Meaning & Experience

When examining literature, film, poetry, perhaps every sort of art, It is well to ask one self, "What is the meaning and what is the experience?" Art is said to be a visual manifestation of ideas. What meanings and experiences precipitated the art event and what they tell us in their own language as well as where they take us along the paths of our own experience bring us awareness and insight beyond our reach without the use of these specific media of expression. In basic cybernetic terms, messages (information) flow(s) out, (is) are filtered by the recipient, ascribed meaning, then responded to. How we make meaning, or sidle up to it so others can jump on, or off the train from a temporary perch of our description, is not as important as doing it. The meaning that I hope translates through each and every one of my posts is that I care. You, dear friend and reader are loved...
The hardest meaning to bring others to seems to be the agape love that I have for all humankind, Creator's multitude of critters, the flora, fauna and indeed the very living Earth which we inhabit. All of it resoundingly echoes the eternal spiritual center around which each and every one of us revolves.

I have stepped off the ride, not intent on gaining perspective, but because of insights gained early. Ram Dass put it well...and I will need to paraphrase here. I remember from a lecture how he talked about how many of the greatest intellectuals of his day, would stalk around seeking union, but never wanting to let on that they were unfulfilled. After all, and you see these people today, having things must surely prove that you have it all. If it did not, there would be no reason to amass fortune. When Frank Lloyd Wright met his last and final love, it is said, he overheard his next conquest ask about an assembled crowd of rich folks, "Does everyone not look like they are asleep?" Those who have not experienced the quiet awake phase, or who do not recognize how important it is to cultivate it will never understand the nature of things as those who have stepped off the ride can.

When you are in a car, for instance, the far off horizon seems to go slowly and things closer seem to dash out of our way before we can attend to them. On the ride, our reality is beyond the grasp of many of our attentions because we do not understand or perceive them as possible. Like the rushing foreground that we can see in a moving car, if we slowed down to inspect it carefully, we might be surprised at what we might have missed "asleep" at the wheel. I looked to far off goals for many years, spending far more time than was needed to envision a possible direction or outcome for my life. As a young tee, I saw myself making movies, my first professional love. When I turned my attentions to learning the skills to become a sign painter, it was in relation to the movie maker that lives inside me. However, things took a turn for the worse for both those incarnations I had developed for myself and as I decoupled from the dreamy illusions that hovered out over the horizon, I tripped on a milestone and had to confront the mundane verge and beyond that both hill and dale, fen and swamp at a plodding walk.

In my experience, as much as it was deflating to have to walk both toward and away from professions that I was well-suited for, losing the momentum allowed me to appreciate the texture of a life lived at a more humane speed. I honed my perceptions, broadened my vocabulary and continued to learn from experiences that had to be lived rather than viewed though the window of a hurling contraption. Without a viable shaman or mentor, much of what I took to be "problems" shook me from foundations that were worth holding on to, however, letting go is how I got flung off the ride and finally gained some perspective. The agape love that I have for all beings, all creatures and the planet itself is beyond the realm that can be distilled down into mere words. Language falls flat. Even saying that I love you like a deity sounds corrupted because so many terrible attributes have been put onto our conception of deity. My love cannot sanction or abide retribution. My love cannot be defiled by jealousy or grief, pity or desire. My love for you is based on the fact that we make each other richer and deeper for our experience of one another as well as our ignorant passing. Without you, without this Earth, without each and every creature and organism, life itself would be diminished. The love I have for all of these things, as well as yourself are transcendent and not only fill this moment but break the bonds of time, extending out like the lotus blossom, infinitely.

I have been to the place where we can exist independent of physical form and I love you as protoplasm loves the cell wall or a nutrient loves the muscle it helps nourish. We are one and as more and more of us realize this eternal truth, the mother rapers, the exploiters and the oppressors will come to find that they are not welcome among us. In contrast to the abiding love that I share for all life, those who would deny our intimate relation with one another must learn that whatever terrible injury they have sustained, we still love them. Everyone learns to stop loving the same way...either through abuse or neglect. It has been a hard won trip back to love, but getting off the ride and slowing down to see what life was like for a while was well worth each tiny step.

Ephemera

It would be presumptuous of me to expect that no matter how banal a concept I might discuss, your perception would match my meaning. In my conceptualization of things, I might imagine a specific paisley pattern and never in a hundred years be able to accurately describe it and if I were to say any word, the shades of meaning that it might have for you transcend my implication through my use of words. House is a million different things to a million different people and to some it might just be a refrigerator box. Don't laugh, for half a semester in college, I lived in a cornfield with only cardboard between me and the night sky. I could write a book about my experiences, all the way down to the day I got housing approved, took what I had on my back and in my backpack to my new dorm room and when I returned a few hours later to get my sleeping bag and pillow, wind up clock and sundries to my horror, the field I had been sleeping in the night before had been combined and there was no trace of my belongings or the refrigerator box. That moment had a necessary transience during the unfolding of my life and to convey the many meanings that it held for me and why they were important to me must remain a fleeting ephemeral moment. The important thing that I am trying to wrestle to clarity is that all of the experiences that we have, every one...even those we ignore or do not grasp the gravity of, have power over our every waking perception. What we see and hear, what we expect and how we decipher the myriad data entering our perceptual systems.

In the world of collectors, ephemera are considered to be disposable things, or ones intended to only be of use for a short time. Movie and event posters, ticket stubs and other items that would have been normally discarded fit into this amazing category. I find that, as a writer, I too collect things that are most often shrouded or disposed of by time. I re-collect events and experiences that are but shreds of paper scattered by the winds of time. A brief story between a friend and I was sparked for instance by the small of burned gunpowder. I have smelled it hundreds of times, but my recollection of the first time I smelled it kicked around in my subconscious for decades, surfacing only this week, now it sticks in my mind like an invisible sliver. It was the middle of the night, I was seven-ish. I was awakened by gunfire inside our house. Groggily, I struggled to lift my head, roll over and get up, but before I could, my mom entered the room and told my sister and I that everything is okay. Even at seven, I knew she was lying, but the attempted reassurance was enough, that I trusted her and drifted back to sleep with the smell in my nostrils. The power of that moment has paired the reassuring love of a mother for her young child with my perception of the smell of gunpowder.  I went over forty years without that specific awareness, but it didn't matter, I loved the smell of burned gun powder. The next day, when I got up, there were books with bullets in them on our bookshelf. The bookshelf that was on the other side of the wall to our bedroom. Once I understood the likely trajectory of those shots, I never trusted my stepfather again and could not wait for my mother to leave him.

How our perceptions are wrought, change and get wrung out of us in unique ways is always a puzzle. If we could understand the thorny issues of how we see, hear, listen and attend to stimulus better, we could understand why eye-witness testimony tends to be the least reliable way to get to the truth. Some individuals are able to confront their mortality by association as young children seeing dead vegetation, dead animals or other people who have passed the veil. Others seem to be able to shield themselves in one way or another from the fact that we are all, in our way, ephemera. One of the most likely examples is the young male thinking he can do and survive anything. We humans, when viewed from a geologic time perspective, pass like the smoke through the world like from a discharged firearm, but our impacts can be great. Our fifty or eighty years on the planet is but a wisp, but traces of that wisp will outlive us.

My story here is not intended to be the focus of your attention, it is not about the gunfire, nor the transience of our lives, but the distinctness between "reality" and our perception of it. Because when I told said story to my friend, they immediately wanted to build a puppet to represent a story teller who could say my words to a wider audience. The reason I offer any of this up to the readers who have the ability to make sense of this is to get you to understand that all of life offers opportunity for growth, changing your perspective and broadening the scope of our understanding of what is actually going on not only in us, but around us as well. My friend saw my experience as an opportunity to create a meaningful production to help enlighten others, my own blossoming awareness was, I believe, provided to my awareness to inspire growth and further my understanding. I certainly feel more whole for confronting that old psychic wound and integrating the new knowledge that extracting meaning from previously hidden information has brought, but most of all I think it can be healing for all of us to hear, in whatever ways work for us, that we are all meaning-making machines and we will put meaning into anything if given a chance.

We hold on to our creations as if they are real, but beyond perception, beyond time and space, there is a larger reality which we are also part of. We, perhaps are far more ephemeral than the ego will allow us to admit, but while we are "here" let me tip my hat to you. I am because you are. I honor the light within you and I trust that you will find an appropriate path to your own healing. If you want or need guidance or insight on that path, Feel free to consult with me via e or terrestrial methods. Every dollar that gets donated through our Pay pal account helps us to plant more trees!

Weird Wind

I didn't believe it either.

We stared in disbelief as we picked up the six pieces of glass that were the sum total destruction that the glass sustained.

 When we have storms, they have been dumping two or more inches of rain at a crack! I knew that I was testing the limits of the old tent with saggy skin, but when I'm outside it is fair weather mostly, and the tent is adequate. The couple large downpours required us to dump the contents of the belly of vinyl that filled with rain, but to have the tent go airborne more than two feet, that's really something!

The most unusual wind took place at my house. What kind of scenario could have led to this? I knew it was not the best idea to store a picture frame with glass in it outside in a light duty tent, but what took place is beyond bizarre. First, the tent would have had to blow up off the ground high enough that the picture frame would fall down past it, but then, not only did the glass have to hit the ground without shattering, but the weight of the tent came back down at some point and had to do it softly enough to not break the glass. Nancy saw it first and came to show me. Five small bits of glass were broken off on one side of the glass and one small shard came off the other side (just out of picture) but other than that, I'm cutting this piece down and using it for a solar dryer or something...it seems to be charmed!

Breathing New Life Into The Revolution (that is not being televised)

Just as, when I was coming of age, the Yippies were beaten down at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, groups continue to protest and rally, as a call for sanity, the sanctity of life on this planet and to oppose and protest all manner of insanity being perpetrated upon them and upon our shared environment by their governments and corporate interests. For the most part things have not changed, we just hear less and less about it from fewer and fewer news sources. The oligarchs continue to put up sham candidates who fill abstract "positions" in governments that are rife with corruption, inertia and complacency. Corporate interests are based on expediency and the ecological catastrophes that get left behind are the costs by those borne by the native people. As we are seeing in my own country, not one single progressive idea has been put forward by the House of Representatives, but they have found the time to hold over four hundred votes against what they now call Obamacare. (Never mind that it was modeled on something called Romneycare before that.) The same tactics that have been used unsuccessfully for decades are still being used and lead to the same parries and thrusts. The parries are that the protesters are dirty hippies, ne'er do wells, hooligans or anarchists. Worse yet, they have frequently been branded the disaffected youth of the wealthy, or middle class. Whatever generalization is most useful for getting the ranks and files of Wal-mart shoppers to hate them. The sooner peaceful protesters can be labeled an "angry mob",  the sooner the public will forget that we want peace, justice and sanity to prevail and the powerful elites can include us in the ranks of law breaking criminals, round us up as leftists, propagandists or traitors. Once we have been demeaned or charged with civil crimes for speaking out in the only format available, the stigma of "criminal" has legs. In the digital world, these deeds may outlive us. The millions out in the streets, the activists who poured concrete in between the "anti-homeless" spikes, those who take the fight to road building projects wherever they are proposed, depavers, organic gardeners, human rights workers, teachers, etc. are all participating in ways we cannot fathom. The combined efforts of millions pushing the boundaries of what we can talk about, what we know to be real and how we see our place in the world is unleashing a torrent of public opinion greater than any fire hose, or can of teargas.

We will not be moved.

We must start by educating ourselves. I cannot count the number of times that I have heard people say, "I'm too old, or tired, to get involved." hinting that activism is a task for young people. I say, with the fucking that the elderly are taking, they damned well better get involved! It is sickening to live in a culture that demeans the elders and scoffs at them when they speak truth. When we learn things about the world around us, we quickly see that a tiny difference multiplied by millions of times has immense power. Think what changes would occur if the oligarchs were made to look into the eyes of those whom they have crushed to get to the top of the economic ladder. Imagine the politicians having to run the gauntlet of Grandmothers calling for them to be ashamed for their inaction on crucial issues and being admonished for wasting the time they do have on frivolity and self aggrandizement. Once we have become educated, we need to share our knowledge with our children and our neighbors. It has taken over ten years, but I have convinced three neighbors to start gardens in the twelve years that I have lived at my place. Each one teach one is the best policy to have when committing your life to meaningful change.

We can make a million new things happen and we can pick and choose those things we want to become part of the new reality. What confronts us now is the opportunity to unleash even more powerful tools than were used decades ago, we just need to be open and creative about how we conduct ourselves. Beware agents provocateur. Those in power are getting more and more desperate, do not be taken in by those who advocate violence of any kind. You cannot be on the side of evolution to a higher state of consciousness and deeper level of humanity and advocate violence. The two are mutually exclusive. We all need to practice becoming a stand for our own word. Do not commit to things that you do not intend to carry out. Taking only the responsibility that you feel comfortable making good on is an important first step to fueling the revolution. No one wants to burn out when their task is so vital. I certainly don't want anyone getting sick or hurt because of their commitment to our species and our future.

We must always remember that although we are just one facet of a larger humanity, we are an important one. What flows through us is the same energy and possibility as flows through every other creature on the planet. Our life force is sacred. Our life force is to be respected. Our birthright is clean air, water, food and soil. We also deserve the ability to live our lives unmolested. Desire for a better world is the only fee for being included in the revolution. How we each conduct ourselves will determine how far we can move toward humanity and how quickly it will occur. Ask the tough questions, get to the bottom of whatever issue is your passion and the chips will fall where they will. Truth needs no propping up or defense. It is only a matter of time before the lie machine cannot fabricate lies fast enough to cover their collective asses.

When I Began This Blog...

It felt as if it was a continuation of an ECO-Logical fanzine that I used to write, edit and publish. The fish wraps (newspapers) that were available in Green Bay at the time were just two and the larger one, eventually procured by Gannett, had not only terrible editorial policies, but would screw up any letters to the editor in ways that made the writer look bad, especially if they did not like your points. The "opposition" or leftist paper was true journalism but on such a small scale and without any budget, that they were actually hard to read sometimes because of grammatical and spelling errors. My ECO-logical fanzine was produced by hand, with love and a true sense of the sanctity of the ecology and our environment. Most of the people I knew doing fanzines were really into punk music and mine was just about the Great Lakes and their (our) issues. I knew about the term birthright by then and understood clean air, water and soil, as well as safe food and healthy medicine (herbs) were all part of it. Modern life has nearly estranged us from the environment completely, but in my writing, I attempted to bridge the perceived gap between human-kind and nature. Back then, I understood that there were differences between folks who used the term "resources" and the tribal folks, Earthnicks and peaceful loving people who understood those same materials are Gifts of Creator. As creatures who inhabit the Earth, we are better served by seeing the world around us as sacred. The main points that I focused on in  my original writing were those of conservation, living better for less and escaping the shackles that hold us down through the processes of poisoning the planet, destroying intact ecosystems and accepting what the marketers are selling.

In childhood, there were those who spoke of the big lie, but it took years of research to begin to understand what they were alluding to. Some are willing to accept what they hear and learn at face value, never questioning what they are told, but I had to find out for myself. It took me years to begin to understand the nature and kinds of power and control measures that the oligarchs have for keeping us down, but as I grew and learned, it is nothing much for them to exert great force on our social, political and media systems and often they use our own money, power and efforts to squish us like bugs. Not only do the 1% vehemently hate us, but the vast majority of those who worship wealth are willing to anything in their power to protect that wealth, stop us from rebellion or even to get us to rebel if it suits their needs. In our current state, 38% of all materials and energy that we burn through are for the military. Thirty-eight percent. Only about 1/3 of our population has a family member in the military and what we are all told about their service is that it is necessary to protect our "way of life", our freedoms and our security. In the mind-set of those who feed or rely on the military industrial complex, the world is full of people who would seek to destroy our nation, but the reasons behind their hate are never discussed.

In all my years of paying attention, what I have seen is the exact opposite. The images that rarely come out of Iran for instance is confounding. virtually everyone there seems to be enthralled and infatuated with our culture, our people, our nation. Why would one of our "arch enemy" nations be filled with people who want to be our friends? Likewise, we have set up shop with military bases in over one hundred countries, always claiming the same thing, "This provides a more secure world." Secure from what? If one chooses to look objectively at our current situation, we are spending many times more on our military than any other country on Earth. In fact, we (the U.S of A.) are spending more than twice as much as the next three countries combined. These next three down on the list are interesting in and of themselves. China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. All three of these countries spend a significant amount of their military budget on terrorizing their own people. As long as they are worshiped, the way we are told they should be, our military have great power over our collective American psyche. This still has not quelled the fears of some that our own government is gearing up for a civil war. If we can trump up no threat into a valid reason for having the largest military on Earth, how hard will it be to rationalize killing our own people for "peace and security"? Let me say right away, I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea, I do not go in for conspiracy theories generally, but when there is undeniable evidence showing that we are exploited and lied to, that the "reasons" for our behavior have been based on lies or that the rhetoric has no bearing on reality, I begin to see, through the smoke and mirrors, glaring misrepresentations and omissions that can only be designed to create consent amongst a public that just cannot make sense of issues that confront us.

This plant went in two weeks earlier, but we also planted a few more young sprouts during this trip. ECO-tours can be designed and carried out in just an hour, but they can change the environment for the better and for all time.

When I speak of domestic conflicts like The Trail of Tears, Ruby Ridge, numerous organized murders of union organizers, Kent State killings, Outright violence against those who were speaking their minds in Chicago at the Democratic national Convention in '68, the attacks on Move by the Philadelphia police, the assault and burning of the Branch Davidian's compound, etc. or the fallacious "reasons" behind wars in U.S. history, including the Spanish-American War, Vietnam (Indo-china, or as it became known Southeast Asia), Iraq, Iraq II, Afghanistan, etc. I am speaking from a foundation of truth. The fictions that were used to incite all of these conflicts are available for all to study, for all to learn, but what the people in power to believe is that the justifications for all of these murderous exploits exist, are real and that we "did the right thing."

My dedication to ecological integrity has never wavered. The horrible costs of waging war are offensive for what they do to people, on that human level, but the environment is hit even harder than the people that war is meant to destroy. Even though hundreds of millions of lives have been squandered in war, the lasting legacy that the environment bears will live on long after our species extinguishes itself. My hope in spreading these words is not to stifle or stymie those who hear my message, but to uplift them and encourage their voices, their insights and their commitment to ending the insanity of de-sanctification of all life in the name of governments built and maintained by those who would exploit us. In my mind's eye, I see a day in which we can utilize the tanks and weaponry as lawn ornaments, as planter boxes and recycle some of the wasted resources into useful tools. Even though the uberwealthy refuse to yield to growing public opinion, if we all go our own way, they will not be able to stop us. Living a better lifestyle while using less energy and resources and being aware of the ecological footprint that we leave by our passing is a start. reigning in the urge to blow things up, wreak havoc on the earth and her people will take the concerted efforts of all of the planet's population, but if I did not believe that it was possible to do so, I would stop writing today.

In just two or three years, this tiny sprout will turn to a ten foot by ten foot by ten foot plant (3.3m cubed) bearing blossoms for bees, fruits for birds and people and transforming a denuded glen into the beginnings of a food forest.

This week we planted more trees. It felt like the right thing to do and hundreds of people will enjoy their shade, breathe deeply of their fragrant blossoms and delight in the lush handfuls of ripe berries and fruits that they will offer in abundance. Each of the trees was put into the Earth with a blessing, each one reflects hope for the future. When I was young, it felt like I was alone, the only one who knew what a dangerous path we humans were walking down. As I grew and gained perspective, I realized that there is a huge worldwide cadre of people committed to peace, seeking a better relationship with the planet and who are willing to do whatever is necessary to heal the wounds that have been perpetrated upon mother Earth in the name of the oligarchs. I am one of many who are committing their lives to sanity, teaching ways to harmonize with natural systems rather than slashing or supplanting them with destructive systems based on extraction, abuse and neglect, not only of the ecological systems that we rely on for our quality of life, but the people with which we must ultimately share the planet. Peace no more flows from the barrel of a gun than the cornucopia of life's abundance flows from a gas pump.

June Second 2014

Ninety years ago, our government recognized the right to citizenship of native born peoples, just at the cusp of a growing trend toward wholesale destruction of their lands, the one hand was giving, while the other was taking away. It has been over five hundred years of genocide, ecocide and extraction that these sacred lands, and her people have endured. The people of Earth have been forced, under threat of extinction, to meld with the "modern world", to become Borg as it were, part of a vast collective groin kick to Mother Earth. My readers understand where the term White-giver comes from. I have spoken on these matters before. The original people, which most tribal names mean in their native language, had no sense of dominion, humankind over nature, we were/are one with all living organisms, our welfare depends on intact ecosystems. Five hundred years plus of abuse and less than one hundred being allowed to "vote", Whoopie!

"What I'm pulling off is slag, impurities in the metal. Sand and investment that has turned to glass and floated to the top. It is the dregs of hell. It is the sins of our forefathers...I saw this at an iron pour. it is part of my testimony.

The hope is, that ninety years hence, people will look back at the train wreck that was kicking the fossil energy habit and understand that we did the best we could under difficult conditions. Those of us who have been around for a while have seen all sorts of snake oil salesmen, flim-flam men and outright hoaxes perpetrated upon the renewable energy marketplace over the years. Nearly every corporate energy giant has had divisions for "alternative energy" study over the years, as long as subsidies and tax incentives were granted. The minute these divisions had to stand on their own, they would be discontinued. Remember the recent BP (Beyond Petroleum) campaign? Oh, yeah, that's right...really? Yet again, the companies come in, buy up the available patents, make a few people redic rich and then shelve the technology. What we need to create is a groundswell of demand for the products that have been kept from us. The high efficiency motors, the peel and stick collectors that were making solar affordable enough to become ubiquitous. The trend is there, but we have no free markets.

Anyone who has ever had to let the car "air out" before getting in on a hot day knows that "Solar will never work". Yet, the reasonably priced alternatives to hooking up to the grid are beyond pricey, thanks to the mega energy giants and continued government subsidies. No native person would vote for any strategy to sell out the land for something as vile as profit, yet that is what we get from our leaders most of the time. The claim is always the same, think of all the taxes that will generate, but on the down side they forget that those people want services and those costs will always rise faster than the ability to tax. Infrastructure, especially for automobile transit,  is a forever cost. It all boils down to what and who we want to invest in. Business as usual uses the term "just" business to indicate that there is no harm meant by their ravaging ways, but another way exists. An intact and sustainable biosphere, providing all the benefits of clean air, fresh water and uncontaminated soils. We are a long way from that now, but more and more people are learning viable alternatives to feeding the corporate welfare machine, that the wheels are having cogs sheared and needing more and more oil to stay at a steady state...without a box tender on every car, this baby is going off the wheels soon. Not in an apocalyptic sense, not in a new world order sort of way, but in a new direction in which the water bearers are the ones who will be followed.