The subject of the universe conspiring to help a person aspire towards their intentions, has occurred for me over the last weeks. A month ago when I had the luxury of time to relax and contemplate my next moves, and whether to continue spiraling along the path of pet sitting or redirect my efforts towards finding more permanent housing, I threw myself into emotional uneasiness because I was no closer to having a clear decision of a specific place I want to be. Yet, as I had heard before, ‘When you have an intention, the universe will introduce events to move you further in that direction.’
At the last pet sitting gig with a view of the peaks of the Pyrenees, wonderful hosts and a dog and cat who reflected their openness, I realized that I am indeed exactly where I need to be. Once I shifted my perspective (inspired through communication with numerous people) I realized that I am not only drawn into moment-to-moment awareness and appreciation of the places I visit and spirit of the natural world and animals with whom I establish a reciprocal loving relationship, yet I also can use this period as an ‘artist residency’ and discipline myself to use the time to create.
Synchronicities continued when I met an American couple in a hostel kitchen in Bordeaux, France. I was alone when a guy walked in to prepare breakfast. Eventually I asked him something and realized he wasn’t a french speaker. He went on to say that we came here…, cuing me to the fact that he was with his partner. People in a couple typically say ‘we’ instead of talking in the first person. He told me a bit of their story. They have a home in Lisbon, where I had initially landed (with my bicycle in a box). They each work in IT, in order to travel and work remotely from anywhere. I have the same goals, with less financial security – so far – as a writer, musician and artist. They had just gone to Biarritz for a day as I had the day before. Bordeaux was my base, where I could leave luggage and take the 2 hour train there with my bike. I told him I’m pet sitting with Trusted Housesitters. He said that they’d considered this same site. Arriving to eat, she echoed this, but their schedules weren’t flexible enough. She said that they’re just winging it at this point, making up their plans and direction as they go. I mentioned that recently I had become distraught, not knowing where to go, with no clear decision.
She laughed saying that she’s become ‘comfortable with the discomfort of indecision’.
And told me that this book, “How to Do Nothing”, which helped her to be okay with stopping the process of trying to figure out her next moves. To stop thinking about it and be okay with that. She mentioned that she had previously a really good job as a senior developer for a great company among great people, and realized she was unhappy. Each of them added that simple coding can be repetitive, yet that when it gets complex, it is extremely tedious. She said it reduced her confidence in herself when confronted with problems that seemed unsolvable. So her resolve was to quit her job. Yet, when she contemplated what to do next, what job, where… when the answers were obviously not coming, it only induced stress and became very unsettling. So instead of butting her thoughts against a wall, she decided to stop the process of thinking about it, at all. To stop ruminating about her next moves and future path, Seven months later, she felt ready to engage in the process. She recommended the book because it helped her to resolve to let go.
Interview with author Jenny Odell “How to Do Nothing” by the Guardian
“Redirecting our attention towards our natural surroundings is Odell’s strategy for resisting a profit-driven tech landscape that, in separating our bodies and co-opting our attention, is possibly torching our ability to live meaningful lives, and preventing us from noticing.”
Noticing anything to the senses or the synchronicities that occur to guide us. Patterns of rain drops, eddies of a stream, droplets of moisture on grasses or a spider web, tangled roots of trees, cloudscapes, the sound of the breeze through leaves, incredible diversity of plants, insects and flowers, the adorable behavior of a dog, cat or wild animal.
Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
A new lovely rap message from Prince Ea “Start Changing Your Life 2024” regarding empowering people to see that it’s the choices they make that will allow them to aspire to make the most of their life.
…step out of your comfort zone ~ change your life through the choices you make…
Courage to Order Off the Menue
Escape Your Comfort Zone
This had rolled into my inbox today on the spring solstice March 21st.
“Can I let you in on a little secret?
I’ve studied personal growth for over a decade
…and read thousands of books.
Prince Ea ~ Architect Your Existence
But when it comes to drastically changing your life for the better…
I happened to be bicycling from an event that took place every Thursday evening Berlin Beats, in which different dj’s are featured in the courtyard of Hamburger Bahnhof museum, when I noticed that the lights at another museum were on quite late, with people milling about, when I suddenly realized that this was a night i had calendared and forgotten about the date, ‘The Langest Nacht de Museums / Long Night of Museums’.
I was stunned to see that this modern building I’d cycled by so many times, is in fact, a museum.
I went inside, and found myself fascinated. The entire Futurium museum is devoted to the many factors affecting our current global warming climate catastrophe and biodiversity loss. In a series of exhibits it features solutions and alternatives; materials we can use to produce anything from utensils we eat with to clothing, that are fungi based for example.
“At Futurium, everything revolves around the question: how do we want to live?”
“Our passion for consumption also has a downside: mountains of waste are growing; we are consuming more and more natural resources and emitting more and more greenhouse gases. At the same time, an increasing number of people in disadvantage countries also want to enjoy prosperity. However, it would take over three earth’s worth of resources for the 7.6 billion people worldwide to live like we do in Berlin.”
And delves as well into true democratic methods. I read in fascination at a concept – which is nascent – sortition democracy (selection by democratic lottery).
In a sortition democracy
“The well-being of everyone should be central to democracy (uh oh, that sounds Communist) It’s about representing people with very different values, interests, needs and about constantly dealing with new challenges. this requires decision-makers with as many different life experiences and abilities as possible. A randomly selected group could offer more diversity. This would allow new topics and a wider range of perspectives to be taken into account. Problems could thus be resolved more optimally with respect to public interests and perhaps even more creatively.”
In a sortition democracy
“All citizens are equal. Some scientists think that this democratic concept of equality can be better fulfilled through a lottery. All citizens would have an equal chance to make decisions for the public interest. It would be left to chance who sits in parliament and what political positions are represented…”
Due to its content, to me it’s one of the best and most fascinating museums I’ve visited. It’s the state-of-the-art science museum that offers solutions to current problems. It shows holistically the biodiversity loss and global warming crisis in which we are embedded, the effects of our independent and collective actions and behaviors and reveals healthy alternatives. It offers solutions to our Social and Environmental dilemmas and warming world; what we can do to attenuate our actions, what habits can we change, what natural solutions can we adapt in our production processes? How can we adapt our social as well as political behavior?
A concept recently coined by a Portland, Oregon-based writer Emma Pattee, the climate shadow aims to paint a picture of the full sum of one’s choices—and the impact they have on the planet.
“Everywhere you go, it goes too, tallying not just your air conditioning use and the gas mileage of your car, but also how you vote, how many children you choose to have, where you work, how you invest your money, how much you talk about climate change, and whether your words amplify urgency, apathy, or denial.”
In other words, rather than incentivizing purely individual actions, your climate shadow grows when those actions inspire others, knowingly or otherwise.
As Neil de Grasse Tyson states in his video citing the Tree of Life in a circular pattern. The Tree of life circular pattern, the first species in the center. This image shows 3,000 species, roughly one tenth of one percent of all the species that exist.”
Tyson reveals that “It is not humans that dominate the earth, we are participants in the unfolding of the earth with all the other life forms.”
Screenshot
The Futurium museum has a vast climate shadow.
Whereas global leaders who say one thing and neglect to in any way act with integrity on what they state, are basically in the dark, with no shadow whatsoever.
“The United Nations’ secretary general, António Guterres, who has made climate action a centerpiece of his agenda and has called on the world’s largest carbon emitters to rapidly shift away from burning fossil fuels, the main driver of global warming, pledged that only high-level leaders whom he sees as taking climate action seriously would be allowed to speak at the event.” The leaders of the US and China were not invited.
Love and respect his honesty and integrity, “Climate action is dwarfed by the scale of the challenge,” Mr. Guterres said in his opening remarks at the summit. “We must make up time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels.”
Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
From the first time I read this blog of Phil’s years ago, http://www.grenzbegriff.com/, I had left the tab open for a very long time. I recently rediscovered it, and frankly, have done the same. I feel that his words are so powerful, because they so eloquently and incisively speak the truth. The message is a clearer, stronger and nearer the truth ~ holy ~ More so than anything I’ve read, ever.
“I read this story at the Easter vigil at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco in 2019.
Sitting at my desk. Ergonomic chair, 30” screen. Sunlight and cheerful coworkers all around. We are the winners. The tech-elite. Making the world a better place, raising the standard of living. Eventually we are going to meet everyone’s needs with solar-powered artificially-intelligent everything factories.
But somehow I hear another story. Out there, our empire of civilization reaches its fingers into the last wild places. Its eye falls on an unspoiled steamy jungle, thriving with humans and majestic animal kin. It sees timber, metals, tourism potential, untapped markets, labor pools. Smiling people, sitting on their dirt floors in their dirt huts, eating the bounty of the land. And we call it poverty.
In march the well intentioned, the missionaries, humanitarians, entrepreneurs, peacekeepers. Out go the animals. The human bonds are replaced with money. Plugged in to the empire. A “developing” country. Another billion users. Growth.
Everything is business. War is business. Revolution is business. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Haiti, Venezuela, the list goes on and on and on. The machine has many faces, the military-industrial-complex, the technological-educational-pharmaceutical-agricultural- industrial complexes. Even the nonprofit-industrial-complex. Most of us keeping the machine running can explain why our part of it is beneficial, and we probably even believe it. Yet despite all our good intentions, the machine grinds away converting life and diversity and beauty into profits.
No one speaks of it like this. Over lunch, I slip in a sad remark about Syria. Awkward pause. The conversation shifts to when will we settle Mars. We are frantic. We don’t have time to see the consequences of what we do. Everything’s too complex, so we must pretend it is simple. We plug in the numbers and poverty goes down. If you don’t like it you’re a luddite.
“You can’t say this all at once,” a well-intentioned colleague tries to talk sense into me. “People will think you are freak and then you won’t be able to change anything.”
Must I really go on pretending like it’s all fine, so I can hold on to the golden handcuffs, the empire’s power, and somehow use it for good? I stare out the window at trees quivering in the spring breeze. I sit in a comfortable chair, I have warm food and health care and barely have to work. I should be grateful. But I do not belong here. It hurts.
(pause)
Laying on the floor of my tent in the homeless camp. Puddle of water in one corner. Headlights in my eyes at night. Screeching bart train in my ears. I’m free! Sure, I’m still in the empire, but now I’m with the oppressed and not the oppressors.
Marching on the street. “What do we want? Housing. When do we want it? Now.”
We demand the evil empire give us our fair share of this chopped-down paved-over concrete graveyard of a forest. Our fair share of the plastic and minerals dug by slaves from the living earth five thousand miles away. What if it was fair? The seven billionth of us gets a comfortable room, a job, food, maybe an electric car. Clean water, piped from some rare place whose destruction has not yet become an economic necessity. Would the elephants say this is fair? I love the people around me, and it is so complicated. Must it be Team Human against all the rest of life?”
(pause)
Laying under a clump of redwoods in the forest I’ve been with the past year.
My friend on the mountain says thirty years ago she’d get five to ten feet of snow each winter. This winter, six inches. Up the road from me they made new clear-cuts last fall. They cut some special ancient trees in one particular spot leaving a sign saying it was for “fire prevention.” Bullshit. Money. I hear the logging trucks rumbling on the road a mile away. Will we ever stop? We know that the trees bring in and hold the water in the earth. As the trees go, the drought comes. We’re killing them anyway. Money.
Can our human empire just end already? Must all of the salmon and orcas and caribou and wolves die first? The ocean is dying. The forest is dying. Even the insects are dying. God, are you going to turn this around? What should I do? What are you trying to tell me? Why?
<><><><
I’m leaving Google at the end of next week.
There’s too much I want to say. 🙂
I spent the summer away from work, outdoors in Oregon, awash in beauty. I learned a lot. I wept at how we’re treating the earth, as I rode past mile after mile of logged forests, polluted streams, and lifeless monocrop fields.
I got to be part of what I’ll call “alternative culture”, to explore ways of meeting all of our human needs through local community alternatives to basically everything we currently use money for. I wrote some about this time here on this blog. I barely scratched the surface though. More and more people, perhaps millions now even in the West, are devoting their lives to new (and sometimes ancient) ways of living in healthy relationship with each other and with the earth. While they are usually partly within the current system, when all of these new ways of living come together, the current system becomes obsolete. I see joyous glimpses of this everywhere.
Meanwhile our dominant civilization is killing its own foundation: the healthy web of life on earth. Through deforestation and pollution we are destroying the ability of the planet to support all forms of life. We can see this in the oceans where the fish populations are collapsing, the silent fields that were once thriving forests, and the deserts where millions of people go hungry in drought. This ecological crisis can’t be solved simply by swapping oil for solar panels. I’m no longer optimistic that we will soon fix these problems with some new technology. It looks like climate change is exacerbating the storms and droughts and fires, and seems likely these will continue to become more and more severe in the next years.
The effects are not evenly distributed. The unhoused breathe wildfire smoke while many of the housed have filtered air. Some of us see our homes flooded or burnt while for others business continues as usual. Most communities in the country and increasingly in the world have lost the ability to sustain themselves from their land, and now must import almost everything they need from elsewhere, which becomes precarious when those importing the goods see no profit in it (food deserts), or when disaster breaks down the supply line like in Puerto Rico. Many communities no longer have access to clean water, or are losing it as I write. On Monday I listened to a man from Guatemala talk about a new silver mine near his home that is polluting and drying up the water supply for many villages there. Almost all silver is used to produce electronics, and demand is rising. In Oregon this summer, ancient trees thousands of years old were cleared for fire breaks. The entire planet is being saturated with chemicals that we ought never to have created. These kinds of damage cannot be undone or fixed by technology. The story for other species is even worse, as most wild animal populations have died off and we pack billions of animals in cages in horrific factory farms. The coral reefs, the rhinos, the ancient forests, the whales, and even the insects… who speaks for them? Some people do, and they end up in jail if their actions threaten profits. Profits are made at the expense of Life.
And within our civilization, we have more prisoners and refugees, more drugs and anxiety and depression and stress and addiction than ever. Even in wealthy regions, most people don’t like the work they do all day. It’s also not physically healthy to be indoors or using a computer or riding in vehicles for as many hours as many of us who are “successful” do. What is happening to us?
It seems the leaders of our world are apathetic or powerless, as they fight over the most gaudy deck chairs on this titanic. While it pains me, I don’t hate them for this; their actions are the product of a traumatic history that touches all of us. They don’t know what they’re doing.
I envision a more beautiful world where humans have a healthy part to play, to love and respect the earth, not to dominate and exploit it. I see many people living that vision already, and want to live my life in service to it. I see the extremes of both ugliness and beauty grow more stark. Ugliness as we close down and protect ourselves from the ‘other’, beauty as we come together in community, in love with mother earth. Will “society” as a whole make some kind of transition, or continue the march into dystopia and eventual chaos? I don’t know. It will be both at the same time. Some people are already in an obvious dystopia, some are in a beautiful place yet in the shadow of a collapsing ecosystem. To hope for a peaceful transition would be to ignore the incredible violence on which the current system lives. It will be violent because it already is. May we learn to be kind to each other as these changes unfold.
It’s been said that we need the darkness to see the stars. We can open ourselves to what is happening, feel and honor our pain, grieve what is lost, and revel in our deep gratitude for the beauty of life. I don’t mean to be a downer pointing at all this ugliness. I feel that we have a deep need to see it and acknowledge it. It makes the beauty that much more precious and worth living for.
“Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?”
-Mary Oliver
What should we do then?
I don’t know exactly what we should do. I don’t have a rational “here’s what everyone needs to do” that will resolve all of these crises. I want to let go of my need to control what happens, because I’m really not in control. At the same time, even if I let go and accept whatever comes, I am a human being and it is natural for me to care and want to help, to serve what I love. I will not deny that part of me either. So I find myself thinking about how to help, even if it seems “hopeless” overall. I need not stress about the outcomes, but I will still act. What else would I do with my few short years here?
So what might I do to be practical?
I don’t believe our technology is serving us well. We, the wealthy humans near the top of the power hierarchy may see it as indispensable, but if we consider the animals or the fish or the trees or the laborers in the sweatshops and mines and plantations, it’s not working out so well. Yes, our technology relieves some suffering in some places, but at what cost? We simply do not, and probably cannot, count the costs of development. I am not enthusiastic that further technological progress will heal us.
I also don’t believe that our problems are mostly due to money being in the wrong hands. Measuring everything by monetary value seems to me one of the roots of the crises. The mentality that values money over life drives much of the pollution and resource extraction and oppression around the world, since humans first accumulated “property” and enslaved each other. I don’t feel that getting as much money as I can and giving it to the non-profit side of the system is the best way for me to serve what I love. I feel that the money abstraction and the distance it puts between us and the effects of our actions makes us feel disconnected and alone.
I also don’t like our culture’s valuing of measurable impact over everything else. Much of what is precious to me cannot be measured. What’s the measurable value of a 5000 year old yew tree? What’s the measurable value of caring for a disabled child?
“May what I do flow from me like a river
no forcing
and no holding back
the way it is with children.”
-Rilke
So I don’t know what we all should do exactly, and I don’t know what I will do beyond the short term. I’m skeptical of money and the dominant culture’s value system. I want to trust what makes me feel alive over our culture’s normal stories that usually are rooted in fear. I recognize that I’m one of the most privileged people in the world. I know most people do not have the options that I have. I don’t mean to judge, only to encourage.
Right now what’s happening is I’ve been living in a homeless protest encampment in Berkeley the last couple months, which has given me still another perspective on our society. It got interesting this weekend and we’re fighting eviction, hoping to benefit and inspire homeless communities around the country. With all of the disaster and war refugees today, and housing crises in many places, there are more and more people who can’t have regular housing, and we could learn to live together with more kindness and understanding. I’m also involved with the community here in other ways like Food Not Bombs. I expect soon I’ll be moving on to other places, to learn and to live in service to what I love. To restore soil and help plants grow and be community.
I’ve learned I don’t need much money to live well myself, so I don’t need to earn it for myself. Perhaps my perspective on money and impact will change and I’ll eventually decide that earning money and supporting my many friends who don’t have much money in their various causes is the best way to contribute, and then I might return to a job, but we’ll see. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Wherever I am, I’ll be with some kind of community learning how to live in healthier relationship with each other and with the earth. There’ll be dark moments and joyous moments, and this is life. Life is good. Whatever comes, I will give attention to the beauty around me, the beauty of community and of nature and of every form. Beauty everywhere begs our attention.”
“An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: For loving a true love.
Feet: To chase after.
Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,
for learning what men have done and tried to do.
Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind
when it only wants to see why.”
-Rumi
Copied and pasted shamelessly from Phil’s grenzbegriff blog
“This land lived with the Cahto people for I don’t know how many thousands of years. And while this forest is thoroughly beautiful, I imagine its mangled body would be barely recognizable to many of them. Almost every tree has been cut, the land itself cut in all directions with roads, slopes stripped of their soil, no longer able to hold the rains on their way to the sea, eroding the streams into deep canyons. And the trees are dying on their own now, whether from drought or toxicity or loneliness, I don’t know..”
“I often wonder if it’s also too late for the forests as they are now, if the ecological balance is so upset that they will die soon even if the humans stop actively killing them. I don’t know. “
More profound words about the profanity of human apathy towards our natural world. http://www.grenzbegriff.com
I rode to the Hambuger Bahnhof open air free dj series Berlin Beats, the 3rd in their summer series. Open air in the courtyard of this magnificent former train station, and recognized the dj, Métaraphs from another free event several weeks ago.
Full on character, elegant, stylish, orchestrated hand movements as he turned nobs with bracelets, many rings and ferociously long fingernails, black cat eye extreme makeup, shaved head, back of his head fully tattooed, mingling in vogue ish dancing in between, smiling.
Métaraphs musikalische Reisen zeugen von einem multidisziplinären Verständnis, der Rave mit konzeptuellem Anspruch verbindet / Métaraph’s musical journeys testify to a multidisciplinary understanding that combines rave with conceptual aspirations
Métaraph is a non binary multidisciplinary artist based in Berlin.
Everyone of all ages dancing and getting into the 3 hour outdoor set in the courtyard as dusk arrived at the end, 22:00. I had a huge smile, dancing the entire time, embraced by the dj’s movements and hypnotized by the techno, looking at the extremely diverse crowd. A number of other male, elegant, tall beautiful guys, more feminine than I. And on my way home rode by the river to encounter outdoor tango, with dozens of couples dancing quite well, some quite elegantly dressed. Berlin rocks, particularly in the summer.
So, I was earlier reflecting on the positives of Berlin; the great bicycle and public transportation infrastructure, the dozen or so large p wonderful lakes easy to access, the many arts and music events…..and then the negative, the seemingly aloof, never look you in the eye Germans. However, the city is full of freaks (like me), so i guess city peeps want to protect themselves from what they may encounter…..And then, after dealing with the full neck and body tattooed, amphetamine fueled aggressive bicycle shop mechanic…pumping up the tire to go to another bike shop with another angry bike mechanic….it turned out that the circumstances of the universe just wanted me to slow down. Because the flat from yesterday, never got flat again.
So, a number of days ago, May 30th, I was in a bit of a funk, it might have been prompted from a slight hangover after having the evening before, bicycled over to the last evening of a several day cultural street festival, with music and alcohol, where I’d been walking, jumping, singing and dancing among a small crowd of people snaking through an area at the end of the festival. Over the last weeks, I’ve been retrospective about a number of things, looking within myself. And then this day, I was prompted to write down aspects of my personality I‘d been observing. Sort of like a self reckoning, or confrontation…looking inwards. I won’t bore you with details, unless you inquire.
This critique of myself; habits, actions, thoughts… spelled out to me ….signifiers (of the overused word) ‘scarcity’ mentality. Actions which are reactions to and products of fear. (Such as the habit that I don’t do, using my bluetooth keyboard while simultaneously online, thinking that it’s less secure, but I’m doing it now, at this clean and chained unused sidewalk table, which pulled me over to it. I was scouting for where I could write with the keyboard, when I spotted this. I couldn’t believe I was still connected to WiFi (Same WiFi where I sit outside, after the library’s closed; a clean and well lit art gallery) appears to wrap around the block.
So I recycled these thoughts I’d been holding within, then promptly recycled a bunch of stuff, clearing up space, part of that list. Within 24 hours, trimmed my hair, having lately noticed fuzzy ends. Made the decision to make the effort to invest in a pair of second-hand shoes and pants. At the same time, recently I’ve been paying acute attention to my posture lately, a reflection of always carrying a weight, literally and figuratively and that I often still have my backpack on, even when I take it off. Mirrors are my friend, to reflect and remind.
I sensed that these actions; picking through emotions, behavior, purging, clean cut, recycling, relaxing my shoulders that the process of all this together, physically and emotionally, is a kind of feng shui; a lifting, lightening, making room, creating space for new energy to flow in. Out with clinging to the old, and establishing a clear space to move forward. It does actually feel emotionally like I’ve lifted something.
I recalled ann astrological writing I read several weeks ago by Rob Brezney, because it seemed that I was going through what he predicted. I usually look at this site retrospectively, not proactively. It does appear to be on target. I have sun in Capricorn, 3 planets in Sagittarius and moon and other planets in Scorpio. An astrologist friend told me that where the moon is, is just as vital as the sun sign (so i look at all three). https://freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/archives/2023-05-18/scorpio
{Scorpio last week, freewillastrology by Rob Brezney, San Francisco columnist
“In the coming weeks, you’ll be guided by your deep intelligence as you explore and converse with the darkness. You will derive key revelations and helpful signs as you wander around inside the mysteries. Be poised and lucid, dear Scorpio. Trust your ability to sense what’s important and what’s not. Be confident that you can thrive amidst uncertainty as you remain loyal to your core truths. No matter how murky this challenge may seem, it will ultimately be a blessing. You will emerge both smarter and wiser.”
In the back of my mind (consciousness), I was remembering what the Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu said.
“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny“
bye the way, the reason I decided to stay longer at the place where I’m living, is because I realized pigeons were making a nest on my balcony and I looked up the time period for raising them, and wanted to protect them cuz my housemate who owns the apt, doesn’t like pigeons.
The second time I was convinced I must stay (after inquiring if I may), was when for the first time, the mother and father pigeon were suddenly perched way up high on my ajar window, very unusual, because usually they are perched above their toddler on a low ledge of the balcony to sleep. After seeing this and looking out to the water dish, I realized it was empty, the lid of a jar ai fill up regularly. I was thinking that the pigeons were trying to bring this lack of water to my attention. I’m laughing as I write this, but it’s true. I diligently cleaned out with a hose and filled the large bird bath in my parent’s yard, sometimes several times a day in hot weather when I lived there.
My regular workplace before hitting the library, is here, beautiful, full of flowers and bird’s singing and the occasional fox or stork. These were shots taken today as I worked offline on the crescendo of completing my educational book for youth about the spiraling and electromagnetic universe in which we live…and of course leaning towards ecology.
And this is where i sit if I have more online things to do after the Staatbibliotech library has closed at 10/22:00
Back in Rhode Island when I was bicycling 6 or so miles from Providence – to swim in the only nearby lake at Lincoln Woods State Park – I encountered a dead deer along the road. The Police were already standing next to it. It was upsetting. It’s an area where Power lines cut through the trees, which in fact provide space to allow animals (with no residential properties or fences blocking their passage) to move freely through this corridor. I was quite distraught that there weren’t more protections for the animals, warning automobiles to slow down. But often humans are in a hurry, trying to live around their work schedules.
When I investigated online, regarding who to contact to help and assist wildlife, management, blah blah blah, almost everything that popped up was not geared towards helping and protecting wildlife, but towards how to contain them, an attitude of ‘pest control’. As in the case of the bison hunt article below. It’s not what have we done and what can we do to help, but the opposite mentality. At least the Indigenous people historically have been more observant and in awe of nature and natural cycles. Their mentality is more as guardians, able to see the larger picture. Like ‘not making any major decisions without first considering how it may affect the next 7 generations’ mentality.
The decision was, to hunt the perpetrators down, in this case bison, who have encroached too close to human activities, after their own territory and habitat has been maliciously overlooked. Meanwhile, humans continue in their construction, building, fencing, blocking, poisoning and ecological destruction, disregarding the natural world and the rights of forests and rivers and animals to live in a healthy environment.
This previous mass killing of bison, was to effectually make a power statement and cripple the Native American indigenous population, who relied on this hunt for food.
Eileen Crist speaks of Confronting Anthropocentrism, human preoccupation with themselves; all about me, protecting mine and profiting from controlling and commodifying nature.
In the last months, the newest IPCC report – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – came out. “Climate Change Is Speeding Toward Catastrophe. The Next Decade Is Crucial, U.N. Panel Says.”
Here’s the Technical Summary, condensing the 18 Chapters of the IPCC Full Report
They and other groups like Extinction Rebellion point out, “Last week, President Biden broke his campaign promise to end new oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters, and approved the Willow Project — the single largest oil extraction project ever proposed on federal lands…And today, the IPCC released another damning report, issuing a final warning to our governments and corporations across the world: if we don’t stop using fossil fuels, the Earth will hit a critical warming threshold that we can’t come back from by the early 2030s.”
Humans should acknowledge their affect on the territory of creatures of the natural world and help them, as they should assist refugees fleeing conditions in their own homelands affected by the out of control energy consumption on the other side of the world (the Western Wealth Bound World). With a loving and compassionate connection to this world and it’s beauty and abundance, you would think people would recognize and accept with open arms people who have lost their homes.
Frankly, the oil industry should be on the front lines; compensating for all the land, pollution, contamination and loss of habitat for wildlife and humans; and put their massive profits towards developing agencies specifically to make amends, feed and shelter people whose lives have been dislocated and contribute to restoring and rewilding natural areas for all of the creatures whose habitat have been destroyed and shrunken from climate chaos.
As George Monbiot wrote recently for the Guardian, Hard Landing ~ A self-perpetuating political spiral is blocking the easier ways of preventing environmental collapse.
“There are two extraordinary facts about the convention on biological diversity, whose members are meeting in Montreal now to discuss the global ecological crisis. The first is that, of the world’s 198 states, 196 are party to it.“ That the only two not acquiescing to the demands, are the Vatican and the United States of America. Monbiot continues in this article, “The question that assails those who strive for a kinder world is always the same but endlessly surprising: how do we persuade others to care? The lack of interest in resolving our existential crises, expressed by the US Senate in particular, is not a passive exceptionalism. It is an active, proud and furious refusal to care about the lives of others.
Monbiot points out, “governments must either implement changes in months that should have happened over decades, or watch crucial components of civic life collapse, including the most important component of all: a habitable planet…if we in the rich nations are to meet our twin duties of care and responsibility, we must be prepared to accept many more refugees, who will be driven from their homes by the climate and ecological breakdown caused disproportionately by our economies.”
B E F O R E I T ‘S T O O L A T E
Stan Cox writes, Before It’s Too Late for Tomdispatchk “When MAGA legislators force their taxpayers to support the coal, oil, and natural gas industries, while undercutting the efforts of local governments to free their communities from fossil fuels, they’re not just empowering their fossil-fuelized campaign donors. Their anti-climate laws and regulations are also part of a broader effort to impose ever tighter right-wing political discipline on society. To that end, the authors of such laws — directly out of the authoritarian playbook — are intentionally vague about what constitutes “boycotting” or “discrimination.”
“It can be studied on many levels. At the highest level, one can look at all the different species on the entire Earth. On a much smaller scale, one can study biodiversity within a pond ecosystem or a neighborhood park. Identifying and understanding the relationships between all the life on Earth are some of the greatest challenges in science.”
D O Y O U F E E L M E ?
Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
Gabor Mate transcript Gabor Mate speaks the truth, eloquently. 10 years ago!!!
It is essential to read Gabor Mate’s transcript, for the emotionally, psychologically and spiritually sick population of the Wealthy western world (specifically the USA and its derivatives, exporting sick values from a hypocritical social and economic system of Capitalism) because healing and awareness is available.
This transcript of Gabor Mate’s speech, “Psychedelics and Unlocking the Unconscious; From Cancer to Addition,” he delivered at the Psychedelic conference in Oakland California on April 20, 2013”
“My subject is the use of ayahuasca in the healing of all manner of medical conditions, from cancer to addiction. And you might say what can possibly a plant do to heal such dire and life-threatening medical problems? Well, of course, that all depends on the perspective through which we understand these problems.
Now, the medical perspective, the allopathic Western medical perspective in which I was trained is that, fundamentally, diseases are abnormalities that occur either due to external causes such as a bacterium or a toxin, or they’re accidental or due to bad luck, or their due to genetics. So, the causes are outside of the usual internal experience—the emotional and psychological and spiritual life—of the individual. These are biological events, so the medical assumption goes, and the causes are to be understood and the treatments are to be administered purely in a biological fashion.
Underlying that set of assumptions are two other assumptions. One is that you can separate the human body from the human mind, so what happens to us emotionally and psychologically has no significant impact on our health. Number two: that the individual is to be separated from the environment. So, what happens to me if I get cancer? That is just my poor personal, pure personal, misfortune, or maybe because I did the wrong things like smoked cigarettes. But, that my cancer might have something to do with the lifelong interaction which I’ve engaged in with my environment—particularly the psychological social environment—that doesn’t enter into the picture.
But what if we had a different perspective?
What if we actually got that human beings are bio-psycho-social creatures by nature, and actually bio-psycho-spiritual creatures by nature—which is to say that our biology is inseparable from our psychological emotional and spiritual existence—and therefore what manifests in the body is not some isolated and unique event or misfortune, but a manifestation of what my life has been in interaction with my psychological and social and spiritual environment?
Well, if we had that kind of understanding then we would approach illness and health in a completely different fashion.
What if, furthermore, we understood something in the West which has been the underlying core insight of Eastern spiritual pathways and aboriginal shamanic pathways around the world, which is that human beings are not their personalities, we’re not our thoughts, we’re not our emotions, we are not our dysfunctional or functional dynamics, but that at the core there is a true self that is somehow connected to—in fact not connected to but part of—nature and creation.
An illness from that perspective represents a loss of that connection, a loss of that unity, a loss of that belonging to a much larger entity. And therefore, to treat the illness or the symptom as the problem is actually to ignore the real possibility that the symptom and the illness are themselves symptoms, rather than the fundamental problems.
It’s in that perspective then, that I’ve come to understand, quite before my acquaintance with ayahuasca, but that’s how I’ve come to understand human illness and dysfunction. Which is to say that illness and dysfunction represent the products or the consequences of a lifelong interaction with our environment, particularly our psychological and social environment, and that they represent a deep disconnection from our true selves.
I mention particularly cancer and addiction, but those are only two examples. Allow me to read you something from an article that appeared in last February’s edition of Pediatrics, which is the major pediatric journal in North America, and this is an article from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, and it’s called “An Integrated Scientific Framework for Child Development.” Here’s what they say:
Growing scientific evidence also demonstrates that social and physical environments that threaten human development because of scarcity, stress, or instability can lead to short term physiologic and psychological adjustments that may come at a significant cost to long-term outcomes in learning, behavior health and longevity.
In other words, that the emotional and behavioral patterns that as young children we adopt in order to survive stressors in our environment allow us to deal with the immediate problem, but in the long term they become prisons. They become sources of dysfunction, illness and even death, if we’re not able to let go of them.
So, in other words, what was a short-term state, or meant to be a short-term state, in a helpful way, when it becomes a long-term state, when it goes from state to a trait, now it becomes a problem.
Let me give you a few obvious examples of that. I myself have been diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactive disorder, a characteristic of which is tuning out, absentmindedness. Now, ADD in North America is seen as a disease, and we see many kids that have been diagnosed with it. Now we have 3 million kids in this country who are on stimulant medications for it. The rates are going up and up and up.
According to the New York Times last week, 20 percent of American boys at one time or another have been diagnosed with it and 10 percent are, at any one time are on medication. Three million at least are on stimulants right now. It’s seen as a genetic disease. It isn’t at all. What the tuning out represents, as we all know, is actually a coping mechanism. Our brains tune out when the stress becomes overwhelming, too much to bear. And at that point the tuning out is a survival dynamic.
The real question is: why are so many kids tuning out? What’s happening in their lives? What of course is going on is that the stress in this society, and the stress in the pending environment are greatly increasing. So, the child’s brain is actually affected by the stresses in the environment.
And here’s further, from the same Harvard article, they talk about brain development and how the human brain actually develops, and here’s what they say about that:
The architecture of the brain is constructed through an ongoing process that begins before birth, continues into adulthood, and establishes either a sturdy or fragile foundation for all the health, learning and behavior that follow.
So, in other words, the architecture of the brain is actually constructed by the interaction with the environment. And they continue:
The interaction of genes and experiences literally shapes the circuitry of the developing brain and is critically influenced by the mutual responsiveness of adult-child relationships, particularly in the early childhood years.
Well, I can’t make this into a lecture on brain development; the point is that which circuits in the brain develop, and which patterns are engrained, has everything to do with the environment, particularly the mutual responsiveness of adult-child relationships. And therefore whatever interferes with that mutual responsiveness will actually interfere with the brain development of the child, including the neurochemistry of the child’s brain as well as the psychological emotional patterns.
Cancer
So then, if you look at cancer and addiction as two adaptations to stress, what do we find? Well, prior to my work with addictions, which is my most recent work —and I did that for 12 years— I worked for seven years as the medical coordinator of the palliative care unit at Vancouver hospital working with terminally ill people. And both in family practice and palliative care I had ample opportunity to see who gets sick and who doesn’t get sick. I noticed the people that got ill with chronic conditions invariably followed certain emotional dynamics that were ingrained in them so much so that these were unconscious and compulsive and for that reason all the more difficult to let go of. And, so who got cancer and who didn’t was no accident, nor was it for the most part genetically determined.
And, I’ve collected a few clippings from the Global Mailnewsletter—which is Canada’s newspaper of record, or at least it thinks it is—and these clippings illustrate the patterns that I found in people who get sick.
And I’m saying all this because in talking about my work with ayahuasca and the potential healing that ayahuasca can induce in people, we have to understand what is being healed here. What is the underlying basis of these conditions?
So, these newspaper clippings, then, illustrate something about what I have found in people who get sick chronically. And when I say chronic illness I mean cancer, I mean diabetes, rheumatic arthritis, multiple sclerosis, ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, chronic asthma, psoriasis, eczema, almost any chronic illness you care to name.
The first of these clippings is written by a woman who is herself diagnosed with breast cancer. She goes to her doctor, Harold, and you have to know that her husband’s name is [Hye], and [Hye]’s first wife died of breast cancer, and not Donna, the second wife, who’s diagnosed with the same condition. So she writes:
“Harold tells me that the lump is small, and most assuredly not in my lymph nodes, unlike that of [Hye]’s first wife whose cancer spread everywhere by the time they found it. You’re not going to die, he reassures me. ‘But I’m worried about [Hye],’ I say, ‘I won’t have the strength to support him.’”
What you notice is she’s the one diagnoses with the potentially fatal condition and her automatic compulsive thought is, “While I’m getting radiation and chemotherapy, how will I support my husband emotionally?” So, this automatic regard for the emotional needs of others, while ignoring your own, is a major risk factor for chronic illness.
These others are obituaries and obituaries are fascinating to me because they tell us not only about the people who died but also about what we as a society value in one another. And often what we value in one another is precisely what kills us. And the expression “the good die young” is not a mis-statement. Often the good do die young because “good” often represents compulsive self-suppression of their own needs.
So here’s a man, a physician, who dies at age 55 of cancer, and the obituary says:
Never for a day did he contemplate giving up the work he so loved at Toronto Sick Children’s Hospital. He carried on his duties throughout his year-long battle with cancer, stopping only a few days before he died.
So if you had a friend who was diagnosed with the same condition, would you say to him or her, “Hey buddy, here’s what you do: You got cancer, go back to work tomorrow, and not for a moment consider your life, and the meaning of your life, and the stresses that you’re generating. Just continue working while you’re undergoing chemo, radiation or surgery,”?
So this automatic identification with duty, role, and responsibility rather than the needs of the self is a major risk factor for chronic illness.
The next one— [applause] thank you, but if you’re going to applaud every time I say something smart, you’ll be applauding the whole afternoon. The next one, the next obituary, is about a woman who dies at age 55 of cancer. Her name is Naomi. And this obituary is written by the appreciative husband:
In her entire life she never got into a fight with anyone. The worst she could say was “phooey” or something else along those lines. She had no ego, she just blended in with the environment in an unassuming manner
Now, I’m sure that many of you who are in relationships, sometimes you wish that your partner would blend into the environment in an unassuming manner, but the point is that the suppression of healthy anger that this woman engaged in all of her life actually suppresses the immune system. And I’m not going to go into the details of that, but the science of psychoneuroimmunology has amply shown that you can’t separate the mind from the body and when you’re repressing yourself emotionally you’re actually diminishing the activity of your immune system and therefore you’re less capable of responding to malignancy or to invasion by bacteria.
And again this idea that external things cause illness—take a condition like, uh, the flesh-eating disease, Necrotizing fasciitis is the medical term. And we think we know the cause, the cause is a bacterium, the strep bacterium. It isn’t. Because if we did swabs on the people in this audience, we did swabs of the throat or the crevices of the body, we’d identify the strep bacteria in probably 25, 30 percent of the people here. But there’s nobody here with necrotizing fasciitis, nobody here with flesh-eating disease.
In other words, the presence of the bacterium does not explain the disease. What happens is that the self-suppressive patterns in somebody’s life at some point will suppress the immune system, and that bacterium that has been living on your body in perfect unity with your immune system all of a sudden becomes a deadly enemy. It’s not just a bacterium, but the self-suppression that suppresses the immune system that actually causes the illness.
And I’ll leave you with one more obituary, and this is almost too incredible to believe except it is directly from the same newspaper. This is a physician who died of cancer:
Sydney and his mother had an incredibly special relationship, a bond that was apparent in all aspects of their lives until her death. As a married man with young children, Sydney made a point to have dinner with his parents every day as his wife Roslyn and their four young kids waited for him at home. Sydney would walk in greeted by yet another dinner to eat and to enjoy. Never wanting to disappoint either woman in his life, Sydney kept eating two dinners for years, until gradual weight gain began to raise suspicions.
Now, what this man believed, what he actually believed—and notice that there are core beliefs underneath all of this. The first one believes that she’s responsible for her husband’s feelings more than she is for herself. The second guy believes that he is nothing other than his responsibilities and duties and role in the world. There’s no true self there he can actually be with and be touched with. Naomi, the woman, believes, “If I am angry, I am a bad person.” And this man believes that he’s responsible for how other people feel and that he must never disappoint anybody.
Now, these beliefs don’t come out of nowhere. They’re actually coping mechanisms in a certain parenting environment. If the parents can’t handle your anger, if they can’t handle your emotions, if they’re too needy to trouble themselves then the child starts taking responsibility for the parent as a way of maintaining the relationship. In other words, the psychological coping mechanisms of the child then become part of his or her personality, and these same patterns that helped to cope with the original stress now become the major contributors to his or her illness and possibly death. What we’re talking about here are core beliefs that reflect the child’s early experience, that become ingrained into the brain and body as automatic and compulsive responses to the world. That’s my take on chronic illness.
And you begin to see now how some experiences could enlighten you that you are not those patterns, and if it can give you a sense that these patterns are simply adaptations, and that there’s a true self underneath that, and if they can put you in touch with the experiences that led you to adopt these patterns, then perhaps you can be liberated; then, perhaps you can let go; then, perhaps you can find the true self that doesn’t have to behave in those ways anymore. That’s where the liberation is. So, that’s with chronic illness.
Addiction
Now addiction. For 12 years I worked in what’s known as North America’s most concentrated area of drug use, the downtown eastside of Vancouver, where in a few square block radius thousands of people are ingesting, inhaling, or injecting all manner of substances.
And the question again is why do people do that? Why do people do such terrible thing to themselves to the point of risking their health? They lose everything, they lose their wealth, their relationships, their families, their homes, their teeth, their dignity—and they still continue with it.
The North American answer to that question is twofold. The legal answer, the socially sanctioned answer, is that these people are making a choice, they’re making a bad choice, destructive to themselves and harmful to others and the way to deter that choice is to deter them by means of draconian punishments.
The so-called war on drugs. But there is no war on drugs because you can’t war on inanimate objects. A war on drug addicts is what there is. And as a result of such retrograde social beliefs and governmental practices, the United States which contains 5 percent of the world’s population contains 25 percent of the world’s jail population, which is to say that every fourth person in the world that is in jail is a citizen of the land of the free. And all because of the belief that we’re talking about a choice here.
The other dominant belief, which is not identical—and you’d think would at least obliterate the first belief but it doesn’t—and it’s the one held by most medical doctors, is that addictions represent illness of the brain and particularly on a genetic basis.
The American Society of Addiction Medicine considers that up to 50 percent of the predisposition to addiction is actually caused by genetic inheritance. That is more forward looking in a way than our choice hypothesis, because at least you can’t blame people for the genes they either inherit or pass on to others, but it is no more right than the other hypothesis.
Actually, if you look at it closely and if you understand human brain development which I alluded a little bit earlier in my talk you realize that if five percent of addictions are genetic. That’s not radical to say—and I doubt that anything more than five percent is genetically determined. In fact nothing is genetically determined because we know that even people that inherit genes, and there are some, that are predisposed—not predetermined by predisposed to addiction—some people that inherit genes, in the right environment those genes are never activated. Genes are turned on and off by the environment. Therefore, what is in an environment that causes the addiction?
Of course the belief again then, among the many false beliefs about addiction, is that drugs are addictive. But we know that they’re not. Nothing is addictive in itself. I mean, is alcohol addictive? If I asked a question, “How many people have had a glass of wine in your life,” most people would put their hand up. Many of you would put your hand up. But if I asked you, “How many of you have had an alcohol problem,” a much smaller minority would put their hands up.
Now if alcohol was addictive in and of itself then anybody who ever tries it could become an addict. So, the power of an addiction does not reside in a substance. Whether that substance is crystal meth, or heroin, cocaine, cannabis, alcohol, or whether it’s behaviors like sexaholism, internet addiction, gambling, shopping, work and so on, it’s not the actual activity or substance that induces that addiction, it’s that internal relationship to it, the susceptibility. What creates susceptibility? It’s very simple: trauma.
Trauma
The drug addicts I worked with in the downtown eastside Vancouver, every single one of them had been abused as children. In the 12 years I worked there, out of hundreds of women I interviewed in the course of my professional work, there was not one who hadn’t been sexually abused as a child. And that’s not just only my personal opinion; it’s also what the large-scale population studies show. Not even controversial. Not controversial, but completely impenetrable to the medical profession and certainly to governments.
So, the people who are in jail—there’s an American psychiatrist Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, many of you may know his work on stress and trauma, and he says that 100 percent of the inmates of the criminal justice system in this country are actually traumatized children.
Now, trauma induces its own set of beliefs and coping styles. One coping style is to shut down emotionally so as not to feel. Now you become alien to yourself. So you don’t feel the pain, and as one patient of mine said very eloquently, pardon the language, “The reason I do drugs is because I don’t want to feel the fucking feelings I feel when I don’t do the drugs.”
And Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones’ guitarist, in talking about his heroin habit in his book on addiction, sorry, book on his life —same thing—uh, [life], he called it, talking about his heroin habit, “It’s about the search for oblivion,” he says. The contortions we go through just not to be ourselves for a few hours.
Now why would somebody would not wish themselves to be themselves for a few hours? Because they’re suffering, and why are they suffering? Because the early trauma, early emotional loss, induces certain beliefs. One belief is that “I’m worthless.” Because children are pure narcissists, and I mean narcissists in the pure sense of the word. In other words, when something happens to a child, particularly a young child, it’s happening because to him, and happening because of him. So bad things happen, it’s because I’m a bad person. Good things happen because I’m a good person. But if bad things happen, I’m a bad person. If I’m hurt, I deserve it. I caused it. I’m unworthy.
So there’s deep shame at the core of addictions; there’s also a sense that the world is indifferent and hostile, and of course the child who suffers them is abused—the world was indifferent and hostile as they experienced it. But, as the Buddha said it, “it is with our mind that we create the world.” But, what the Buddha didn’t say was that before “with our mind we create the world,” the world creates our minds. And those minds are then shaped by those early experiences.
So, to the addict, the world is hostile—is indifferent—in which he or she has to manipulate and find some way to soothe themselves because there ain’t no soothing in this world, there’s no healing in this world.
Those are some of the core beliefs at the heart of addiction. And there’s a deep emptiness here, because as the spiritual teacher— and this leads me directly to speak about the ayahuasca experience—as a spiritual teacher here in California said, “The fundamental thing that happened, and the greatest calamity, is there was not any love or support,” speaking of childhood.
The greater calamity, which was caused by that first calamity, is that you lost the connection to your essence. That is much more important than whether your mother or father loved you or not.
In other words, the greatest loss we endure is the loss of connection to ourselves, and that’s then when we experience a deep emptiness that we’re so afraid of.
And this culture is all about stuffing full of products, and stuffing full of relationships, and stuffing full of activities, and stuffing full of false meaning. But of course the more we do that, the more addicted we become, because these things can never be truly satiating. So, that emptiness can never be filled from the outside. The way through the emptiness is through the inside—is from the inside. And that’s where the spiritual experiences, and the healing experiences, empowered by ayahuasca come into it.
Now, my book on addiction came out four years ago now, and I never heard about ayahuasca until after it was published. While I was writing it I began to get emails and inquiries from people, “What do you know about ayahuasca and the healing of addiction?” and I would say, “Nothing, I don’t know anything about it.”A week later, the same question. And this went on persistently for months.
I finally began to be both irritated, and curious. And then it turned out that there was an opportunity to experience ayahuasca up in Vancouver; a Peruvian shaman was coming up and leading some ceremonies, and I did do a ceremony. And I sat there in the dark with my heart open and a feeling of delicious nurturing warmth, the tears of joy rolling down my face, and I got love. And I also got how many ways in my life I had betrayed love and had turned by back on it, which is a coping pattern, because when you’re as vulnerable and hurt as a child as I was as a Jewish infant under German occupation in Hungary, then you close down to love because it’s too painful to be open to it.
The ayahuasca got rid of my coping mechanisms in a flash, and there I was experiencing something, and I knew then that this is something to work with. And within half a year I was working with people shamanically trained in Peruvian Shipibo tradition, and beginning to lead retreats. We’ve led a number now, and the results are increasingly but uniformly astonishing.
So I’m going to read you some communications sent to me by people that have participated in our ayahuasca retreats and then I’ll talk about their experiences and why ayahuasca is so potentially helpful. Although, as the previous speaker said, nobody should ever say that it’s a panacea.
So this is Dr. Stuart Krichevsky, who writes about ayahuasca. …
Decoctions like ayahuasca, similar to many forms of meditation, has salutogenic potential. Salutogenic meaning health-giving potential i.e. can enhance physical mental and spiritual health by calling into play what is referred to as participating consciousness.
So if you can become conscious of your patterns and your beliefs, these core beliefs, and how you attain these beliefs, then you can let go of them. Rigid feeling, thought, and behavioral patterns can unclench; the self can rearrange itself and develop its inner and outer resources more deeply. So there we get to the concept of a true self and one that can be reconfigured, or at least rediscovered with the help of the psychoactive plants, particularly ayahuasca.
So I’ll read you now what some people have said about their experience at our retreats, and I’ll talk to you more about the retreats and how they function.
“The last two nights have been challenging, but I’m getting good practice. Negative thoughts as they come up, under the effect, I can feel the physical sensation of fear in my gut as the thought arises and returns to a safer place.”
In other words, when you have a certain thought, like you have a negative thought pattern—when I say negative, I mean a self defeating, self-deprecating, self invalidating thought pattern—that’s not just the thought up here, that’s immediately a physical impact on the body. You feel it in the gut, you feel it in the heart, if affects your whole nervous system, your cardiovascular system, your immune system, and this person is getting in touch with how their thoughts are influencing your body.
“In the past I’ve made many bad, irresponsible choices with hurtful consequences to myself in others. Despite knowing that right now, I’m presented with new choices I can make from a place of love towards myself and the people in my life. It’s hard to push despair aside. The despair that tells me I will continue to make the same poor choices over and over again.
That’s the core belief showing up again that “there’s something wrong with me.” But this person at least is conscious of it.
This is a physician, by the way, who has nearly lost his license because of addictions, and his marriage is falling apart, and he came to the retreat. And he thought he had a perfect childhood, by the way, and I won’t even go into the details.
“The other very powerful moment I had involved looking at the sense of being too much for my parents. I know no matter how much love they felt for me, they probably were all alone with their own fears and anxiety. Well yeah, the father had a near-fatal heart attack at age 28. I’ve experienced myself as a child when this child was a one-year old. I’ve experienced myself as too much for the world for a long time. I’ve made a grand effort over the years to prove that true, which is why it cracks my heart open so wide to feel welcomed in the hearts of you and the people here, knowing that my feelings, my hurt, fear, sadness, and need for connection are not too much. I feel that the world can hold me, in fact, always has. And maybe I can learn to hold myself. It’s painful to think that Miles, my son, may feel himself to be too much for me. I desperately don’t want that to happen. Much love and gratitude.”
I won’t read you the other experiences, but they’re all the same sort of people experiencing love, gratitude, connection to themselves, experiencing the childhood trauma.
My daughter did an ayahuasca retreat. She said that she revisited all the sad places in her childhood, and because I was a workaholic, and was very stressed, and a very undeveloped adult when I was a father to my young kids, she’s has plenty of sorrow in her life. And she said that she revisited those sad places but did so with the loving consciousness and empathy and the compassion of an adult, and if you look at the brain scans on ayahuasca … what you see is activation of the temporal lobe, where childhood memories are stored; of the limbic system where our emotions are modulated and they live, and the front part of the brain where insight is made available to us.
We can connect the childhood experience, no matter how traumatic—and it sometimes comes up for people. Some really deeply disturbing, traumatic experiences come up for people during the ayahuasca experience. And those experiences may take the form of direct memory, direct recall of an image, or what happened to them, such as a body invasion, or other kinds of trauma, or it may take the form of really scary images and creatures, but it’s like a dream. In the dream, when somebody’s chasing us, we’re not afraid because somebody’s chasing us—somebody’s chasing us because we’re afraid. In other words, during sleep, the centers in the brain where childhood memories are stored get activated, and then the brain makes up a story to explain the emotion. And I believe that much of the same is true of the scary visions that people have during the ayahuasca experience.
The beautiful images, of course, represent more the core self. We get to see both the experiences in response to which we develop these coping mechanisms that give us addiction or cancer or other form of illness. We get to experience that core self and the beauty of the world, as it actually is, when we don’t see it through a screen of suffering and misinterpretation induced by our early experience. So, we get to see both what we’ve been running from and trying to cope with, and trying to manipulate, but we also get to see that true connection that true love, that true beauty, that true vision, that pure insight, that pure strength, that pure compassion. And when we do that, we realize we don’t have to cope anymore. We don’t have to run anymore. We can just be right where we are.
Now, that’s not to say that because you have that experience it’s going to stay like that. That takes work that takes practice. If you don’t put in some practice afterwards, if you don’t get follow up, if you don’t put it into the context of your life, this experience just becomes a beautiful memory. But the impact of it will fade. So it’s transformative, but it’s only transformative if you allow it to be transformative. And it you work with it so that it becomes transformative. But if you do, it can be very, very powerful, it can be life-changing for many, many people.
I have to say something here about context here. I don’t lead ayahuasca ceremonies, I’m not on ayahuasca, I don’t chant, I just participate in the ceremonies. Leading the ceremonies are people who wouldn’t call themselves shamans, but I would call them that because their work is that effective. They chant, and they work with people energetically. And they pick up on peoples’ energies in the dark. I don’t do that. I pick up people’s energies in the light. I hear it in the tone of their voice, facial expression, choice of words. They sit there in the silence while they chant and they are reading the energies of the people as they emanate from each individual in that circle, where they might be 30 of us in the Malacca. And then they chant to people specifically to unblock particular energies, or particular energy blockages.
Like a person with cancer recently—two weeks after she signed up she became diagnosed with breast cancer. I’ve told you my view of breast cancer, or cancer in general: it’s a repression of anger as one of the major dynamics in it. The shaman sits there in the dark and feels the blocked anger in that woman’s breast, and then works with it to unblock that energy. So, it’s not just the chemical effect of the plant, and I’m sure other people have emphasized the same point. … It’s the context, it’s the responsiveness and supportive interaction of the environment.
Remember what I said when I was quoting from that Harvard article about how the brain develops in response to the mutual responsiveness of child and adult? In the same way the healing benefit of something like ayahuasca is not simply the chemical effect of the plant, although that of course is inseparable from its other effects. It’s also the responsiveness of the environment in which people experience the ayahuasca. So, the experience has to be in a safe context, in a context where there’s guidance.
People sometimes have negative experiences, or they think they do because they had an experience they didn’t like, and so they resist the experience. And also, the personality has a way of invalidating our essential self.
I’ll give you a quick example of that. There was a woman in a recent retreat who wanted to experience what was blocking her from engaging with life and herself in a full and passionate way. Next she reports with great disappointment and even resentment what she experienced during the ayahuasca ceremony.
“I just got psychedelic colors, for example, there was a psychedelic Indian elephant. I didn’t come here to get a trip with Indian elephants.”
The Indian elephant is Ganesh, the god-figure who unblocks difficulties. That’s what she experienced. And in some part of her brain she knew that. But because she was resisting the experience rather than being open to it, she actually missed the point. Now, that’s okay. If you go through it that way you’ll still learn what you need to learn, so I’m not negating her experience. In fact, it turned out to be a beautiful experience for her. But people sometimes need the guidance to understand the experience. It’s not enough, the experience. We have to find the meaning of the experience, and that’s where my role comes in. That’s what I help people with. But that wouldn’t be possible without the astonishing work of the ayahuasceros, the ayahuasceras, that I work with.
So it’s an overall gestalt; the plant, the ceremony, the chanting, the energetic work, and the psychological-emotional preparation beforehand, integration afterwards, and the joint exploration and the identification of meaning.
Gabor Maté (born 6 January 1944) is a Hungarian-born[1]Canadianphysician who specializes in neurology, psychiatry, and psychology, as well as the study and treatment of addiction. He is also widely recognized for his perspective on Attention Deficit Disorder and his firmly held belief in the connection between mind and body health. He has authored four books exploring topics including attention deficit disorder, stress, developmental psychology and addiction. He is a regular columnist for the Vancouver Sun and the Globe and Mail. -wikipedia
Startling, frightening, no Hollywood horror movie could be more chilling than this political documentary. A Brown University study reveals that the USA has engaged in conflicts with 100 countries. The corporate media has colluded in all the conflicts, acting as stenographers for the Pentagon, rather than questioning and investigating.
“20 Years After Iraq Invasion: “War Made Easy ~ How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death”. Critic Norman Solomon alleges that many government administrations have distorted facts and manipulated the media to sell the necessity of war to the American people.”
Following the film, some activists, writers, educators, stated that we merely have to educate ourselves and focus on ‘media, education, and labor’. The message also was that
‘We the People’ should be the one’s dictating democratically foreign policy, not government leaders behind closed doors, opaquely, and the corporate Media echoing the propaganda and like puppet strings, shoving patriotism down our throats.
Great discovery of very unpleasant information. The messages by the film maker is that the corporate media has been not only complicit, but major persuasive players in holding the line of leaders. The film talks about the blatant propaganda to convince citizens of the need to go to war, often colluding ‘supporting the troops’ with patriotism, conflating being against the war, with not standing by the troops. The film also talks of how the media brandishes the glorification of weapons and always stays clearly away from questioning motives for war or getting close enough to actually see on the ground, the horror and inhumane and immoral nature of war.
Well worth it. In most wars the USA has perpetually carried out, many more civilians have been the victims. Only a few members of Congress have stood up against war. Dennis Kucinich talks of American Imperialism. If you want to see a scary movie, in terms of blatant tactics of deceit, this is a documentary horror flick. Leaders state that they’re pulling out, ending the conflict, while actually injecting more money into increasing arms. I recommend informing yourself. The message also was that the people should be the one’s dictating democratically foreign policy, not governments and corporate media pulling the strings and then shoving patriotism down our throats.
Through Roots Action, I learned of this online Screening and Panel following it on zoom March 20th. Pulled it off, though it started at 6:45 ET which is 11:45pm German time.
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Yes, I am opinionated. So don’t take it personally. I just responded to a virtual landscape on a page with this comment. I don’t need a virtual moon dangling in my virtual living room with my virtual body, because I go outside all the time and sleep outside (at times because of being economically challenged or when there are no vacancies) looking at the moon and feeling the air and wind in my hair. I once had a vision – literally way before Meta and virtual reality was yet manifest – about this. It was to me a nightmare, not a cool thing I intended to want to do again. To step out of what i thought was reality and realize, as electrodes in a sort of scull cap were being taken from my head, that none of it was real. I personally prefer our real relationship with the earth and its creatures, and wish to protect them from humanity and its enormously wasteful energy strategies to maintain a technological fantasy.
I recall a ‘waking dream’ I had decades ago. It was not while I was sleeping, but during the day. I was witnessing what has since been created, virtual reality, before it existed. In the dream I was climbing a mountain. I could feel the breeze. The ‘camera’ pulled back so that I was then seeing myself from above, and then moved further away until I was high above my body looking down at myself and the earth. Then suddenly I was climbing out of a box, an isolation tank, in my living room. I then was disconnecting these wires from my scull. When I awoke from this engaging dream during the day while I was living in Washington D.C., I recall feeling very disturbed emotionally from the thought of having cheated myself by not ‘actually’ having the real experience of traveling to a mountain, and then to put out the effort to reach its summit. Instead, I was only alone in a box – the shell of the real experience. A few years later I was startled to watch a movie while I was traveling and visiting Europe called “Strange Days” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Days_(film) because it was recapturing the essence of the mechanics of how this ‘virtual reality’ of my vision and virtual experience occurred.
I wrote then > when I was still using a Macbook < I have since continued to feel this conviction (even though I’m sitting here ‘working’ and writing, creating and communicating in isolation on my MacBook Pro – and loving and needing this machine – so I think 🙂 That, if we don’t maintain a balance, our technologies will continue to isolate us from ourselves, from one another and from our connection to the natural world. I had hypothesized that primitive people perhaps had not lost our special connection to the cosmos. A friend then pointed out to investigate my theory by looking at the aborigines of Australia. They once consistently demonstrated telepathy and ultra human powers of consciousness. As modern man relies more and more on our gadgets to do things for us, our human powers of mind and heart and connection to one another and the universal intelligence will atrophy. I believe human beings do have capabilities of telepathy and of connection with the divine through allowing ourselves to quite our minds and engage our spirits and heart – our sixth sense or intuition or gut instincts – whatever you want to call it. Yet, if our thoughts are constantly engaged and busy worrying about the past and the future and what we don’t have and judging one another and watching sitcoms and shit, we don’t have the time or space to tap into what is available to us as spiritual beings on the material physical plane. yep, I said it. I always thought it. And I keep finding other human beings who also reiterate and reverberate the same message….
Arundhati Roy has a profound breadth of insights into the political and economic power play reality of our world. She leaves no stone unturned in her bold ascertainment. Funny how she talks of the vulgarity of the theme of economics. Excerpts from this article in Livewire. It’s well worth one’s time to read and digest the entire article of essential information that needs to be shared.
“Snowden, who warned us years ago that we were sleepwalking into a surveillance state, continues to live in exile in Moscow. And we have tumbled enthusiastically into the surveillance state he warned about, with our little phone-companions that have become as intimate and as indispensable as any vital organ in our bodies, spying on us, recording and transmitting our most personal information so that we can be tracked, controlled, standardised and domesticated. Not just by the state, but by each other too.”
“Both instances – strict hijab in Iran and the prohibition of hijab in India and other countries – may appear to be antagonistic, but they aren’t really. Forcing a woman into a hijab, or forcing her out of one, isn’t about the hijab. It’s about the coercion. Robe her. Disrobe her. The age-old preoccupation of controlling and policing women.”
“When the Cold War ended, demilitarisation and nuclear disarmament should have begun. Instead, NATO did the opposite. It amassed more weapons, fought more wars and used the territory of its allies and proxies for the aggressive and provocative forward deployment of troops and missiles. If Russia had done through proxies in Europe or the US what NATO is doing to it, there is little doubt that we would be seeing the moral arguments and western media coverage turned inside out.”
“Perhaps it’s hard for the rest of us to understand the mystery of the British people’s love and enthrallment with their monarchy. Perhaps it has to do with a national sense of identity and pride which cannot and certainly ought not to be reduced to vulgar economics. But allow me to indulge in some vulgarity for a minute or two.”
“A recent analysis in the Financial Times concludes that income inequality in the US and the UK is so great that they could be classed as “poor societies with some very rich people”. They’re like us ‘Third Worlders’ now, Banana Republics whose wealthy have seceded into outer space and whose poor are falling into the sea.”
“Capitalism is in its Endgame. Sadly, as it goes down, it’s taking our planet with it. Between nuclear hawks and mining corporations, it’s a race to the bottom.”
“…Meanwhile, for light entertainment, let’s all fight about what gods to pray to, what flags to wave, what songs to sing.”
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Leipzig in the Innen Staat, where many of the buildings were not destroyed during WWII, is filled with pedestrians promenading along the streets and bicyclists of all ages and persuasions, comfortably moving around the city. Actually the bicyclists are informed to walk their bikes in the bustling, often crowded streets of the inner old quarter. There were numerous street musicians busking in the inner city every evening.
The city has a zoo and several museums and churches.
Johann Sebastian Bach worked in Leipzig in the 1720’s, creating a multitude of songs while he also taught and sang in a church.
It was during the second week in November that suddenly the city was preparing for the upcoming
Christmas Market – Leipziger Weihnachtsmarkt 2022
This image above is of the Christmas Market that will be born on this plaza and in other plazas in the downtown area. The Christmas Tree in the plaza is right around the corner from an alley of restaurants, still packed with people on the sidewalks in November, throughput the winter I presume, under heat lanterns. Locals are socializing, eating and drinking.
The 5 Elements hostel where I stayed is just on the other side of the Markt plaza where the Christmas tree is located. I visited a grand library building.
And as well, discovered and swam along with other people in the nearby lakes to the south of the city in Cossi See. Most Germans don’t have a big complex about nudity, elderly and young alike enter the water nude, as did I. It’s a health and fitness treat to get into and swim in cold water in the winter. Super invigorating. One’s body feels warm and glowing afterwards.
I also discovered a Tieren Park – outdoor Animal Park, where people roamed and paid for healthy crunchy treats for goats who greedily approached the fence, some with horns, pushing others out of the way. I loved watching all the animals, and felt sorrow looking at owls in cages too small, where they couldn’t fly at all.
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I propose building tiny house communities to provide affordable housing, with an emphasis on living harmoniously with biodiversity in a clean and sustainable manner within the local geophysical environmental parameters.
The community members investment prioritizes clean land, water, energy, transportation, shared gardens – as part of an ‘economic’ commons – in which shared ownership encourages care and participation in its maintenance while maintaining the restoration of re-wilding the natural world.
My favorite tiny house ever.
can’t remember the source, but this image drew tears of love
The sustainable communities involve planting trees, bee highways, pollinators, maintaining community gardens, acquiring sustainable energy and building materials appropriate to the local environment, encouraging arts and culture, while providing a healthy and sustainable habitat for the larger community of life in the vicinity of the ‘pod’ – collection of tiny houses. The emphasis is on ecological education and evaluation, nurturing and incorporating biodiversity, for all of the interacting systems to harmoniously thrive.
I reached a bit and found these articles, with examples of the more wild looking communities I could find.
‘6 Tiny Home Communities Inspiring Minimal And Collective’ by Kayti Christian ‘6 Tiny Home Communities Inspiring Minimal And Collective’ by Kayti Christian Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
I dreamed last night to post the current page I’m editing of my book. For one thing, I made it over the psychological hump of not having opened the book in months. Now I’m back in the swing, and perhaps wish to as much also display the kind of book I am writing.
I was yesterday just checking links (in case any are broken and need to be updated), reading for content, updating the bibliography. I guess just to reveal that there’s a reason that this book has been taking an extraordinarily long time.
Below are pics referring specifically to page 65 in the educational ebook I’ve been researching, writing and illustrating “A Seahorse Tale – A Spin on the Matter of Motion”.
The pics encompass the specific section of the Table of Contents in which this ‘chapter’ is located.
Plasma | Interconnectedness | Permafrost | Methane – Greenhouse Gas
Section of this particular page of the interactive TOC – Table of Contents – including pg 65
Each chapter includes several subjects which a student or class could choose to jump to independently to study these specifically, or the book can be read chronologically from beginning to end. Below are pics of just page 65.
Each page has an image: art, science, graphsText links are red, Video links are green
I worded the links so that the subjects can be easily identified and created the bibliography in google docs so that the topics can be alternately arranged alphabetically, to quickly locate specific subjects.
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Speaking of cultures exported from the USA and particularly in Italy, embracing ‘style and fashion’ as a high priority and status symbol.
This graffiti ‘street art’ in a pedestrian tunnel in Verona, Italy eloquently displays how humans are drawn to wear clothing and shoes ~ sporting a handbag or hat or the most updated phone ~ thinking that this is ‘making it’ and making them more desirable.
It is material consumption in the competition to be better.
Somehow the facing wall of ants gnawing on items of food, but also eating and munching on each other, chewing on other ants, mirrors the human play of material consumption ‘consuming’ the ego of another, rendering them less special and lesser of a person.
Be the change you want to see; smiling, interacting, conversing with other people, rather than material acquisition and competition as the main emphasis and focus in life.
Today, three of us had a very provocative conversation here at this hostel in the middle of nowhere ‘Now Here’ in Portugal; a Portuguese guy, an Argentinian IT worker I’ve come to know in the last week and myself. We talked about how the media uses fear to manipulate people, how Pharma companies have lied about and manipulated the entire world towards feeling fear and guilt about vaccines (along with truths about Covid) and how one very inexpensive and effective cure Ivermectin has been quickly denounced and silenced. We talked about cell phone addictions and ultra materialism….and that many of the political satirists, from George Carlin years ago foreseeing how the government and media are puppets to multinationals who are actually the elite in control.
The Portuguese guy says that it’s almost the same as an authoritarian dictatorship, except that a tyrannical ruler has a face you can point to and blame, whereas this convoluted machine of money and power driving people to busily occupy themselves with just trying to survive with high costs and who are complacently consuming social media (addictively and incessantly) wind up not really questioning or even being consciously aware of the degree to which they are being controlled.
The NY Times has had one after another super frightening article in the last days, yesterday about Philadelphia being rife with guns and shootings, more than NYC or LA. And today an article about a MASSIVE PERFECT STORM that will at any time hit California. Not earthquakes, droughts or fires, but a brewing mega storm with water building from Hawaii, to the extent of the Mississippi river in the sky…and that when it hits the mountains of CA, it will bring biblical rains. This was in today’s paper. So though it may very well be true, the media does its job of keeping people at a high pitch of fear and dread, because this is an excellent vehicle to control people.
The one guy was saying that George Carlin was so right on…and yet few people are aware enough to even question or seek to know. He and I have seen families, sitting with each parent looking down at their phone while their toddlers are acting out, simply seeking to get attention from a parent who sits there entranced, absent and unavailable to properly give he child attention.
I just made a list of (some) of the political satirists from whom I’ve been enlightened about issues, plus another Brit I hadn’t yet heard of till today, Ricky Gervais. If you haven’t listened to Russel Brand, Bill Maher, Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Hasan Minhaj…I suggest that you do.
They discuss truths in depth, which mainstream media averts talking about. And the three wealthiest men in the world – Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson – who each coordinated their rocket launches with their massive carbon footprint and complete audacity to ignore the global warming occurring that is causing the massive droughts, floods, mass extinction, as if they are above it all and act with impunity with absolutely no regard for what is occurring on the earth – rather than using their money and power to instigate massive action to begin to heal the world, they are guilty for soaring mass delusion.
What can we do about it? It seems not much. Except that the more that people become aware that our financial system is perpetuating our demise –
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0G6obeUKWmw&t=166s – the more that the massive population – and the industries profiting from misinformation and disinformation – and government officials who are millionaire pawns pocketing their gifts and continuing as if we aren’t in the middle of a disaster of magnanimous proportions – can hold them accountable. But as long as people are sleep walking and bent over looking down at their phones rather than looking up and speaking personally with one another, nothing will change.
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Sunday after a Saturday night on one of the hundreds of places people gather outside
Sleepless and currently homeless until I figure out where to live in Lisbonne
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Yet, after all, as demonstrated in the opulence of a bread and pastry shop, our nutrition and life, comes through integrating, caretaking and renewing all life, which sustains us. What is of more value? Water, nutrition and joy of life while taking the time to appreciate the experience? Or rushing through one’s food, to hurry back to working for an institution whose profits rest at the top, skimmed off by those who engineer society to be their economic servants and pawns.
My bed of stones last night, well from 6 to 8am. Didn’t have a pad under the sleeping bag, exhaustion was the cushion. The most beautiful experience was listening to and watching the swallows frolicking in the sky as they breakfasted.
Well, I would have had a better night’s sleep under the trellises of vines on a terrace than inside the dorm rooms of the hostel where people sit chatting into mid morning. However, I was asked to move after under 3 hours. Then I walked up a hill to a park, no adequate place away from people, the most dangerous predators. I walked up the narrow street, turned right through an arched area to restaurants. There was a garden bed of polished black stone, which were indenting into my skin after falling asleep there in my sleeping bag (not a bed of nails as a yogi mind over matter). I watched and listened at 6:30 am as dozens of swallows chirped and dashed around over my head. Delightful. I then was awoken not by police, but young employees who kindly asked me to wake up and leave. Smooth polished black stones were preferable to morning dew and a soggy sleeping bag. I might as well be doing a broadcast on sleeping in the rough, or mind over matter ~ mattress. And then i saw cafeteria across the street and it has commanded a full reflection on my own culture.
Ornate beauty, care and very thought provoking craftsmanship. The Australian grown son and his parents and i chatted. A bit about each of our lives. He and his wide lived 4 years in Malta, now in London. Said Malta has a lot of expats. We talked of how each of our native countries lacked the history, intricacies of architecture and dimension of spirit. I said that the culture has a sickness trickling down from the top. The father said it’s more like flooding. A systemic sickness that started to embed itself even 40 years ago, when I went to the university and students were more concerned about getting into careers – specifically to make the most money – and asking questions about how they could get the best grade the most easily, rather than gaining the most knowledge. The Australians agreed that the school systems are designed to shape and develop an obeisant population, groomed to be dutiful worker bees in the economics-based culture with multiple choice tests, rather than to be creative, free thinkers capable of critiquing the status quo.
I later conversed with a local Portuguese man and a tourist as I watched locals (regulars) interacting with the women and tourists kind of disregarding that they could do the women a favor by simply taking back their trays.
This building of the bread pastry shop panera, panificaçaō, built in 1921, was crafted with such thorough dedication to the ingredients of a good life and of bread: bacchus statue “Bacchus was primarily known as the god of agriculture and wine, but was also associated with fertility, drama, and revelry. In regards to agriculture, he was depicted as a god of trees and forest, and was often sought ought to help the orchards grow.” The tiles of bees and wheat, tiles above of eggs guarded by roosters and of the flowers and wheat creating the bread. Loveliness and celebration of the interconnectedness of life and nature.@
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This video tape of his lecture to students about his Twelve Principles reveals how insightful he is. It caused me to seriously jump out of my seat, discovering with delight a completely new and unique way of seeing and interpreting a Christian and an altogether spiritually ecologically inclusive perspective. It is more Buddhist in a way.
When I first discovered the book The Universe Story written by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme about 7 years ago attending a college consortium class, I was astounded. This was the first religious scholar to actually redefine the place of humans, according to – not ignoring – scientific discoveries about the cosmos and the quantum world.
Thomas Berry indicates that humans are nothing without the community of the earth
“Humans must redefine themselves from a human-centric, to a biocentric, geocentric and cosmo–centric role that we play.”
Interestingly, he questions the Pope’s (at that time) encyclical, that talks of the importance of this or that human social thing, without representing or acknowledging whatsoever the human relationship to the community of the natural world.
Berry says that humans can not be extracted from the natural world, that our whole relationship with the natural world can’t be ignored. That to separate humans from the importance of being caretakers to the entire community of the earth, is an abstraction.
The work and information that these men espouse in The Universe Story is critical for the entire planetary community.
“There is no human society in and of itself, there is only the community of the earth.“
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Join the discussion! Earth Day April 22, 2022 8am EDT Register here It’s Free
We Need to Restore We Need to Protect
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the treasures of rainforest biodiversity in Indonesia and the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for the palm oil plantations and the pulp and paper industry.
Filmmaker says ”Hoping to promote change in our consumer choices and the way we behave toward animals and nature.”
Inger Anderson Executive Director UN Environment Programme
“Let’s commit to a planet where people, animals and nature flourish together.”
Dino Talks #1 Everyone says it’s Crazy — Why Do We Still Subsidize Fossil Fuels? Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
Please Add Your Name – in the name of Creation over Destruction!
“His Holiness the Dalai Lama, IPPNW, and other Nobel Peace Prize Laureates are asking Avaaz and all citizens around the world to join this historic call to reject war and nuclear weapons — when it’s huge, it will be delivered to the Russian Federation and NATO:
The invasion of Ukraine has created a humanitarian disaster for is people. The entire world is facing the greatest threat in history: a large-scale nuclear war, capable of destroying our civilization and causing vast ecological damage across the earth.”
Add Your Name – in the name of Creation over Destruction
Who says that humans have the right to destroy whatever they please, in the name of what ever their short-sighted inclination happens to be? I say, EPIC.
Instead of the G20, < EPIC > the ‘Earth Peace International Ceremony’ (EPIC) > a psychedelic healing ceremony guided by Shamans. Mandatory for all Global Leaders >
Not Davos < location > The Andean Jungle
I personally would rather than seeing troops and weapons sent to Ukraine, that Putin goes to a world criminal court and is convicted of deceit and war crimes.
And rather than building armies, have the leaders duel (but that’s too scary, depending on who would win).
A much better idea > enforced participation in an ayahuasca ceremony with shamans in the Andes (with no electronic devices or contact with the outside world) so that the ego would dissolve and the pride and posturing would just peter out.
(peter out = english slang = dwindle, dissolve)
Mandatory attendance of all world leaders: Hungary, Brazil, China etc.
Instead of the G20, the ‘Earth Peace International Ceremony’ (EPIC) > a psychedelic voyage into shedding the ego and communing with the spiritual beings within the substances, guided by a shaman …. and eclipsing the war mentality with an extension towards peace, and agreements to completely disarm all military.
Repurpose all military equipment and assign all soldiers of every army worldwide and populations into planting trees, gardens and R&D towards building renewable and sustainable transportation, energy and housing and working to ensure that Half of the Earth is sustained for habitat and health of other species.
location > Not Davos > The Andean Jungle
Followed up with mandatory bi monthly (every two months) participation in psychedelic MDMA, Mushroom, ayahuasca, mescaline, cannabis sativa, etc. therapy sessions.
Why? Because at 2022, after centuries (millennia) of humans battling with each other and degrading the planet and forgetting about all of the other inhabitants with whom we share the Earth, it’s enough. Basta! Have the world billionaires, contribute to a humanitarian spiritual enlightenment, instead of building rockets for joy rides. Earth First! Eco Warriors!
Mandatory Half-Earth contributions from every continent, to research, tear down walls, build bee highways and animal crossings (bridges and tunnels), changing diets, changing habits, getting out of cars ….
One of numerous events sponsored /\ hosted by world beyond war.Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
Let your conscience decide. But before you can make a decision, you need to be informed. After all, this affects you. While we’re busy progressing through (or digressing from) our life’s daily activities and responsibilities, there’s a truth blazing right in front of our eyes. Hint: It’s not a comet.
Leonardo DiCaprio Explains Don’t Look Up | Netflix
I participated in a 2 hour informational meeting organized through members of the Boston XR chapter 1/11/22. The Extinction Rebellion talk was about taking hold of your democratic right to have your voice heard. The topic of the meeting, non-violent direct action; pressing the political body and the media to tell the truth to the public. Non-violent direct action has been around for a long time; such as what Mahatma Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau and Rosa Parks did. They too, did not feel that the powers that be, were listening.
Given that neither US political party nor the corporate media give much attention or time to honest communication about Ecological Breakdown and the Climate Crisis.
While we’re busy, enmeshed in our own worlds, a lot of information of critical importance that affects all of us, is sort of, glazed over. Several years ago when I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I hitched up to the ski basin and a former climate scientist who worked for the California government gave me a lift. He mentioned that in 1991, he was instructed NOT to release his findings in a report, that incriminated the oil industry clearly as being culpable for our heating planet. I was shocked. This wasn’t something to blame on our then current buffoon in the White House. Instead, it reveals a systemic and systematic nondisclosure of information; the government and institutions bowing to the industries that feed them with green, and I’m not talking about marijuana. Oh yeah, even the former Speaker of the House during the Obama administration, the guy with the long unsmiling face, John Boehner, who continually voted against legalizing marijuana, now has invested $$$$ in the industry; which is being groomed into a large-scale corporate controlled industry with strict licensing – cutting out the small growers. Boehner has his talons in this one. “John Boehner Was Once ‘Unalterably Opposed’ To Marijuana. He Now Wants It To Be Legal”
In the meantime, the pharmaceutical industry billionaires, along with the tech ones, have also been willingly notdisclosing information, as they looked at their sky rocketing accounting books as a burgeoning mass opioid epidemic was happening. They kept quiet, because they were seeing massive profits.
This systematic cover-up and looking the other way while one’s bank account fattens, has already been in place.
I had to look up ‘the scopes trial’. to see what he was referencing. In 1925 in Tennessee, a teacher was tried for having the audacity to teach evolution theory.
He talks of the evangelical, anti-science minions of Trump today who are misguided through a strong media. Chomsky says
“It is our responsibility to turn the country to sanity.”
He talks about the trend of Neo Liberalism in the last 40 years and its transfer of wealth from the working and middle class (90%) to the very rich. The religious right is healthy and strong.
And with his quote in mind, that’s why we can all rebel against extinction, and decide to actually work and act and play together. And say, I wanna hear more?
What is it that is blazing before our eyes? Well, it was well-covered by the network television stations. I heard the statistic from one of the people in the zoom meeting.
While governments and industries and corporate stories are about pride, conquering, staking one’s territory and profiting from one’s investments.
Our stories are more about surviving, and surfing the net. We might have similar ambitions nestled in quiet achievements and joys about conquering our own fears and losing bad habits. In the meantime, we need to guard from being Zucked by our boy billionaire, who wants to conquer our inner space. Mark would like (with our purchase of his software and hardware) for everyone, to ‘switch’ from life, to a fantasy. From being sensorily in touch with our own bodies, the turning of the planet, the changes of seasons and some semblance of connection to the living systems of our earth and to each other face to face. To instead, buy into Meta. Rather than walking and driving while staring down at our phones, that’s old school. We can instead meet (anyone) and go (anywhere) in Meta, without even having to get dressed or brush our teeth. We can put on any mask or costume we like, to hide behind. A fantasy world that you, yes you, can create. You don’t have to bother to leave your house or couch. Now we’re talking zombi land, for real. We can all say ciao, see ya later, while merging into being mesmerized in our goggles, wired to a virtual universe.
Why spend time being concerned about nature, if you can ‘be there’. If there are no tigers anymore, who cares? We can visit with them while sitting on the toilet with our googles on and bluetooth.
While the billionaires are shooting off rockets to conquer and profit from space flight – Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Richard Branson – they are ignoring a glaring part of the equation.
This statistical analysis of carbon emissions relative to income and wealth levels globally, clearly indicates where accountability lies2022 World Inequality Report
Per capita emissions across the world, 2019 Per capita emissions across the world, 2019 Per capita emissions across the world, 2019
I had to look what MENA stood for. Middle East/North African countries consisting of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
We are in the midst of an environmental extinction crisis and global heating climate catastrophe whose main driver is fossil fuels and industrialized well, ‘everything’.
Rather than the world’s wealthiest men orchestrating and paying for the seeds for a worldwide participatory tree planting movement, or putting money and incentivizing people to participate in realizing the recently deceased biologist EO Wilson’s Biodiversity foundation and his Half-Earth project, or mobilizing the world’s population to collect plastic and rubber tires and make renewable building materials from them.
Instead, they perform a virtual drag race (eerily close in time to one another), launching their mechanical penises into the sky, in a salute to endless technical expansion; symbolizing their desire to financially occupy and profit from the skies. Before space junk comes crashing down from failed missions…
Corporate media gave more hours of coverage to the wealthiest men in the world, who rather than saving rainforests, or driving a collective planetary undertaking committed to not building walls and paving every piece of earth, but weaving together habitats and nurturing the earth’s systems: wetlands, forests, rain forests, oceans.
Philip McMaster Sustainaclaus | co-founder World Sustainability Coop
In light of the fact that business enterprises rule and money speaks, XR realize that the only way to pressure change organized from the top down, is to share information and messages to the public and media, to influence those who can coordinate and facilitate major action.
I can imagine a really delightful more peaceful and beautiful environment, with people interacting and taking the time to build new paradigms in action and interaction, as we physically re-invent life that is not car-driven. I see public parks, gardens, car-free cities, and more care going into education and empowerment. Clean, efficient and pleasant train travel. Bicycle infrastructure everywhere.
What can you imagine?
Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
Basically, for a long while, my mind has been beholden with ‘consciousness’. Specifically, to explain synchronistic and telepathic phenomena which occur non-locally. And the idea that consciousness is not only based in the brain.
The concept of universal consciousness has appeared throughout history, since Plato. I like the expressions of mind that emerge out of the different texts. Within which all specify the mind as other than the intellect.
The concept of universal mind was presented by Anaxagoras, a Pre-Socratic philosopher. Anaxagoras’s system was his doctrine of nous (“mind” or “reason”). A different Greek word, gnó̱si̱ (awareness),
This article in Medium about Universal Consciousness speaks of emotions (mind) as separate from the intellect.
“Vedanta puts forth the hypothesis that besides the body, mind, and intellect, the human being is constituted of the divine Self, called Ataman: a homogenous mass of pure consciousness – the same in all beings – omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, however acting through the body, mind, and intellect of different beings, it gets conditioned as per that individual being’s inherent nature defined by his set of desires (Vasnas), and hence each individual appears to be distinct and different from the other.”
In a Scientific American article about whether Consciousness is Universal, the writer expresses that Buddhism emphasizes the universal nature of mind. And that the Dalai Llama always stressed the need to reduce suffering for all beings, not just human beings.
He talks of Panpsychism – the view that mind (psyche) is found everywhere (pan).
I was fascinated to learn through a heart rhythm meditation group offered at Hershey Medical center, that we have an electromagnetic field which surrounds our heart and extends beyond our body. This field is larger than that around our brain. It expands and contracts, depending on what emotions we feed it.
Our bodies respond to biochemical changes induced by our emotions and senses. Yet, at the nanoscale level, we are electromagnetic organisms.
In ‘telepathysplainin’’ in other words, how to explain how communication can occur over large distances, when it is beyond the physical dimension of proximity, it makes more and more sense that
In addition to having bodies and brains which function together, in which our senses and awareness takes place between our nervous and chemical systems.
That in addition to this – just as the psychologist Carl Jung theorized about synchronicity and the collective unconscious – that perhaps intermingled in the Zero Point Field – there is a consciousness and intelligence that is pervasive throughout the universe.
I have been intrigued with the pineal gland as well as piezoelectricity. Perhaps the piezo crystals within the pineal gland resonate on different levels so that they act like antennae, that tap into this universal consciousness.
Acupuncture taps into Qi energy which moves along a network of liquid crystalline collagen fibers, which unifies a ’body consciousness’ with a ’brain consciousness’. This biological tissue is piezoelectric.
And with respect to the theory of the Quantum Mind, “The physical correlate of the logical thinking process is at the classically describable level of the brain, while the basic thinking process is at the quantum-theoretically describable level.”
Let me translate that, or how I understand it. I believe that many of our basic actions which are almost rote in body memory as well as our sensory and emotional responses, are predominantly taking place through biochemical processes and neural synapses in the brain.
And that we can also attune ourselves, our minds, to extend into an electromagnetic field that is everywhere, all at once. And that by quieting the busy thinking and reacting processes of the busy thinking brain, that we tap into this universal membrane of consciousness. And that depending on what frequency our own rehearsed thoughts and minds are one, that we can attune ourselves to frequencies that correlate; which are sympathetic to what we’re honing in on. Therefore, telepathy, the discovery of the same information from different people at different places at the same time, and the inspiration and intuition that we all have, are essentially, through tapping into this field that is there, ALL THE TIME.
We just need to pull out of the distractions and noise, and listen.
A few days ago I clicked on this article in the New Yorker..
The author states that energy is both biochemical and psychophysical.
Near the end, I read this
“…to convey how little we know about the workings of consciousness, he said, “We have yet to disprove that our brains aren’t merely antennas, that all of our ‘thoughts’ and ‘memories’ don’t just come from out there”—he pointed out the window—“and that we’re not just ‘streaming’ everything.
The humane that the rest of the body (brain, hands, heart, lungs, digestive tract) is merely an elaborate and sometimes clumsy apparatus for the nourishment of the mitochondria—that it. If is the mitochondria, and not Homo sapiens, who rule and foul the earth. Our cardiovascular! system, that fantastic and vulnerable machine, is essentially a delivery system for the oxygen they require”
It’s not the first time I heard something similar (back when I lived in Washington DC where I went to the university) that astounded me at the time.That perhaps DNA is the intelligence that is keeping itself alive, through humans,
Wow, here is a super powerful speech by António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, calling on world leaders to escalate climate action, equating the world’s current track to “digging our own graves” and “treating the earth as our toilet”, during the opening ceremony of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
The speech by the UN secretary general, very simply states accurate points.
If, as a leader of a wealthy country of the global north, you can’t hear what he is saying nor respond with a conscience to FINALLY change what your priorities are, you should step down.
We need leaders who are there for all of us and for biodiversity, not greedy cowards who only want to pocket money from the BIG Oil, Ag and Pharma industries, etc.
António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general,
Corporate gifts are giftig (German/Deutsch for poisonous) to government leaders. Seducing them to remain mute and dysfunctional, as they deposit them in their bank accounts.
Got the Point?
Register and listen for free to all 2 weeks of the COP26 educational events presented by
Listen to the Scientists, Entrepreneurs, Farmers, Artists, Journalists and Intellectuals who are reaching out to help people to help themselves. NOT GOVT LEADERS, many of whom have done not-a-fucking-thing FOR THE LAST 26 YEARS OF CLIMATE CONFERENCES.
Instead, hear the voices of community leaders and people who have come from the Global South and all over the world, who wish to defend their habitats, their right to clean air, water and nutrient-rich soil, whose lands are being washed away or scorched by human induced petroleum fed global warming.
Learn about sustainable, fair, renewable and positive actions that we can take in our own homes and communities and ways to bring back ownership to ‘the Commons’ – our own resources of fresh air and water and wildlife, pulled into the wealth and responsibility of the entire community (not funneled off to the CEOs of those who have taken private ownership).
(I just made this above paragraph up, because that’s what I’d be interested in hearing about).
Nevertheless, listen to the truth and experiences of people who are there to share their stories, not the lies with ties to those dangling their misinformation to sway the public into buying into them.
Greenwich Mean Time is 4 hours ahead of Eastern Time
I just read that “FDR helped lay the groundwork for the post-war peace organization that would become the United Nations”. I didn’t know that the UN is a PEACE ORGANIZATION! Funny how the imbalance of power has tweaked and tilted the un-level playing field over the last decades, manipulated by those with economic thrust, to bludgeon the public with misinformation and disinformation.
Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
I just read this headline as I was searching for names of higher educational programs under the guise of environmental science, ecology and extinction.
“China is facing an unprecedented set of challenges in balancing the effects of economic development and global climate change with environmental protection and maintaining biodiversity. Although positive steps have been undertaken to remedy this situation, currently 80% of China’s 25 extant primate species are threatened, 15–18 species have population sizes of less than 3000 individuals, and two species of gibbons and one species of langur have been extirpated over the past few decades. Today, virtually all species of primates in China inhabit fragmented landscapes….”
“China’s fauna exhibits a unique diversity of apes. Unfortunately, the apes are more strongly endangered by extinction in China than in any other country. A research team assembled by anthropologists of Zurich University now conclude that another ape species has just become extinct in China’s Yunnan province.”
The white-handed, or lar gibbon, or indeed the white-cheeked gibbon, is a primate found in the forests of South and Southeast Asian countries like Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos and possibly China. It is one of the best-known gibbon species in the world.
They say ‘possibly’ China, because it has already had its habitat mowed over.
global mind pull, attraction globale de l’esprit, globaler Gedankenzug, atracción de la mente global
The biologist E O Wilson upon seeing the mass extinction taking place on the Earth due to human spoilage and encroachment on habitats, decided to implement Half-Earth > to set aside half of the earth and water in the most biodiverse regions, to ensure the survival, rather than extinction of species.
It will take all of us, because Climate Catastrophe i.e. Global Warming and the 6th Mass Extinction can be slowed down, if we all stand up and do something to contribute our energy, intention and make the effort to change habits and recognize the part that we play (either contributing to destruction (through continued development and construction) or acting as protectors and being kind and respectful to all other species, rather than being human centric and negligent to all other life on the planet.
I was reading this article in the New York Times about the massive oil that has leaked in the Gulf of Mexico after hurricane Ida, and the regularity of leaks springing from both active and inactive/abandoned oil pipelines and platforms there.
“There are some important caveats. NOAA’s satellite tracking effort started years after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which triggered a series of spills that ultimately released about 10 million gallons into the Gulf, the same amount of oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off of Alaska. It also doesn’t cover BP’s Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010, which spewed more than 120 million gallons of oil, the biggest offshore oil spill in United States history. (At the time, NOAA did engage in an experimental effort to use satellite imagery to track the oil’s spread.)”
“The spills caused by Hurricane Ida have brought more damage to a shoreline made fragile from decades of oil and gas drilling. One of the slicks was very near the East Timbalier Island National Wildlife Refuge, an ecologically-rich part of a barrier island chain. “We won’t know the true ecological impact for a while,” said Scott Eustis, community science director at the New Orleans-based nonprofit, Healthy Gulf, who has long studied the effect of oil and gas drilling on Louisiana’s wetlands. Some scientists have said the island is too far gone to save.”
“Mayor Kim Carr of Huntington Beach, CA said “the responsible parties” to blame for the spill should “do everything possible to rectify this environmental catastrophe.” She added that officials were looking at measures “to make sure that they are held accountable for this.”
In the meantime, we receive new like this.
And the United States of America remains car-centered. Why do we continue to ignore this?
“E.O Wilson on the protection of Half-Earth for biodiversity: “There are ways to stop [mass species extinction] and I think we’re going to have to start talking about big changes in how much of the Earth’s surface we put aside for nature just to keep it from going extinct in a very short period of time. And I’m in a group of scientists working very hard on that part right now.”
Perhaps it’s because the majority of humanity are so distanced from caring about all the other lives with whom we share our planet, because of our anthropocentrism.
But Hidalgo’s key message—that seriously addressing climate change can also improve your quality of life by cutting air pollution and getting more people out of cars—is one more and more leaders should echo. McLeod says that conversation linking climate change and transportation, especially given the partisan divide on environmental policies in the U.S., is making it harder to make that kind of infrastructure push underway in Paris.”
“Parisians have heeded the call: A million people in a metropolis of 10 million are now pedaling daily. And Paris now ranks among the world’s top 10 cycling cities.”
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The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
George Monbiot published Dead Line, August 19th, 2021 in the Guardian.
“So, as our house burns, the government sends in the tanker trucks to spray petrol on the flames. Doubtless unswayed by the donations the Conservative party has received from oil and gas companies. …The same goes for almost every government. As soon as Joe Biden’s green promises collided with business as usual, they collapsed in a crumpled heap. Since he pledged to ban new drilling and fracking on federal lands, his administration has granted 2000 new permits. His national security adviser has demanded that OPEC+, the oil cartel, increase production, to reduce the cost of driving the monstrous cars that many Americans still buy.”
In the meantime, A group of concerned scientists from countries throughout the world – only a few of which are colleges in the USA – have established themselves as the scientists rebellion feel a moral and ethical responsibility to do this.
Here are the same sentences above, typed:
Some meaningful sentences from the report…
“Mitigation and development goals cannot be met through incremental change”
“Transition pathways entail distributional consequences such as changes in employment and economic structure”
“Equity and justice are important enabling conditions for effective climate mitigation. Institutions and governance that address equity and supporting narratives that promote just transitions can build broader support for climate policymaking”
“Individuals can contribute to overcoming barriers and enable climate change mitigation. Individual behavioural change in isolation cannot reduce GHG emissions significantly”
“If 10-30% of the population were to demonstrate commitment to low-carbon technologies, behaviours and lifestyles, new social norms would be established”
“Collective action through formal social movements and informal lifestyle movements expands the potential for climate policy and supports system change”
“Estimates of committed CO2 emissions from current fossil energy infrastructure are 658 GtCO2 […] nearly double the remaining carbon budget”
“Delayed action increases challenges to both economic and societal feasibility after 2030”
“the rate of environmental destruction closely tracks economic growth. As the status quo is maintained for corporations to value growth and profit over anything else, is accelerating the destruction of life on earth.”
Among their goals:
To achieve decarbonisation on the required scale demands economic degrowth, at
least in the short term. This does not necessarily require a reduction in living
standards.
• For a just transition, the cost of degrowth must be paid for by the wealthiest, who
have benefited enormously from the current destructive world order, while others
have faced the consequences.
• A just transition to a sustainable system requires the wealth from the 1% to be used
for the common benefit
“The most effective means of achieving systemic change in modern history is through non-violent civil resistance. We call on academics, scientists and the public to join us in civil disobedience to demand emergency decarbonisation and degrowth, facilitated by wealth redistribution.”
What we can do to mold our homes, neighborhoods, communities and activities towards sustainability.
• What and How to Recycle, demonstrated through the sustainability link of Georgia Southern University.
• Community meetings and practices; educating the public about ecological loss and global warming and what actions they can take to assuage the loss.
Creating communal gardens in each neighborhood as a community activity
Growing fruit and nut trees everywhere (appropriate to growable regions)
Involving students in gardens and DIY sustainability projects for credits
• Creating bicycle infrastructure and park spaces connecting communities with pavements that breath and are resilient to growing tree roots with recycled rubber.
“Rubberway® rubber trails and paths are resilient, non-slip, and easy on the joints yet firm enough to be suitable for strollers, wheelchairs, skateboards, bicycles, and roller-blades. Rubberway’s rubber trails have been installed across the U.S. as walking and jogging paths in parks, as community trails, and as training tracks for schools and federal facilities.”
“The project used over 32,000 pounds of recycled tire rubber (RTR) in the top layer or “wearing course” of the road, which represents the rubber taken from over 2,500 end of life passenger tires. The productive and profitable reuse of scrap tires into resilient, crack-resistant asphalt pavements .”
image
Reformulating lawn mowers into other functional structures and art for common spaces: competitions for best design ideas
Instead of lawns requiring gas fueled lawn mowers, plant steppables and walkables – individual and community involved projects.
“Plants you can walk on are attractive additions to pathways. These low-lying perennials can withstand heavy foot traffic, release pleasant odors when crushed, smother weeds, and cushion your step in the narrow spaces between bricks or flagstones.”
“Walkables generally are defined as creeping plants that don’t exceed 12 inches in height, said John Schroeder, president of Valleybrook International Ventures Inc., a family-owned horticultural operation in Abbotsford, British Columbia. The company’s line of “Jeepers Creepers” includes around 100 varieties of low-to-the-ground herbs, mints, evergreens, ivy, moss and more.”
We can start at home and in our communities, getting out of our cars.
Our priority is not economic growth, our obligation is to act together, immediately, with the priority in jobs that will tackle the issue, at its source.
Weaning ourselves from our dependence on the combustible engine is a start.
> Creating a Bike infrastructure that invites bicycle riding and enhances being outdoors.
> Establishing Community Gardens, planting Fruit and Nut trees in abundance
> Relying less on loud and cumbersome air conditioning units and wasting heat, by better Insulating homes.
> Replacing lawns and gas fueled lawn mowers with a plethora of beautiful ground cover ‘steppbles’ and ‘walkables’ that are grow close to the ground and don’t require mowing at all.
> Formulating an interdisciplinary team to focus on educating the public and creating actions and activities towards DIY projects and proactive health, diet and exercise to help to reduce the dramatic obesity of the population.
> Establish tree and pollinator planting neighborhood gatherings that invite all to become involved; this can be coordinated with local schools to share with adults.
No network news will EVER address this; NEVER address the business as usual, Profit for each Quarter status quo.
What if we just stopped buying and buying into it?
New and improved, just $19.99, $99.99, $99,099…
Bill Maher so boldly and eloquently unveils what we the consumer, blindly succumb to, the marketing tactics of the good ole United States of Apathy.
Where to begin to instate new habits and ways of seeing the world? Start with our unconscious addiction to buying. Consumerism bleeding the natural world.
Great video depicting the tragedy of consumerism, Happiness by Steve Cutts
“Will the fires and floods finally awaken us, turn our attention back to the living Earth? Or have we lost that connection, that place of belonging? How long before we are forced to wake from this nightmare of alienation? I used to imagine how Spring would come after the hard Winter of materialism, after all those years when we put profit before people, before the more-than-human world.
The fires remind us that our present story is broken, its myth of progress and endless economic growth fostering ecocide.
Nature untouched, thrives.
Meanwhile, in East Africa, the Somali pastoralists have already moved on, after watching their animals die in the years of drought. They’ve left the land they’d walked for centuries, moving into camps. They know that climate change brings hunger and migration, as they suffer the effects of our use of fossil fuels. They did not put carbon into the atmosphere. They are too poor to pollute. But they are among the first to suffer.
I am sure we will find a victim to blame, anything to escape the deep knowing that our way of life is over, that we cannot continue with this story of exploitation and consumerism, this plague that is burning the land.
Years ago I had a series of visions of the future, of a civilization waiting to be born. I was shown how we would find new ways of healing, bringing together the wisdom of the shaman with the techniques of modern medicine. I saw how we would be given a technology as simple as photosynthesis that could provide us all with free and unpolluting energy from the sun. I saw earth magic coming alive, plants speaking to us again after centuries of silence.
The pandemic has taught us about uncertainty, and the need to listen even more closely to the Earth, to sense her present imbalance.
I used to think that I would live to see the future of my visions. Now I only hope that my grandchildren’s grandchildren will walk in a kinder world, alive to a multidimensional kinship, knowing that everything they can see, hear, and touch is sacred.”
I previously contacted a sanctuary inquiring about working or volunteering there and learned that they only hire local people. They want people to be available for years for the benefit of the animals. When they are locals, they can receive a long term commitment by people, with whom the elephants can establish a relationship with continuity over time.
Here is the link to the full 3,949 pages of the report.
Here’s the August 2021 IPCC Climate Report report link, all 3,949 pages.
Information leading up to the Climate Strike of 2019
And though this was leading up to the Climate Strike in 2019, the information is nevertheless relevant. The fusion of We’re fucked and Get Fucked.
All the science is letting us know, and yet not much changes as long as governments and big business are off on their own tangent, basically telling the scientists to GTFO.
because business as usual and governments giving subsidies to billionaires,so that they can stoke their own egos and play with expensive and potentially destructive toys, is not the right direction.
Why spend billions on space travel when billionaires could be fully cooperating to re-align humanity towards sustainable practices to assuage our current condition of global warming and mass extinction.
Speaking of boys with their toys, National Geographic writes
Deaths by despair among the college educated and working class and declining life expectancy rates and poor health from diets low in nutrition have contributed to the physical and emotional health issues of many Americans. And just as the mass extinctions occurring across the globe and the heating of the planet causing extreme weather are human induced and IN OUR CONTROL, I feel that the human condition of physical and emotional illness is also IN OUR CONTROL, induced by negligence and nativity and a system that is closed and protecting the wealthier high dice rollers, and excluding the possibility of small entrepreneurs to even participate on the playing field.
There must be a paradigm shift from top-down to horizontal, in which everyone is involved in reaching out to help everyone. Right now, I don’t think that anyone in this small community had a clue or a say about their corn fields being torn away to make way for a huge (private industry) Sheets Gas station and truck stop now parked at the edge of their town, and subsequent Sheets 18 wheeler trucks barreling down Main street. In an age of declining oil resources and the more than obvious need to divest and get away from this polluting industry, I feel that this private ownership bombardment is ruthless and should not be acceptable. This new sprawling gas station and truck stop just seems so wrong, at a time that extreme weather is a fallout of global warming and the last thing humans should be doing is further investment in the oil and gas and combustible engine industry.
Education! Education! Sharing the insights, leveling the playing field. Creating common areas for community and residential gardens and fruit trees. We live on a planet that is a garden. Why are fruit and vegetables bar coded?
“Even before the pandemic, the U.S. was mired in an alarming period of rising mortality. It had no modern precedent: During the second half of the 2010s, life expectancy fell on a sustained basis for the first time since the fighting of World War II killed several hundred thousand Americans.
Deaths of despair
“While some of the reasons are mysterious, others are fairly clear. American society has become far more unequal than it used to be, and the recent increases in mortality are concentrated among working-class Americans, especially those without a four-year college degree.
For many, daily life lacks the structure, status and meaning that it once had, as the Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have explained. Many people feel less of a connection to an employer, a labor union, a church or community groups. They are less likely to be married. They are more likely to endure chronic pain and to report being unhappy.
These trends have led to a surge of “deaths of despair” (a phrase that Case and Deaton coined), from drugs, alcohol and suicide. Other health problems, including diabetes and strokes, have also surged among the working class. Notably, the class gaps in life expectancy seem to be starker in the U.S. than in most other rich countries.”
I have been looking for housing and living without a roof for the last week, having returned to the state where I was born and raised to sort through my storage locker, and doing it quite well. I am indeed a survivor who plans ahead for what I’m packing and bringing along with me. I have been surprised and shocked by the continued growth of this once sleepy area; construction, housing developments, investment in the oil and gas industry along with shrinking corn fields. I will be doing a video blog (vlog) shortly, as I daily am able to catch more hours of sleep. In the meantime, I have always eaten well (fruits and veggies), drink lots of water and maintain a daily routine of heart rhythm meditation and remain open and resilient to the various factors which influence my circumstances.
I believe that mediation is a form of prayer, in which an individual reaches out in silence to a larger entity, for me, God is Dog, Nature, the intelligence of the very, very small, the subatomic in fact.
In my search for housing, I continue to ride my bicycle profusely which keeps me in good shape, and I continually feel gratitude and recognize the positive aspects of all situations, I feel a joy with very, very small things. I notice in my travels, comparisons and returns, for example, to quaint towns and villages which once were my ‘hometown’, are now bustling, heavily trafficked with trucks and extremely loud belching engines and fumes down the main streets. Corn fields have signs advertising multiple sales into creating housing developments, gun shooting warehouses and industries.
I found many, too many, American flags, banners draping patriotism across their lawn and few and far in between signs expressing inclusivity and open borders. I’ve already received hate mail for expressing that Black Lives Matter and Injustice Anywhere is Injustice Everywhere.
As I spent the day cycling and investigating, I found that the typical signs I see on peoples’ lawns and porches are “We Support our Police”, “Trump”, “Beware of Dog”, lots of flags and the occasional “Welcome to My Porch” “Black Lives Matter” and “You are welcome in my neighborhood in Spanish, English and some Asian language.
The postman in Palmyra said that many properties are for sale and another guy echoed the same statement a few minutes later. Yet whereas previously there were “Room For Rent” signs, I guess these got sort of Covided out.
Here’s a pic of one person’s local Trump spirit.
scary!
I stopped to take a picture of this lovely wildflower, growing between the street and the curb. I can identify with this!
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The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
The two blogs I’m currently posting are intertwined, in that they are both on the subject of anthropocentrism, social and environmental injustice and the destruction of the natural world (including occupation of humans) through industrialization and the current capitalism paradigm.
I had a conversation last evening with an economics student who revealed that the farmers in the USA are squeezed out by licensing and the corporate industrialization of the farming ‘industry’, I recalled instantly that this theme replicates what Hasan Minhaj expressed in his show ‘the Patriot Act’ on the Marijuana industry. Small farmers forced out of the industry because it has become so massive and industrialized.
Vandana Shiva – physicist turned ecological activist – has been an advocate for Indian farmers, tens of thousands of whom were driven to suicide by the actions of Monsanto, who put a patent of ownership on farmers’ seeds. Monsanto is the same company involved in the production of industrial chemicals and insecticides (RoundUp) from their initial creation of nerve gas. She speaks of the arrogance of technocrats and industrialists.
the “labor of our body in the service of the earth”.
She states, “We live in a powerful world of energy and as humans, have access to this creative power of the universe through aligning ourselves spiritually – dharma – with the right action.”
We need to recognize – become recognizant – of this power, and occupy our own spiritual paths, intuitively – in community with all of the natural world.
Occupy Yourself
Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition
The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
Vandana Shiva is so incredibly eloquent and thorough in describing the world we live in as Keynote Speaker in the Soil Not Oil International Conference.
Russell Brand’s current interview with Vandana Shiva is inspiring.
I just recently viewed on Al Jazeera the documentary “The Campaign Against the Climate: Debunking climate change denial.” It exposes oil industry leaders and their multi-million-dollar, 30-year denial campaigns that have undermined science and cast doubt on the dangers of climate change.
The documentary by Josh Tickel Kiss the Ground reasserts this.
presents that we need to systematically and structurally change our relationship within our cultures, between one another and with the other creatures with whom we share the planet. “We need to make the priority to sustain life on earth”.
Rather than continuing with our current trend of the last centuries of anthropocentrism, as we learn that health, happiness and quality of life is woven into the fabric of health and quality for all networks of life on our planet, we can embrace this work and regard our behavior from the point of view of one of our fellow earthlings.
Fabulous that more than 2,000 years ago, humans had the foresight, love and empathy to consider the right to a good quality of life for all sentient beings.
“In this interfaith and multicultural fable, eloquent representatives of all members of the animal kingdom – from horses to bees – come before the respected Spirit King to complain of the dreadful treatment they have suffered at the hands of humankind. During the ensuing trial, where both humans and animals testify before the King, both sides argue their points ingeniously, deftly illustrating the validity of both sides of the ecology debate. The ancient antecedents of this tale are thought to have originated in India, with the first written version penned in Arabic sometime before the 10th century in what is now Iraq. Much later, this version of the story was translated into Hebrew in 14th century France and was popular in European Jewish communities into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This exquisite English translation, illustrated with 12 original color illumination plates, is useful in introducing young and old alike to environmental and animal rights issues.”
Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition
The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.
“The nations of the world have unanimously agreed, 195 to zero, that climate change is a major problem, that human activities are a major cause and that it’s high time to do something about it. Those debates are now over globally, although some American politicians have yet to notice.
This signals the arrival of a new era, an era in which the catastrophic consequences of our global fossil fuel addiction have become so obvious that they can no longer be ignored. Recognizing that the world has a problem — and that human activities caused it — is the first step on the long and uncertain path to finding solutions. The Paris summit should put to rest the last of the climate deniers in our own nation.
A new Yale University study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science demonstrates that for past two decades, corporate funding has served as the underpinning of a unified network of “contrarian” lobbying firms, politicians and think tanks dedicated to polarizing the issue of climate change and creating the appearance of scientific doubt that human activities are the source of global climate problems. In short, we’ve been taken for a ride. Now that the tie between corporate funding and specific language and thematic content of climate deniers has been demonstrated scientifically with robust data, political leaders should dispense with the charades and start seeking solutions instead.
Solving the world’s climate crisis probably won’t involve digging up Canadian boreal forests to extract tar sands, and then spending more fossil fuels refining them into a usable product to burn. They probably don’t involve strip mining the American West in a quest for low-grade kerogen trapped in “oil shale,” a primitive oil precursor, or digging up the even more primitive deposits of coal. Drilling and fracking the Sagebrush Sea for natural gas and oil will only set progress back. Deforestation, either in remaining old-growth pockets in the Pacific Northwest that still support spotted owls, or in the tropical rainforests so amazing in their biodiversity, will need to be reversed, not accelerated.Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has developed a famously successful 12-step pathway to help people beat their addictions to alcohol. Modern society’s addiction to fossil fuels is disastrous on a global scale, disrupting the family of nations and visiting calamity on individuals and communities, in a macrocosm of the problems caused by alcoholism. So presented below is a 12-step pathway to climate sobriety, adapted from the blueprint invented by AA (while honoring our Constitution, which requires separation of church and state) to put us all on a path to a more fruitful and sustainable human future:
1. Recognize that burning fossil fuels has altered our global climate by radically increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane in the air, that deforestation is crippling the planet’s natural ability to absorb this extra carbon and that animal agriculture (especially ruminants like cattle that belch climactically potent methane) plays a significant role in accelerating the aboveground carbon cycle.
2. Recognize that there is a higher authority that can help solve these problems and help restore us to sanity, and it’s called “science.”
3. Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the planet, without which there is no survival for our interdependent web of life, humans included.
4. Make a searching inventory of our own energy uses to increase our own efficiency and reduce our energy footprint as individuals, corporations, governments and nations.
5. Admit to the world that throughout our development as a nation, these United States have, more than any other nation, contributed to the changing global climate through our conspicuous consumption of fossil fuels and have profited from this problematic behavior through the enrichment of a privileged few exploiting mineral resources, both here in the United States and around the world.
6. Make it a priority at all levels of government to remove our own defects of energy use, through ending fossil fuel subsidies of all kinds, keeping publicly owned fossil fuels in the ground, incentivizing renewable energy sources, developing a smarter electrical grid to handle complexities in powering our nation from renewable sources, and empowering individual citizens to become renewable energy producers at the household scale.
7. Humbly ask scientific researchers and engineers, with the support of ample research and development funding, to invent more energy-efficient instruments for our daily lives, and to provide new solutions to global transportation, electrical generation and agricultural practices that eliminate fossil fuel consumption.
8. Make a list of all human communities and natural ecosystems harmed by fossil fuel extraction, combustion and resulting climate disruptions, to gain a complete understanding of the harm we have caused.
9. Make direct amends to such communities and ecosystems through reparations by the fossil fuel industry that fund active restoration of damaged ecosystems, build resilience into communities battered by climate disruption and especially provide subsidies for developing nations to develop their energy technologies along clean, renewable lines.
10. Continue to take an inventory of energy consumption and production here in the United States in an energy audit every five years, and take corrective actions as needed to ensure that we are meeting or exceeding targets to keep the rise in global temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
11. Seek through continued scientific research to improve our conscious contact with the planet that supports us, developing methods to move from a culture of exploitation to a culture of stewardship that respects the health of the planet and all living beings, and thereby safeguards the future well-being of humanity for all time.
12. Having achieved our climate awakening and developed sustainable, renewable ways to power our society while protecting our environment as a result of these steps, carry this message and these technologies and innovations to other nations throughout the world so that they might also thrive, and practice these principles in all our affairs.
The fossil fuel industry’s public relations teams would like us all to believe that we are powerless to control our energy habits. Now is our big opportunity to prove that we are not slaves. Step one is to banish the doubts (and doubters) of human-caused climate change to the dustbin of history. The Paris accord has done just that.
Molvar is the Sagebrush Sea Campaign Director for WildEarth Guardians, a nonprofit environmental group working to protect wildlife, wild places, wild rivers and the health of the American West.”
Manifesto of the multiple projects that could manifest the Green New Deal. What would you choose to be involved in?
The Green New Deal is a takeoff on FDR’s ‘New Deal’ which involved the (NRA) ‘National Recovery Act’.
Within a year of the 1929 stock market crash, 50% of the population was unemployed. The (WPA) Works Progress Administration concept was to employ mandatory structural works, with everyone involved in rebuilding; to put the entire country ‘to work’ – from local to regional – improving their own territories and their quality of life. Among these, the (TVA) Tennessee Valley Authority (which stretched beyond the borders of Tennessee) involved the entire community in constructing a hydroelectric dam, who previously had no electricity whatsoever. In the process, the stones they excavated were used to build homes.
The (CCC) Civilian Conservation Corps also involved restoring, beautifying, repurposing places around the country. The concentration was on re-building the infrastructure of the US, ‘Making it Great Again’, after Wall Street devastated the country with the economic crash that lead the trajectory to the Great Depression.
Does this not give huge perks to the idea of instead, putting the local resources and commodities into the hands and protection of the people?
Establishing local ‘Commons’, in which all the members of the community share ownership and responsibility – as proprietors of their own wealth of resources – to protect: land, water, forests, rivers and air. So that rather than private industries having a right of passage to purchase, privatize and reap rewards and profits for themselves, the community who maintain their resources, have profits recycled back into the community for further enrichment. I remember walking in East Providence, Rhode Island, and looking down at the sidewalk and seeing that this was achieved through the WPA..
Different communities could have their own commons, in addition to creating virtual collective ‘round table’ commons in which information and ideas are exchanged transparently, benefiting all. Meetings of minds to exchange ideas for super efficient and inexpensive ways to manage resources, build sustainable transportation infrastructure and produce energy locally.
My current 77 year old housemate just told me that with the CCC, artists, musicians, writers, performers, actors were all put to work: painting, playing music, entertaining, doing theatre. To make their environment more beautiful and rich with activities. What could possibly be distasteful about being matched to a project that suits one’s interests and capabilities?
I was talking with my sister about how treacherous it is to lose the majestic forests of tall and elegant Pine trees here in Georgia. With awareness of the risk of losing a treasure, we could all be put to work in coming up with ideas that are environmentally ethical and sustainable alternatives. Regardless of the standard for centuries, we know that our planet has finite space and resources. Presently, with an abundance of waste products, there are innumerable ways to employ trash that can be recycled and repurposed. Work that involves brainstorming and design, research and development; encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit in all of us, each involved in their own way.
Repurpose waste materials, combined with products that are abundant. Design and construct things repurposing plastic, glass bottles, cans, rubber from tires, etc. I recently walked on the cushioned surface of pedestrian paths created by Georgia Southern university made from tire rubber, meshed together with other materials. It looks like wood chips, but tightly woven, smooth and resilient. World Wildlife Fund campaign: Love the Natural World, or Lose it.
Energy, transportation could be redesigned. Instead of paying a private utility company, involve the community in the design, research and development and maintenance of their own energy. If the mentality was changed to complete transparency with an intent on conservation, preservation, health and beauty, involvement in decision making about areas where one has more of a relationship, they would want to take more responsibility and have pride in what their individual contributions to the community manifested in their own region, county or municipality.
Anyway, can you imagine, being able to almost effortlessly, drift towards work that you’d love to participate in, which is completely connected to an area you’d like to invest your time and talent, education and energy into? OK, say the Green New Deal work is mandatory, obligatory and enforced, yet people are given multiple options to match themselves in projects they have interested in, because they enjoy it and are subsequently good at it. Did you hear that correctly? People expressing themselves while participating in assignments in which they have interest. Climate Mandate: A Time to Heal
For some, it may be municipal works in which they are rejuvenating the streets of their town, greening walkways, creating parks and gardens to create pedestrian areas, greening buildings (growing vertical gardens on buildings sides and greening and/or solar rooftops), cleaning up and beautifying a places, restoring, planting trees, establishing neighborhood community vegetable gardens, developing public transportation and local energy systems.
Others may want to apply their participation in the Green New Deal Works by venturing on trains and sailboats to far reaches of the planet, to clean up, collect and separate the massive, ubiquitous plastic trash. One could work together with others with the same intention. Perhaps cleaning up rivers in India, beaches in Southeast Asia, helping countries to restore equilibrium and to balance their environmental impact. Or traveling to remote islands to monitor marine life, land animals and birds, to join E.O. Wilson’s ‘Half-Earth Project’, joining millions to protect half of the earth and sea, for wildlife. Contributing information about local flora and fauna, observing, documenting, identifying sources of pollutants, assessing the more biodiverse regions, in order to protected them.
Or joining a crew in the middle of an ocean (via train and sailboat) to clear the islands of plastic that have accumulated in every ocean. Debris swept with the currents of gyres to deposit plastic mounds, which like ice burgs, have much which has accumulated beneath the surface. People could collect and sift the microplastics throughout oceans and beaches. Some could make jewelry, others collect the microplastics to be mixed with others materials like mud, or the fibers of hemp or bamboo (both fast growing), to replace concrete, for walls, roads, sidewalks. paths. The volumes of rubber from dead tires can be mixed with fibers as buildingmaterials.
What if part of the Green New Deal for people of any age, scientists, entrepreneurs and thinkers, to participate in working out Nikola Tesla’s original understanding of Zero-Point energy. John Searl points out that an enormous amount of energy is perpetually present all around us, because all matter (which is energy), is in constant motion. Our earth, solar system, galaxy, are all in continuous spiraling motion. At the quantum level, all is continuously moving. Searl talks of capturing this energy that is everywhere around us, through a pretty simple device – using magnets – that perpetuate a continuous flow of energy, with no friction. Clean and quiet.
Others may want to participate in brainstorming ways to develop energy and other processes that are sustainable; that do not involve harming habitats or diminishing natural resources. Taking down telephone poles and electric wires. and instead of silicon or mining rare minerals used in the production of our telecommunications technology, adapting the implementation of graphene: 1-atom thick wafers of carbon. Graphene is extremely conductive, and sourced from carbon, the most abundant material around.
Or one may prefer helping locally in a community garden, planting trees along every street, or doing physical work like creating bamboo or hemp woven with plastic sidewalks, that have the durability of concrete but more flexibility to allow tree roots to breath and grow naturally, without cracking, planting bee highways. Because everything in nature is connected and interdependent. It’s all about biodiversity. Here’s an explanation of ecoliteracy from Nature’s Web of LIfe.
Each can contribute something, with a pencil, paint brush, tool or shovel..Cleaning up, clearing out, repurposing and transforming areas. Planting trees to transform barren, dusty areas or humid regions prone to landslides, to restore them.
Jobs would re-create a massive eco alternative, to the current industrial and digital. Because we need less new construction and more imagining of green alternatives and acknowledgment of the habitats of other creatures, we can learn new methods of living harmoniously with the other species inhabiting the planet.
Every city could delineate and map out car-free, pedestrian-friendly areas. In addition to developing clean and efficient public transportation options.
With an increasing population of elderly throughout the world, immigrants (everywhere) – children and adults – could be given education and placement as companions and helpers to the elderly > in the USA, Europe, Japan etc. They could assist, clean, maintain, help with transportation, make meals, learn how to monitor basic vital signs and administer medication, listen to stories, learn the language of their host country and exchange stories. Housing in exchange for services and companionship. Without having the insurance or healthcare industries having a choke hold on determining who can work and be of assistance in your home and how much they need to be paid.
Recently, observing from back roads in Georgia, I noticed less and less tall pines along the road and well, what about the boars? Shall we begin to entirely ‘think differently and rethink together regarding what building materials, types of vehicles, types of energy that we have used traditionally no longer serve us. Dirty energies and processes that are destructive to habitats and polluting, can be replaced with viable ones that are sustainable and beneficial to the earth, not diminishing its resources. This can be manifested everywhere; not only implemented in the Northern Hemisphere.
Prohibit housing development sprawl from spreading like a virus, prohibit expansion of box store franchises, and create more and more green spaces.
Reformulate all vacant (or soon to be reappropriated) factories, mines, yeah, even off-shore oil wells, etc. to create housing, establish reefs.
Repurpose agricultural fields or crops grown to feed animals for the meat industry, into hemp, bamboo, plants which humans eat, plant trees. Undoubtedly, the more minds who are engaged in conjuring up clever ideas, to re-think designs, materials and energy to create sustainable solutions, the more rewarding and fascinating this process will be. Might as well attempt incentivizing people towards better health by encouraging vegetarian diets and informing people about the facts of how unsustainable and wasteful it is to devote land to raising animals; they require more land and water than what the land could be used for to feed humans. Eco education is a must. Green New Deal Projects involving growing food together and learning about nutrition and cooking would be invaluable for young people. Break up pavement and replace it with sustainable ones. Plant trees, EVERYWHERE. Nurture the wilderness. As George Monbiot states, we need to ‘rewild the world’.
There are so many ways the Green New Deal could be a fantastic luxury: putting talent and natural incentive to task. Employing simple fungi to clean up toxic spills, and generate biological life. If we would all be incentivized to clean up plastic all over the world, this could be repurposed with bamboo or hemp, to create building material. We could have a decade and a half of clearing out the trash that humanity has deposited all over the planet, and repurposing it to designs that replace using trees.
What if news channels, delivered by those who own them, were transformed into venues of participatory global commons, in which counties, municipalities, states and federal domains would maintain a global commons channel, for communities to exchange ideas about energy and transportation infrastructure.
Does this sound insanely idealistic? Radically off the cuff, stream-of-consciousness babble? Or am I making a point for ‘socialism’, community shared intention and commitment, to full-out re-appropriation and repurposing of space and industry. With training and education matched with interest and desire to task. Channels streamlined for the purpose of actively sharing ideas at digital round tables – rather than passively listening to news that is dictated by those who wish you to passively attend to that subject. What if everyone was engaged in thinking of ideas, finding teams to draw them up and design, then manifest them?
There would be plenty of ‘work’, to create effective animal bridges and tunnels, to nurture the habitats and migratory nature of animals. With an emphasis on community, not driven by profit or anthropomorphism, but with genuine appreciation and wonder of the natural world. Education can focus on ‘ecoliteracy’. Awareness of the interconnected nature of life and the need to protect habitats and maintain biodiversity, will translate into a population of caring and proactive youths.
These suggestions of projects poured out from my initial search for housing, and idea of an artist residency platform: ‘artist residency’ ‘in your home’, in which both the artist and proprietor are involved. If the artists doesn’t produce according to the agreed timeline, they lose the room. Win/Win. A humanitarian tax investment and involvement of the host in the artist’s intention, coupled with the motivation-propulsion by the artist to deliver, to maintain the residence. I was thinking, this could be part of the Green New Deal.
How would you want to contribute? What would you like to involve yourself in? Where’s the money coming from? Well, all the billionaires, of course. Quite frankly, from the industries who have reaped massive profits through spoiling and destructive practices. Naturally, they need to be held accountable and pay for the clean up as well as contributing to the education and training needed to give people who worked in dirty industries, new education and tools towards stepping into clean and sustainable industries.
Eyes Wide Open. Only in the last 48 hours have I learned of and listened to each of these gentlemen. Their messages are amazingly fresh and definitely have expanded my perspective.
Paul Chappell’s talk “The Peace Paradigm”. At approximately this cue in the video 15:54, Chappell states “If you threaten someone’s worldview, it is almost like you are threatening their physical body. If you threaten someone’s world view, some people may create physical distance between you and them; avoid talking, avoid answering correspondence, de-friend you on facebook. Sometimes people will even injure or kill each other regarding political or religious differing points of view.”
Now that our swamp of denial is going to be drained and replenished in the White House with a semblance of normality that instead promotes honesty and directed effort, we can also establish an epic new road as citizens to participate in the health of the globe and its inhabitants. The opposite of nationalism, of waving a flag that is only showing devotion to a particular place, we can extend our love and care to the world. Not just our little family, our 30 mile radius of our town or county, but actually showing interest in the health of the planet, every creature that happens to be share our planet, before they are all wiped out. Godliness is not worshiping in a massive building on Sundays, it is extending empathy and care and love to the fate of our entire home. We have had an economy driven by this promise of security through ‘jobs’ and ‘finance’, but this means NOTHING, if the planet and all of the species around us in the ‘Garden of Eden’ are dead or diseased.
Listen to the pure intuitive instinct of a young unpolluted, unjaded girl who connected the dots of information and saw the complete and brutal denial that the citizens of the world have been swept into, this lopsided prioritization of ‘work and earning money’, that actually contributes to the destruction of the earth and spoiling of all habitats.
Published Jan. 6, 2021/Updated Jan. 14, 2021. As a journalist, he journeyed to go spend time with the 2 last remaining White Rhino’s, where he came to love them. And in the process of spending time with them and contemplating their fate, he realized that the problem that the human species has contributed to their demise – the cornerstone problem of mass extinction – besides habitat loss, pollution of air, water, soil, the heating globe, wars, poaching (rhino horns worth more than gold)…is that ‘Love among humans seems to have a range of thirty (30) yards. People love and cherish their own families, what they come into contact with personally, yet don’t seem to have the imagination or abstract thinking to extend ‘love’ and empathy to all creatures, and therefore, humanity will never act with the collective urgency that is required to stop the massive climate disruption and mass extinction. In the USA, we don’t even seem to be able to grasp when we are robbed by the government and laws are passed to give charity to billionaires and corporations, but deny it to the people. As long as we are distracted by busily working to pay exorbitant rents all across the nation and drooling into complacency watching a TV show. nobody seems to be paying attention.
Top scientists warn of ‘ghastly future of mass extinction‘ and climate disruption. Sobering new report says world is failing to grasp the extent of threats posed by biodiversity loss and the climate crisis.
I sit in a new apartment, having driven across the country after searching where I may be able to afford to live. The tap water smells and is toxic, it is cockroach infested and a housemate smokes inside, the area is a ‘food desert’, Walmart has the monopoly on grocery stores. However, I can not presently afford to live anywhere else. I cringe, as a person who is extremely focused on cleanliness and fresh air, yet I need to persist and do all that I can with my own efforts to endure. Why, because I can not as an artist, writer and intellect who cares deeply about the fate of all of the creatures of the world and have cast blame at the laziness and incognizance of humans to how their actions affect everything, everywhere, do anything but continue to do what I believe is right and just.
Basically, I looked at Naomi Klein’s facebook page posts, and decided to share the information. Shamelessly, judiciously; regarding fascism, racism and environmental injustice. The text below accompanying the article on the need to abolish fascism, I was unable to select/copy/past the text on Chrome or Safari on my iPad, so I typed it in order to share.
It’s basically about the fact that abolishing racism needs to go hand in hand with abolishing capitalism that is in the reins of corporations, rather then the people owning and operating their resources and utilities, and putting their own effort and mutual trust into the commons, from which they also profit. Racism is a part of a larger picture of objectifying nature. Therefore we need to look differently upon how we utilize and share our resources. When we are in control of how we use our land, we will be approaching differently. Instead of viewing ‘work’ and ‘jobs’ that sabotage the natural world and spoil our immediate surroundings, we can choose to put our insights, time and labor into ‘re-creating’; contributing to beautifying, cleaning, and manifesting sustainable energy, housing and land that enhances the habitats of the other creatures with whom we share our planet.
Kristallnacht is all about the normalization of fascism that lead to the Holocaust of Nazi Germany.
The article is basically about the fact that abolishing racism needs to go hand in hand with abolishing capitalism, which is in the reins of corporations, rather then the people owning and operating their resources and utilities. We can put effort and mutual trust into creating and developing our commons, from which they also profit. Racism is a part of a larger picture of objectifying nature. Therefore we need to look differently upon how we utilize and share our resources. When we are in control of how we use our land, we will be approaching differently. Instead of viewing ‘work’ and ‘jobs’ that sabotage the natural world and spoil our immediate surroundings, we can choose to put our insights, time and labor into ‘re-creating’; contributing to beautifying, cleaning, and manifesting sustainable energy, housing and land that enhances the habitats of the other creatures with whom we share our planet.
Here’s the writing that accompanied the article, by Naomi Klein:
“Calls to ‘Defund the police’ and ‘Abolish the police’ are not just a call to reign in the arm of the state that is brutalizing and murdering African-Americans and minorities, it is rightly a call for community control of state institutions.
This call is in line with what happened at Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021, for the police have now exposed themselves as being predominantly white supremacist, leaving a minority of officers not knowing what was going to happen, to defend Capitol Hill….against police officers and US military tied to fascism and white supremacy.
Of the 72 million voters for Trump, about 15,000 laid siege to the Capitol. Of about 75 million Democratic voters, there is still disillusionment with both parties.
What does that mean? If reflects 5 things:
1. The economy after 2008 has changed. It is now based on and surviving on debt. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) saw the US govt. hand $ trillions to banks (but not to people) …and it is this govt. debt that is keeping capitalism afloat. (Yes, the debt that future American youths will have to pay off).
In the GFC, people lost their homes, jobs, were evicted, and houses sat empty with windows smashed and graffiti after banks sold them, while people moved into cardboard boxes and ate from charities.
2. Capitalism globally is unable to create jobs. It is no longer a job-creating machine.
The main areas where jobs are now being created are in mining (yes, digging out things that don’t belong to American corporations, for they belong to First Nations) or clean energy.
The exceptions are a few countries like China which has bounced out of a Covid-driven recession.
3. Where there is economic crisis, there will be political crisis.
The alternative to Trump that is being offered in the US, is what the US had before Trump…which are the very conditions that led people to vote for Trump.
This i no rib-digging, please listen carefully. It is unfortunate that the Democrats have never been able to answer this question:
“What will you do to increase job security and create job opportunities?” This is why they have lost a chunk of workers’ votes.
The crisis of capitalism will continue to affect the Biden administration as it needs to choose between “subsidizing and defending corporations”, or “funding people and cutting their purse strings from corporations”.
4. Let’s look at the phrase “All Live Matter”. Capitalists and Republicans are all about ‘gas-lighting-, which is a form of abuse and violence. They have no respect for people’s demands.
In Australia, a royal commission investigation into abuse of the elderly in nursing homes, and of people with a disability in institutional care, saw the govt. immediately adopt the recommendations.
This also happened after an investigation into the hotel quarantine system that allowed Covid-19 to rip through the elderly in nursing homes.
But the govt. hardly took up any recommendations after the commission investigation into why so many First Nations people have been dying when in contact with the police in a police van, in an overnight jail cell, or in custody. Yes, police have been murdering Aboriginal people regularly.
Since that investigation that released 339 recommendations in 1991, over 440 Aboriginal people continue to be killed by the police, without any police conviction.
And when people say ‘Black Lives Matter’, the Australian conservative govt. says ‘no, all lives matter’. It’s like saying to the investigation into the elderly or disabled…’Elderly Lives matter, we need to fund services for the Elderly properly’, they instead say ‘No, all lives matter, we don’t need to fund services for the Elderly anymore than for anyone else’.
Call it out as gas-lighting. They use a statement of equality to undermine our “call for equality”. Throw back at them phrases like ‘Racist, racist, racist…’ when they question our chants of ‘Black Lives Matter’….because they are gas-lighters and abusers.
5. Capitalists do not care about our free speech. The corporations fired Colin Kaepernick when he expressed himself under the 1st Amendment. If they believe in free speech, they would not be trying to capture Edward Snowden or Julian Assange.
The capitalists’ push for ‘free speech’ for fascists, is to normalize and spread racism, hate speech and fascism.
FREEDOM FOR THE FASCISTS AND WHITE SUPREMACISTS IS DEATH FOR THE REST OF US.
So in conclusion, of the 72 million Trump voters who did not lay siege to the Capitol, we need to break the backs of the fascists to show voters that there is an alternative hope in the hopelessness offered by capitalism.
This means that in the US, it’s time to join our “Labor Actions to Defend Democracy”, “united against Hate”, First Nations’ movements, our ‘Black Lives Matter’ groups, and importantly our unions…and organize national movements.
We know it’s possible to have mass movements on the streets that are Covid-safe, political, strong and can move the state to make changes in our call for solutions and answers that we need to hear.
In the rise of racism and fascism, we need to build a militant, non-compromising, anti-racist movement that fights for a better world, a better way of doing things.
This is the only way we can push the Biden administration to go further in prioritizing the people over corporations. This is the only way we can stop Trumpism even when Trump is gone.
In other countries, there will be equivalent organizations. We all have racists to address, by setting the example that we will fight for a better society on our own terms, defy capitalism, and will break the backs of fascism.
From the fascism in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Greece, Chile, India, Hungary, Israel and other places, past and present….we say ‘Never Again’.
And also featured as a post on Naomi Klein’s facebook page, is this article about what is neglected to being mentioned in the news, day after day, week after week.
I hadn’t realized having just moved to Albuquerque for the first time on December 1st, and living a quarter mile (several hundred yards) from the Rio Grande, that the birds that I became so fascinated with that I bicycled every evening before sunset to hang out at a number of different spots on the river to watch and listen, that I was witnessing migratory birds. There in what is called the Bosque region of the Rio Grande river, running through the expanse of Albuquerque, I’d sit with fascination and delight. Though the Rio Grande river runs theoretically through the middle of Albuquerque, the city is so spread out that the waterway is fortunately protected from development, and the sections of the city reach in four quadrants outside of it. I’d go and sit, somehow always facing west to watch the sunset, where I noticed in December that the first ‘stars’ that appeared, were planets. And I realized after the announcement of the coming Grand Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, that I was looking at Jupiter, with Saturn appearing to the upper left, then piggybacked right above it, then just to the right of it, and now Saturn has dipped significantly each day down to the right and below Jupiter.
Each night I went to different parts of the river, feeling lucky each time to be exactly where flocks were arriving that evening, so fortunate. I did this each night, bringing layers of clothes in my backpack and bundling up as the sun went down. I felt I was witnessing something really special. I only found out after the 22nd day in a row that these were migratory birds. Wow. I’m thankful to have witnessed this and to have really paid attention to something I find really special and unique.
The first time I heard the Cranes I was extremely intrigued, never having heard their call. I’ve also found myself laughing each time I hear one particular call of the ducks that sounds like laughter. It was only a few weeks into hearing the Cranes that I finally saw them and made the connection. Wow, their wing span is so wide that they looked like teradactils (found out the real spelling, pterodactyl!https://www.dimensions.com/element/pterodactyl
I added the video of the group of cranes from last evening, the solstice, at dusk in downtown Albuquerque. No kidding. It’s the 2:16 long video.
According to this link above, “Winter(mid-November through late January) thousands of snow geese, Ross’s geese, and sandhill cranes spend the night in water to protect themselves from predators. Near dawn, the geese take off en masse in search of fields throughout the Middle Rio Grande Valley to feed in for the day. Smaller groups of sandhill cranes then leave the safety of the water for the same reason…In addition to viewing cranes and geese and many species of ducks, you can drive the auto tour loop or hike the trails and see hawks, eagles, blackbirds, ravens, coots, and other birds along with occasional mammals, such as mule deer, coyotes, and jackrabbits. Check in with the visitor center staff for recent sightings.“
The first video in this link features a number of Crane calls, which astounded me and made me laugh.
At the one place I saw in the fading light what appeared to be Beavers, dark sleek bodies skimming downstream along the surface, in which I saw no head, just the top of their backs. And at another favorite spot, I was still sitting on the root of this large tree, now in darkness, when I heard rustling of leaves right next to me. I looked and made out the shape of this animal 5 feet away approaching, whose body was round. If it had been a skunk I would have made out the white line, but this was round and bigger than a skunk. At the moment I turned to face it, it changed direction. I hadn’t made out what it was. However, tonight, Jan. 3rd, where I sat editing this post of Dec. 31st, as I was leaving my spot, I heard a rustling of leaves, and this time saw a differently shaped, paler animal. I think it was a different creature. And this time, I walked away, in case I was in the space that it wanted to be.
“More than 500 different species of animals claim New Mexico’s Bosque as their home including New Mexico whiptail, gopher snakes, great horned owl, Cooper’s hawk, porcupines and much more.”
I think the first may have been a porcupine. And earlier this evening, not sure. It wasn’t a javelina (wild boar), maybe it was a jack rabbit. Def not an ocelot. heheh.
Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition.
The dream of EO Wilson can only be realized through the participation of humans. He strives to protect the most biodiverse places on the earth and seas, to circumvent mass extinction – which is already taking place – by safeguarding the habitats of half of the earth.
See how you can become involved!
Be a guardian of the natural world. Our earth is paradise, if we nurture life and save habitats.
My sister told me this story today over the phone, when I mentioned that I come to this one spot to watch and count the birds that hang out always on the same wire at the same location, above this bridge. Oh, I get it, maybe people have thrown food over it at one time, or whatever, they like the sound of things walking or rolling over the wood.
She said that a friend of hers, years ago, who drove a truck as a AAA ‘rescue’ vehicle, was somewhere in the West, maybe Colorado. He told my sister that this one day, he was coming to an intersection that lasted, extraordinarily long. Each time the light changed and the cars were now given the green light, it would promptly change back to yellow and red.
As he literally inched his way closer to the intersection, he finally saw what was going on. A solitary Starling bird, with extraordinary intelligence, was snacking on a dead body in the center of the road. Each time the light was about to change, the bird flew the force of his body to spring off and press the button for pedestrians to Change the Traffic Light to allow pedestrian traffic. The Starling kept doing this repeatedly, so that he/she could get as many morsels of the meal in the middle of the road, without traffic impeding its dining progress.
I don’t know where the term bird brain came from, but this bird, and many birds, are way smarter than we give them credit for. I know that there are people sensitive, intuitive and aware enough to ‘communicate’ with all sorts of animals and birds.
Gosh, I hope for people to feel and ‘re cognize’ that the world in which we live, is not only about humans and their endeavors and stuff, but one which is part of rich, interdependent fabric of life on this planet. All life forms with whom we share our planet deserve our admiration, awe, respect and devotion. Our actions should always be influenced with our perception of how it will affect other sentient beings. We are guardians of the habitat and survival, of all the other species on this planet. What a Wonderful World of life.
The richness of our lives, depends not on economics and finance, but ecology and the wealth of biodiversity.
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist The subject of the universe conspiring to help a person aspire towards their intentions, has occurred for me over the last weeks. A month ago when I had the luxury of time to relax and […]
A new lovely rap message from Prince Ea “Start Changing Your Life 2024” regarding empowering people to see that it’s the choices they make that will allow them to aspire to make the most of their life. …step out of your comfort zone ~ change your life through the choices you make… This had rolled […]
I happened to be bicycling from an event that took place every Thursday evening Berlin Beats, in which different dj’s are featured in the courtyard of Hamburger Bahnhof museum, when I noticed that the lights at another museum were on quite late, with people milling about, when I suddenly realized that this was a night […]
From the first time I read this blog of Phil’s years ago, http://www.grenzbegriff.com/, I had left the tab open for a very long time. I recently rediscovered it, and frankly, have done the same. I feel that his words are so powerful, because they so eloquently and incisively speak the truth. The message is a […]
To me, this is profound. Friday, November 29, 2019 by Phil the blogger Thanksgiving This is a letter of reflection on living with the land that I wrote in November 2019 which was read at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco. I read it through http://www.grenzbegriff.com/ “This land lived with the Cahto people for I […]
I rode to the Hambuger Bahnhof open air free dj series Berlin Beats, the 3rd in their summer series. Open air in the courtyard of this magnificent former train station, and recognized the dj, Métaraphs from another free event several weeks ago. Full on character, elegant, stylish, orchestrated hand movements as he turned nobs with bracelets, […]
So, a number of days ago, May 30th, I was in a bit of a funk, it might have been prompted from a slight hangover after having the evening before, bicycled over to the last evening of a several day cultural street festival, with music and alcohol, where I’d been walking, jumping, singing and dancing […]
Back in Rhode Island when I was bicycling 6 or so miles from Providence – to swim in the only nearby lake at Lincoln Woods State Park – I encountered a dead deer along the road. The Police were already standing next to it. It was upsetting. It’s an area where Power lines cut through […]
Gabor Mate transcript Gabor Mate speaks the truth, eloquently. 10 years ago!!! It is essential to read Gabor Mate’s transcript, for the emotionally, psychologically and spiritually sick population of the Wealthy western world (specifically the USA and its derivatives, exporting sick values from a hypocritical social and economic system of Capitalism) because healing and awareness […]
Startling, frightening, no Hollywood horror movie could be more chilling than this political documentary. A Brown University study reveals that the USA has engaged in conflicts with 100 countries. The corporate media has colluded in all the conflicts, acting as stenographers for the Pentagon, rather than questioning and investigating. “20 Years After Iraq Invasion: “War […]
It was a day of protest Saturday, April 13th 2024 with 5 or so music trucks walking along the streets in Bordeaux, France. I had just arrived in Bordeaux by train from Montpellier hours earlier – a 7am train after having to reschedule a train that would have arrived at midnight on Saturda. After dropping […]
I was told from several people that Biarritz is worth visiting. The splendid first picture that popped up in google maps for Biarritz caused my jaw to drop. That was all I needed to convince me to make the trip, in the opposite direction of where I needed to be in a week. I strategized […]
Recently I again spent a chunk of time google-mapping and investigating train travel between numerous locations and their alternatives. After staring at a screen and doing this tedious stuff, when I walked outside with the dog, an intuitive understanding swept up to realign my thinking. With specific deadlines already confirmed for a cat sit on […]
I came to the town of Marseillan in the south of France to care for two black male brother felines, Once in a while they bat at each other, but most of the time are cuddling and curled up sleeping with one another, Each purr machines and gentle, one more naughty. He had seemingly disappeared, […]
So, I happen to be in France, 100 meters from the border of Switzerland, on the outskirts of Geneva, I knew I’d be here around the holidays. I’ve mapped out several different routes to visit various animal parks and nature conservatories, all requiring negotiating the way in to the city around the airport. I googled […]
If this is in fact true, it is fantastic to hear! There is the concept of God, which is man made, like drilling for oil to fuel man’s cars and desire for immediate gratification….and then there are actual creatures, you know, elk, caribou, whales, frogs…which are living beings on this planet, whose homes are territories […]
Why bother? The United States of Arms is all about weapons, gun sales, weapon industry, wars. Individual freedom to defend oneself, uh, when there’s so much inequality and such an immense rift in opportunities for health, food quality, education, housing and job opportunities between Billionaires and poor. And the Hollywood Marketing World of the United […]
Yesterday stopping by a fav place in a huge park, before heading off to this main library Staatbibliotech to plug in (electricity and WiFi) is where i fed the fox two days ago. Same fox, same area. Then today on my way to a different library, there were people gathered by the canal and on […]
Starting from scratch in a new place without furniture and the first use of my new used kitchenware that I acquired through a local online buyers and sellers market http://offerup.com I was able to obtain these minimal pots and pans in reasonably good condition – for $20 bucks – to cook my first meal. What […]
The Bell pepper was the first option, before I had a pan. After borrowing a shallow baking pan, I halved an acorn squash, scooped out the seeds, put it face down on a slightly oiled (olive oil) pan, and halved an onion, and plucked a few garlic cloves, leaving their skin on to retain moisture. […]
Posting a ‘job/home/community relocation’ info ad for myself! I, Carol Keiter, blogger, writer, musician, composer, environmental and nature enthusiast and animal activist need to relocate within weeks. I need to hone into> the right location, community and sources for work that will fulfill the job description which has evolved, as I’ve been writing this! I […]
Here’s the audio podcast of last night’s meal: a Spanish tortilla tapas spinoff I went through the whole process of making a Spanish tortilla, except without the added egg & milk mixture at the end. I ate it instead in bites together with pasta. I added to the sliced potatoes, onion, garlic, cayenne pepper, (ground […]
Greetings and welcome to this edition of delicious medicinal food! Carrying on with the understanding that what we do with our bodies and what we put into them is directly related to our level of health and fitness, here are some summer treats. Here’s the link to the audio podcast of creating a Cherry Cobbler, […]
Here’s the link to the podcast of this particular meal: Sautéed Salmon with dill, brown rice and a colorful and delicious kale salad prepared with some chopped onion, tomato, thin slivers of cucumber, mushrooms, grated carrots and raw red beets with a topping of crumbled blue cheese and chopped walnuts with some sea salt and […]
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