my forbidden fruits

I don't think that this is right:

My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)
by Jack Hedin

IF you’ve stood in line at a farmers’ market recently, you know that the local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are having a tough time keeping up with the demand.

But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.

As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As I’ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.

Last year, knowing that my own 100 acres wouldn’t be enough to meet demand, I rented 25 acres on two nearby corn farms. I plowed under the alfalfa hay that was established there, and planted watermelons, tomatoes and vegetables for natural-food stores and a community-supported agriculture program.

All went well until early July. That’s when the two landowners discovered that there was a problem with the local office of the Farm Service Administration, the Agriculture Department branch that runs the commodity farm program, and it was going to be expensive to fix.

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on “corn base” acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program.

I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)

In my case, that meant I paid my landlords $8,771 — for one season alone! And this was in a year when the high price of grain meant that only one of the government’s three crop-support programs was in effect; the total bill might be much worse in the future.

In addition, the bureaucratic entanglements that these two farmers faced at the Farm Service office were substantial. The federal farm program is making it next to impossible for farmers to rent land to me to grow fresh organic vegetables.

Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.

That’s unfortunate, because small producers will have to expand on a significant scale across the nation if local foods are to continue to enter the mainstream as the public demands. My problems are just the tip of the iceberg.

more here

This is interesting to me because I was just listening to Michael Pollan talking about sustainable ag on MPR the other day and somebody called in with the usual question, namely, where are we going to get all these organic fruits and vegetables? Pollan talked about his hope that more young people would get into farming, and how farming is considered a rather noble profession these days at least for a certain demographic. SO this article is troubling because there are many young farmers out there who may be interested in switching from a commodity crop (perhaps turning their folk's corn and soybean farm into a potato and leek farm) to a more diversified and vegetable oriented rotation on their land. But with legislation like this, what is the incentive for them to do so, at least financially? Basically they would be abandoning the mainstream commodity market which provides them with a certain kind of safety net and incentives, and striking off on their own to try make a go at farming vegetables, a far more complicated process then farming corn.

maple trees: the next corn

Yesterday the SO and I drove up to Mora to attend a maple syruping workshop. We were tired from the previous week of activities, and so when we got to Mora our brains stopped working and we got lost. I couldn't seem to remember which school the workshop was at, and no townspeople knew anything about their own town, it seemed. Finally though, we got directions to the middle school and zipped off to try to find it. At this point it was 10:30 and I though the workshop had started out at 10 so I was a bit consternated, because we had driven so far only to miss a fair chunk of the program.

When we got there the parking lot was pretty full and it turned out that a Rural Living Expo thing was going on, and it actually was pretty cool, with workshops on Native Plants and organic gardening and stuff like that. I thought the entry fee was going to be $15 for each of us but it was $8 for our household in total. Plus the maple syruping workshop started at 11 so we were perfectly on time. We perused and gathered various pamphlets and info and then went to the workshop.

The speaker was funny and very into maple trees. He was an older guy and we both really liked his whole presentation. At the end he made some maple candy which was delicious. We're planning on tapping 20 odd trees or so up at the folks land as well as any trees we can find in Minneapolis that are accessible. It doesn't make any sense not to, as it is an easy process that only requires a minimum of effort on our part, and the maple tree pumps out sap for free. We are going to try to make maple and birch beer as well. I might put the order for supplies in today, as the syruping season may start in a couple of weeks.

Then we traveled up to Sandstone and picked up some terrible food at the supermarket and scarfed that down. We went to Geoff's place and talked a bit with him and the kids about the workshop, and then we went over to the sledding hill and enjoyed speeding down the hill and screwing up our backbones.

After that we were lucky enough to enjoy a sauna with the folks at their friends (now our friends as well) Tom & Steph's place. That was very nice and hot. Afterwards they fed us some good food and we hung out in their funky and relaxing home drinking beers. Before we left we purchased some delicious eggs from them.

What a pleasant day, even though I was totally exhausted by the week.

addendum: Okay, maybe I wasn't totally exhausted, but I was tired enough, not only from the week, but from the whole goddamn winter.

native flora and fauna

Last Saturday I went to a conference on native flora and fauna called Through the Eyes of Nature:The Birds' View of Landscaping

It was pretty interesting. I could sum it up in a few sentences. Basically it's all about providing the basics of food and shelter in as many ways as possible to attract the most species of fauna as possible.

1. Native plants don't need as much maintenance as exotics. They are genetically programmed to thrive on tough conditions.
2. Native fauna enjoy living and eating in pockets of native plantings.
3. Birds in particular like a variety of native plants, from the tall oaks, to the medium birch, to the low juneberry, to the small bearberry. Most birds like trees under 15 feet tall or so.
4. You can attract twice as much species of bird if you add a water feature to your landscaping, twice more then that if your water feature flows or drips in some ways.
5. Dead trees and brush (snags) provide sanctuary and food to birds.

A lot of this repeats many of the lessons I've learned form Forest Gardening and Permaculture principles.

Landscape architecture is extremely important for overyielding polycultures. Perennial polyculture patches of native species of various heights and structure fill various niches that are necessary to provide food and shelter for the most amount of fauna species as possible.

my grandpa's dad

Was apparently a goldminer in the 1890's.

Carl E. Peterson

My grandpa

My grandpa died last year. Not exactly unexpectedly, but then again death is never really expected. I didn't know him that well, but out of all the members of my family, I am probably most like him.

I wish I would have gotten to know him better, but just when my own sense of identity began to become clear and I started a long journey to make peace with myself, he began a slow decline into ill health. My grandma began to develop Alzheimer's, and one day she mistook my grandpa for an intruder and brained him with a frying pan. He required hospitalization and many stitches and he couldn't talk for a long while. He looked absolutely terrible with a shaved head and giant stitches, filled with frustration at the inability to talk. I gave him my first and last adult hug at that hospital in St. Cloud. Meanwhile my grandmother didn't even know what was going on. I felt utterly unable to even attempt to establish a connection with her.

He got better and I did see him once more at Christmas, where he seemed to take some joy in interacting with Maya, my sister's young daughter. He talked about his new invention with me and my partner, a vertical windmill. He even sketched out a plan.

But then his health failed and he died.

Here are some of his inventions:

Opposing Piston Engine

Animal Watering Apparatus

A machine for injecting fluid chemicals into the ground attachable to the lift arms of a farm tractor

Rotatable Heat Transfer Fan

An automatic plowing apparatus having a self- propelled vehicle carrying facing plows guided by a cable extended across a field

seed time

It is seed time, and all through the house, not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse.

God, it is so exciting to peruse the seed catalogs in late winter. The brainstem is lit up like a christmas tree.

I have bought and used seed from these quality seed companies:

Seeds of Change
Johnny's Selected Seeds
Seed Savers
High Mowing Seeds

And I have heard good things about these companies:

Fedco Seeds
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

So far I wouldn't hesitate to say that Seed Savers seed is reliable, and Johnny's Selected seeds are quality as well, perhaps because they are in more northern clime then Seeds of Change. Just not a lot of luck with High Mowing for some reason.

The other ways we propagate plants is by attending the Friends School Plant Sale which is always fun and a great deal if you get there early, but the plants are sometimes lackluster.

The best plants you can by in Minnesota are here:

Outback Nursery
Glacial Ridge Growers
Landscape Alternatives

The best gardening store in the Twin Cities:

Mother Earth Gardens

I also check out Linders every now and then for the big nursery experience and to buy the odd plant:

Linders

Michael Pollan: The omnivore's next dilemma

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/214

wahoo it's spring (almost)

Woh. All of a sudden spring is leaping up at our toes with the insistence of inevitably. My mind races with ideas and plans. The cold dark death days of winter seem bearable.

Time for poring over seed catalogs. Permaculture designs for home and zones.
Memorizing natives. Latin, Spanish names.
Making a growlight stand. Start seedlings.
Tap trees for maple syrup. Maple syrup party?
MLS listings for land. Financial considerations, budget, loans, taxes...
Still have to plan and cook meals. Sustainable local diet. Food is life, takes up time.
Skiing when snow arrives...just found out skating is fun.
Local Roots fliers, ads, ideas.

urban pc

yay!

life goes on

The dark winter months are hard. I want to be alone, then with everybody I know. I get way deep down depressed, then lighthearted for no real reason. Everything is bleak and cold, then ever so slightly bearable. I really need to be as busy as possible in this kind of weather.

My health seems okay. I feel like my breathing is easier and my sense of impending doom has lifted slightly. For a moment there I thought I was at the end of my rope. Little pleasures help a lot. Relaxing the body helps, and realizing that I am not my moods is good.

I went to see a chiropractor and she was very helpful. She lifted my spirits and helped soothe my body. I'm going back to the clinic next week to get a physical, just to see if everything is alright in the old body. I haven't really utilized the myriad of health resources out there, and I feel like it's a good time to get into more of a health schedule.

So yeah. I'd like to hang out and connect and talk about stuff and play games if you're up for it.

Just to update

I'm relatively alright. I'll post again when I feel a bit more tip-top.

I went to a clinic on Monday, and I'm going to a chiropractor on Wednesday to try to deal with some of my physical problems.

yuck

Hey everyone. I'm not feeling so hot today, physically and emotionally. It's hard for me to breathe, and I'm exhausted and nauseated. I'm also really emotionally spent and I've been crying off and on all day.

Please pray or meditate for me just a little. Maybe some good vibes my way.

capturing shakti, part 3

Part 3

When you switch your heart focus away from consumption, it is immediately apparent that the dominant culture is set up and perpetuated to advocate a life that is driven by selfish consumption and as such it is opposed to a life that is motivated by love.

As it says in the Permaculture Designers Manual, meaning in life is derived from taking action toward a common ideal. Loving one another is the essential precept of multitudes of religions and philosophies. Enlightenment, salvation, being born again, reincarnation, living, dying: the path of life is one characterized by constant change. Homeostasis is not infinite, therefore it is a misnomer. If there is one essential life principal that is blatantly evident in the natural world, it is that energy is always changing from one form to another, or that existence is “not always so”, in the words of the late great Shunryu Suzuki.

I think that enlightenment or salvation could be realized by many of us if these simple principles were better understood, mainly that life is; 1. Not always so, and that to create peace; 2. Love is all we need, and to find meaning 3. You must take action toward a common ideal.

But once you start to systemize your code of ethics, or moral opinion, you start to create dogma, and your compassionate intentions toward humanity turn sour and become yet another aspect and tool of the destroyer. In this context, even as I write this I understand that my main intention is to share my experience of life and my thesis of the mass societal repression of Shakti, but some might interpret my intent negatively. To those people I would simply say, if you find my words not to your liking, then you may choose to not read them, and you may choose to debate them, and you may choose to forget them or to try to understand them. Whatever you choose, remember that your mind may have one opinion, and your heart another. Your mind wishes to defend the ego, and your heart wishes to free the spirit. Whatever you choose, remember that your small mind may be fearful of dissolving into big mind, or rigpa, the primordial luminescence of reality. Of course it is afraid, because to change from one form of energy to another is to die in some way, shape, or form. And isn’t death the most scary thing of all?

Maybe not. Maybe it is a real irony that in this Shiva the destroyer-oriented world, death is the most feared and hated change of all. In a Shakti oriented world life itself is sacred, and life itself is most revered. In the abstract, this Shivacentric world proclaims its reverence for life, but in practice, war has been declared on all forms of life, and Shakti in her many guises are under constant attack.

We have created Hell on this planet. If Hell has been experienced by one life, it exists for us all. We can be separated by language and custom, or the boundaries of nations, but at our core we are all simply an expression of life.

Shiva creates hell as Shakti tends her gardens.

At this point you may wonder if I am an extreme feminist, and if I hate men. But my intention is to look at all of the myriad patterns in which energy flows, and it is easier to illustrate energetic patterns utilizing archetypical concepts then it is using pseudoscientific psychological profiles. The patterns that myths have drawn in the sand are as old as humanity, and wisdom grows with time. I believe that it is impossible to circumnavigate time in order to reach Samadhi or enlightenment faster, as much as technology would like us to believe that this is possible.
We are taught that we should act in such-and-such a way when we are born into this world. It seems counterintuitive to question this constant education, because it purports to follow the will of God via the Holy Bible. But my thesis is that this is an arbitrary education in regards to who you are as an individual life. You are a life that can teach and be taught as soon as you exist, and you can think, feel, and understand on your own. Propaganda leads you away from your true self. What is taught as something you should emulate has nothing to do with your life essence. There are a certain number of stereotypes you should fit into, and if you don’t, you’re one of those persons who doesn’t fit in to any one stereotype, the last ditch catchall stereotype. This Shivacentric society does not allow societal behaviors at random, only the stereotypical behaviors are allowed, and encouraged to perpetuate in order to cast those-who-do-not-fit-in out as far as they will go, or as far as they will stay.

Thesis: A human being would not fit into any stereotypes if allowed to freely express themselves at birth and throughout life. Gender would be flexible, love would be expressed in many ways.

We are trapped in this dark box of society designed and manufactured by the destroyers. We are trapped in a dark box of ourselves, immediately put on the production line of stereotypes. We can look in someone else’s eyes and see ourselves, but then we may be called crazy. We can look at the highways choked with cars and exhaust and call it crazy, but then be reassured that it is completely sane by the destroyers.

capturing shakti, part 2

Part 2

Where is the feminine in today’s society? Where is Shakti?

At some point in the not-too-distant past women were the healers of their communities and together with shamanic men comprised a safety net of spirit and earth based healing and wisdom, as it were. Perhaps the shaman or priest began to wonder if there were a way he could somehow call the wise woman’s earth-based knowledge into question, thus securing for himself the communities connection to the spiritual and earth based wisdom and power. Perhaps he wondered about this, but the community would have none of it. None of it, that is, until the monotheistic religions were conceived of and created by men who saw the light.

Monotheistic religions say; Hey everyone, there is but one God and only we, the disciples, know the way to Him. We are the converted, the saved, and you are the sinners, the damned. God is a man, and man has dominion over the earth and all that lies thereon.

You can see how this belief would benefit men.

Monotheistic religions captured the imagination of men across the land. With the power of God on their side, they built societies completely focused around their sex. Ever since then, nothing has dramatically altered in this Godly grab for power. Political systems are set up primarily to give a few men ultimate power over all the earth, a terrestrial mirror of the monotheistic cosmic order. And in this mirror, we see the complete fallacy of the monotheistic idea, the “One God” theory failing time after time, sometimes in horrific ways, yet we pretend that this is the mere failings of mortal man.

And so ultimately the shaman/priest gained control over all the powers of the spirit and earth, his societal role gradually morphing into the pastors, businessmen, lawyers, and leaders of our modern times. In some indigenous societies, the shaman/priest exists still, but the wise woman labors in the background; women who have passed down the wisdom of generations time after time, sometimes amidst adversarial conditions in order to save the community from itself, to save men from their power hungry ways. In order to keep control over all the earth, men have had to keep her on a tight leash, and rape her repeatedly until she appears to be giving up the ghost. Men have always understood the games of power they have to play in order to stay at the top, because with just one tiny slip, their game could be over, unless, of course, they declare war. If, for instance, one wise woman were to become as powerful as the pope, the people of the world would have to feel again, and the floodgates of remembrance would be opened, letting the waters of peace out, which would wash away the military/industrial/banking complex that exists only to gain power over the Mother of us all.

What women are taught today in a monotheistic society is that they have been created by a male God to be the humble servants of men. They are to do all the chores of the house and they are to raise the children. Their entire earthly role as a human is defined by their relationship to the men in their lives, and the men that control their lives. It is the prerogative of men to control the earth, and thus women and children. Within this framework of female existence it is obviously in man’s best interest to begin the propaganda and brainwashing of young boys and girls as early as possible. To be programmed from the beginning is the ideal, but if an individual’s programming doesn’t take hold, then the tactics of shame, fear, pain, and terror are utilized.

It is my belief that almost every aspect of our modern day society is designed by and for men, and unimaginative men at that. Our society is imbued with the essence of Shiva the destroyer, and without Shakti only death can be the ultimate result of man’s design.

capturing shakti, part 1

Capturing Shakti

Part 1

In a previous post I had mentioned that I wanted to capture shakti and a friend wrote a comment that suggested that I express shakti rather then try to capture it. A simple suggestion, but it sent my mind whirling off into a strong tangent, one that incorporated thoughts about my previous post on being a mystic and musings I had on finishing the book A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. This post will be my attempt at sharing this thread of thinking with you, and it may need to be posted in parts, as I do have to cook dinner at some point here, as well as perform other household tasks.

The propaganda (and by propaganda I simply mean the spreading of ideas or information for the purpose of hurting or helping an institution, a cause, or person) that has been drilled into our brains since day one on this planet is that men and women are diametric opposites, that each of the sexes has a very definite sex role that should be played out in a very definitive way, and wavering from this rule will result in catastrophe of the very highest magnitude. To begin to understand this reality you need only to think of the deluge of blue or pink crap that is handed out on the occasion of birth, but you may as well reflect on all the other obviously sexist and strongly encouraged items that are parceled out to the unlucky newborn as they grow older in this world, such as toy trucks if you are a boy, and toy kitchens if you are a girl. Dolls if you are a girl, and cars if you are a boy, and on and on ad nauseum. Of course there are exceptions, but by simple casual observance it is obviously the general case that newborn humans are programmed to think that they have definitive rules of sex behavior as soon as they exit the womb. My thesis is that this early dogmatic education is the primary cause of the majority of the suffering that is perpetuated on this planet.

I think that this dualistic thinking mode, or meme (DTM) can be found throughout most large civilizations and so-called advanced cultures. The patterns that DTM produce in a society can vary wildly, as evidenced when you ponder the Ying and Yang principles of the East, or the God and the Devil principles of the West. But suffice it to say that in many cultures a spiritual binary system has evolved to explain how everything works. There is an on and there is an off, and somehow with this knowledge we can explain all things, or we can take the extension of this knowledge and create more complex spiritual systems of explanation, like the I-Ching or the Kabbalah. Math arises out of the sea of abstraction and gives meaning to the essential meaninglessness of the world on the wings of science. Art and Religion stay entrenched in their more esoteric interpretations of DTM. All attempts at understanding life rely on the mystical nature of being alive. The more mystical your attempt at understanding, the less you inhabit DTM, and ultimately the DTM can resolve into oneness with all, or nonethingness. When the object begins to wonder if it really is separated from the subject, then the mystical experience begins and our dualistic perceptions of reality seem to be an illusion.

In the book A Handmaiden’s Tale, the Commander and Handmaiden have an exchange in which the Commander comments that women can’t do math. The Handmaiden takes him to task for this, and he replies that if a woman counted 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1, she wouldn’t arrive at the sum of 4, she would just count 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1. I believe this is essentially a commentary on women’s innate earth knowledge, in the sense that theory and abstraction and thus science and math exist only in the mind and not necessarily in the earth, and women, who share the energy of nurturing the seed with the Mother Earth, can see that four separate “ones" does not necessarily produce the sum of four. The burden of caring for new life begins with the mother. Once born, fathers and the community can share in the raising of the new life, but during pregnancy the mother is essentially the whole earth for the new life growing inside her. Men have the energy of pollen or sperm to fertilize the egg in the ovary, and I believe that we share in the energy of the Father Sun, and the Moon is what brings us, female and male, together to begin the cycle of life over and over. But now, you see, I begin to dabble in dualisms, and I must stress that I believe that the male organism can experience the energies of the earth and manifest them, and the female organism can experience the energies of the sun and manifest them as well. I certainly don’t believe that any one person has one elemental aspect based on their sexual gender, but I know that in terms of procreation, what I have written rings true to me. Shakti cannot be captured by force of will, she can only be expressed by letting her flow naturally, observing her through the cycles and patterns of the universe.

In Zen there is the idea of Little Mind and Big Mind. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that Little Mind is 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 4, and Big Mind is 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1. Even that is extremely erroneous in that in Big Mind there are no 1s or even the concept of Big Mind.

Earth-based wisdom is not abstract knowledge, and the abstraction paradigm produces the subject object imperative which results in the dualistic thinking meme.

holy sticky thinking

There is one thing and then there is another thing. This thing is separated from that thing. So there is two things, not one thing. But how can this be? How can one thing be separated from another thing? There is no one thing and no two things, just thingness. A subject and an object, subjectivitiness and objectivitiness. Or the whole kaboodle, subjectivitiobjectivitithingness. But who is counting?

There is a scientifitiness that says that this action has this cause or this result, and this may be a useful way to look at it, in terms of practical result-oriented activity. But as time passes I can't see what the use is of all of this. "You over there, stop doing such and such! Why am I so stupid? Where are my car keys?" Many things happening, nothing happening.

Maybe I need to start working.

100% Free Range Minnesota Mystic

I have come to the realization that my primary internal identity is a mystic. To be more precise I am a 100% Free Range Minnesotan Mystic. I was reading an interview with a yoga teacher when this epiphany came upon me all in rush of peaceful understanding.

I am always looking for the ultimate truth behind the facade of consensual reality, but I do not subscribe wholeheartedly to one religion, or even three. I am a natural born mystic raised on the fertile prairies and immense shores of the Midwest. The land calls out to me, even as I struggle with the hardships of being human.

So many traditions and crafts whisper their enticements, so many ideas and emotions rush me along this river of samsara, but yoga brings me back into myself, and back out, into the world that reflects everything. I invent the path of freedom that surges through me and try to capture bits of shakti in words and sounds.

I don't need to define things. I don't want to.

Life trapped inside the self isn't worth living.

I would like to bring all the organic gardening, permaculture practicing poets and potter, singers and dancers, all the chefs and magicians and neighbors and midwives and cats, all the hurting and sexy and poor and mistreated together to practice our mystical ways in peace.

bad things

Bad things happen all the time.

Or; Life is characterized by suffering.

Evidently so.

We all have large lists of suffering we and others have endured and and/or perpetrated. It boggles my mind sometimes how real life is, how it really is the only realness that we can know. And how blatantly full of pain and suffering it is.

Don't get me wrong, I have experienced joy and happiness. There are foot massages and perfect tacos and skiing and fresh tomatoes. And I love all of those things. But when suffering comes along doesn't it seem to make those things pale in comparison? It's mystifying.

A very good friend of mine recently found out that he has cancer. This is a reoccurrence of a skin cancer he had a few years ago. I'm afraid to talk to him because I tend to put my foot in my mouth, and I would probably say something wildly stupid. But obviously my fears should come in second to the first priority, which is to love my friend. This is something I've always struggled with, putting my fears second to the real priorities. So I will call him and connect and hang out with him and see how he is doing with this news.

What the hell is cancer doing attacking my friend? A few years back, another very close friend was diagnosed with skin cancer, and luckily she found out early and treated it swiftly. These are two beautiful people. My grandpa died of cancer a few months back, and I did not do anything about it. There was nothing I could do, but I didn't even make an effort to reach out to him, or talk to him because I didn't know how to. And the weird thing was that he died on the same day that one of my oldest and best friends killed herself, July 16th, 2007. And that same day, my partner's sister got married.

A while ago, a coworker's friend was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I didn't know what to say exactly, other then to suggest that work was obviously second priority, and that my coworker should go be with her friend. I should take my own advice, sometimes.

What does karma have to do with these things? I don't believe that my friend did anything wrong and is now being punished for it, in this lifetime or any other. I don't really understand karma in these types of situations. Theoretically I understand that suffering can help you understand compassion, and that it can be a path toward enlightenment, but in reality it just looks like plain old suffering with no real reason.

Obvious

Obviously I quit writing the 30 poems. I got very busy, and all of a sudden life took over. Now, I have different things pulling me in different directions. So, for now, I will discontinue the poems.

poem 5

there is no one like you in this whole world
you are the compost of your life
take it or leave it
not always so here

The secret life of plants

This is a very rare and interesting film. It follows the secret life of plant, like the book. With music by Stevie Wonder! I love this movie, it moved me in a weird way. It is really true that all things have are conscious and filled with spirit.

poem 4

in photosynthesis one molecule of chlorophyll absorbs one photon and loses one electron
the chlorophyll regains the lost electron by taking one from a water molecule and releasing oxygen as waste
then carbon dioxide is combined with the water to form carbohydrates and other organic compounds
the ultimate product of photosynthesis is triose phosphates
which can be rearranged to form sugars
plants can convert up to 90% of the sun's radiation
silicon solar cells can can convert up to 30%
humans can convert 100% of their lives to suffering
life is really hard

but it is true as well that we can take that suffering and cultivate wisdom
and with that wisdom we can grow flowers

poem 3

forget religion
let's just call it practice
what can we do without labels?

Baudelaire was completely wrong
one must not always be intoxicated
one is already almost always intoxicated
one must be free of toxins if one is to truly live
I know this is true
I have utilized the scientific method to test this hypothesis
I laugh in miserable joy at this thought

and it is not true that
being sad and unhappy is being honest
the truth is that peace and joy are natural
but misery does love company, doesn't it?

and what works for others
does not work for me
I am just me
and I am tired

maybe it's time for religion to fade away
and leave us
practicing love
the most subjective of patterns

poem 2

"God will provide
this is no exegesis of scripture, no
it is an inevitability
through faith you will find redemption."
is what they say but I can't really buy it
I could charge it, but I've cut up my card

is there faith in the grasses, in the treetops?
I am a forgetful squirrel with a faithnut
will faith burst through the forest duff or is it already someone else's snack?
prayerfully, I continue

is the manitou in the forest part of the plan of god?
tell me now
my entire existence up to this point has been a search
for something I threw away when I was born!
they name it god, or science, or art
I call it milk or juice
the rest of it is what makes up these words
but at the same time they are the milk and juice

my car doesn't start
the battery is worn out
so I have to buy a new one
can I buy a new soul?
or is it time for a new car
one that has all the new gadgets
and better mileage

do we make do or do we buy new?

so soon I will go out and perform ten thousand actions
so that my car will run better
but nobody is asking me to
I could sit here and wait for something to happen

poem 1

no more tears at the end of the trail
she gave up her last ones to the ghost of St. Francis
the morning continues unless it's forgotten
America sits on it's hooves
I gave up after ten odd years
there are no more sonnets just jingles
we treat ourselves ugly
and the tower just keeps on burning behind the old oak grove

my faith is as broken as tonsils on Sunday
I still hear the earth moving under my toes
just trying to keep in the tidal wave of God's Love
no boats are floating beside the deep waters
she sits on the stone bench and asks me to surrender
but I can't estimate where I'm going from here

I tingle at thoughts of new toys but desire new meaning

a discovered taste in milk
never fiddle with that which is unbroken

the mortgage that gave me this life is paid off

Yoking myself to the light

Wow. I've forgotten how much yoga means to me. What have I been doing for the last few months? Wallowing in pain, or what?

After my first real yoga practice in months, my body feels relaxed, and my mind feels more clear then it has been in awhile. The complimentary practices of asana and dhyana have mellowed me out and revived my pallid and out of shape soul. My body needs some exercise but my prana is stirring up from the depths of my sushumna nadi, and my life practice receives a revitalization that I hadn't known I needed. Blocked energy must be flowing through my avidya blocked nadis. I can breathe again.

I'm an animal just like everybody else, and I wonder sometimes why it is that we take our own bodies for granted? Our bodies are ourselves in this lifetime, and we treat them as mere tools to be misplaced often, replaced as needed. Give me a break. But I understand. It's hard to fit reality in to a busy schedule when we are bombarded by samsara at every possible moment.

Journeying through this year, I have begun to realize the similarities between spiritual paths. It is easy for me to sit down and have an intense meditation session and exclaim, "I am a Buddhist!" or flow through the surya namaskar and yell, "I'm a Yogi!" but in all reality I am just me. I grew up as a Christian, but I rejected that path early on. In the long run, the rejection of my original path as a follower of Jesus of Nazareth enlightened my soul but also harmed my spirit. The samskaras that etched themselves indelibly on my fragile heart have hardened me toward receiving pain and sadness, or accepting fear and hate, and processing my resultant maelstrom of stress and confusion with the tools of a spritual practice. My innate impulse is to take any of mu skills and talents and try to enact an alchemical transubstantiation and turn the pain into joy via my own inner power of will. I think the main thing spiritual practices teach is that it doesn't work that way. We have to accept God's will in whatever form we imagine it to be, whether you see Brahman giving birth to Maya and forming that we which we understand as reality, or if you believe in a God who gave birth to the universe and a son who saved it from itself. But of course this is where my indigenous religion and I differ.

Whereas I can only perceive God as simultaneously existing as everything at once and everything as a separate entity, and I wish to join my separate entity (jiva, soul) with the everything God, monotheism seems to believe in God as something separate living in a separate reality (heaven) who will actually judge your soul by your level of faith, your good actions, and the sins you commit, and send you to either heaven or another separate reality occupied by another type of God called the Devil who has control over certain aspects of Creation, and who's main job is to try to get you to commit sins in order to populate Hell, even though God assures mankind that he will kill or destroy the Devil at the end of time. Or something like that. The Christian story is a little mangled for me to stomach, and I have problems with certain concepts like sin, heaven, and hell. Karma, good or bad, just makes more sense to me, mostly because it seems like a better system. And there is only God, no heaven or hell or Earth or Saturn or Ford or Chevy. And it doesn't really matter what I believe in, in any case. God will continue on.

Monotheism is ripe with contradiction, which is why I think monotheistic believers tend to create wars. Atheists have no reason to go to war and non-dualists believe that we are all one, therefore why fight, eh? But ultimately arguing against the Christian religion is not my primary objective, at this point, although I believe it has caused much dukha in this world. I guess I just want to follow the good path, the path that will lead to the end of suffering and the beginning of liberation and beauty. Why is it that so hard to find?

Gross Happiness

It occurs to me that a lot of us are operating in a dreamworld in which everything is just slightly good and basically fine. All of us white middle-ish class folks living our day to day lives don't really have to address any real issues if we don't choose to, or if we don't have to...we're the lucky few in the entire world, we get to be comfortable and relax as much as we can afford to. Basically we're the globally privileged, and yet we still feel like our lives are empty or meaningless sometimes, and we still feel the need to buy the new whatchahoozit to enrich our entertainment centered lives.

I can feel the eyes of older generations staring holes in my back as I watch yet another movie. I can complain about the state of the world as much as I want but what am I doing about it? Am I doing anything at all? Why am I so hypnotized by the culture around me? Why do we care about such insignificant things?

I am able to do an infinity of good if I just wish to do so. So why am I so hesitant?

In my particular situation, I have had to deal with a handful of serious problems in my life that have probably held me back from achieving my highest potential as an activist or student or what have you. But even to me this seems like a poor excuse. Many people in rougher circumstances have worked very hard to rise above the fray and make a difference. So I should button up my coat and walk out into the scary world and see if I can do something about anything. I am always afraid, but sometimes fear turns into energy. And what does it matter how afraid I am? I must look back and see those who have sacrificed so much in order so that we can have so much, in order that we now can live in relative peace and comfort. And yet all we all do is squander everything, our energy, our generosity, our time and effort and money. All we do is consume until we die and we call it a life. But I know there is much much more to life then that. And I don't want to say to all those men and women who sacrificed their lives that I was afraid and poor, because they would just shake their heads in shame.

It seems to me that we have all screwed up. The earth is seemingly on the brink of major change, and many people have been poisoned by corporate malfeasance. There is no more clean water or clean air for everyone to enjoy. Species are dying rapidly. We are creating a dreamworld populated by junk piles, garbage heaps, and chemicals. We are medicated with drugs that make us crazy. We drive everywhere and scream or cry all the time. Screens blare at us from every corner. And yet we feel okay, comfortable. Even wanting to bring children into this madness.

A buddha is someone who is awake. We should all be lucid buddhas in this dreamworld of suffering and pain. Somewhere I read, "If you know what you should do, but don't do it, then you actually do not know what you should do. If you actually know what you should do, you have to do it." We have to do what we know is right. We can't continue doing the things we know are wrong and expect that goodness will arise magically out of such actions, to paraphrase Einstein.

It is the little death that you go through when you leave something undone and you know it should be done, or buy something cheap that you know is a cause of suffering somewhere. It seems to me that balancing one's choices could easily cause one to be busy for a long time. Maybe choosing is our main job as humans. I can't continue choosing to not do something, or not choosing what I know I should choose. It doesn't seem to me that there is such a thing as ignorance, just a thing called choosing not to know, or I suppose; ignoring what is there.

Al Gore indicated yesterday that we have between seven and twenty years before the polar ice caps melt. I'm not sure why this is page two information. It seems to me to be a problem that should be consciously addressed by everyone on the planet every day. But now, we think our leaders will solve these problems. Let me tell you this, I have had my share of problems with authority figures in my life, but now I respect them for what they are, as humans engaged in a tough job. But I do not expect them to solve anything that is everyones inherent planetary responsibility. We all make a hundred choices a day that are wrong in regard to preventing the ice caps from melting. For instance, how hard is it to bring our own shopping bags to the grocery store every single time we go shopping? Why is this a choice, why don't we just do the right thing? We don't just conveniently forget to brush our teeth every day, do we? No, because we want to keep them. This is a metaphor my partner has used, and I find it to be very provocative.

It is a question of maintenance. I think we live in a society, maybe even a world, that has not realized that maintenance is the essential practice of the human spectrum of activity. Maintenance is when we wash the dishes and clean out the car, but there is difference between reluctant maintenance and mindful maintenance, which is the difference between doing something right or doing something wrong. But this is not a popular idea. It is explored thoroughly in "Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance" and "Lila" both by Robert Pirsig. I have been moved by "Peace Is Every Step" by Thich Nhat Hanh as well, in regards to conceptualizing the act of cleaning or just doing work as an act of peace.

When we maintain, we have to stop and take stock of the situation, right? I wish the whole world could stop and take stock of our collective situation, but evidently this is not a possibility. Our society does not deem it important to shut down commerce on festivals or national days, in fact it is important to keep everything open in order to further the economy, grow the GDP, etc... Obviously if you consider the GDP or the economy as essentially works of the imagination, then you are not so worried about their situations. Some people consider wood chips to be the only real currency of value, others consider peace and happiness to be more valuable then money. If Kucinich had his way, we would have a Department of Peace instead of many Departments of War, Death, and Domination. Then maybe we could follow the example of Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuck and measure the success of our country in terms of GNH, Gross National Happiness.

Deep down

The word "depression" is complete shit. Depression is a much deeper feeling than simply feeling pushed down, or down in the dumps. Depression rips through the soul like a dark train, an apparently unstoppable and momentous force. Depression slaps you in the face and laughs, while you shiver and cower behind whatever defensive shield you can slap together to keep the foul-breathed demon from devouring you whole. Depression slices reality in half with a razor blade that leaves you trapped on an island of pain, while the rest of the world seems somehow to continue on as if life was merely a game. And you wish to God that you could feel normal for one minute, just to remember that it is possible to feel normal, to feel happy or peaceful.

Depression does not differentiate between fear, pain, and sorrow. You can fear that the past is going to come up out of the shallow waters and rip you to pieces, you can feel the agonizing hurt of losing someone you loved, you can have infinite remorse at the bad things that you have done, and nothing can convince you that you are worth love, that you can love, that love is offered to you. There is no love in depression, there is emptiness, and the emptiness is not kind or expansive.

You will wake up and your mind will attack you. You will be in the shower and your mind will attack you. You will be driving to pick up your honey and your mind will attack you. You heart will not lift from the pit. The pit isn't warm it is cold. And the coldness is of the darkness of death, and death lurks behind your ears.

You will be eating an ice cream cone and your mind will attack you. You will be at work and your mind will attack you. You will lay down to sleep and your mind will attack you. It will not let you go, it will push you until you do not know what to do.

How can you continue in this state? How can life feel so bad?

Why did my life get so bad? Why did I choose what I chose? Who can I turn to, where can I run?

You can say, "I am depressed." You can say it to yourself or to others. You can embellish it, "I am so goddamned depressed my head is going to explode." You can feel it in your bones. Depression. The earth is dragging you down. The sun is burning you up. Death beckons.

Death is there. You cannot ignore it. It lies in wait for everyone, for every living being. Death is not the enemy. There is no enemy. The pain has an origin, and it is craving. Suffering originates in desire. Desire creates suffering.

You have suffered, and you have caused suffering. I have suffered, and I have caused suffering. Everyone has. There is nothing to be done about it now. You can only go forward, you can only change your orientation toward everything.

I write all this because I am working out my depression, a depression that came upon me in the early hours of the morning. My dreams were dark, as was my heart, and I feared the future. I feared facing my past, facing my failings, facing how I have suffered and caused others to suffer. I can write about it now and it sounds somehow linear and understandable but inside me is a maelstrom of pain and fear. But it is manageable, and I have lived through enough suffering to understand that it will pass. But I fear my mistakes, I fear that I will screw up badly or have screwed up everything already, and nothing I can do can change anything, and I will suffer until the day I die.

And now I feel that I have found the seed of my fear, which is fear itself, especially fear I have for myself. I am not living for love, and I am not loving life, I am wallowing in fear for my future. It is as simple as that.

So depression sits on the bookshelf, staring wryly at me. I stare back defiantly.

"Have a got you by the tail?"

Depression grins and shakes its head.

"Dammit."

So here I sit, wondering what to do. At least I have the seed, now I can plant it and see if it grows.

What dreamworld may come

So strange. Last night I had strong dreams, after waking up and falling asleep again. The kind that linger in your mind like syrup on waffles. The content was wild and unimportant to you. But it just reminded me that this strange state we call dreaming is such a strong part of our lives. As children we are motivated and terrified by the dreams we have asleep and awake. As we grow older we are taught to disregard these dreams that we have, but in fact all we do is push them deep deep down into a box that we bury in our soul's garden.

And in fact what else drives us forth into that good night? What fuels our passions, our drive, our desires? What guides us in our waking hours? I believe we imagine that we have created our goals in life through logic, or spiritual guidance, or practical considerations, but really, when we examine our actions on a deeper mystical level, we will find that our dreams have guided us along ever since we can recall. And does a collective dream guide humanity along?

Buddha says to regard this material life of desires and pain like a dream. Jesus implies that we are to regard this earthly existences as something akin to a dream in which we will awake in heaven. Most mystics and shamans gain their insight and power in the dreamworld. Dreams arise from deep within the ocean of our spirit, showing us true reality and meaning that can't be comprehended by the waking self. Maybe dreams are the feminine side of consciousness, the floral neocortex enmeshed in our animal brains.

I'm just sitting here with my yerba mate(in which I have added dandelion root, a couple rosehips, almond milk, and butter)enjoying the process of waking up. My waking day will start soon. But why is that we consider our waking life to be more real then our sleeping, and why do we dismiss dreams as unimportant?

I think a lot Americans dismiss sleeping as just an activity undertaken to refuel the body, just as they view eating, and I believe that this notion is perhaps the main reason why we have such a low quality of life. Or maybe we have a high quality of consumer driven life, but we neglect that which matters most, our soul. Our soul takes in nourishment from the energy that we share or consume. When we eat food that is bad, like McDonalds, we consume so much harmful energy that it boggles the rational mind. I think our soul cringes and shrinks. Maybe most people are walking around with souls the size of an ants brain. In any case, when we neglect the deep yoga of healthy sleep, and the essential sustenance of dreams, we deteriorate in mind, body, and soul. I guess if you want to die as an empty husk of a human with a soul the size of an ants brain that is your choice. I'm impressed that so many people are taking up yoga and meditation these days, as well as eating organic, vegetable centered diets. But obviously these people want to feed their mind, body, and maybe their souls. I guess all it takes is intent.

Well, I just wanted to stress that I believe that dreams are as important to your soul as food is to your body. "Dream" is a word that can have many meanings. Mostly people think of a dream as something that occurs in your brain at night while you're sleeping, as well as something you hold in your heart until the day you can fulfill it. You can also have daydream, in which you imagine punching your boss or making out with a pretty girl. It's an amazing dremaworld out there. I think a lot of young people are supplanting their own organic dreamworld with a techno dreamworld created by corporations that would like you to stay in the safe and entertaining bubbles that they create, consuming as much of their products as you can without questioning why? Why do I need this burger or that new chip or this much hit points or whatever...It's almost as if we are in a war of the dreamworlds, in which computers are trying to take over our dreams, like in the Matrix. Yet I think it's more subtle and complex then that. Since we as the government have allowed corporations to act as humans, they have overpowered us. They have replaced human needs with their own never-ending hunger, like hungry ghosts. They take over technology created by human brains and redesign it so that it feeds their gigantic needs as money eaters, not ours as small individual plant eaters.

It sounds like maybe I'm going off the deep end here, but if you don't follow your dreams, what do you follow? My dream is that, someday, we will live in a society without multinational corporations that destroy the earth in order to feed their own greed. Obviously this is not every bodies dream. In fact, when I walk outside, it seems like no ones dream. But what dreamworld are you living in?

Enjoy your dreams.

The advantage of silence

By Andrew French

If you repeat something over and over again, someone will believe you. This seems to be the primary strategy of the political demagogues who moan and yelp at the press in theatrical outrage or indignation about this problem or that solution. It makes me feel empty, drained, mostly because it is such a false mode of communicating and acting. In my life I have searched for truth in communication and action, and when I see such false actions and hear such lies by people who have so much power, it makes me wonder if our world will ever truly be peaceful. Why do any of us try to say what is true when there is so much nonsense floating around the world? I don’t know, and so I give up sometimes.

But I know this; Silence speaks louder then words. A picture is worth more then a thousand words, and an action is worth more then a thousand pictures. This is something that is inherently knowable by innate intuition. We can go through life talking a big talk, but then we come upon the cliff of action, and if we don’t jump off, we’ve just been on a walk in the park. And I suppose some people are fine with a walk in the park, but I want to be more alive then that. I want to be part of the park, I want to know it intimately, sink my teeth into its fruits, and dig into its dirt. I don’t know why I want to do this, I just know I do. The linear thinking of western man pressures me to want to know the ”why”, but I don’t need to pressure the world to show me the “why”. The “why” isn’t knowable exactly, it seems. It is elusive as an observed particle.

The linear, or classical, mode of thinking permeates our lives subtly, yet all-pervasively. It clouds our thinking in every aspect of our human endeavors; family, friends, home, food, work, play, rest, exercise, art, laughter, gardens, disasters. Everything is described as having a beginning, middle, and end. Everything is thought to have a cause and effect. Everything or nothing revolves around you or me. Either way, our interests are groomed to orbit our egos, be they focused on materialism or self-sacrifice. But I feel like I’ve found something better, something the mystics have known for thousands of years. It is as simple as realizing that we are all connected. I realized this tangibly while I was in the shower the other day, that we are all the same, we are all one…not just us humans, but trees, whales, the air, the sun, the stars, the rocks. It is a simple truth constantly being re-realized by sentient beings throughout the ages. Classic linear thinking would have us believe that this personal enlightenment should lead us or society somewhere, such as freeing humankind from suffering, but this is just not the case. Suffering continues in the world unabated, regardless of the amount of enlightenment that exists in its societies (how do we measure this percentage?). There are many stories of a simple man or woman realizing that he is one with everything, or a god, and leading the people to worship him as the savior of mankind. But as contagious as this meme is, it is a foolhardy misunderstanding of this reintegration of the soul with the cosmos; to worship or be worshipped is not the answer. The whole point of enlightenment is to end the suffering that the separation from everything has caused us.

I grew up in an Evangelistic Christian tradition. This is a monotheistic religion that does not recognize the subjectivity of personal experience. It has strongly affected my sense of peace in this world. Over the past years, though, I have become a Buddhist, a Hindu, a pagan, a Taoist, an atheist, an agnostic, a mystic, a permaculturalist, an idiot, a musician, a cook, a terrible friend, a backpacker, and so on. But none of these titles really matter, nor do they define my essential being in this ever present moment. My thoughts about reality and life change every moment. In every moment are ten thousand more and so on and the infinity of the present does not allow one thing to hold true. Therefore I am never really one thing, or I am forever reinventing the one thing. In the classical mind (the small mind, the ego, the linear mind) lies the seed of suffering, and in the romantic mind (the big mind, the soul, the non-linear mind) lies the fruit of freedom. I have realized that these labels are neither good nor bad, they just are what they are. In a world that is not defined by the battle between good and evil, every period of contraction has an expansionistic flipside, and that is the eternal lesson our hearts, our breath, the tides, and every living thing teaches us freely.

It is easy for me to posit that existence is the only teacher available to show us the meaning of life because I do not have faith in anything that does not exist. My friends would tell me that I obviously have faith in something greater then the sum of all things in the universe, but maybe they wouldn’t be getting my point. By existence I mean everything that exists everywhere, and by faith I mean a belief in something that does not exist, or a trust in something that is promised by someone. As far as I can tell, the only thing promised by existence is the circular cycle of being born, living, dying, and being dead. The only thing completely obvious is that time never stops. Why would I need to pretend that there is more to reality then that? Perhaps someone would say, because these few facts of life sound bleak to me. Let me tell you what sounds bleak to me.

In the general monotheistic view of existence, we each have a soul that is created by God that can either be saved or damned after our physical bodies die. In this view, right off hand our soul is separated from our body. Then we are instructed to look at life as a linear story; the soul is created, the soul makes decisions and is judged by God for them, and then is sent either to hell or heaven for eternity. This is the bleakest story I have ever heard. But its bleakness is not why I reject it as a viable reality. No, I reject it as a viable reality because I have no faith, and existence has not taught me that this is the meaning of life.

Maybe I couldn’t be so flippant about the meaning of life if I had more troubles in my life. As it is, I’m fine. I have no big troubles, and I like my work. I like where I live and I like my friends and loved ones. I’m not doing anything special and I’m not making a lot of money. But I’m excited to build a house one day out of strawbales, cob, and wood and have friends and loved ones stay with me there. I’m excited to plant a big garden and nourish myself and my partner from the vegetables we harvest there. I’m excited to see the weather change and watch plants grow. I’m pretty simple. I like playing the guitar and sleeping.

Maybe if my partner had cancer and I had children that were unruly I would be more somber and angry at existence. Maybe then I would believe that the bleakest story ever told was the meaning of life, and that my only hope for peace would be to die and go to heaven. Then, up there in heaven, I could play guitar, sleep, and watch plants grow.

snow days in MN

I want to remember what it feels like to move, to get the heart pumping and the limbs swinging. After a long summer making a living as a landscaper, creating walls out of forty pound rocks, shoveling yard after cubic yard of aromatic bark mulch, my week or two of relaxation has distilled into boredom. I look outside and it’s snowing, something that would have moved me when I was ten. Where has that feeling gone? I grab my coat and boots and head out the door. Gotta get out of here. Outside, that’s the only reality, not this inside craziness. Stuffed up like a sardine, staring at screens. No, that’s not for me, bucko.
It’s somewhat chilly, but my high tech Patagonia coat is pretty much all I ever need down to twenty degrees or so. I’m a human furnace; I heat up easily with any amount of exertion. So soon I’m sweating, but its okay. A little sweat never hurt anybody, right? When the wind whips up under my shirt, it’s cold.
Half way around our loop, a three and a half mile circle around a wide part of the Mississippi, from Franklin down to Lake and back up. Usually east to west side.
Damn, the wind is biting my cheeks off. Should have grabbed a face mask.
Beauty mixed with breathing and exertion, car exhaust and irritation at my unstable footing. But I get there, slowly around.
So there it is, the warmth of an apartment after a winter excursion. That’s what I’m looking for, that’s the magic after the magic. Now I want to walk around Lake Superior, a polar explorer. I need to get out of the city, into the wild! But I settle back, eat some of the leftover refried beans from breakfast and hatch my plans in the comfort of home.

This is very important

"Google to Bid for Wireless Spectrum

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE – 6 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc. confirmed its plans to bid for a prized piece of the airwaves in an upcoming government auction, further underscoring the Internet search leader's determination to shake up the wireless market and plumb more profits from mobile phones.

Friday's announcement wasn't a bombshell because the Mountain View-based company previously signaled it might participate in the Federal Communications Commission auction scheduled to begin Jan. 24.

In a mild surprise, Google will enter the competition without a partner more experienced in the wireless industry.

Going it alone will be expensive and potentially risky, even for a company as rich and technologically adept as Google, which ended September with about $13 billion in cash.

The bidding for the swath of 700 megahertz spectrum that Google wants will start at $4.6 billion, with analysts predicting the final price will be substantially higher. Building out the network for national coverage might cost an additional $5 billion to $7.5 billion, based on estimates from Citigroup Global markets analyst Michael Rollins.

Lingering questions about how the possible wireless expansion might affect Google's finances and focus on its core Internet business threaten to weigh on its stock in the months ahead.

The uncertainty could last awhile since the winner of the airwaves auction might not be identified until March.

Google shares fell $4 to close at $693 in Friday trading.

The airwaves up for grabs are widely coveted because the frequencies travel long distances and easily penetrate walls — advantages that will require fewer radio towers while still promising better connections than other wireless networks. The spectrum is being freed up as part of the switch to digital television in February 2009.

Whoever wins the rights to the spectrum being eyed by Google must accommodate all types of phones and mobile software. Google lobbied the FCC to adopt the "open access" condition, arguing consumers shouldn't be restrained by current market restrictions that limit the kinds of handsets that work on wireless networks.

"We believe it's important to put our money where our principles are," Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said. "Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today's wireless world."

Google jolted the status quo earlier this month by unveiling plans for a new mobile software system called Android, which is designed to work on "smart" phones. The first devices with the software are expected to hit the market during the second half of next year.

Verizon Wireless, the second largest U.S. wireless carrier, countered Google's move by announcing plans earlier this week to open up its own network to other devices.

Google's decision to throw its hat into the ring for the wireless auction may be part of a strategy to turn the heat up even higher on Verizon and other major carriers such as AT&T Inc., said Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Derek Brown.

"Google is taking an aggressive stance that shows it's a legitimate threat to the entrenched players," Brown said. "They are clearly trying to stir the pot and are doing a pretty good job of it so far."

more here:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5glb-rGZ7YiaB1QeLt8bUOy6Tbo2gD8T88N604

theres wind in them there trees...silently the TV pulsates at me under duress, injecting radiowaves into my perforated skullbone
Jeremiah speaks to the fishes today, boils on the nose of Nostradamus
stay where you are, there isn't any transcendence in a computer game
a game you play at night with the pixel elves and the rotten gums, you rememember your mum, she gave you birth, your milk udder skid row demagogue speak&spell
Sarah under stars, the blood red angel of destruction is purple, made of hunks of beef
it's no better the drinking, whats better then drunking yourself to death

staring into a nostalgic ruin of anxious nihilism, one hope to crawl
back to the covers, under protection

more complete work area

So here is the workbench a little more complete. Let me tell you, secure your shit to your car. On the way home with the pegboard on Old Red the Stationwagon, half the board ripped off and careened into the road, barely missing smashing into the car behind me. So now I have a board that is ripped in half. Such is life.

I can't wait for turkey and mashed potatoes. You have to love life.

wandering wacko

My mind wanders. Over the last few weeks I have built a workbench, two small robots that don't work that well, I have contemplated starting a lamp repair business, I tried to build a small japanese style lamp, worked on repairing some broken chairs, made some shelves for our small apartment kitchen, cleaned, thought about growing mushrooms, almost built a grow light apparatus, worked on some music, and now I'm going to make some small alcohol stoves for backpacking.

My mind never quits. It drives me crazy sometimes, and today I realized that I am happy that I found permaculture because otherwise I would be all over the place. Luckily, the permaculture principles and ideas ground my higher flights of fancy and give me a focus for my creativity and work.

Today I waited in a car jam for about an hour at the Mall of America to recycle an old TV for free.

groceries

Send the missus out for groceries and she comes back with vegetables, send me out and I come back with organic oreos, free range ground beef, kombucha, thai kettle chips, a bag of onions, organic french fries, and monterey jack cheese.

dream deep

I dreamt of Sunshine last night.

She was happy and healthy, and we hung around the old town and talked and enjoyed each others company. It was a sad and cathartic dream. It was good to be able to hang out with her again, but I wish it was in real life. It is hard to let her go, she was one of the only ones who could understand certain things.

The weather has changed and the dark winter comes. Dreams become more vivid after All Hallows Eve.

When someone dies it's like a giant mistake, but like every mistake it brings new solutions to old problems. All our old preconceptions must die before we can wake from ignorance. But sometimes it doesn't make any sense to wake up.

barebones

We checked out the Barebones puppetry extravaganza again this year and I felt like it was one of the best yet. It is in the vein of the Mayday festival put on by Heart of the Beast, yet completely different.

"As Muck Would Have It

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Oct 27, 2007 - Oct 31, 2007
Barebones Productions presents the 14th Annual Outdoor Puppet Extravaganza ....the HALLOWEEN SHOW you've come to know and love.

This year's show begins with on the banks of the river where revelers and charlatans mistakenly conjure the spirits of the Mississippi River. Audiences are guided down a ghostly trail to an old river town. The arrival of Huck and Jim (from Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) causes a town controversy from which the two have to flee. From there we follow their adventures down the river encountering wildlife, spirits, tourists and river history."

I enjoy the themes of these giant puppet shows, they always seem to resonate with a deep mythopetical vein of nonconsumer reality that lies deep within. Maybe I will help nect year, but more likely I will volunteer at HOBT for MAyday. I love puppets.

Come see our giant toxic stew!
1,500 miles wide, floating in the Pacific, made of all your plastic crap. Bring the kids!

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, October 26, 2007


Because nothing makes you feel better about being a living, breathing, plastic-licking human on this planet today than the thought of a massive, eternal, slowly swirling vortex of noxious garbage the size of a continent and the shape of death itself, just floating out there in the middle of the Pacific ocean, mocking life, humanity, God. Mmm, gloomy.

Have you heard? Did you see? It's called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (or Pacific Trash Vortex, among other awesome nicknames) and it's a staggering phenomenon indeed and after reading up on it, I fully believe we must now revise our master list. Because surely this thing must be one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, the grand sociocultural melting pot of our time. Except for the fact that it's, you know, revolting.

Is it not true? Is there anything more impressive than the idea that you can, say, toss away your little Calistoga bottle or your plastic Safeway bag or your meth syringe or old iPod case or cigarette lighter or DVD wrapper here, and it will somehow, through a miraculous combination of time and wind and wastefulness and the flow of nature's beautiful eternal pulsing rhythms, wend its way 1,000 miles out to sea and then, well, just swirl around, slowly breaking apart and poisoning all life surrounding it and joining with the mountains of other plastic crap spewed out from our friends and enemies and neighboring nations worldwide? Is this not, in its way, profoundly moving? You bet it is.

But oh holy hell, it certainly is impressive. At least 1,500 miles wide (give or take, could be much larger, no one's quite sure because it's a bit difficult to measure), 30 meters deep, 80 percent plastic, and 100 percent appalling. Truly, there is nothing else quite like it on Earth.

Oh sure, we've all heard about the epic heaps of garbage we pack away on land, those reeking gaseous toxic rat-infested landfills the size of the Grand Canyon that dot our landscape like the devil's own acne, so poisonous and so foul and so deadly to all life that we have to find holes miles away from human life just to make it bearable.

The rest is here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2007/10/26/notes102607.DTL

What is your formula?

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge226.html#formulae

Kucinich empties his pockets for Colbert

Woman cited for yelling obscenities in her home; could be jailed, fined

Associated Press

Last update: October 16, 2007 – 11:23 AM

SCRANTON, Pa. — Talk about a potty mouth; A Scranton woman who allegedly shouted profanities at her overflowing toilet within earshot of a neighbor was cited for disorderly conduct, authorities said.

Dawn Herb could face up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $300.

"It doesn't make any sense. I was in my house. It's not like I was outside or drunk,'' Herb told The Times-Tribune of Scranton. "The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling (for my daughter) to get the mop.''

Herb doesn't recall exactly what she said, but she admitted letting more than a few choice words fly near an open bathroom window Thursday night.

Her next-door neighbor, a city police officer who was off-duty at the time, asked her to keep it down, police said. When she continued, the officer called police.

Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Philadelphia, took issue with the citation.

"You can't prosecute somebody for swearing at a cop or a toilet,'' she said.

http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1488089.html

New York City Is One of the Biggest Destroyers of the Amazon Rainforest

New York City Is One of the Biggest Destroyers of the Amazon Rainforest

By Robert Jereski, AlterNet. Posted October 15, 2007.

New York City's parks department is America's biggest destroyer of Amazonian rain forest, and Mayor Bloomberg isn't doing much to stop it

If you're riding the "L" in Chicago or taking a stroll down the boardwalks of Greenport, Long Island, or Santa Monica, Calif., you are connected to an international movement away from the most destructive use of the world's remaining rainforests -- industrial timber extraction. Almost two decades of environmental advocacy has shown significant gains: the park benches in Los Angeles are made from locally sourced wood, the subway ties under Chicago's "L" train and the boardwalks at the Saw Mill River Audubon wetlands preserves are made from recycled plastic lumber. Millions of acres of pristine rain forests are no longer being felled so Americans can park our asses or wipe our feet on the world's trees.

But for New Yorkers, many pleasant experiences the city has to offer bring us unwittingly closer to the obliteration of the most ecologically dynamic part of the world -- the Amazonian rain forest.

Where do those miles and miles of wooden boardwalks, benches and handrails on Coney Island and Hudson River Park come from? What about the bench you lounge on, sipping coffee in a quiet corner of Central Park? According to environmental scientist Tim Keating, New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation is the biggest destroyer of rain forests in America and has been for years. So much for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's new "green" persona.

http://alternet.org/environment/64562/?page=1

on a Sunday

Wedding is over...went well-all the work went toward a flawless production, except when the beer was regulated

tired-first weekend to ourselves-probably need to spend it cleaning as usual.
my hands keep falling asleep at night, what does this mean? worried for my health as usual.

time to get rid of old junk
new stuff

the car slowly disintegrates-one day we'll need a new one

it was a dark and stormy morning.

wishlist

In order to streamline the process of philanthropic action taken toward me, I have added a wishlist to my profile so that anyone and everyone can see what I am wishing for at this moment. Check out my profile to see this amazing list.

weekend...before wedding-organize music
everything seems...to be dirty or misplaced
your breath is terrible-some bathrooms aren't ventilated...don't stick that on me
alone for a time, nothing seems to exist-honestly nobody is home

sick, I watch a movie with the stand-by comforts-no comfort
no nothing
"Perfume" (murderer), exposition of art as obsession
obsession w/ object-medium
medium-translator of states/changes
I-ching throws pit of blood at me-synchronicity
three strangers throw up at a party
stuck in sand/mud/blood

music-the chords perform what? what is the niche?
the labyrinth chases me around in circles
money thoughts never stop
friends drift away for some reason
for no reason-my apathy which is fear-will it rain today?

The Good Life

What is the secret to a successful and good life? I am looking for your input.

didactic reduction

Man, I wish I could be less didactic. I don't think I know more then most, it just sounds like I do. But anyway, I wrote this here:

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/discuss/342/P120/

It’s raining outside and I have the day off of work, so I felt like perusing this forum, otherwise I would probably not do so. I read Janisse Ray’s article awhile ago, so I only remember the gist of the piece. After reading this entire comment section it was clear to me that these comment sections always seem to start so sweetly, with people’s general reactions to the articles, and then degenerate into extremely long missives from those with way too much time on their hands. It is disheartening.

I like writing, though, and reading as well, but obviously the proof is in the pudding. You can say any stupid outrageous intelligent brilliant thing you want, and it just doesn’t matter until an action is taken on behalf of the words you write or the thoughts you think. I think most people inherently know this. So why so much baloney in these forums, comment sections, and listservs? What a waste of energy. And the only way to save the world is to save energy, right?

So my particular response to this article and others like it is one of irritation at the actual smallness of the subject, that we are discussing such ridiculously small problems that can be solved quite easily if anybody actually cared. I’m not saying that people don’t, I’m saying it seems like people don’t. Industrialized people, anyway.

In all actuality, you do not have to drive anywhere or use the internet or buy disposable razor blades from Target or shower every day (I do because I’m a landscaper..:)but we all choose to do one or more stupid things every day because we have been programmed since we were infants to feel like these consumerist actions are what makes us happy, they are what makes us human almost! Good gracious, how could we relax after work without a movie and some popcorn? How could we have a good Christmas without a ham and the newest video game system? Our consumption of junk and apathy towards the earth is what fuels our rampant wasting of many different types of energy. Too me, looking around at our culture, is shocking and amazing. But of course, I can only change myself, so I try to do that in small steps. I don’t succeed all the time, but so what?

Permaculture is one system that will allow human beings to live fully and deliciously on this planet. There are other systems, but there are no technological fixes left when the nonrenewable resources that fuel the machine become too expensive to mine, or runs out. In any case, the small fragment of humanity that makes up the industrialized nations will probably have live like the other three fourths of the world. That’s the real picture of the future, not this desperate clinging of the bourgeoisie to the last vestiges of the middle class suburban lifestyle of comfort and waste.

I’m a country boy living in the big city and I really appreciate both worlds, but the city isn’t sustainable in the long run in my view, at least in the urban centers. But I do not think that a retreat to the country to live a back-to-the-land lifestyle is sustainable either. Basically the city and the country mirror each other, and a million possible permutations exist across the world. I think that as an individual, it is up to me to find and build a community that is sustainable. That is all I can do and any more thought on the subject seems counterproductive and intellectually smug.

There was a particular idea that popped up in this forum, about how the BIG QUESTION was CAN IT SCALE, or something like that. I have gotten that question from any number of intelligent people as a response to my ideas about permaculture and sustainability. I want to say, YES! Of course it can scale. But nobody has tried it, so how the hell do we know for sure? What a ridiculous question, in some ways. Is a small garden less important because it can’t be recreated on giant scale? I honestly don’t even know where people’s heads are at when they ask this question...How has our present system of intensive monocropping been anything but bad? For us and for the earth? We’re fatter and the earth is sicker.

Saying you’re an environmentalist or selling a green or eco product means nothing anymore. The word “organic” has been co-opted and now costs farmers thousands of dollar just to be able to use it. All that counts is every little thing you do. One commentator said that a movement that asks you to consider every action you take wouldn’t attract many people, or something to that effect, but look at Buddhism. It’s pretty popular. And in an case, that is all we can do as humans, otherwise we’re just blindly passing though life into death, ruled by our passions, fears, and ignorance.

Namaste

cosmic monkey is amazed

The world is amazing. Our small planet with its molten core and rocky crust, small layer of life filled with complexity unimaginable, whirling gases creating weather that topples forests and wears down mountains, oceans without end. But the universe is mind blowing.

Take a moment to check out these pictures, and wonder at your universe.

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/

strange sleep patterns, or lack thereof. whining chainsaws outside my home
cutting down trees that are sickened by disease,
why don't they do this somewhere else-where disease is rampant-where sickness has taken hold
love love love-the dreams I had last night were full
of broken promises and strange fears
Prince rocked out and I was chased by the slow motion horror that chopped off my ear
I woke up gasping for breath
couldn't breathe
noises everywhere out in the home
thought: it is time for a very expensive and comfortable bed

finishing up a job, I want to go out to eat lunch
needing to meet with friends: companionship is optional by not irrational
drunken angers are nothing but pent up energy
dammed flows, catchments overflowing
don't waste the resources! I say to myself as consistently as possible
angry angels are nothing but shards of glass

sometimes, usually
life kicks you in the crotch and you have to slowly recover
a year, a day, never
but always

So it's time to ease off the addictions, back toward the grotto
even if the pain in the body won't go away
Radiohead prances past my ears-lalala lala lala la
so take a break, break a snack open
it seems that it is going to be a long ride

a few more

my kind of guy