A puzzle was presented
I joked and said, “fitting as we become cyborgs, I can’t help but want to ask the Internet”
My better half belittled and implored, I need not ask the Internet everything, strangers on the web
I had for decades, perhaps 25 years of my life now conversed and befriended strangers on the Internet
(That was when it was “dangerous” to do so, as if our collective Internet use isn’t dangerous group psychosis)
I pointed out the Internet as a great source of info that can improve us and our lives
An incredible source of information-nutrition
Perhaps ChatGPT is a fast food joint
But there are richer food sources
Is Reddit like the hazels, with sprouting subreddits and coppiced threads? Renewing
Is there a walnut of informationin the wilds of the Internet? StackExchange anyone? Some enriching kernels of wisdom, tho some nuts are tough to crack
Anyway, I agree, I do not need to ask the Internet everything. I don’t. In fact I make (imperfect) effort not to use the Internet in excess, setting rules and reflecting.
Just a joke, as we head into cyborgdom.
But then
I walk out the door to continue some outdoor chores, forest garden tending, world-relationship mending,
Outside being one essential way I maintain my humanity in a dormant indoor information age.
When I return from activities in the Less-Built Environment,
I enter my home, walk through 3 rooms to go to my bathroom,
Enjoy modern plumbing, I wash my hands and I see in a factory-made mirror, upon my modern self:
A headlamp hanging from my neck – electronics, LEDs, stretchy headband and plastic case and batteries.
I see headphones round my neck, use-full,
Sleek and wireless and connected to a supercomputer in my pocket connected to
The Internet
Goodbye past
Hello future
Present don’t be harming me
Hoping for harmony
Think fast
Savor every dash
Forever everlasts
In the moment
(Breathe easy)
Category Archives: Personal Journal
A Journey About What Matters
Look around
Your immediate surroundings and select an object
What is it, how is it interacted with? By you, by others, by the ambient space, by invisible forces
Where did it come from? Before it was where it is now, where has it been over the past day? Over the past weeks and months and years?
“Here
Now”
From whence did it come?
From what origin or source?
Before it is what it is now, what was it? What would you have called it before it reached the state in which you’d call it as you do now?
What is its relationship with The Source?
This one thing, how is it divisible or degradable, and how does it aggregate, enlarge, and accumulate if at all?
Let’s find its constituent parts and ways. Ways and means and matters…
Before this object joined you here
Before you ever met it
Where was it?
Imagine being with this object in the moments before you actually met it
Can you track its momentum backwards?
What was its path over time? Its physical steps through space en route to you? Its transformations? Its self-becoming?
What is self actualization?
Does it breathe?
Did it come from China?
How many places did its original materials come from, Earthling?
How many beings involved in its becoming?
How much love? I ask with thanks.
How much hardship? I&I ask with sorrow.
If we follow the object back, through its steps in spacetime dimensions we’re familiar with,
It probably came to us from an interaction with a human, or from itself in the wild…
Of the humans involved, the supply chain from cradle to current-condition to grave could be very short or very long, in space or in time
<4×4 table labeled distance and duration
columns=space, time; rows=short, long; examples TBD>
Step by step
What’s the best next step?
Be Here Now
===
Mission: optimize for resilient sun-to-life ratio
Minimize harm
This transmission brought to you by a mind picking up litter, detritus, debris
Wearing 3M gear to clean up toxins originating with Big Chem in the first place
Legacy legacy legacy, feeling like a disgrace
Our world sour and what’s it like to be displaced? O habitat
O the grief
O the mass extinction
O the habitat
I give thanks to the Source for the Present
For Home
I try
I participate
What’s the best next step?
Growing love of hazels
These relatives of birch, ancient and awesomely rugged, adding golden bark and kindling salvation to tree lines around the world
These shrubs with long flexible bows
These fruits from charming hot pink flowers that greet the spring and stay
These nuts that come in energy-dense compostable packaging, shelf-stable for years, made by arboreal solar panels
These nuts that are easy to eat raw and one of the healthiest snacks I have
These nuts that are even tastier roasted; simply apply fire and enjoy a sweet, earthy, ancient gastronomic ally
These branches, that have been warmth in peaceful and desperate times
These branches, that have been homes in peaceful and desperate times
These branches, that have been the crux of countless wooden items
These gifts, that have come from ancient hedges, woven into the fabric of lives over time
These gifts, that host the humans and other kin, who enjoy them and who need them
These gifts, that can make the giver better as they enrich the recipient, when given and received in good relations
Ancient hazels, though we face harshly changing times,
Your past and present company comforts me, knowing you have helped my ancestors through ice ages and then some
And so, knowing we work together even where we are not in touch,
I wish peace upon you, and I love that in that, peace may be upon me too.
Agroforestry Cooperative: Succession for Success (and Long-Term Land Tenure)
Temperate-climate agroforestry offers the potential for long-term ecological mutualism with humans and trees, and while it is time-tested in having sustained millennia of our ancestors, there are many hurdles to shifting lifeways toward agroforestry in 2020. In this post I introduce the main challenges I have identified, and I outline a potential approach to overcome these challenges. In short, that approach is an agroforestry worker cooperative that ‘owns’ (has rights of control, and rights to returns) land and practices stewardship so to advance tree crops and sustain itself.
I hope this clarifies opportunities that we can turn into realities, to support multi-generational stewardship of trees for basic needs in a way that is mutually beneficial to all relations involved.
Continue reading →Liberty and Love
How does my behavior/experience affect the ability of others to have the opportunity for the same behavior/experience? Does it degrade or regenerate, is it a relationship of reciprocity?
(Clarifying the title: Is liberty synonymous with agency?)
Squash Chickpea Brussels Bonanza
- 1 Orange Kabocha Squash
- 1 can Chickpeas
- Several handfuls of Brussels Sprouts
- Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, cumin, curry powder, cayenne
- (supercharged version) Dukka
- Sauce
- Tahini
- Lemon
- Honey
- Cumin
- Warm water
- Salt
- Olive oil
Guidance:
Bake everything above with oil and salt and spices listed above. Bake squash seeds separately though, they’ll want to bake longer but the chickpeas and Brussels only want to go in for a little while. For sauce, combine all ingredients then titrate with warm water until it becomes sauce. If you have duqqa seasoning, also add that, especially with hazelnuts 👌. Put sauce and duqqa on all the baked goodness and enjoy!
Mint Ginger Tea
A textured tea for chilly Autumn:
Fresh Mint Leaves + Fresh Ginger + Tbsp honey
Mint sprigs chopped
Ginger crushed with knife
Glop of honey
Boil all together, then strain as you pour it out
White Bean Swiss Chard Pasta
Components:
- Whole wheat pastas
- 1can Great Northern Beans
- 1 Onion
- 8ish leafs Swiss chard
- Basils
- Garlics
- Great Parmesan
- Half lemon
- Sufficient Salt & Pepper to taste
Guidelines:
- Boil water and make pasta. When straining pasta, save a cup of pasta water in case you need to make the dish more sawsy
- Dice onion and saute in pan with oil
- Cut up swiss chard, first separating stems then cut it all in thin slices/ribbons
- Add stems to pan, cook for a couple of minutes, add leaves
- Add crushed and sliced garlic
- Add cooked beans
- At the end squeeze in half lemon without seeds
- Add basil, grated Parmesan, S,P,etcetery
- If mixture is dry, add reserved pasta water
Visions of Love, Gardening with Theurgy: An Imaginative Practice to Empower Plants
Plants are people that participate in our world in wondrous, mutualistic ways. Plants serve as the foundation of our human lives, in so many ways, grown by Solar rays of a very high Source. Plants bridge us and the Sun. How can we serve plants? A mystical practice, known as a type of theurgy, is one way to empower plants to give greater gifts as they go forth in life, using the power of human mind to imagine and visualize colors and light.
Definitions of theurgy tend to be vaguely described, as hints of it seep out from the mysticism of various traditions. Definitions often include compelling or querying supernatural beings and deities. I offer this definition based on my learnings and experiences on alchemy:
Theurgy is the mental animating of matter, so to bring out more of matter’s inherent qualities and potential capacities, without imposing a state or process on the matter that is not in harmony with its nature and natural laws of cause and effect [1].
There could be a lot to unpack here, but I will leave that to your own inner and outer inquiries. I raise this work to share an ecological application of it. Based in imagination, it is the use of visualization and color to enliven objects with their vital three-part nature.
Continue reading →Fiddle Gnome Homes and a Trio of Turtles
Images from the forest
Natural wisdom of the forest
One turtle on a log glides into water to hide. Two remain still, soaking up Sun somewhere upstream. 
I like turtles 
One turtle on a log glides into water to hide. Two remain still, soaking up Sun somewhere upstream. 
Spring soup 
Complexity 
Our ancestors knew an abundance 
Fiddle Gnome Home and the Wonders of Wet Woods