Spirit

When we begin to speak about Spirit, it is well to realize that this is not the same as the spirit that is spoken of when we use terms like school spirit or team spirit. Spirit that I am writing about has no us as well as no them. There is not even an inkling of background and foreground, figure and ground as artists call them. The Spirit of which I am speaking joins all in a realm of energy and vibration. Awareness of this realm is and has been for humans throughout time been a prerequisite for our humanity. Whether we reflect or absorb energy, whether we are a source of positive or negative energy and whether or not we respond to the spirit of others often affects our relationships and possibilities which present themselves to us. We need to understand the Spirit with which things are given if we are to make sound decisions on our choices.

A few examples must be considered and today there was an excellent example played out for us at Edwards Air Force Base. In the Spirit of "preparedness" a drill was taken a bit too seriously. The news was transmitted around the globe that there was an "active shooter" situation there. The whole thing was a mistake, but the purposes of the fear mongers were still served, quite well. Officials in the national "security" establishment used this fake report as fuel for the fear machine, reflecting a white hot light on the fact that they want us all to be afraid during our upcoming holiday weekend.

Gang of Four put it best, "Independence ain't dependence." When we allow our Spirit to be hidden under a bushel, it deprives the world of the opportunity of seeing the light that is within each of us. My friends at the Beehive Collective share the message, "Talk to strangers." that is how you spark interaction, how you lend credence to the idea that we each live as Spirit as well as flesh and blood.

Water

In my part of the world, our water stretches from the headwaters of the North Shore of Lake Superior, to the Thousand Islands which define the break between the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River.
The same water that gathers to fill the Great Lakes and their tributaries is the water that lives in and around us. It is as much a part of who we are as who we have come from and the generations we will leave behind when we pass the veil. whether we enjoy the water from the bow, gunnels or transom of a boat or whether we skinny dip under the full moon, the joy of it surrounds, buoys and fills us with sweet water, at once ours alone and shared amongst us all.

Such a wonderful, comforting and vital part of our lives, we cannot live without it and yet we almost all take water for granted. more often than not, we forget that it even exists until we turn our taps on, or want to take the boat out. Luckily, we are blessed with the availability of water nearly everywhere we go and even if we take it for granted from time to time, it holds for us the great gift of life, in spite of our forgetting to honor and respect it.

This week there were some individuals, inspired by big money no doubt, who voted to allow water from the Great Lakes to be used outside our watershed and to be replaced with sewage from that same city. The people of the Great Lakes Region were not asked how they feel about the idea, nor were they represented by these "decision-makers". Time will tell whether their decision will stand, but for now, we can only share with one another the feelings we have and the concerns that this proposal brings to the heart of our ecosystem. Those of us who have spoken for the water for generations will not forget the gift that the Lakes and Rivers represent for us.

May you be forever blessed with fresh and clean water, the oligarchs don't think we are entitled to any, so drink deeply and enjoy while you still can! If you are interested in coming with us to the annual rice harvest, "Where food grows on water", in Northern Wisconsin, let me know. I can be reached through facebook as Tony C. Saladino or you can contact ECO-Tours of Wisconsin directly at 1445 Porlier street Green Bay, WI 54301. This event takes place in mid August (time dependent on the rice) and we are looking for a few more people to round our our group. We ask that everyone who wishes to attend come with all due respect and to bring every good thing to give to the process.

Fire

When the human race began, we were like all other organisms in that we had to rely on our own metabolism, or the fiery sun for our warmth. Some believe that it was our mastery of fire that led to civilization. The vast majority of our time here on Earth, we have relied on renewable forms of fire making, like wood or char, but relatively recently, we have used fossil energy, the stored carbon from millions of years ago, put up as it were by geologic forces and as we make use of this stored energy, like a solar battery, we have found many negative impacts to our environment, for our species and for the many other species that inhabit the planet with us. We are seeing, just this week a destabilization of the atmosphere so great as to have breached the high pressure ridge that has existed in the equatorial region since before our species developed. The fire that we have harnessed is wreaking havoc on the entire globe.

Tribes still sit around communal fires, sharing stories of the past, sharing food, drink and camaraderie. There is a culture, to which we belong, of friends, family and community who share the dancing fire light of the ancients, mesmerized by the dancing fires kindled for not only their warmth, but for the endless hours of entertainment that a few logs can provide.

This week, try to find a fire to sit around and enjoy the timeless treasure that is fire.
  

Air

Pranayama is the discipline of yoga dealing with the breath. In modern times, our deeply physical relationship with air has all but been forgotten. Except for the pollens and molds, dusts, pollutants and other constituents that cause physical harm or allergic reactions, we don't see it, so we forget that it is alive within us, bringing with it necessary oxygen and other gasses that have been in the atmosphere since before our species differentiated from the rest of the living organisms on the planet. We forget, partly because respiration is such an involuntary act and the volume of air that we breathe is, for the most part, invisible. We forget that the ocean of air is directly affected and disturbed by our very passing.

Each of us is followed by a low pressure cell, if we move at all. The caress of the breeze is known less and less as we sit still in front of our computers. The sweet breath of the forest and the moist, energized  aura of the babbling brook are often unknown to those who live in canyons of concrete and steel. The air holds resonant frequencies of the life that takes place within it. These waves and reverberations wash up on us as surely as the tide washes over the shore, carrying the enrgy of far off interactions with it.

May your breath find home in a plant, may the plant one day nourish another creature and may the oxygen that the plant creates in the process, one day, find a way back to your blood. We live in an ocean of air that is slowly being poisoned for profit. May we find ways to calculate and understand the true cost and nature of crimes against this shared resource and make those responsible atone for their desecration of the most vital fluid on the planet.

Earth

We live upon a rock, hurling through space. Our very existence is made possible by millions of trillions of organisms who have formerly existed upon the surface or our planet. The most intimate thing we can do for this place is to give back a little for all that we have taken. When we honor the fact that we are billion year old carbon, we start a process of re-sanctifying the globe. Todd Rundgren, in his recent release, Global sings, "every drop of rain, every grain of sand, every rock and tree every forest stand, is in the Holyland." and this is true. Earth is living in symbiosis with humanity and it is time we learned to do the same for it.

When we perfect the art of the give-back, we are able to experience the cornucopia. Living selflessly in service to the whole is perhaps the most heroic way to live in these times. There are technologies to build soil at exponential rates, to heal the damage done by ignorant abuse and misuse of Terra Firma. Our planet is just a larger version of the astronaut's capsule, finite and with limited resources. Learning to live within the carrying capacity of our Mother Earth is quickly becoming the only reasonable approach to living honorably upon the planet. Learning to care for her and the fellow travelers upon her breast has the power to transform humanity itself.

Native populations have much to teach us about our own history, compassionate care for that which sustains live and how to see the true meaning behind the lies that we have been told in service to furthering the oppressive regimes who will kill anything for profit. Nature is not as harsh and foreboding as we have been told. earth has sustained thousands of generations before us and will continue to nourish thousands more if we learn to take graciously and give back in equal measure to what we have taken. The reason that ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. was founded is to help teach about tools and techniques for protecting and serving mother earth rather than just exploiting and despoiling her. We are fundamentally concerned with healing the rift between humans and their environment.

Biochar workshops and classes that we teach have helped hundreds of individuals to learn ways to double their food production while simultaneously building their soils and making them more healthy. Put some tobacco down, or say thank-you to the planet in whatever ways you are moved to, your efforts will be rewarded, many, many times over.

A Culture Of Estrangement

Unlike most organisms, modern human beings seem to be adept at leaving their fellow humans out of their awareness, except to condemn, ridicule or desecrate them. The reasons for this are many. Our leaders, the oligarchs and their media have decided that we do not have time to even use the full name of anything anymore. The British exit from the European Union, for instance is Brexit...Human beings are called J-Lo or Brangelina etc. We discuss crucial legislation in terms of bill number or worldwide "trade agreements" (which an infinitesimally small number of people ever agreed to) as mere acronyms. when we decide to short change human beings and their work by selling them short in this way, or diminish their importance for all creatures on the planet by naming things in false terms, we lead to a situation where those who don't know the lingo feel out of place. From political discussions to friends and family, we find ourselves being told, "Let's not discuss that." Instead of truly asking or caring what burdens other beings are carrying, we relegate all difficult subjects to the deafening roar of silence.

The recent shootings of innocent people by frustrated, psychopaths who have a negative self image prove repeatedly that our basic needs remain unmet. The values and beliefs that these damaged individuals have had to bear is insufferable, which tarnishes their estimation of civilization generally and the human race specifically. The final lashing out they choose to perpetrate upon the world is not caused by any logical process, it grows from their estrangement.

This is the same callous disregard for humanity that is spawned by those who shut the world out in other ways as well. The oligarch living in his penthouse apartment looking down on the masses is doing the same thing. Disrespecting their neighbors is a way of life for those who hold the resources of the planet in their hands. After all, their rhetoric validates our oppression. Their fear of us, perhaps well-founded, has led them to sequester their beliefs about us on the altar of Calvinism. The divine right of kings has never been overcome and they firmly believe that we would be worse off without them. There is a disconnect between their thinking and reality of course.

How many times have you heard of one, or another minority "breeding like rats"? How often have you heard well-meaning people, standing up for their rights being called "radical"? How many times have you heard people start out a statement by saying "I'm not a racist, but..."? How often have you heard a conversation that began "The problem is...", only to devolve into finger pointing at one group or some individual or another that is only asking the question, "Are we not human too?" The uberwealthy have a bested interest in all of us feeling separate and anything but equal.

We are seeing a situation when even the majority are forsaken for the price of fear and hate. We are living in a culture in which infants and children with legally owned hand guns kill more people than all the terrorists combined. Do we fear the impossible more than we love our children? Do we understand the costs of relegating everyone we see to the dustbin of perception as potential enemies?

Peace, love and understanding require us to care at least enough to understand that everyone we meet is worthy of their humanity. Abuse and neglect are the real threat to our culture, because they turn us one against the other in dismal ways. There is a great outcry at this time, in countries from the Arab World, to the East and from Britain to France. Across the pond here in the Americas, we see it too. Over one hundred millions of compassionate souls, lined up to seek change, but a handful of ultra wealthy media owners refuse to let us see the images of the revolution that has never been televised. Things are far more hopeful and we are far more empowered to change the problems we face than the oligarchs want you to know. more and more people are seeing, not only the problems, but the routes we need to take to solve them. It works in favor of doing nothing, becoming complicit in the great estrangement when we choose to hold our understanding and compassion inside. Caring for one another is one of the most revolutionary acts one can undertake these days. Compassionately giving what little we have to make the lives of others better is the greatest gift we can give future generations of our species.

When Donald Trump runs out of money, and I assure you it will be soon, he will not be remembered for ten minutes. When the shit really hits the fan, will we still be able to recruit Bernie Sanders to lead us out of the darkness? There are over one hundred million souls who are reaching out to change the world for the better in our nation alone, but as long as we allow the power and control, wielded by the oligarchs, to make off with even more power and control over individuals by their purchasing the representatives to Congress and the puppets they hire to the Oval Office, we will have no peace or security.

Talk to strangers.

This Moon

...Has taken me from the greatest depths to the highest heights. I lost another friend to cancer and got the details of another friend's death. Husband and wife, these people were heroes before the day I met them. Luckily, as an activist, I became aware of them, seeing the fire of life alive inside them inspired and helped shape my own identity. However, even within this loss was a seed, of reaping the fruits of their lives works...planting seeds of wonder and awe in our next generation. We need a summer movie that speaks to the same ideas within It's A Wonderful Life. The art of the give-back is rarely discussed. However, those who refine and perfect it are oft' blessed.

I have also been on the ultimate bliss trip because I will be giving a biochar class for people visiting the MREA (Midwest Renewable Energy Association) Energy Fair. Biochar: Ancient Miracle. Getting a chance to potentially talk to another dozen or three  people about char will be amazing. Not only will this help tell the story of char, so that it can be relearned by our civilization, but it will double the production of land upon which it is used. This is the in essence alchemy, literally turning dirt (carbon) to soil (gold), the energy added in charring could be considered a form of sacrifice, or tribute. It reduces by fifty percent the volume of the original cell structure, but preserves it like making billions and billions of microscopic pores upon which life can thrive (by honoring this biomass that is used as "raw material", we also honor and venerate future generations by facilitating possibilities in  new ways of life for them.) Again, this form of practicing the give back, is as much art as science... adding life and all that life needs to exist in harmony with other organisms, is akin to a chess game, certain number of things lie beyond control, however, part of it is like having a garden, or fish tank, a bit of rigor and practice makes it easy to maintain a stable culture.

Like the yogurt and beer maker, who know what conditions their yeasts and bacteria will thrive in, we know what conditions exists in a healthy soil ecosystem, so duplicating the mineral and nutrient requirements becomes relatively easy. By all accounts, learning to make and use biochar may be the most important thing for people to know how to do.

On a more global level, I had been riding high amid a tide of folks who got really excited about my running for Congress. Virtually everyone I talked to signed the nomination papers and a half dozen friends helped by collecting some too, so I ended up being short the number of signatures to get on the ballot. With overwhelming support, I had to work, improve my "property" and attend to other matters, so I could only put so many days into meeting people, one-on-one or in small groups. I had been riding high at the start and the campaign has transformed and gets that much harder to explain, but...write-ins are the hardest votes to steal...they have to be hand counted!