Our World Ocean

The world is but the ocean of lost souls. Each one a drop in that troubled sea, waiting. When the time is ripe, the drop is lifted by the Sun, and a new life begins.

It Grinds Exceeding Fine

From the skies
   grist pours
onto the world mill-stone

From time’s ovens
   fired by thought’s illusion
bread of the gods

The RNC Speaks

While watching the RNC speeches last night, I was struck by an interesting thought and I attempted to capture it in kind of a mock voice, imitating the gestalt of the race mind of the gathering:

“Go for all you can get, exploit the earth and the poor, go for it! If you work hard, you deserve it! Those who suffer in poverty, hell with ‘em! Look how much energy you can waste being concerned with the wellfare of others, especially when they don’t deserve it. And if you can get some one in power who will look out for your interests, why not?! You’ve worked hard. You deserve it. So, don’t be abashed, go for it and get all you can get. Damn the liberal-defeatest-obstructionist-appologist-elite, full speed ahead!”

They do have some points, don’t they? Maybe we could all benefit by refocusing, although in perhaps a bit more balanced way, on our own lives and our own needs.

A Rural Act of Constructive Political Rebellion

Today I committed a bold act of political rebellion of which I am very pleased.  I split fire-wood gathered from downed or dying trees. This will provide energy that I will not buy from the petroligarchies, and for which I will not be dependent upon our fascist government for warmth during the, admittedly mild by most standards, Sierra winter months.  I will be, unfortunately, contributing CO2 to the atmosphere.  I would like to know the statistics, though, as to how much CO2 I will NOT be contributing to the atmosphere by not buying electricity from the California “public” utilities.  That would be good to know.  I imagine it balances somewhat, though you would expect that burning wood produces more problems for the atmosphere than does burning methane (California’s preferred method of generating electricity), or through coal, or by virtue of all the petro-chemicals needed to sustain the operations of these facilities, including the big dams (the “dam big dams,” as Captain Reynolds might say).

And so, happily, I rebel, although imperfectly, against the abhorent (from the standpoint of the liberties contemplated by the founders of our republic) corporate-government oligarchies.  It’s not so much a re-actionary act, but more really just a natural action out of my own free being. A will to exercise freedom and reason. I’m not defining myself against the oligarchies, nor do I even really care about them. In fact, I’m thankful to them because their destructive and oppressive actions have reminded me of my own abilities and made me turn to look for and exercise my own freedom and my powers.

I exercise my own body, and breathe the fresh air.  I enjoy the sunshine and I can watch the deer, the wild turkeys, our gang of domestic felines, pass by me through the forest surrounding our home, and I am thrilled by that.  I haven’t seen the usual band of foxes that show up here in fall.  I’m anxiously awaiting their return.  They are always as curious about me as I am about them, and they always look with pricked-up ears and a bright and willing, if cautious, attention.

I stop to smoke a pipe and consider my liberties.  And my various plans for further “rebellion.”

My wife and I have a well on the property.  We are attempting to accumulate funds to complete the delivery system (not cheap, for us).  That is a splendid act of rebellion currently in the planning (or should I say “plotting”) stages!  I want to find out how to mechanically extract the water, so that no commercial (centralized/industrial) power sources (beyond the initial manufacture of the required equipment) need be employed.  We have an orchard.  We have room for a garden, and plans to utilize that space again are beginning to form up more solidly after many years of neglect while we “slaved” in the “labor pool” and struggled with health problems resulting, in large part, from the poisoning of the natural environment by centralized industry and government apathy.  We also have a wonderful store of food, a solar oven, medical supplies, other things that will serve as a buffer should the economy collapse by any combination of the many possible catastrophes.

So, while not yet by any means the model rebel, I am moving in that direction.  I believe this is the direction of the silent revolution that has to happen if we are to shake off the shackles of somnolent submission to the tyrannical rule of corporations and power-brokering governments.  It really is the only way.  Violent revolution is a fool’s errand.  We simply need only remove their in-roads into our lives, roads which we helped build by our own dependencies, and they will no longer have control over our lives.  Of course, they can, and are in many ways, physically moving in and imposing controls.  These oligarchical forces have, over many years, severely incumbered the means of physical independence, poisoned the waters and air, diminished the earth and the inherent wisdom of cultures that knew how to live with no intermediary. Now they are pulling away the very dependencies which they substituted.  They are over-pricing health care for people suffering from nutrient-poor produce, and poisoned food, air and water, and also from the now ubiquitous chemical toxins.  They are squelching the alternative healing modalities (acupuncture, herbs, etc.), inherently cheaper, more holistic, generally more compassionate, and frequently more effective in the long run.  They are making gas, electricity, and water too expensive.  They are stealing and exploiting public lands.  Through consumerism, an eviscerated public educational system, an emasculated media, propogandistic and white-washed entertainment, and market psycho-tactics, they successfully thwart to a large degree the free exercise of reason.  Yet, nothing is easier than to regain the ability to reason.  What is hard is learning to apply it!  Because in that case, one must accept and act upon the products of reason.

So, there are many ways that control is being extended.  However, there are many ways, simple, modest, yet profound, whereby those controls can be undermined by simple self-sufficiency, like getting your own firewood, drilling a well, generating your own electricity, minimizing one’s requirements for products produced by that centralized, petro-dependent industry, etc.

So, as I smoke my pipe, I feel a warmth inside as gradually I nourish the first steps (baby-steps, but still steps) towards autonomy and freedom from the modern brand of (commercial) tyranny.  Now, where are those foxes…

From High Sierras

From High Sierras
By Kevin Trammel

I write to you from nearly one hundred feet up, atop an ancient and beloved cedar at my home in the foothills of the Sierras, California. Georgetown, California, to be exact. This town was known as Growlersberg during gold rush days, when men came up into these hills from all over the world to find wealth amidst the prickly Manzanita, the dust and the skin-searing heat. Back then, a “growler” was the name given to a large gold nugget which, when panned from the banks of a stream, would “growl” while rolling against the metal lip of the gold-pan. I’m up here in this tree “panning” for the gold of ideas and insight amongst the clouds and the streams of sunlight. Things seem much clearer from this arboreal vantage. I think there are indeed growlers here to be found.

Looking down into the orchard below me, I see the shadow of the cedar laying across the expansive boughs of an old cherry tree. I wave my hand and my shadow waves back. He will keep my place in the world below until my return.

I’ve been thinking. I could build a platform here in this tree. I could live here. There are several even taller trees rubbing shoulders with this one. Gangways or small suspension bridges could be constructed. I could build other platforms in the adjacent trees, each serving a needed purpose: one as bedroom, one as kitchen, another as study and library, and another as living room, for when I might chance to have intrepid guests.

The world below could easily carry on without me and underneath my canopy dwelling. They could sell the property, for all I care. None need know I live up here. Things could carry on as they will, below.

Yes, I could stay here. It’s all so easy to see and understand from here. Here, I am on the edge of life and limb. The wind swings the tree, and me with it. My life is completely in the balance of Now. Branches could break or I could slip. Yet all seems sturdy enough. Still, I am really into this moment because of my acute awareness of the specialness in being here. The wind won’t let me forget that I am here only because greater powers have given me leave.

When I look out to the hills and valleys, out over my orchard, there’s almost an irresistible urge to leap off and soar like the hawks I’ve so often observed from below. I could almost do it.

But, I have this life as it is, a sacred and precious gift I’ve still so much yet to comprehend. It’d be premature and the height of arrogance to pitch it to the winds.

I’ll sit here, in quiet expectation as my head presses up against the blue vale of sky. Perhaps I will be afforded a glimpse beyond. The Sun is so much more present and alive here. He seems to be sitting with me in the branches. Stillness and beauty emerge like guests for dinner and conversation. No one will climb up here to hand me a bill or tell me a lie. I’m alone with majesty and glory here. Of course, they’re in my living room, too, down in my much-in-need-of-repair-and-renovation house. They’re in the company of my wife, and friends, though few. I’m not an unlikable man, eccentric though I am and often wrong in many things of consequence. I’m not fleeing the world or hiding out. In fact, I feel that here I’m refitted with a sharpened sword, a clearer eye, not because this place is special above others, but because I here allow myself to stop, pause, check in with a greater truth and beauty. The fragrance of it and its glorious sound are always present in every corner of creation. Time and again I fall from its wonderful company, only to be once more swept up by its ineffable grace and grandeur as the yearning for true Home eventually, as it must always do, strikes me dumb and humble.

Everyone desires that blessed reunion. Few have the courage to weather the turbid seas of our world and remain steadfastly fixed upon the shore’s Beacon that guides to safe port. Few have the balls to climb up into a one-hundred-foot tree to see anew! How many startlingly majestic trees have I walked under unaware? Many, I can assure you. Perhaps needless to say, I refer not only to our natural companions, but also to those hidden, mystical trees of ideas, in whose forests we walk surrounded. If I half-close my eyes, I can see softly teeming in etheric winds, the oak of dedication, the blue spruce of sincerity, the cedar of humility, the sequoia of wisdom…

From up here, a parade of facts, fictions and precious truths smiling just above, passes before my quieted gaze. I enjoy the act of crafting word. But this craft, like any other, fails to convey what surges within.

The air is so clean up here. I can see almost to the Sierras themselves, in the neighborhood of lovely Tahoe.

Below, a truck passes, filled with logs from the surrounding forest. Life’s activities, life’s demands, continue. The gem of mind, despite the protests of its bodily encasements as they go through the press, will continue to be honed, refined, and cleansed, to become a better reflection of what can’t be spoken.