No matter where you go, there you are.

To alleviate suffering we must firstly embrace and accept it. Running from it can't produce any useful results. Because we don't deal with it. Thus it is never resolved. By accepting it, looking it straight in the eyes we may begin the task of solving it's meaning and effect on us. Just because suffering hurts and feels negative doesn't mean that it isn't part of us. In fact it may turn out to be the source of great strength and personal power. Either way if you feel, sense or think it, it's in some way a part of you. As dreams are your minds reflections and reactions, so are your emotions the essence of who you are. Most suffering arises from our inability to deal with who we are. If you keep trying to stuff the square peg in a round hole, you will never get anywhere. If you cannot accept reality you shall suffer. The good news is that suffering is just psychological. So you can be reprogrammed to accept reality. It only takes the desire or will to do so. But this might involve a few changes in how you view the world. Paradigm shifts can be in themselves quite painful but like pulling off the band aid or pulling out a sliver; the end result will be well worth the effort. We have been programmed by post modern media to find fault with our selves, maybe to even hate ourselves. Why? You may ask. Well so that you will buy the cure they're selling you. You are imperfect and they will help you, they will save you from yourself. Advertising didn't invent this method of manipulation, they borrowed it from a very ancient and successful franchise. Not McDonald's or KFC, but rather religion especially western christianity. That ideology has it's hold by telling people that they are essentially born bad and owing a debt for this inherited badness. This is the crux of the whole control system of christianity. You are born owing the deity for the sacrifice he made of his son to save you from himself, that is his rage against you for not having obeyed his rules before you even had a chance to know them. Well it seems the cards are stacked against us even before we are born. Seems strange this whole control issue. Why would an almighty god need to implement such base methods of gaining power, when it already has all the power in the Universe? Seems more like a plan thought up by people. Especially a group who want as much power as they can humanly squeeze out of the main populace. Since history began this has been happening. From supposed god-kings to earthly representatives of divinity, we have been caught like fish; hook, line and sinker.
So do you need the newest product in so and so's line of products? Is Brand New a phrase that makes your mind tingle with happy thoughts of cleanliness and purity? Have you ever walked into a mall with its sparkling marble floors and cathedral ceilings and felt, elated? Makes you wonder. Malls have always seemed like temples to me. The Eaton's center in Toronto is shaped just like a cathedral. It is in fact bigger than any one I've ever been in and I've been in Notre Dame in Paris and St. Paul's in London. Every time you purchase a product do you feel better about yourself? I know you do, we all do, we've all been programed to do so. Our greatest childhood friend Great Mother Television is funded by those responsible for the whole consumerist ideology. From the slinky jingle to the true advertising pioneer coca cola. We have been given a message of salvation; buy, buy, beg, borrow and steal so as to buy more. In this most holy of sacraments ye shall be saved and so we do beleive.
How is all this to be resolved? Can it be fixed? Is there really a problem? It comes down to control. Either you have it or someone else does. Humans are psychologically permeable, power of suggestion is everything . So be on guard and do as a wise person once said , look for those who have the most to gain and there you will find the culprits.

Beside the sauna

Our Confusion

For quite some time I was worried about the coming economic problems. Here in Canada we have built suburbs over our best farm lands. So once oil gets to expensive , food transportation would inflate prices. Especially since so may of our rail tracks have been removed in favor of less efficient big transport rigs burning gas and congesting our roads. But one day I saw a documentary on how Cuba was dealing with the loss of Russian oil and petroleum by products, especially fertilizers. Brilliantly as all capable human beings they planted gardens everywhere and coped with the problem. Latter on I saw how Argentineans where trying to deal with a tragic economic collapse. People who once worked steadily and owned homes, were out on the streets surviving any way they could. Quite similar to how the Great Depression was taught to us in school. Not a pleasant situation at all. Yet I have known many people who weathered the Great Depression and are here to tell us about it. Perhaps we are to accustomed to an attitude which believes it knows abject poverty but really mistakes it for being poor. In the west, what we arrogantly call the first world. We go to work to earn money not so much to eat but rather to acquire and to consume manufactured products. We must learn to redefine what it means to be at the actual bottom of the barrel. I think that our especially North American idea of the bottom of the barrel is most likely mid way up the barrel or quite near the top for the truly poor, starving nations of the world. A dumpster here would be fought over tooth and nail in one of these nations. Of late we (our taxes) paid to throw Afghanistan back into an actually medieval type dark age. Causing great dependence on us for food. We are the masters of manipulation. we destroy a nation then cause them to beg us for the bare minimum to survive. If we want to see what an actual social collapse looks like we need only look to that nation. Ruled by Warlords, perhaps not so much medieval but rather an ancient tribal structure. But that also has some semblance of order, not our acceptable form of it but certainly not complete chaos. The western world is to damn wealthy to have a clue as to what the rest of the world is going through. So I don't worry to much about Canada anymore or our other brethren of the wealthy western shroud, but it is no wonder that the whole world wants in. We are jaded and obscenely ignorant.

The woodland cabin

Living Off The Land

I have always had a dream since I was a child. That dream was to live self sufficiently in and with nature. Often since then I would go off into my mind imagining how this would work. Cabin construction, gardening, chickens the whole enterprise would fill my mind with such a daze of hope and capability. I suppose being raised in Northern Ontario (a land of lakes and forests) had a lot to do with this idea. Of course I never thought I'd actually get the whole thing off the ground. So I enjoyed the day dreaming for what it was worth. Yet, when a seed is planted and nurtured it grows. One day you look in the back yard and a tree has grown from apparently nothing. Well I am happy to say that dreams do come true (wow I feel corny just saying it). I was able to purchase just under 20 acres of forest with a cabin, sauna and shed. I hardly believe it, even to this day. Then I see a photo and am filled with such happiness. So now falls the task of fixing it all up, with the help of some friends and family. It is amazing how unifying a common goal can be. Yet even more amazing is how cleansing it is to just be in nature. The human mind was developed in that environment. It is no wonder that the city frustrates, confuses and stresses people out so much. For thousands of years we existed and survived in the arms of mother nature. Being fed directly from her; right out of her very flesh do we cultivate our nourishment. Yet as the dumb animal we are, we forget where the food comes from. Many children think that food comes from grocery stores and that cities are separate from nature. How sad not to be able to recognize the face of your own mother. There are no alternatives, we are the earth as the earth is us. Hopefully people will become more aware. I always like to remind the children I know that the air you breath comes from trees and that you should love them for it. I'm not saying cry over that mahogany table in the corner. I may be a tree hugger, but I'm not ridiculously stupid. There is a balance, and we are not within it presently. I hope to regain it. I'll see what I can do.

The Ancestral Fire