The Fiber Metaphor

The English word 'text' is derived from the Latin word for weaving, texare, explaining the source of terms like 'weaving a story'."- Wikipedia 

There is a metaphor like a thread running through every fiber of our thinking. 

This is like the spinning wheel of metaphors, the gossamer net that gathers our thoughts. It is like a string theory of everything, (if that is not too much of a blanket description!) 

It is an integral part of the tapestry of our culture. This metaphor clothes the imagery that the patchwork of our language was stitched together from.

 We are bound together with this metaphor, which is so deeply interwoven through the fabric of our thinking that we do not even notice how often it textures our daily conversation.

 It knits us together through the spool of time and tradition, as it runs along the warp and woof of our language itself.  But sometimes, it is just loopy! Text me, ok?

(Fiber art from Oregon Fiber Artists:)

Dancing Through the Universe

"The cause of suffering is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. To alleviate suffering, move!"- Timothy Leary

Everything is in motion, everything is swirling. Spinning atoms, solar systems, galaxies, and everything in between. Peace cannot be found by stopping. There is no stopping. Peace can only be found hewing to center of the spin, creating personal island speck gyroscopes, self contained orbs in a sea of nested vortexes. 

So we dance! We dance because movement is what we specialize in. And in a way, all movement is some kind of dance. We are all about it from the moment we are born, practicing and watching. 

Even watching someone else move, we learn. Our brains are highly wired to copy the movements of others. There are now many cases of young children who have learned highly skilled, complicated dance and sports moves simply and only from watching it on utube. You can even gain skill at whatever sport or dance you do by practicing a portion of your routine in your imagination!

No matter what the weather, and almost anywhere you are you can benefit from dancing even in tiny bursts. So from this moment on you have a way to get exercise, any time. Start with the breath. This is the link to feeling movement in the body. As you begin to tune into the breath, gently explore and extend, moving instinctively and naturally. You can do any movement system you know, or mix and match. It's ok to make up your own thing too. Put on some music and improvise. Be gentle with yourself.

You'll be amazed at how moving your body in ever new ways causes you to think in new ways. You will be feeling fine! Humans have been dancing themselves into ecstatic states since the dawn of time. In some cultures we dance and sing all day. As with any exercise, you will get a boost, a 'runners high'. Enjoy!

(Dancing for self knowledge:)

Hats off to the Car

"Mass transportation is doomed to failure in North America because our car is the only place we can be alone and think"- Marshall McLuhan

Back in the old days, everybody had a hat. It was a needed part of getting around in the world. Your hat protected you from the sun and the rain and snow. Each culture developed its own recognizable style of hat. Your hat said a lot about you.

Nowadays people don't wear hats so much any more because we all wear cars! Humans are  cyber exoskeleton builders. We have cars with computer brains that will soon be offering to do the driving for us. We have built cars that drive in water, flying cars, and even car camper helicopters. 

I actually love cars. I do not think we will soon want to give up wearing cars. But we need to separate the human powered and light weight solar vehicles without exhaust pipes from the heavy, gas powered vehicles we are phasing out. 

I would love to see all of the railroad right of way routes share space with light solar powered  cars and human powered bike things. The rail routes are already the best routes because they are gently sloped so as to be easier for heavy trains, and thus require the least energy to pedal on bikes or move solar lightweights. This is actually well underway! (Already converted routes you can try now!):

Someday we will wear cars that are quiet and non polluting. We will drive out into the countryside in pleasant nature filled avenues dotted with cafés and parks. And our cars will say a lot about us.

(See solar/wind powered car touring the world!)

Meeting a Sacred Being

See the great teacher behind every disguise.  

   - Ralph Blum,The Rune cards

From one point of view, we go around through our day doing things with stuff. From another point of view, however, this is all a symbolic dance between Beings, using things and stuff as props. I have a foot in both worlds.

We are a people and a planet in transition, for sure.

Whenever I encounter another Being, if I really pay attention to them, I am blown away. The huge psychic presence of another person is overwhelming when we start to really feel it. Even babies are huge on the psychic level, every bit as big as grown ups. So our personalities develop good, and not so good, coping mechanisms to deal  with it.

I mean, I love mankind. It's just people that throw me for a loop! So I take refuge in that, being with Beings I meet is the main thing going on, and the matter in question is secondary. When I am with another person it is like looking into another universe. A great mystery. A baby God.

This walk upon earth is holy because the Beings I meet are holy, each and every one. I bow to that in you, touching that in me, which is holy. And I am in you, and you are in me, and we are not two. Namaste! (Namaste)

Sunshine

 Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair...” 

― Susan Polis Schutz

(From the Flower Child's Garden Planet:)

Sunshine makes me smile! The sun is our primal source of life on garden planet earth. We all feel the power of this light that sustains us. We know that we need rain, but we feel good when the sun returns. Here in the northwest of America, rain and fog occasionally give way to blessed sunshine, even in the winter. Sometimes we feel so starved for sun that when it comes out, we run outside, making jokes about the un identified bright object suddenly appearing in the sky.

If you get the winter blues, get outside into the brightest natural light available, as early in the day as you can. Don't wear sunglasses all the time, as we need to get some ultraviolet light too. This will help you keep in touch with natural light cycles. (See the work of John Ott.)

Also, I take vitamin D. Ever since I started supplementing with D3, it's been like summer all year around for me. You see, for everyone living north of the latitude of San Francisco, you just can't make any vitamin D from sun exposure from about October to March or so. You could literally lie out naked all day and even get a sunburn, but you will not get the wavelength of light you need to make vitamin D.

Theres a long list of bad health conditions prevented by getting plenty of vitamin D, too long to mention. So if you do have access to natural sun in the right wavelengths, only a few minutes a day will give you plenty of D. Lighter skin takes a little less time, darker skin takes a little more time. The most precious gold comes free from the sun. So get out there and commune with your local daystar every day!

"Talking is Lying"

 "Talking is Lying"- (paraphrased from the Tao: "the Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.")

Does thinking require words? Words are a technology that has pretty much created civilization. This super technology allows us to transmit very precise information to each other, and store and build upon previous thoughts. 

Interestingly, some people who were born deaf and did not learn any sort of language until adulthood report having few memories of what they feel as a dark, ignorant time in their life. Similarly, most of us can't recall much from our babyhood, probably because we just didn't file it in language.

And then there are the stories of children who grew up without language because were raised by animals or had some other extremely rare circumstance. These children often seem to have strange telepathic powers to communicate their wants to people in civilization. These rare human cases are similar to that of my cat, who has no difficulty making you think you want to do her bidding, despite her limited vocabulary.

Do we all "think" in pictures before we learn words? Some of us still know how, even when the chatty and flamboyant celebrity of language struts into the brain and starts making small talk. I know I can, and still do this, but maybe we all do, and it's so built in under, that we don't notice unless we really pay attention. Like just because you can't hear your heart beating, doesn't mean it's not.

What is it then, that we do, those of us who are aware of our thinking before it clothes itself in words? Does understanding precede thought formation? What is this awareness, this thing we know with, we experience with, before we strap ourselves into this hot rod racer of language and take off with a deafening roar?

The Answer to All Relationship Questions?

"In truth, commitment exists within the realm of friendship in service to light. Within the law of love, all relationship is self evident."

-Elihu

This answer was given to me when I most needed it. How can one commit to another without being subsumed, I wondered. How to love and be loved without turning in on one another? How to stand together, facing out to the world with our love?

"In truth, commitment exists within the realm of friendship in service to light." That would be you and me and the highest good. Or God. Or our purpose together. It's a triangle, see? We are not a pair orbiting one another, but a couple of friends following the light, walking along together because we recognize that we are on the same path. 

"Within the law of love, all relationship is self evident." This involves careful observation of the obvious: It's always either love, or a call for love.* Is there love, right now? Then nothing needs be done. If there is a need, apply love directly to the wound.

* "It's always either love, or a call for love. "- A Course in Miracles

This is Your Lucky Day

"If you have good luck, why be in a hurry? If you have bad luck, why be in a hurry?"-?

Luck is the conjunction of serendipity and preparation. If you are prepared, then eventually serendipity will bring the opportunity you seek.  This is not a passive waiting for something, anything, to come along. 

Do you want to be lucky? The main preparation is attitude. Look around now. You are already so lucky! You were the sperm that won the lottery, the baby that survived until now in this precious rare human form. You were born in such interesting times! You were sustained, loved, nurtured by others, educated and given the great good fortune to be on line now, to even be reading this. It's like, you're practically royalty!

How to prepare for more luck? Realize and be grateful for all you have already. Then, align with your own life purpose and prepare to do whatever needs to be done to carry out the first step. Baby steps. Just take the next step. 

Be ready so when your luck comes by you are paying attention...

And relax. Luck always starts with love. And love starts with a compassionate view of yourself.

(More about your good luck:)

My Sister and the Rock

All hatred is self-hatred. 

And everything is feedback.

Nothing is as it is, it is as you are.

-Brianna Wiest?

This is a true story that happened to a friend of mine. When she moved to a university town in her early twenties, she got got around on a bicycle. She was shapely, beautiful and blonde, and she immediately began to receive unwanted catcalls and whistles from men as she rode her bike around town.

This really angered her, but she refused to stop riding or dress differently as she did feel she had a right to be out in public. Finally, the harassment reached a point where she had just had it. She decided she needed to do something.

But what? The attacks were always hit and run. There was no time to yell something back at these creeps. They would holler at her as they wooshed by in their cars.

So she decided to carry a rock in her hand, ready to throw. It is not easy to carry a rock in your hand while riding a bike, but she did it anyway, keeping it at the ready. The next time, she would let them know how she felt! She'd let 'em have a piece of her mind, and more! She decided she would not put up with this ever again.

And then what happened? What happened was nothing, apparently. She carried the rock for quite a while after that, but she never had to use it. Something inside her had shifted? She patched holes in her psychic armor? I leave the meaning and interpretation of this story to you...

(What if women made catcalls?)

A Real Flying Carpet

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. –Paul Valery

Once upon a time there was a lonely young boy who was really a prince. He lived locked up in a tower by his evil uncle. But one day he somehow gets a flying carpet, which he uses to sneak out of the tower and travel around his kingdom, learning about his people and their troubles.

When the time is right, using the knowledge he gains on the flying carpet, he eventually gets out, overthrows the evil uncle, and restores things to goodness and justice. 

Long story short, that's all I remember about this story I read long ago. I've always gravitated toward living in towers. And flying by magic carpet would be way more elegant than the primitive and crude methods we use today.  

But in a way, we all have a way to fly around the world from our lonesome little towers. We fly by inter web. And if you are interested in solving the problems of the world, you can really find out what is going on this way, as well as who else is working on it. Perhaps in our new story we can help the evil uncle have a change of heart. 

There is very good historical evidence that magic carpets are real!

 (Check this out: The Secret History of the Flying Carpet)

Garden Planet Vision

"Dare to be naïve!"  -Bucky Fuller

According to a United Nations report, the only way we can feed all humanity is with local, small scale, organic farming. Wow.

My question is not so much, how do we start small scale self sufficient communities, but how to plant and link up the whole planet into one cohesive, sustainable, local grassroots community. With political incentives, this would be simple and easy. Just tax miles travelled by an item and use the money to build up local production.

In my vision of a garden planet, all the world would be one lovely, friendly garden. It would be so sustainably and abundantly planted with permaculture, that travelers could pick and eat as they travel along the beautiful lanes. 

Gardeners have the highest happiness rating of all professions. 

We can easily afford to subsidize semi retired, or volunteer citizens to help maintain permaculture that benefits the neighborhood, that keeps food dropping into our hands. Money may not grow on trees, but food most assuredly does.

No money would be needed; instead we would have a love economy. A woman could walk alone across an entire continent, safely and without needing to carry food or money. Everyone would at least have a guaranteed basic income. That could come from taxes on use of the commons that we all share as our birthright. We might still have some form of money, but it would not be very important.  

This year, grow something. Plant a huge half acre garden for the whole neighborhood. Or just an herb pot on the windowsill.

There Is Enough For Everyone!

“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty........ but 
when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is 
wrong.” 
―Buckminster Fuller

There is enough for everyone! This is the conclusion Buckminster Fuller came to years before the world had seen the first famous photo of the whole planet from space. He had this concept called the World Game, in which he analyzed all of the know how and talent and resources as if Earth were a spaceship we were all crew on.  He also predicted that when the most influential fifteen percent of the people understood that, we would be willing to give up fighting and cooperate to make life a success for everyone.

So why are people still acting so fearful, insecure and foolish? This is indisputably the wealthiest the most people on earth have ever been in history. Perhaps even in the cacophony of the end of the world party taking place now, we sense that something is deeply wrong.

It kind of reminds me of the classic trust fund baby, partying day after day without considering what will happen when the money runs out. We know that we could take care of everyone at a higher standard of living than royalty of the past, but that will require we change the way we do things. That seems harder than just cruising along, even if it is toward the edge of the cliff.

The really good news is there still is enough planet for everyone, and repairing the tattered ecosystems and making Earth a garden planet is way to do it. We do know what to do, all that is still lacking is the will. And the will is being stymied by fear and insecurity due to the way our money system is set up. It functions much like a game of musical chairs, with everyone contending with one another for not -quite- enough. Or so it seems, but this illusion is due entirely to the arbitrary rules of the money game. We can easily change them, as I realized when I read Sacred Economics.

(Check it out!)