Our Source and great patient parent.

We as all the various creatures of the earth are born of its great muck. The preternatural juices of the planet's intestines gave birth to us and all the other wiggly, squiggly beings. Our amazing sisters of the green world have fed us and nurtured our being. Yet they too are rooted down to the foundation of this dirt, soil and refuse. One great compost heap, which is life as we know it on this beautiful spheroid. Where it's going? We shall never know. So it ain't the arrival or the end that counts, but rather the journey itself that has meaning for us. The earth's rotation and wobbling are a great metaphor for our comings and goings or maybe it is us who are but a reflection of its great scale and most amazing life cycle. To it we may be more akin to flees or intestinal worms.Yet we continue our demur existence mostly unaware of the planets awesome trek.
Born of its flesh, of its blood and never torn asunder (other than a handful of astronauts and cosmonauts) we never stray from its loving embrace. Through human times we have come to associate this relationship as one of mother and child. As an infant we feed from her and yet we are never weened. It is our fate to be dependents for every aspect of life. The air we so direly require arises from the earths great and powerful lungs; the trees and our food sprout right from its flesh. There is nothing we have or can desire which does not come from it. So to it we ow everything. Yet we have forgotten these clear and simple facts. We have purposely ignored her well being. As all spoiled and greedy children we take and take, never thinking of the one who has given. We rip, dig and destroy and for some reason think there shall be no reckoning. All is well as long as we look away and ignore the poisons and destruction for which we have wrought. Stupidly enough it's not just all the myriad of other creatures we are hurting or the great extent of plant life we destroy, but we are destroying ourselves. This is always a sign of true depravity. Selfishness is one thing, it usually implies pure and utter self-centeredness, but when it leads to self-destruction it is no longer capable of sustaining its own existence and becomes a form of compulsive addiction and slavery to an idea of the self. Like a junky hooked on an illusion rather than reality. It is in this frame of mind that is born the main problem with our society. The conception of "Want" has replaced the reality of "Need". Our minds and bodies are so polluted by the idea of "Want" being "Need". We suffer as so many children from the famous disease of having " eyes bigger than our stomach". Avarice is no longer a cardinal sin but rather a virtue, and that is a formula for chaos. Spin is in the news and news is nothing but spin. Yet in that rests the solution. The solution is within our minds. The great ability our species has to imagine something, then bring it into existences. Just look to Tesla. The man envisioned the modern age and then he went and made it happen.
As long as consumerism controls the strings of our world we shall be lost in the darkness of greed. Profiteers cannot be left to govern a world which requires more than simple minded fiscal policies and by-annual reports. To sustain any civilization the long term reality of any and all policies cannot be dictated by lobbyists and corporations. You can't trust anybody who is concerned with money over people. Our democratic governments were formed to protect the people from the moneyed interests. We have not entered an age of information but rather an age of dis-information and most atrociously rampant Ignorance. The old sense of our interconnectedness with nature (survival instincts) has been usurped and replaced by an idiot box filling our minds with useless garbage. The sales pitch is our credo and the winner is the one who can swindle more than anyone else. The old adage of being able to sell ice to Eskimos (Inuit) plainly points to the idiocy of a philosophy which has no concern for ones fellow humans and their actual needs; just our wants. Until this changes nothing else will. Except election pandering and empty promises. What is the answer? You may ask. Read your history. Seek and ye shall find. Our written history goes way back. Do not accept what you are told, self-educate, make up your mind. Oh read Machiavelli, he was just telling it as it is.

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

Energy Crisis

Sell it all, get ride of all your possessions and run to the country. The oil is running out. So plant a garden and ask your grandma how to pickle and preserve. Learn how to make beer and distill booze before it all ends. Sharpen your hunting and gathering skills. Take a night course in skinning and curing hide. Forget about that old chain saw (remember there is no more oil), get a good axe and a bow saw. Man this survival business is pretty involved. Most people will probably rather die. Can and will a culture of leisure bother to bother surviving once the system collapses? Either way with the right marinade any kind of flesh can be tasty. Maybe cities are just big human farms, being stocked for the future. It makes me happy to know we won't starve. Well some of us won't. But is this apocalypse going to happen any time soon? They say the oil shortage is soon, but will we really feel it? The prices will rise severely, that is true. But will North America, the continent which houses the American nation be deprived? We Canadians always complain about our psychotic neighbor to the south. Yet being good buddies with the big bully has definite privileges. So will we be dropped off into the dark ages, or will we be on the ride for a bit longer than most? Being a first world country has already saved our asses more than we will ever know. The paths of money will not be abandoned, someone will keep them going as long as there is profit and power to be had. The re-invention of the local business will visit us again. Local farming and goods production will start up again. The railways will be re-instituted as they once were. Maybe not chaos, maybe not a dark age. Perhaps with the combination of individual power production (a series of solar panels on every house) and a new kind of energy conservation ( when you actually can't use what you don't have, you don't) we will see the birth of a new age or the reemergences of an ancient philosophy. An age based on intelligence and practicality. The wasteful use of a car just to go for a ride will be dead. Of course this energy shortage will be the only way the Kyoto Accord will actual be put in affect. As all stupid humans, we have never been able to control our appetites. We are obsessive and compulsive. The only way to control us is to limit us. Once the oil is really gone, then and only then will we be able to start down the road to efficiency. Will there still be war? Fucken right. Will people still starve and die? Absolutely! Humans love conflict, you might shake your head, but look into yourself and see how many times you start fights, verbal and violent (out of boredom, insecurity, anger). Ancient cultures fell apart as they used up all available resources. Until they developed extensive trade routes. The Romans acquired their grain from Egypt. Point is those who say it's all over are just talking about their luxurious life styles. Humans will survive, one way or the other. By hook or by crook we aren't going anywhere but here on this Earth. Anyways, there is no simple answer. But be assured it's the ride of human civilization and it won't end anytime soon.

Things never seem to change all that much

The base existence of religion is food, via the basic concept of survival. The sacrifice of one for another ; the life of one animal to continue the life of yet another. Here is the whole center of the relationship of humanity and the gods. The sacrifice begins as a simple process of killing to eat. We eventually begin paying those in charge of existence. The blood payment to the god(s) is a share of the spoils to guarantee future collaboration and loyalty. Interestingly enough, blood is the one part in the whole of the animal that is wasted, spilt on the ground. Thus it is offered up to appease our guilt and fear. The ancient hunter would ask the spirit or essence of the killed beast for forgiveness. While (coercing it) telling it that he too shall die one day and be eaten. Of course this appeasement is done very much to avoid the anger of the animal and avoid suffering the revenge (haunting, bad luck) of the beast's soul.
From these roots of sacrifice we move into the direct exchange of life to save life. Human sacrifice becomes quite a wide spread and practiced method of acquiring the aid of the god(s). Human blood of course is the greatest offering a human can make. ( incidentally oaths were usually made with a blood seal). These human sacrifices would be transported into the lands of the god(s) and act as messengers and intermediates to the god(s). The living would thereafter pray and leave offerings to the newly sacrificed for communicating directly to the deity for them. Such as the Catholic saints do and Jesus Christ. It is via these conduits that prayers are brought to the attention of god.
This whole need to communicate and gain boons from the god(s) is quite simple. They were the local authorities of existence for our ancestors. Each god had his or her appointed department of expertise to manage. Interesting how the similarities of such pantheons reflect human governmental bureaucracy and humorous how bribery is the basic concept behind religious overings. Just like politics.

Post Modern Survival of the Self

The greatest post-modern tragedy has been the denial of oneself in favor of some media campaign. Some make-up, or hair color add telling you how imperfect you are and how their product can solve this problem for you. Worst and most insidious are the drug companies and their cure all remedies for life. Like the snake oil hucksters of old, going from town to town selling cure all ointment then leaving town before night fall to avoid the taring and the feathering. The whole of advertising is aimed at alienating us from our own concept of self worth so as to represent themselves as saviors with cheap and affordable methods or products to ease the suffering for which they have introduced us to. It's down right immoral and as wrong as war and pedophilia. We are the fish in their barrel, and we thank them for it. Where would we be without all the wonderful garbage they make us believe we need. How much more crap can you stuff into your house? Oh, well move and buy a new house to fit new things in. Got to put the crap somewhere. There are actually few things we humans need. Food, shelter, and the work to sustain these two and of course the reason for these three are our families. The rest is distraction from these things we should concentrate on. But we are lost, our new religion is consumerism and the only thing that can save us is another Great Depression. People from that era are real, not wasteful and they understand life. Less is more and it was a hard lesson for them to learn. If we can teach it to ourselves and our children we would be better off . Frugality is an art not an affliction, learn to do with less and you will have more (money in the bank) and have a greater appreciation for life and what it means to be alive. Boredom, just means you haven't mastered living yet. Being depressed is something to beat not lie down and accept defeat from. Technology is great and at the same time the destroyer of thousands of years of human culture. Once again we need to adapt and reformulate ourselves and our culture, so as to move forward into the next thousand years. Not as slaves to media and production, but rather as survivors and proliferators of a freethinking humanity. It might be a silly dream but in regards to this ignorance for which advertising and propaganda have brought us, we must have a game plan of escape. If this is the age of information, we must use this information to drag ourselves from the pit of ignorance. TV taught idiocy. There is a reason they used to call it the Boob Tube and the Idiot Box.

Avarice; our greatest sin

If you shake your head and think " less is more" is just a cop out. Well I suspect your a yuppie or worst a yuppie want a be. It is your sad ideology or selfishism and greed which are destroying the world and human cultures. We cannot support "bigger is better", the future can not hold this childishness up. You must view your waste as robbing the future of its resources. In a similar light as the compound interest factor in your rrsp, the more you waste today the greater the cost will be tomorrow. But who fucking cares, right. Let's not repeat the ignorant pattern of our parents generation. The "me" generation was a failure, they wasted and squandered our future. That's why electricity and fossil fuel is so expensive. It's their shares in big corporations which are inflating the stock market, cutting jobs (for profit orientation). They have geared the corporate world to a short sighted, self centered ideology. You may even feel that I am naive for even saying this. But is a strong, efficient, profit orientated corporation or business not going to have longterm, future based plan. To be strong and wealthy, these companies need to see that the future is all they have, and providing longterm employment will create a society which can afford to perpetuate this capitalist ideology. But everybody is behaving as rats jumping off a burning boat. Thing is they started the fire, and could slow things down and put it out. Problem: greed. The piggies are devouring their own piglets.

Who are you?

Are you living someone else's life. Do you think you're Britney, or Justin? Do you read all the tabloid shit so that you'll know how to dress or act? Because if you do, it's a sad thing that you don't seem to really be into being you. You're not that bad. Being them doesn't even make them happy so why would it content you? You don't need make-up, just wear your o-natural face instead of the mask of popular culture. You only need because you've been convinced and conditioned by a sales happy industry. I'm just saying your worth being. We all are, and the sooner we all get comfy being who we are the sooner we can accept happiness and contentedness for what they are. The simple exercise of being oneself for who oneself is. There is nobody other than you who you can be. So stop trying to hide and play dress up as some star or other. Give yourself a chance, show compassion and love on to yourself. Be nice to you. Not by indulging weak minded binging and wallowing fights of depression. Depression is what you feel when you give up on yourself. So don't give up, continue onward, for what else is there to do. Save yourself, because no one else will, or can.

The We as we are told to be.

The effect of 2000 years of Christian conditioning has certainly produced a version of humanity which is in constant revolt from its natural state of being. The very base of this Catholic (western European) religion is its explicitly stressed control over human sexuality. From the sperm to the fetus to the new born to the senior citizen. All of human existence is covered. Of course the choice of controlling sexuality was genius on the part of the church. Other than food what instinct controls the lives of men and women. The turmoil and guilt associated with the action and inaction associated with sex is a perfect control mechanism. Destroying the validity of sex as pleasure and replacing it as a sole duty for reproduction was just the exact thing needed to put a collar of insidious manipulation around the instinctual drive of humanity to reproduce. After having such a long and old tradition in a culture it is difficult to know what is really normal (if such a concept ever existed). Perhaps the actual idea of normal itself has been a construct to keep us in line. It is no wonder that the church has had control over education for so many hundreds or thousands of years. Just as the American population is so certainly duped by their blind adherence to television. Christian based culture too has been blinded by an ancient method of mass indoctrination. Not that christian morality does not hold any good, it certainly does. But the whole condemnation of free choice as a damning gift (choice) from god. Basicly back hands the whole idea of free choice while attempting to falsely promote it? After 2000 years of intense cultural programming, it leaves me wondering what next? The corporation as religion and the instituting of Orwell's 1984 in front of our very eyes? For those who can and choose to see?

If you can only experience through you, well then...

We arise from the muck of existence and we eventually descend back into it. We cling to our words, for they identify us as members of cultures and belief systems. What are we, primates, humans, thoughts? If the world is espied through our imaginations, then anything is possible, as long as we believe in it. Thus we are incapable of absolute realizations. Prisoners of our own bodies, minds and hearts: to remain calm and aware would seem to be the only option.

The Retreat

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
--Henry David Thoreau

Words of Wisdom

"Commercial interests with their advertising industry do not want people to develop contentment and less greed. Military interests in economic, political, ethnic or nationalist guises, do not want people to develop more tolerance, nonviolence and compassion. And ruling groups in general, in whatever sort of hierarchy do not want the ruled to become too insightful, too independent, too creative on their own, as the danger is that they will become insubordinate, rebellious, and unproductive in their alloted tasks." - Robert Thurman

The craddle of life

The way we see existence

I asked my son what is god? Firstly he said "god is nothing", then I asked again, "what is god, to the the humans who believe in him or them?". Then he said with that smart ass grin I remember using so often as an adolescent, " Allah". I said, " yes, that's what Muslims call him, but WHAT is god?". He just looked at me grinning and wishing I'd just leave the room so he could go to bed. " God is the personification of nature", I said. " People need to turn the world into a human context to get a handle on it, god is the symbol for ultimate power." He smiled and went to bed. It's alway been so odd to me that humans need to believe they can understand the infinite. Call it what you will the mind of a human being cannot comprehend the incomprehensible. Of course there is the "whistling past the cemetery" theory, fear of death, once again fear of the unknown. Fear and ignorance have always and will always cause suffering. It's to bad, life is good and beautiful. All you have to do is enjoy it.

Don't be a slave to your lifestyle

Media imposed concepts of the mono culture lifestyle are a curse on personal economic growth and sustainability. If you spend more than you can earn you are a run away train on its way to disaster. Advertising is the great strong arm of falsely represented modes of being. If you can't get ahead, stop and take a look around. Try and see where the money is going and why it isn't staying. Easy borrowing and out of control spending are the horrible combination which are leading our society and our selves into chaos. What really destroyed the family? Too much easily acquired money and the basic moral bankruptcy of the "ME" generation has ruined a once honest and community orientated culture.The corporation has become so brilliantly organized that they now control (via media) what we think (we need) and how we feel. These generations brought up by television are mainly VOID of the common sense and practical know how which our ancestors reallied upon. Concern is based in selfish wants and actual ( longterm needs, those of future generations) are not just put aside but mocked and reasoned as none existent (the future is now). We are a candy culture. Economically we are as children who swept away the meat and potatoes, so as to eat desert for supper. A culture now weakened by personal self interest, instead of family, those for which we ow our very existence. Why shouldn't people be only concerned with "numero uno"? It is that nature of the morality which they have seen and experienced all around them. Responsibility is an idea only left to the courts to decide. If I slip and fall on your property, it isn't my fault. No, it's not up to me to watch where I put my feet. It's not up to me to carry my own weight in such a fashion as to avoid personal injury. No, it's your fault for letting such an idiot walk on your land. When people are so selfish, self centered and greedy that they'll do anything to get a "buck" and trade in their self respect, dignity and responsibility for monetary gain. It is obvious that we are in dire times.

Cultural Evolution

In painstaking fashion we have evolved through out the centuries and millennium. We as all forms of life have endured and vanquished the ages and the odds. We are all the proof of the success of our ancestors. The achievement of reproduction; of the continuation of a genetic code; of a taught behavioral pattern. Our physiology is the hardware and our culture is the software. Cultural evolution, over the ten's of thousands of years is our greatest monument. From whence we ultimately came, we do not know or shall ever truly know. Yet, the world we inhabit, is the culture which enables us to co-operate, communicate and adapt, it is the one true greatness of humanity. It has been proven that other animals too, learn from one generation to the other.But with our various forms of literacy (the keeping of records) we have gained the ability to understand and be taught from the distant past and into the expansive future.