives.

The fire burned to the north and then the wind turned and it came back to the south, but it had no fuel to burn as it had just used it all up.  The Spring has just begun and we have an entire summer ahead of us, and the possibility of more fires.

I suppose that knowing that there is little that we actually really need to have makes us rest a little easier and allows us to enjoy all that we do have as they are all luxuries.  What a luxurious life we lead, with more clothes, and food than we can carry.

The Ocean

As James Cameron has just touched the bottom of our deepest sea, we humans have killed another mystery in a world that was once full of mystery.  We, humans, seem to look so hard at the physical nature of our world, dividing and classifying everything we can observe, including ourselves.

It seems to me that with all of our "great" ability to explore, produce, extract and organize, we still have done little to improve our situation with greater happiness, compassion, or peace.  It has been said that all of our technology, industry, medical advances, entertainments, can be likened to giving salt water to a thirsty person, the appearance seems desirable but the effect is to make us more thirsty, and sick.

Because we know how far, how fast, or for how long, it does change the fact that we all thirst, hunger, love, hate, rejoice and suffer, live and die.

For each bit of "advancement", there is a price such that we have not seen much gain but rather a lot of frenzy and chaos.

Exploration, on a truly human scale, could do us some good, but we have mostly looked right past that.  

I stand on my own two feet, 

and move with the energy that is truly mine, 

I need no thing not offered, no thing that was not already here,

 and explore my own reasonable path,

 all that I need to discover is within my reach.

We have reached the tallest peak and the path is a littered highway, the peak a mound of meaningless markers and flags.

We have soared higher than the greatest birds and now our planet is surrounded by dead satellites, flotsam and jetsam.

As we now touch the deepest ocean floor, I wonder at what form of desecration will we put upon it.

I have explored the ocean, the deep and the shallow, the calm and the stormy.  I have got there by my own means, within the limitations of my human condition, by the energy that was offered.  My navigation was made by looking what at was around me, the face of the sky, the birds that flew by, the mood of the water, and by listening to the stories of those who went before me and who now have a quality of spirit like polished glass found by the sea.  I don't think that we will find anything at the bottom of the Mariana Trench that will be as useful to us as what we could get from just standing at the edge of the ocean and watching the waves roll in.

As waves upon the great ocean

we run our course

sometimes gentle, sometimes crashing

always mixing, reflecting, amplifying, canceling

but only for a time.
all end as they began 

Never alone, or separate, or individual

we are simply an observed series of moments and places of the great ocean

The surface of the great ocean has infinite numbers of waves

there are no limits to how many or for how long, and each has it's

own unique path

as some die others are born, it is impossible to count them

There is no need of fear, no ego, no individual need or desire

no wave is a thing unto itself, but just a quality of the great ocean

The end of a wave is not the end of the water that formed it

or the energy that shaped it

these things never belonged to the wave and were always a 

part of the great sea.

The Hat

Death is a hat I wear each day

When the brightness of the sun threatens to cook my brain,

I am relieved by the knowledge that this life

will have it's end

When the rain runs down into my eyes and blurs my vision

I put on my hat and can see a bit better, further

I take it off when crossing the threshold of the church

Those inside seek escape from death, but I keep my hat in my hand,

and I notice that the miter stays in place

While taking a rest at the stream side, under the shade of the tree

I take it from my head and cool my thoughts, sinking deeply into

the bliss of this life, body, heartbeat, tired muscle, gratitude

Eventually I will resume my journey, and restore it to my head

holding it in place when the freshening breeze grabs at it,

the brim keeps me from looking to high up, away from the path I walk,

without me adjusting my whole attitude upward

It is mine, and fits me

I have come to know it as

it has come to know the shape of my head

It is not good or bad, it is just a useful thing,

a necessary thing to carry with me

each day

each night I can leave it on it's hook

and know that in the morning, if morning should come

I can find it easily

and go out into the day

and continue on my Path

Where am I, or how'd I get here

From where do I begin?  

     I am here.  

Where is here?

     This is a journey of it's own that is in no way a simple or short/static answer.  

But, for a beginning this is what I know:  

     In this almost 49 year old body, in this chair, in a wooded part of the world I know to be east, the direction the sun rises, and a bit north, the direction the sun goes away from in the winter, by about 2500 miles of where it was I first knew to be.  

     All else, like this being earth, in a solar system......is convention, assumption, and not so relative.

     What is the difference between my knowledge of where I am now, and my knowledge of where I was when I was in France, or Japan, or any other place that I was flown to or driven to and did not mark the passing of each moment of the journey?

     The first time I came to the Northeast of the United States I flew her on a commercial airline.  I didn't keep track of the flight in it's entirety.  I just took it for granted that I was being taken to where I was going.

Now that I have actually driven the distance from where I first began, to where I am now, and marked every bit of the way, finding it myself, I think I have a better idea of where I am.

     It is important for me to know, just what it is I know of where I am, and to differentiate between this and what I assume or accept as convention.

     I could say that I am on planet earth and that earth is at a certain place in the solar system, galaxy, universe.....

All of that would be convention, what I have chosen to accept as true, and not of my own personal knowledge.  This doesn't mean it isn't so, it just means that I haven't experienced it, really.

There was a time not so long ago when so much of what we knew, was what we experienced.  It was knowledge that was earned by living it.  Now, so much of what we think we know is what we choose to accept as knowledge.  Do you really, really know where these words on the screen are coming from? Going?  Where do they exist?  Can you actually pinpoint them.  (don't actually try this or you might ruin your monitor screen)

In my quest to understand where it is that I am, so that I can understand where my path begins, I need to look around me and asses what it is that I know.  It isn't necessary that I have science reports of climate change or news of oil spills or mountains being mined, or forests being cut down, to recognize the state of my world, the one I live in.  It is as easy as noticing, really looking, listening, smelling, feeling.

My world is crowded.  My world is noise polluted.  My world is chaotic.  It is littered.  Life around me is stifled by tarmac and concrete.  The roads are littered with the bodies of the dead, killed by vehicles who's drivers put schedule or entertainment over the value other, and sometimes their own, life.

The world around me has been changed so that I can't find the food or materials I need to survive, in the area I live. 

I can't walk from my home to visit my friend a few towns away with out having to be threatened by speeding tons of steal (cars) or with having to walk thru privately owned land, or that which is as limited to me as private, but labelled public.

All of this, and more, define where it is that I start my journey from.

More,

There is still a growing and regenerating world around me that can supply much of what I need to, not only survive, but thrive.  Water still falls from the sky and stores under ground, in lakes, and runs in rivers.  Their are still those around me who choose to nurture life, rather than exploit it.  They understand the on going nature of life, and the end of our individual lives, the co-dependancy that benefits us all and the affects we each have on one another.  That these kind of people exist, and choose to be stewards the world is energizing and comforting.

    Though the place I find myself has the scars of generations of abuse, it takes very little effort to produce healing.  

A Path is made with respect and consideration of the elements found to already exist.  It is different than a road in this respect.  Many paths can exist in a place and reveal the place to those who would walk them, never changing the nature of a place.  A road is different in this respect.  One road, forced upon a place can change the nature and integrity of place.  A road cuts through a place and allows one to look away from and disregard what is around it.

A path is something sought after with every step, every moment

Questions, quests, and more questions

In order to embark on this Path a few questions have to be asked:

From where do I begin?

Where is it I intend to go?

In what manner shall I get there?

A journey is in each of these questions.  Each gives rise to more questions.  At some point we either stop asking questions so as to get on with the beginning, or we realize that the questions themselves are the journey, each a stone to be stepped upon, a print to be made in the earth, a blade of grass to be pressed down by our step.