PHILOSOPHY AND REBELLION
1 EARTH IS GETTING VERY TIRED
_
Feb 14th,
2011
I sit in the afternoon sunlight and realize it is already 2PM. It will be dark before very long. As I feel my heart reach out to the sun, I realize I want to capture it. And I come to understand; all creatures on earth want this. All life forms work to capture the warmth and beneficence of the sun. All our energy transactions come down to this- seeds that are food, as well as the promise of growth of more food; trees with all their gifts, fossil fuels- our bodies; - all these are energy currency.
As my mind turns over this understanding, I find myself contrasting the loving sweetness in the warmth I am feeling, with the desert’s withering blast. And I am struck by the fact that there must be a lesson in the desert, that meditation in that place would bring further understanding.
I think of the wars in the Middle East, and a wave of anger sweeps over me.
Earth is getting very tired of your fucking wars. How can you take her magnificent gift of herself and so desecrate it? You have taken her sacred ground and turned it, instead, into a battleground, to kill your own kind.
No one should have to see the desert that way. Our children are on Holy Ground-not only our children, but earth's children- and instead they wage war. The war goes on outside of them, by their hands. It is waged within their hearts, minds, and spirits as well. They will bring it home, if they come home. The fighting and horror will continue within.
All parts of Mother Earth are sacred. How much of our planet has been so desecrated? How much more will we destroy before we learn? This is worse than physical pollution.
Not only do we destroy ecosystems and poison the environment (as a routine accompaniment to the transaction of business and profit making), but we kill our own kind.
Every single death is a desecration of the spirit, severe harm- terminal harm- to the victim, but also severe harm to the one who has done the killing. The one killed is, of course dead, at least in the body. But the one who did the killing does not escape the harm. It says in The Book- ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’. Looked at from this standpoint, one can say that sins hurt the victim and the perpetrator.
Hollywood does its best to glorify war, violence, and gunfire. It is sold as ‘action’, ‘entertainment’. Easier for some, it must be, to glut themselves on these images after a hard day at work. Encounters in the work place build up the level of bottled up anger and frustration.
How many absorb the conditioning of violent entertainment, transmute their own anger and frustration, and then find it easier to turn to road rage, vicious speech and actions?
Production of ‘action’ films gains profits for the makers. Those desensitized to violence by watching such productions may well be more accepting of war itself, as well as increasing violence in the cities and, indeed, throughout our country. To what degree does this increase the supply of volunteers for the armed forces?
If you add to this the pressures of an economy manipulated to remove resources and ‘wealth’ from ‘the common man’- if you then beat the drums of war and sing patriotic songs- who knows how many may step forward?
The war machine conditions them to survive. The war machine teaches them to kill. The war machine teaches them a lot of things.
The thing is, (Thank God), they don’t die over there. They come back. And, coming back, they can bear witness to what truth they have seen and what they carry within them.
I sit in the afternoon sunlight and realize it is already 2PM. It will be dark before very long. As I feel my heart reach out to the sun, I realize I want to capture it. And I come to understand; all creatures on earth want this. All life forms work to capture the warmth and beneficence of the sun. All our energy transactions come down to this- seeds that are food, as well as the promise of growth of more food; trees with all their gifts, fossil fuels- our bodies; - all these are energy currency.
As my mind turns over this understanding, I find myself contrasting the loving sweetness in the warmth I am feeling, with the desert’s withering blast. And I am struck by the fact that there must be a lesson in the desert, that meditation in that place would bring further understanding.
I think of the wars in the Middle East, and a wave of anger sweeps over me.
Earth is getting very tired of your fucking wars. How can you take her magnificent gift of herself and so desecrate it? You have taken her sacred ground and turned it, instead, into a battleground, to kill your own kind.
No one should have to see the desert that way. Our children are on Holy Ground-not only our children, but earth's children- and instead they wage war. The war goes on outside of them, by their hands. It is waged within their hearts, minds, and spirits as well. They will bring it home, if they come home. The fighting and horror will continue within.
All parts of Mother Earth are sacred. How much of our planet has been so desecrated? How much more will we destroy before we learn? This is worse than physical pollution.
Not only do we destroy ecosystems and poison the environment (as a routine accompaniment to the transaction of business and profit making), but we kill our own kind.
Every single death is a desecration of the spirit, severe harm- terminal harm- to the victim, but also severe harm to the one who has done the killing. The one killed is, of course dead, at least in the body. But the one who did the killing does not escape the harm. It says in The Book- ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’. Looked at from this standpoint, one can say that sins hurt the victim and the perpetrator.
Hollywood does its best to glorify war, violence, and gunfire. It is sold as ‘action’, ‘entertainment’. Easier for some, it must be, to glut themselves on these images after a hard day at work. Encounters in the work place build up the level of bottled up anger and frustration.
How many absorb the conditioning of violent entertainment, transmute their own anger and frustration, and then find it easier to turn to road rage, vicious speech and actions?
Production of ‘action’ films gains profits for the makers. Those desensitized to violence by watching such productions may well be more accepting of war itself, as well as increasing violence in the cities and, indeed, throughout our country. To what degree does this increase the supply of volunteers for the armed forces?
If you add to this the pressures of an economy manipulated to remove resources and ‘wealth’ from ‘the common man’- if you then beat the drums of war and sing patriotic songs- who knows how many may step forward?
The war machine conditions them to survive. The war machine teaches them to kill. The war machine teaches them a lot of things.
The thing is, (Thank God), they don’t die over there. They come back. And, coming back, they can bear witness to what truth they have seen and what they carry within them.
_2 Tornado in Alabama
_
. The year was most likely 2008, and I was at a bio-terrorism workshop in Alabama.
Homeland Security. George Bush. FEMA. We were part of an emergency preparedness team. I was quite proud of it at the time.
So- we took the class. We listened to retired spies. We got to go into scenes mocked up to look like a meth lab. We got to look at their IED and explosives displays. They were so proud of them.
And then we got to tour the holiest of holies, their poison gas demonstration. We were in full regalia, standing around a table, as they ceremonially came in and dripped a few drops of their bio agents on pans in the room, so we could use our little test strips to show yes, the agent was free in the room and, yes, if we took off our garb we would probably die.
And then we got to go wash off. They were so proud of it.
WE MADE THAT STUFF.
The facility was there because this was a huge dumping and disposal facility for biological and chemical warfare agents.
It was a black mass. We were standing at the fucking altar, acolytes of death. They were so proud of it.
The cafeteria had southern food- pounds of it- 3 square meals a day- smiling southern hospitality. Beers in the lounge area. Nothing but the best for Federal programs.
The second or third morning, there was a tornado warning. It wasn’t a direct hit, but there was a lot of violent wind.
It was the cleanest thing about the whole course.
We went into town one day for food and bowling. The food sucked, and I didn’t go bowling. I used my phone GPS to check for ‘local attractions’ and found a botanic garden and museum. Albeit it was winter, there were a lot of plants inside, and animal displays, and a nice Egyptian collection.
It was a breath of sanity and life.
It took me another year to quit the team. I just kept having encounter after encounter that told me that was NOT the direction I should go. Every response, every training, every drill. Tactical EMS. God help me. Just NOT.
This country is a breeding ground for Hell if that is what we have to train for.
My farm is what I am doing for emergency preparedness. It’s-let’s say it together- life.
Now the Feds are working on bioterrorism and agriculture, using it as an excuse to close the borders to the shipping of seed. They seem blind to the fact that manufacturers of genetically modified organisms and patented life are the real bioterrorists.
. The year was most likely 2008, and I was at a bio-terrorism workshop in Alabama.
Homeland Security. George Bush. FEMA. We were part of an emergency preparedness team. I was quite proud of it at the time.
So- we took the class. We listened to retired spies. We got to go into scenes mocked up to look like a meth lab. We got to look at their IED and explosives displays. They were so proud of them.
And then we got to tour the holiest of holies, their poison gas demonstration. We were in full regalia, standing around a table, as they ceremonially came in and dripped a few drops of their bio agents on pans in the room, so we could use our little test strips to show yes, the agent was free in the room and, yes, if we took off our garb we would probably die.
And then we got to go wash off. They were so proud of it.
WE MADE THAT STUFF.
The facility was there because this was a huge dumping and disposal facility for biological and chemical warfare agents.
It was a black mass. We were standing at the fucking altar, acolytes of death. They were so proud of it.
The cafeteria had southern food- pounds of it- 3 square meals a day- smiling southern hospitality. Beers in the lounge area. Nothing but the best for Federal programs.
The second or third morning, there was a tornado warning. It wasn’t a direct hit, but there was a lot of violent wind.
It was the cleanest thing about the whole course.
We went into town one day for food and bowling. The food sucked, and I didn’t go bowling. I used my phone GPS to check for ‘local attractions’ and found a botanic garden and museum. Albeit it was winter, there were a lot of plants inside, and animal displays, and a nice Egyptian collection.
It was a breath of sanity and life.
It took me another year to quit the team. I just kept having encounter after encounter that told me that was NOT the direction I should go. Every response, every training, every drill. Tactical EMS. God help me. Just NOT.
This country is a breeding ground for Hell if that is what we have to train for.
My farm is what I am doing for emergency preparedness. It’s-let’s say it together- life.
Now the Feds are working on bioterrorism and agriculture, using it as an excuse to close the borders to the shipping of seed. They seem blind to the fact that manufacturers of genetically modified organisms and patented life are the real bioterrorists.
_3 WE ARE NOT SHEEP
_
We are not sheep.
We are not herds of cattle.
Some of us are wolves,
enlightened predators.
Anyone who wants a new world order
best not be forgetting that.
We love our families.
By extension we love the family of mankind,
and beyond that the world and the Creator.
But we are not sheep.
*****************************************************************************************************************
(notes on 'we are not sheep'); I was reflecting on the 4 lines;
'Some of us are wolves,
enlightened predators.
Anyone who wants a new world order
best not be forgetting that.'
I realized that the necessary corollary to this is that *we* had best not be forgetting that. We need to be mindful of the predator within. Not to encourage predation on our fellow humans- there is too much of that- but rather to be aware of and cultivate the keen senses, instincts and abilities, that allow threat recognition and the devising of effective strategies for response. Sheep- I don't want to malign sheep- have a purported tendency *not* to do this. I'm not absolutely sure, (not having deep insight into the mind of a sheep) that they don't have the alertness I am suggesting- but their defensive actions are not wonderfully effective, in many cases. It is as if the ability to effectively defend themselves has been bred out of them. (It could also be that the perceptual horizon of a sheep in the midst of a herd is limited by the surrounding pack of woolly, bleating fellow sheep. They can't climb trees to get a better perspective- they don't have the technology for surveillance drones- but they might be wise to post lookouts on the edge of the herd- and perhaps they do. At some point I shall look into this possibility- but not now.)
We need to keep our wildness, incorporate our feral nature as so much of a wild card.
Going off on a tangent, as usual (often, as at the present time, at 3am), I realize that it is in fact a profound subject and worthy of further thought, to consider wild and 'domesticated', predator and prey species. At the time when I (unwarily) took over the care of my niece's Percheron, I purchased an excellent book titled 'Know Your Horse'. It makes a big deal of the nature of the horse as a prey animal, and how wary and alert they are. This is clearly true as well of white tail deer. Considering herds of wild horses, and- say- the defenses of musk oxen, prey animals do- in the wild- have some fairly effective strategies of defense.
I can see how profound a cultural step it was, when cave-dwelling humans began to incorporate the nature of 'totem animals' into their art and belief systems. There are many lessons to be learned. Each species has survived because of their unique blend of attributes. We as observers, and interacting with these fellow beings, increase our ability to survive when we learn from them..
We are not sheep.
We are not herds of cattle.
Some of us are wolves,
enlightened predators.
Anyone who wants a new world order
best not be forgetting that.
We love our families.
By extension we love the family of mankind,
and beyond that the world and the Creator.
But we are not sheep.
*****************************************************************************************************************
(notes on 'we are not sheep'); I was reflecting on the 4 lines;
'Some of us are wolves,
enlightened predators.
Anyone who wants a new world order
best not be forgetting that.'
I realized that the necessary corollary to this is that *we* had best not be forgetting that. We need to be mindful of the predator within. Not to encourage predation on our fellow humans- there is too much of that- but rather to be aware of and cultivate the keen senses, instincts and abilities, that allow threat recognition and the devising of effective strategies for response. Sheep- I don't want to malign sheep- have a purported tendency *not* to do this. I'm not absolutely sure, (not having deep insight into the mind of a sheep) that they don't have the alertness I am suggesting- but their defensive actions are not wonderfully effective, in many cases. It is as if the ability to effectively defend themselves has been bred out of them. (It could also be that the perceptual horizon of a sheep in the midst of a herd is limited by the surrounding pack of woolly, bleating fellow sheep. They can't climb trees to get a better perspective- they don't have the technology for surveillance drones- but they might be wise to post lookouts on the edge of the herd- and perhaps they do. At some point I shall look into this possibility- but not now.)
We need to keep our wildness, incorporate our feral nature as so much of a wild card.
Going off on a tangent, as usual (often, as at the present time, at 3am), I realize that it is in fact a profound subject and worthy of further thought, to consider wild and 'domesticated', predator and prey species. At the time when I (unwarily) took over the care of my niece's Percheron, I purchased an excellent book titled 'Know Your Horse'. It makes a big deal of the nature of the horse as a prey animal, and how wary and alert they are. This is clearly true as well of white tail deer. Considering herds of wild horses, and- say- the defenses of musk oxen, prey animals do- in the wild- have some fairly effective strategies of defense.
I can see how profound a cultural step it was, when cave-dwelling humans began to incorporate the nature of 'totem animals' into their art and belief systems. There are many lessons to be learned. Each species has survived because of their unique blend of attributes. We as observers, and interacting with these fellow beings, increase our ability to survive when we learn from them..
_4 THE MOUNTAIN SPEAKS
_
If that day comes, we will stand and witness
But we will not interfere.
You will have brought about your own destruction.
Rained fire, of your own making
On your own heads.
We will stand.
If that day comes, we will stand and witness
But we will not interfere.
You will have brought about your own destruction.
Rained fire, of your own making
On your own heads.
We will stand.
_5 THE DISCLAIMER
_
'We produce beef , eggs, milk, butter, honey, vegetables, fruit, grains, and fiber.’
‘The items produced by this facility may, if used in certain ways, cause harm. It is not the intent of the producer that any of the products cause harm either intentionally or unintentionally. We intend to produce products which are beneficial and safe if used correctly.'
This disclaimer is far more credible for such products than for, say, the products of a munitions factory.
You are partially responsible for the harm done by the products of your work. You cannot profit from the manufacture of bombs and grenades and then claim you are guiltless with clean hands as a war is waged using your products.
'We produce beef , eggs, milk, butter, honey, vegetables, fruit, grains, and fiber.’
‘The items produced by this facility may, if used in certain ways, cause harm. It is not the intent of the producer that any of the products cause harm either intentionally or unintentionally. We intend to produce products which are beneficial and safe if used correctly.'
This disclaimer is far more credible for such products than for, say, the products of a munitions factory.
You are partially responsible for the harm done by the products of your work. You cannot profit from the manufacture of bombs and grenades and then claim you are guiltless with clean hands as a war is waged using your products.
6 HUMANS ARE THE ANIMALS THAT SEE BEAUTY
_
Humans are the animals that see beauty.
Humans are the animals that talk.
Humans are the ones with opposable thumbs.
Humans are the gardeners.
Humans are the trees’ hands.
Trees can’t walk, but we can.
For the system to work, we need to work together.
Each action should be taken
with mindfulness of the system and its nurturing.
We can’t grow or live without each other.
Humans are the animals that see beauty.
Humans are the animals that talk.
Humans are the ones with opposable thumbs.
Humans are the gardeners.
Humans are the trees’ hands.
Trees can’t walk, but we can.
For the system to work, we need to work together.
Each action should be taken
with mindfulness of the system and its nurturing.
We can’t grow or live without each other.
_7 HOW TO RECLAIM AND DEFEND YOUR IDENTITY
_
SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES
HEAR WITH YOUR OWN EARS
SPEAK WITH YOUR OWN VOICE
OWN YOUR PERCEPTIONS
YOUR FEELINGS
YOUR THOUGHTS
AND YOUR ACTIONS
THINK YOUR OWN THOUGHTS
DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS
MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS
AND ACT ON THEM
IT'S YOUR LIFE
DON’T LET ANYONE ELSE
RUN IT FOR YOU
SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES
HEAR WITH YOUR OWN EARS
SPEAK WITH YOUR OWN VOICE
OWN YOUR PERCEPTIONS
YOUR FEELINGS
YOUR THOUGHTS
AND YOUR ACTIONS
THINK YOUR OWN THOUGHTS
DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS
MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS
AND ACT ON THEM
IT'S YOUR LIFE
DON’T LET ANYONE ELSE
RUN IT FOR YOU