Courage

I used to think that courage was being willing to take chances, not appreciating the consequences of possible failure, or acting brashly against all odds. A kind of old west mythology that was encouraged by personalities like John Wayne and the folk hero Wyatt Earp. These heroes that were cast for public consumption were far less courageous than we all thought because they were little more than mannequins to hang designs upon. See, a public that truly believes in the fictional courage of the "Law West of the Pecos", or the fellow in the big white hat, there has got to be no discussion about the courage that could potentially bring down the power elites who make the movies, the oligarchs who buy politicians like we buy chocolates. True courage is standing for what is right, not only in spite of the odds, but because of them. I ended my last post with a favorite saying that comes from the founding times of the United States of America. "We must all hang together, or we will surely hang separately." That is why I continue to exhibit  the courage required to speak truth to power. Because I believe in an America that is of, for and by the people, not just those who have most of the cash, property and wealth.

Courage is not only being willing to sacrifice yourself for the greater good, but to be completely okay with the bargain. Not for the accolades which death might bring, but selflessly, the way cave dwellers retreated into the depths to make their art. Courage can be as simple as giving to your guests when you are nearly out yourself, or giving to those in need, even when it hurts, when you know they may never re-pay you. courage is going out on a limb for something you believe in, facing your fears even when they threaten to disable you. Courage is the action taken, based on a desire to improve the quality of life for everyone, or perhaps for just one person, whatever the cost. Courage is the willingness to step in, even when your opinions may be unwanted, the ability to speak truth to power even when your voice quakes or wavers, to make sure that those listening know that you will no longer be ignored.

 A friend gave me a copy of Sierra Magazine today, it had some interesting facts about courageous individuals who are committed to ecological restoration and ending habitat destruction for billions of creatures around the planet, those who stand up to the oligarchs who want to poison their land, air, water and food. Here is just a tiny snapshot of what took place in 2015, the most dangerous year for environmentalists to date (still waiting on statistics for 2016 and 2017) these numbers were compiled by Global Witness. One-hundred and eighty-five environmentalists were murdered. Fifty were killed in Brazil alone! Thirty-three were killed in the Phillipines. Forty percent of the ECO-logically motivated environmentalists were from indigenous groups. These killings need to be considered genocide. Many of these murders are left un-investigated, of the ones that were, twenty were killed because they resisted agri-bussiness, forty-two were killed because they resisted mining interests. Thirteen of the murders were committed by national armed forces, eleven of the murders were committed by the local police force. These statistics point out how courage leads to commitment, especially to causes that concern the long term habitability of our planet. Just to put this level of courage in perspective...42 police officers died in the line of duty in The United States Of America that same year, the exact same number of people who were killed for opposing mining interests.

 Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. -C.S. Lewis

This misunderstood aspect of the nine noble virtues has to be experienced to be understood. Many are waking up to the concept of doing things that will benefit the next seven generations, something native people have known about for millennea. With the advent of  capitalism, there has been greater and greater exploitation of the masses and the time has come for more and more people to stand in the face of this continuing onslaught and to no longer stand for this sort of anti-humanitarian effort to part people from their wealth. Perhaps the most courageous thing we can do is to stand together in the face of economic terrorism and say, collectively and unabashedly, "No more." No more will we stand for raiding the public coffers for the corporate welfare flowing to the few. No longer will we have our teachers maligned and denied a living wage. No longer will we subsidize the fossil and nuclear energy corporations. No longer will we stand for arms dealers profiting from death and destruction. No longer will we accept mayhem and chaos as foreign policy. These are all courageous stands and I. for one, will never retreat from a single one!

Courage, my friends, courage.

We face a series of hurdles to get our messages out. No one can profit from compassion, no one can take a lifestyle worth living to the bank. We must remain strong, committed and fearless as we face those who hold all the cards. we will continue to find ways to better ourselves and our communities in spite of these economic assaults. Standing up against forces hell bent on stealing our children's future requires a courage that has, as yet, been elusive. as the stakes rise, there will be more and more willing to stand up for what is right and good, for our families and neighborhoods. It takes courage to find new ways of building community because many may call us crazy before we prove the efficacy of compassion. There will be those who call us rebels, but our rebellion is against the heinous abuses that have been perpetrated against us. all truth goes through three stages, first it is denied, then it is questioned, finally it is accepted as fact. It takes courage to bring the new information to the table and those who don't want us to understand truth and facts will spend their last dime trying to convince us that our truth is not real. courageous people will always stand in the face of terror and destruction and speak for those who are not able to do so for themselves. We each give our lives for future generations, courage makes us live specifically to make the world they inherit a better place. fearful and timid people seek to destroy the planet, the creation of generations past and the wonderful abundance that nature provides. The courageous do the exact opposite, nurturing, creating harmony and building systems that will provide benefits for future generations.

 

Fidelity

In our culture, fidelity is often described, defined and understood in relation to marriage or pairs of people, primarily in a sexual sense. Being true to one's spouse or honoring the marriage pact are frequently the way we define fidelity. Frequently we are encouraged to seek and find a committed relationship that is exclusive to one partner and the result of adhering to this monogamy is called fidelity. However, the word has many more meanings and is certainly more powerful than a mere sexual context can provide. As a child, I grew up amongst audiophiles, people obsessed with fidelity in the realm of sound. If you have ever wondered why music sounds so different in a live room than it does when it must be channeled through speakers, you will begin to understand a different meaning of the word fidelity. In this case, true reproduction, or integrity of sound is the goal and fidelity is the closest approximation possible of the live room experience.

This sort of fidelity is, of course, impossible, but for the moment let us not devolve into arguments based on idiosyncratic difficulties in audio reproduction. The physics of sound is not my subject. This fidelity that is represented as a noble virtue is based on staying true to your beliefs, honoring your associations and committing to larger principles that you will never forsake. Although it is impossible to exactly duplicate the acoustics of a concert hall, or the timbre of the oboe on a recording, the fidelity we can exhibit and exemplify by our actions is unmistakable and also cannot be captured easily, much like the sounds and vibrations of the orchestra, you have to experience it to understand the difference between the actual experience and the "recording".

I learned a great deal about fidelity from two different experiences; one was hearing back from a friend, let us call him Tom, about something another friend, let us call him Jim, said in  passing. Conversation between Jim and a third friend had come around to friends of friends, meaningful work and eventually specifically to me. Jim said, to a third fellow who was seeking some sort of meaningful work, and Jim said specifically, about me, "Whatever Tony gets involved in will be a success." We were both in the throws of starting new businesses at the time and for me it was a great honor to be included in such conversation. He was sharing elements of my process that were true and accurate, but I felt that even in this, the reason for my success is bigger than a "job" at which we "work". Even though he exhibited fidelity to me as a  friend and by association the efforts to which I commit myself, he did it as best he could, and even sub-optimal fidelity gets some of the information across. Perhaps he was thinking of my tree planting efforts that take place under the auspices of ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. Possibly, his thoughts were about my rehabilitation of old homes, which have consistently reduced energy consumption of those houses by over 50%, the fact that I have saved condemned homes from demolition, or that I have always sought to provide the highest quality dwellings for people of modest means. He may have even been making an allusion to my continued efforts as an organic gardener and educator, or my bicycle ride around the five Great Lakes, I'm not sure, but his commitment to sharing the messages of people he knows who are doing good for the community as well as themselves can easily be seen as fidelity, not in the hopes of reproducing my efforts, but describing them.

Fidelity is being true not just to a person or a performance, but to ideas and actions. I hesitate to use the term moral code, but if we delve into the topic of noble virtues, many will spin it as a morality tale. I perceive it as co-evolutionary to share these ideas. Not in any way to proselytize, but to encourage each person reading this to define "morality" in the best way they can manage/fathom. Rather than tell others what or how to think, or worse, how to act in order to "appear" moral, deeper messages and meanings require more subtle realizations to accomplish and understand.  I learned more about fidelity when I was in a class about anger management than many would think possible. Fidelity can often be based on larger issues, things such as what we believe to be true, commitments that we have made and principles, elements and ideals which we feel committed to. I need to slip back to the common view of fidelity (ie:sexual) for the sake of this message, or particular meaning. We were told in anger management class, that there are only two reasons for jealousy, the fear of infidelity, the first is that we do not feel enough self worth or integrity to think we deserve fidelity from our spouse; the second, is that we may feel that we are capable of cheating on our spouse and that must mean our significant other is not only capable of cheating as well, but may be predisposed to cheat. This dynamic is at work in far more relationships than I care to admit. Being true, to people, ideas, principles and elements of your craft, your art, your vocation, these all represent fidelity. Fearing the loss of fidelity, may be "natural", but when you think about what happens every time you pass someone on a two lane road...you actually come within arm's length of a head-on collision...that may be natural too, but to obsess on or believe these abstract possibilities are real is not being in touch with many other facts which include but are not limited to the skills, perceptions, nature and true abilities of the others involved. In fact, it is nothing more than a figment of your imagination, not really worth being accurate about representing. Having fidelity to imagined realities is perhaps one of the most dangerous things we can do. If you focus too much energy on these things, it will usurp your vitality and ruin your ability to exist in the world.

Acting in a committed fashion according to larger processes and pictures is crucial to creating positive and long-lasting change, it is required, no essential, to exhibit each, perhaps any, of the noble virtues, this commitment, fidelity,  is essential if we are to create a lasting legacy and build, not only our character, but instill character in others. A good and very well-educated friend once described someone as being like a fart in a mitten. This fellow being described exhibited fidelity to nothing. As malleable as mercury, he took the path of least resistance and could be held to not one single solitary belief. His countenance was without any sort of conviction, lacking even the slightest commitment to anything. Like a sand grain on the beach, he was tossed and turned by wind and surf, as invisible as Cellophane Man from the movie/play Chicago (Beware this link will take you to another site)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKHzTtr_lNk
Like a fart in a mitten, you could tell he was there, but only by the smell. Guaranteed to leak out, but no telling where. The person exhibiting fidelity is the near opposite of this. Again, I must apologize for describing each of the noble virtues by their opposites, it is just so difficult to say exactly what each is. That also why I ask my readers to do so much of the work of defining these terms as a process, slowly developing an affinity for each and seeing how these traits and aspects combine and interlock to create a countenance, a personality that allows for constant creation and the ability to act and reflect at once on how we can each better hone our actions and personalities to serve others, to build community, to ensconce ideals in our culture and to educate others to the critical nature of these tasks. When I learned the term, I am because you are...ubuntu...it qualitatively improved my life and I have tried to pass that enrichment on to others by acting in accord with the meaning of it. One word can change you, if you let yourself listen and remain in a state of fidelity toward it.

As I continue to repeat, we must all hang together, or we will surely all hang separately.

Industry

The simplest way to define industry is getting things done. I remember when I first heard that Corporate America had bullied their way into the abuse of that word. I was about seven. Creative ideas are only of value if you write them down, creative plans are only valuable when executed. The most industrious are agents of evolution, forging new associations, realities and methods, altering the way we perceive the world in ways that change the future. The industry that I am trying to pin down is a process. In other organisms, their striving to life is possibly as industrious as they can become, however we humans can think about ways to alter our reality by making things, writing things down, studying data or doing things that will assist in realizing our dreams. Idle thoughts and pipe dreams don't pay the bills, only changing the world in a positive way is supposed to do that. Greater forces than I can describe here have assured that some of the most destructive acts and support for them yield the highest dividends. Again, I am forced to define the opposite of industry to make it clear what I am describing. Industry from the point of view of noble virtue is to raise up the quality of life, often, not even for oneself, but it can be self-serving a deeper part though is that your "work" benefit others. Doing so graciously, again without the desire for accolades. Again I must defer to the intellectuals reading this, the description again, gets circular. How does one explain one aspect of gracious living without calling in all other aspects and principles together?

Perhaps, like noble gasses, noble virtues cannot be diluted, perhaps it is all for one and one for all.
Perhaps it is opposite, one must possess all or will be unable to express any, or perhaps none fully. 

Industry requires gracious giving of ourselves. Gracious giving, or perfecting the art of the give away requires knowing where resources can best be put to use. It is no different with our practicing industry. In effect, the most noble thing to do is sing your heart song, tell the truth, speak your truth to power and to keep yourself from fdalling into the traps of idle hands. Making things, doing things that make a difference is not difficult, however, it takes time. Our works tell a lot about us, In my estimation, far too few actually understand and appreciate this. One of the tenets of permaculture is to equitably distribute abundance, because when you jump into the realm of exhibiting noble virtues and collectively grace, you leave a greater legacy in that your selflessness will inspire others to live their lives in grace as well. When we appreciate nature, honor and respect the laws of nature, we cannot help but find near infinite abundance. One tiny seed can create a plant taller than a human in one year, now that's what I'm talkin' about! Industry! Industry can even create a sense of family where none had existed before.

Not only does industry require gracious giving, but the knowledge that you are giving in a way that has a specific character. I recently tore into the ideas about mastery. I found it odd that some put a specific number of hours being required to attain mastery. Believe me, I had a good laugh about that. I have seen people doing the same job, which they typically have deemed "dumb", not practicing their craft at all, not trying to get better outcomes, not even looking up to see if you are having a good day. These practices will never even approach what might be called mastery, I do'nt care if they "work" that way for fifty more years! To up your game, or shoot in the direction of mastery, you have to direct your attention to what it takes to do each step, how to home the efficiency of your doing so, and an endless striving for excellence, not the cheap and sleazy corporate excellence you can make memes and poster slogans for until the end of days, I'm speaking for the A+++ form of excellence that could out-do itself against all odds, tomorrow. Peak performance requires frequent and focused practice, never becoming mundane. The people who turn their backs on refinement become proficient at nothing. To "be" creative is to have facility and fluency in your craft, but also the ability to revise and experiment or solve problems when things go awry. When what we have tried has thus far failed, what can we do differently? In all probability, we will all leave a legacy, to be borne by future generations, will it be of our honor, our honesty, our perseverance? I hope so! The things we make say so much about who we are, let us hope future generations will remember us as people who worked hard for the betterment of them! When we got work crews building trails and bridges in national, state and county parks, it left an edifice for all of us to remember their industriousness. In our turn we need to be making these monuments.

We literally forge reality with our actions and being industrious in our attempts to make a world that would not just be better for ourselves, but our great grand children as well, we take our place in the history of the species. My own choice is to make and teach others to make biochar. anyone within stiking distance of Central Wisconsin, Custer to be exact, come to the Midwest Renewable Energy Faire. Learn about the industry of generating electrons! I will be presenting a workshop on Sunday, 2-4P in the Pink Tent. By making healthy soil, my industry may continue to bear fruit that will last thousands of years! The black gold (char) I make allows us to directly put carbon into the soil. I teach classes on how to make it and so far dozens have taken the classes! I want it to be thousands...please spread the word! Together, we can make it happen. WARNING: this will take you to a site that I cannot vouch for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeZPv8gPvJ0       But they do kick it!

Honor

Again, how does one speak of something so primal, so ethereal as honor? The closest I had heard about it when I was very young was "It takes a lifetime to build a reputation, but it only takes a second to destroy it." My teachers were guiding me toward honor, but perhaps they were not sure exactly how to talk about it either. I remember when people had pre-marital sex and got pregnant, "the honorable thing" was to marry the young woman, which also made no sense to me. After all, the honorable thing as I understand it would be more about not getting a young woman pregnant before marriage, but that is truly another story. As a young man, I read the speech written by William Shakespeare, given by his character, Marcus Antonius, given after Caesar's death. During this relatively brief speech, Antonius continues to repeat the line, "but these are honorable men", referring to Brutus and the other conspirators. Even at first reading I could understand the shrewd use of the dripping irony, the twist of phrase that drew in the crowd, got purchase upon their hearts and whipped them to a fury against the conspirators that was palpable. Mere words regarding the honor, not of the conspirators, but of Caesar, moved the crowd to seething hostility and deadly rage! We all know a few of these "honorable men", do we not?

True honor is even more than just saying what you intend to do and doing what you say. It is being humble in that, because honor need not bring accolades, for everyone needs to behave with honor. I can partially forgive those who have been raised on a steady diet of abuse and neglect only because they may have not yet had the concept of honor filled in, defined in ways they understand or perhaps they have not yet seen a model for this illusive quality. It is understandable then that they would see no value in it. I heard another way of speaking about honor that made a big impression on me, just in the last few weeks. "The greatest act of cowardice is to make someone fall in love with you and have no intention to reciprocate." Again, I am not speaking of honor, but I can easily point to the opposite.

Also growing up, there were some fairly common statements to the effect that there is "honor amongst thieves", like folks who rob and steal for a living won't rob or steal from one another. I can say with total certainty that this is not the case! Again, we are speaking of the opposite of honor, but I really want to take a stab in the direction of the meaning, for me, of this word. Honor is the Siamese twin to respect. I know that it may muddy the waters for some of my readers, but even the respect that I understand can be confused. Let me make a run at that first, so as to clarify why I brought that into the discussion. A dear friend recently made the case for fear, guilt and shame, claiming that they had a purpose in getting others to behave in ways you want them to. I had to stand up and voice my opposition to the very concept. Honor came into play. The person I believe myself to be could not stand for undermining other humans and fear, guilt and shame have no place in the coming age of peace, freedom and abundance. It is one of my most cherished beliefs that all humans can be motivated to behave appropriately, simply by educating them as to why co-operation is necessary.

As I honor and respect others, I would also like to think that they would honor and respect me. Not in ways that instill fear if they don't go along with me, not guilt for disobeying me, or having their own ideas about ways forward, I don't even want for people to feel ashamed if they do not meet expectations, it is a useless emotion. I am pretty sure that honoring our mistakes makes them less likely to haunt us, because we can learn and move on. The last oddity that i had to confront when growing up was the, I believe, Girl Scout Promise, "On my honor I will try..." by the time I heard that I understood that there is no try, only to do or not do. In my heart of hearts I knew that part of the problem our culture faces is that there are too many pledges, too many promises and too many excuses made to "be true" and far too little attention is often paid to the real tools that are needed to even be capable of making a significant commitment.

Honor is not asking others to live up to anyone's expectations, especially your own. It is not expecting everyone to be at least as informed as you are, honor is remaining an integrate whole in spite of people ruffling your feathers, pushing your buttons or bringing up sore feelings you may feel totally justified in having. Honor submits to no mere passing phase or "temptation", no honor is like the stillness that carries the day when everything else felt uncertain or changeable. Honor is something like a rock, it counts, it is not showy, but it will remain, even when times change.

Truth

I learned about truth the way many of us did. "These truths" were self-evident in The United States of America's founding document, the Declaration of Independence. I knew nothing about lies, having never lied, I also had not been accused of lying, so I know it is so. Because I had never known what they were, I didn't even know that they are the opposite of truth. I grew up a theater child and had heard tell of "suspension of disbelief", however, there was little discussion about the fact that everything we create in theater is a lie. From the sets to the props, from the teasers to the tormentors, it all exists to trick the audience into believing  our story. Even autobiographical theater is a story of who the author wants the audience to think they are. It was perhaps too self-reflective to speak of the lying nature of our business back then, but it must be understood to get to the bottom of what truth is. The idea of willful ignorance, the root of stupidity itself, is based on this willingness to continue to believe in lies in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary.

I will attempt to write about truth when even the act of writing is a lie. All stories are imperfect reflections through a kaleidoscope of words that depend on you defining what is meant by each of them and, if you are paying attention, to make decisions about what they meant in total. A stone, even well described, is not the same stone for you as it is for me and certainly the essential quality that the speaker has in mind cannot be conveyed in five letters. That is why geologists have so many names for them. Even describing something real in exacting terms cannot be the thing, so it is a representation, a figmentary non-rock which exists only in it's description. So too, the essence of truth is obscured by words. My attempt, as writer, is to lie to you in such a way as to simulate truth and hope that by reflection, in my very dirty mirror, and your astute mind, through presenting a variety of vagaries, can decipher the essence of it. I can make models of what it is not, perhaps fill in the negative space, but to show you truth, standing alone can only be done through examples pulled out of our collected experience, hoping you will "get" my meaning in spite of the allusions and props used to mimic the reality and it's essence  I want to define or point to what I believe is truth. My reality, my version by the way, cloaked in your perceptions. In trying to do it succinctly, I have to contort words to get my points across, so beware of putting too much meaning on any one point that I am about to make, taken together these paragraphs are but a shot in the dark, toward an essential quality that defies description.

We were told that when nuclear energy was implemented, electricity would be "too cheap to meter", that was a lie. The truth was, some scientists wanted the waste from nuclear energy production to make bombs, terrible bombs, which could destroy the world many times over. These self same scientists didn't care how many billions of BTUs of fossil energy would need to be squandered to achieve their aims. They only sought "success" as their "truth" allowed them to define it. As it turns out, the whole process, from inception had been a horrible waste of human effort. The lie carried far more weight than the truth in the American psyche, but the burden of millions of years of contamination will be born by our species in perpetuity. Truth was deemed too harsh for the American people, so lies carried the day. For some, they still do.The extortion and raping of our economy by the military industrial complex is still, seemingly, too distasteful to discuss openly, so we continue to fabricate lies about how our "security" is "enhanced" by blowing up foreign air bases and cave complexes built by our CIA, in prior times, to help further undermining prior regimes. That, sadly, seems to be the way the cookie crumbles. Eisenhower himself pointed out that even the President cannot bring these lying, cheating death merchants to heel. But again, how does this convey the essence of truth? Sorrowfully, only by it's opposition to it. Truth, however is even more than what these lies are not.

So, how am I, or when will I be getting to writing about truth? Well, it is time to speak truth to power and I will not be letting down my attempt to show you at least one truth before ending my post. It requires generosity (a form of hospitality), courage, discipline and perseverance. Truth is often self-less, given from the heart and researched through a lifetime of fidelity to fact, the ability to be self-reliant and not be parasitic to any other person. This is a hard one because so many are willing to sell themselves or profit from the efforts of others. Making things, especially when you constantly work to improve your craftsmanship, efficiency or technique, utilize creative problem solving to overcome systemic problems, etc. reflects truth and an attempt to hold it dear. If this description seems somewhat circuitous, it is because truth has many aspects, although it is one thing, a whole. To some this Truth, has the countenance of a deity. It is "holy" as it were. In an effort to approximate truth, a story with an important picture may do well to describe...

ECO-TOURS OF WISCONSIN INC. NORTHEAST WISCONSIN PLANTING SITES- Since this photo was taken, sites have been added, in Manitowoc, Wisconsin and in Chase, Wisconsin. More native plants will flourish there as we continue planting and growing, building community and assisting the native flora and fauna to co-exist in ecological integrity.

Even understanding all the maps, graphs and charts in the world won't help find truth, it is that illusive. This photo shows just one reason why. I have kept track over the years of where ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. has planted trees. To the best of my ability I accurately placed a pin at each planting site. However, the pins themselves, in scale, are nearly mile wide! The plant-ins that have been held at these sites were rarely more than perhaps two hundred feet wide and were never more than a quarter mile wide. Some places were just a single line of trees planted as a screen, hedge or wind break, so even thirty years on, they will only be thirty feet wide at their greatest, not nearly a mile wide as the pin suggests. Just to try to clarify, These locations have had more than 60K trees planted in them and over three million tree seeds as well, however, at this scale, all of those tree seedlings we planted would fit within a single pin hole. (less than 200 acres actually) Even if every tree seed grew to a mature tree, which is impossible, the area covered would be about the size of one of the larger pin heads, (about 9K acres) The map makes our impact seem much larger, because all maps are a lie. They reflect only a tiny selection of "things"  in inappropriate scale, to get only one bit of information across and their information is always, by nature, contaminated by the fact that it is a representation, not the real thing.

Truth needs more champions and lies need to continue to be exposed.

More Than A Moon

My next nine posts will deal with my own insights and ramblings about the Nine Noble Virtues. In my mind they are located along a Mobius band, no inside, no outside, wrapped like a lazy eight or infinity loop. Listing the nine is easy enough, but as I will try to elucidate over the coming moon and a third or so, each and their interrelationship withing a spiritual quest. Said quest is primarily intended to delve deeply into both generosity and courage, simply because one of my own tribe has brought these two issues to the fore. Readers that have stayed with this blog for a while know that my practice of the give away is a rite that is often rewarded many times over. Just a few specific examples are when I gave away about $130 dollars worth of equipment to someone who really could use it, within a week, someone gave me over $1,000 worth of building materials I desperately needed. another time, we gave away something a guest had commented on, it was a tool worth over $35 bucks, but they had an immediate need for it, so we let it go. Late that morning, catching the tail end of the farmer's market, last one of the season, we bargained for a whole trunk load of an old boat-like automobile, full of Brussels sprouts, when cleaned, there were 35 pounds of food for five bucks. I needed soil once and my aunt happened to be visiting and she sprung for the dirt, getting our initial gardens started fifteen or more years ago. The trend continues...the closer I try to live my life in accord with nature, to spread my abundance and methods, because I want everyone to experience the Earth the way it was intended to be experienced.

Quiet is probably one of the first casualties of a fossil fueled existence. believe me, I know, I buy the poison too. the addiction that our "civilization" has with fossil energy is heinous. I lived for many years in coal country. I know the pain the industry wrests upon society, the desolation left behind after the boom. we see the results of not living up to the nine noble virtues each and every day. That is the reason i write. To teach, to prod, to beg plead or cajole, but to get the message out thatr new times are coming and new soulutions (soul-evolutions) will be necessary to come to terms with the new world that will be created. New sense of community, more interdependence withon local regions and areas will reduce the need for transit as we know it. Silence is the mantra of the coming age. noise is wasted energy. My time signature has always been askew. Often that means that during the quietest times of day (or night) I would be up and about. Making art, writing, reading, telling stories around campfires. this truly is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, we have the water bearers among us today, the futurists that are co-imagining possible futures. The kryptonite that exists for the oligarchs is that we are evolving past necessities. I have seen many people who walked away from a fully furnished house with not much more than they had on their back, because wherever they were headed has a re-sale shop, Salvation Army, thrift shoppe or other source for all the stuff they left behind. Skillet, pan, pot ten bucks, wardrobe, twenty (or less). It really is not worth transporting all that stuff.

Quiet of mind follows from quiet spaces. Transforming our energy infrastructure to renewable electric is getting cheaper by the week. Thinking things through is the easy part, making choices the spin the wheel in the direction we want to go is more important than ever and that is why I choose to speak to these noble virtues now.  I suppose I need to start with the list,
Truth
Honor
Fidelity
Discipline
Hospitality
Self-reliance
Perseverance
Courage
Industry
I'm not sure which will be first of last, but any relationship first to last or ranked order automatically misses the point. all of these are operating at once, integral to each are all. Optimal behavior moment to moment is predicated on the embodiment of all of these virtues simultaneously. The reason we think of these aspects as separate is because we have words for each. Truly, they are all one. The fact that I will, hopefully, write something worth reading over the next moon and a third or so is only possible because I had to learn all of these things for myself, with very little guidance or external interference. for decades, I have wanted to meet a young mathematician and create the right proof of something that exists beyond our ability to measure or record, a simple relationship between gravity and magnetism that creates standing and resonant waves, standing waves and ethereal vortecies that we will one day understand, perhaps measure and accept as fact.  as yet, the right candidate has not shown up, but that is no guarantee they won't. long time readers, again, will recognize the usefulness of the phrase, What are the chances? 100%!