WEAVING NEW MIRACLES

WEAVING NEW MIRACLES

It's strange yet uplifting how life has a way of allowing one to appreciate its layers if we're just paying attention.

Over all the years I've lived here "on the farm" I've always been working, doing my project management thing away from home base and Karen has been the one to have spent the lion's share of time here as a working and studying artist in a home studio.

Consequently I never got to spend that time with any real day-to-day continuity to see the subtlety of nature and little miracles unfolding around me every day.

I've been watching the weavers, the beautiful golden masked ones making new nests for potential partners only to have the mama bird reject a sterling homebuilding effort for reasons known only to her. Tirelessly, the male will chatter to her, accept the verdict and begin the process from scratch on another likely branch and very often in a completely different tree.

But although I have witnessed this process off and on many times, I've never actually seen the relationship drama unfold between the birds themselves; the "conversations," the inspections, the obvious condemnation by the project manager on structural or aesthetic grounds and the resignation of the architect-builder when he is compelled, by unwritten contract, to source a new site for construction to recommence. And that, I thought, would be that - but it isn't.

Once the dwelling has been erected on site B, daddy weaver systematically demolishes the condemned building on site A. There's a whole complex dynamic on the go here. It's sublime to behold.

Yet other weavers are making nests in trees I only just realised had become big and tall enough to safely accommodate them, trees that were nonexistent when we moved here in 2004. This became even more apparent to me when I recently reviewed an old Google Earth map I'd used back then to plot the distance of our perimeter fence. The landscape was almost bleak in comparison to what's grown here in ten years, not least of which has been my spirit and absolute love of this beautiful place. I still get teary whenever I write about it.

I recall the same sensation overwhelming me in autumn then winter when I see the grass yellowing, thinning out and plants shedding their summer foliage - it's akin to artistic self-doubt - will the place ever be beautiful again? Will it recover? What if it doesn't? 

Will I ever be able to paint with words again? Will I find an audience? Will I be good enough to find employment in Australia? What if...?

And lo, the seasons turn, the rains fall, the paradise that is this place I am to leave behind, blossoms into new life, relationships and adventure and my faith in everything is restored, including myself.

And more than anything I experience sublime joy and gratitude for this eternal upliftment into infinite potential.

Whether there be some unseen divine hand guiding facets of life that we will never truly comprehend or whether this is just the great unfolding of an evolutionary yet cyclical order of things, I think the Native American view of observing the primary creative force of the universe through the natural world is perhaps the way it strikes a chord within me as the miraculous presents itself to me every single day of my life when I am savvy enough to experience it.

And now - other, strange, beautiful miracles await to be discovered anew.

I cannot wait. 

FREEDOM...?

Someone asked "what is freedom?" and it appeared that nobody wanted to address the question as it doesn't really have a singular, cogent answer.

And the context in point pertained to "political" freedom.

And that subjectively means different things to people but even so, it's as fuzzy as all hell.

The US Constitution supposedly defines, enshrines and is geared to protect the individual and collective freedom of its citizens through this mechanism we euphemistically call democracy. 

The constitution of my own current country of residence, South Africa,  claims a similar ideology.

And in this context, I guess the most pertinent approach to an answer is unfortunately through comparison - which political system offers its citizens the most "freedom?"

It would be a fascinating find (I'm sure it's been done many times) to come across a spreadsheet showing, by country, what freedoms and restrictions are currently enjoyed by citizens across the world.

And the dilution of this analogy is, as with South Africa, simply: are the majority of our citizens "better off" (more free) than they were under the previous system or in the case in point: are we more "free" in our democracies than those who lived and/or still live communistically? In the conversation where this was raised by an American friend, Cuba was the case in point, understandably, given its geographical proximity and connection with the US. Then there's the Eastern version of communism...another animal entirely.

However, it's a simple question with, undoubtedly, a very convoluted and complex answer.

Using South Africa as an example (I know this dynamic having lived here for over 40 years): the majority of South Africans now enjoy (constitutionally, at least) freedom from discrimination based on their ethnicity (we know in reality that ideology doesn't necessarily translate into desired behaviour, however, that now thankfully pertains only to radical minorities). South Africans are free to say what they want about anybody and anything publicly without ending up in detention as long as what's being said doesn't constitute "hate speech."

We're free to practice any religious expression and, it has to be said, there's currently possibly more opposition here toward the Jewish community (Gaza/Palestine situation primarily) than Muslims which is probably unique in Western democracies, which South Africa, to some degree, purports to be.

So without a blow-by-blow analysis of our theoretical constitution versus its practical implementation, suffice to say that yes, South Africans are seemingly more free than they've ever been. 

But it's bogus. 

If one looks at the prevalent situation here as far as violent crime goes, the majority of middle-class suburban South Africa exists behind walls topped with electrified fences in estates that are policed by armed private security companies, such as the one inhabited by Oscar Pistorius and his erstwhile girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. So the illusion of safety from the threat of crime is just that - a state of mind. Ironically, Reeva was murdered by one of the trusted members of the inner circle not by some marauding thief from the nasty "outside world."

However you dice it and serve it though: South Africans still live in fear. Almost 200 women are raped every day in this country while the current daily murder trend is around 47. 

So as far as freedom from crime and fear is concerned it really doesn't seem valid.

Freedom is thus an abstract constitutional concept defined by the need, certainly for millions, to exist in gated, secure communities because they believe it isn't safe to live in any other way. That's not freedom. It's a lifestyle, sure. But it ain't freedom.

However, we're not hysterically psychologically hogtied by media hype over things like Ebola as people in the US seemingly are, given the sensationalistic and fearmongering exposure seen in the mainstream media there. South Africans aren't as readily duped by those strategies. No, we are fearful of other more localised and mundane things such as carjackings, rape, murder and home invasions - all insanely prevalent and beyond anything that should be deemed acceptable or normal. Yet that's life in South Africa.

More insidiously, we also have similar cyber-eavesdropping legislation here as in UK, US, certain countries in Europe, Australia etc. 

The rampant corruption that obtains starts at the highest office in the country and there is no accountability even when people are caught. 

The judicial system is a farce and readily influenced by those with power and/or money. 

Whistleblowers are also now being accorded pariah status (as in US, UK, Australia) to reduce criticism of state, again such once-noble and patriotic acts being disingenuously packaged as threats  to national security.

There's no Patriot Act though and a much more benign version of Homeland Security here...so far. 

We can harvest rainwater freely, live off the grid if we so choose but we do have zero-tolerance militant police who brook no compromise if you're a person of interest.

There is much less chance of secret detention without trial now, however, there's no official subversive element that opposes government (such as the outlawed ANC did back in the day with the Nat government). If such movements had to surface, I would bet there would be the same level of paranoia and dirty tricks to emerge as did under apartheid and people would end up in our own local Guantanamo... maybe Gautengamo..?

So how does communism front up to that?

Does your constitution cater for and/or protect you under the listed circumstances:

Can you say what you want anywhere any time? 

Can you create a political party to oppose the incumbent regime without being fatally persecuted?

Does your vote actually count for anything? 

Are you formally restricted in your desire to procreate?

Will your religious convictions cause you to be persecuted, especially if you're Muslim or not a follower of the "state" religion? (Israel springs to mind)

Does your country still enforce the death penalty? And if so, what "crimes" merit that sentence? 

Or are you in a (theoretically) more morally evolved country that doesn't enforce capital punishment? 

Are you, as a minority, persecuted?

Are you, by dint of your sexual persuasion or gender, persecuted?

Are you free to harvest natural elements and resources and live off the national grid without being persecuted?

Is your personal privacy sacrosanct as far as surveillance is concerned? 

Is your sovereignty recognised by all other "free" countries globally?

Does your nationality prejudice you in any way and restrict your ability to travel abroad?

How does government policy affect your ability to produce food sustainably and idependently?

It's all comparative really and begs the question: is covert hegemony, such as exists in the US, South Africa etc. where personal freedom is hobbled by subversive legislation disingenuously presented as augmenting our safety, more just and humane than the dictatorship that overtly outlaws any criticism of state?

In both cases, we're still looking over our shoulders...

The other question: do we exist in a country where playing the system can be construed as a work in progress and we can still collectively bring pressure to bear against government and make changes through civil society  / disobedience without resorting to violent revolution or fearing for our personal safety and freedom by having dissident views?

So, what is freedom really?

For me: Living without fear. And additionally living in joy. And being able to share love regardless of circumstance or the influence of any man-made policy designed to control our behaviour.

We don't have to be angst-ridden or cynical or be strapping explosives to our chests or brandishing placards on Wall Street or convincing others of our beliefs to be making a difference or to be free. But we do have to be actively involved in the process in some way that will help to ensure that we bring about those conditions through peaceful change.

THE AGE OF ABBREVIATION

The age of virtual instant access may well be the contemporary cultural trend where our archaic collectables, mementos - call them what you will - seem redundant in the eyes of the pubescent thumb-texting technocrats, but with the supplanting of these tactile items (greeting cards, books, magazines, records/CD's etc.) by what's "accessible" in the cloud, ownership has fundamentally changed and I would argue, nuance has died. 

It isn't that hard to accept the world is an evolving, dynamic environment but I believe it to be fallacious to simply accept that technological advancement is by default an anthropocentric improvement. It's a change unarguably but it's only better from a time, size and convenience perspective. And if those are the precepts whereby we validate our existence then by all means we've achieved heaven on Earth - we've arrived. I elect to think otherwise without denying myself the use of technological tools. The untrendy concept of "balance" springs to mind. 

However, the "use it or lose it" premise most certainly does apply here. If less of something is being consumed, usually through the aggressive marketing of the online equivalent, then the tactile version begins to dwindle until it becomes an esoteric (in the original sense of the word) commodity and a specialist niche market evolves from that. Literature is the most obvious example. I'm a writer and I selfishly advocate the advancement of eBooks certainly, but a tablet will never feel better in my hands than a paperback or a coffee table book still does. And you will never experience the smell or the energy of the book unless that too will be interfaced via our handheld devices some time in the future. I suspend any astonishment in this area - I'm sure it will be done. 

With the advent of an electronically generated and maintained pool of data-resourcing, i.e. The Internet, we have been reprogrammed to think in an entirely different way and, I would posit, think less about individual problem solving and summarily hand that power over to the gods of cyberspace who even go as far as to evaluate where we are, what we've asked before and what we historically like to do in this space so they can algorithmically predict what we're going to ask this time around. And chances are we'll allow our search engine to do that for us too while they're algorithmically hinting at what others who bought this also bought. 

I had a spat online just yesterday with someone who wrote a post which, without the categorisation, labelling and stereotyping of groups of people, made absolutely no sense. Remove all the labels and the comment had no point. And that's what big brother does "for" us - categorises us into target consumer groups. That's what it boils down to. 

Our education system is not designed to create original thinkers who will trailblaze new pathways for the overarching benefit of humankind, where the majority will become high-powered decision-makers; the whole system is geared toward dumbing the rest of them down while simultaneously producing consumers. If we had a system that augmented the intelligence and worldliness of the masses, the population would become empowered and the elitist regimes that control everything would become redundant. It's our perceived yet illusory dependence on those we've elected and the technology they sell us that maintains us in this ongoing state of acquiescence. 

We haven't yet figured out the real evolutionary paradigm that's most powerful of all - there is strength in numbers and collective choices dictate our future. As passive consumers we don't realise or exercise that power - we're too busy handing it over via another handy cloud app that frees up more space in our home and saves us from leaving the house while the competitive distraction of sports and reality TV oozes from our screens, interspersed with massive doses of fear-laden newscasts running on repeat looping. 

This is how we elect to become informed. This is how we interface with others for the most part too. Conveniently. 

A fantastic meme I saw the other day said simply: stop the glorification of busy. 

And that's it in a nutshell. While we may be able to produce and procure things more efficiently than ever before, it's paradoxically bizarre don't you think that we've got so little time on our hands? Not really. Not when we fill up all the space and time we should have available to us with our constant link to everything through devices and IC technology. We are consumed with inane distraction because everyone else is doing it and "it's what's trending."

When the old fashioned businessman re-read the letter his secretary had typed for him, signed it, handed it back to her so it could be snail-mailed to the respondent, he generally phoned the client and arranged to have lunch or meet face to face while the wheels of non-instant access chugged along. There was time for other stuff too and if he was out of the office he was pretty much unreachable. Yet shit still got done and it got done properly albeit with less stress and in a longer timeline. So what? Nowadays, if you're not at your desk, they'll try the mobile. If you don't answer that, they'll text you or see if you're online somewhere else and message your through that vehicle. What they don't get or accept is that you might want to be unavailable. 

But here's the thing - it's okay for someone to be unreachable. The world does not come to an end if you don't have an answer within twelve nanoseconds of your desirous urge becoming manifest. 

We might have arguably better technology but that doesn't make us smarter - it only makes the devices smarter and as the devices become smarter we become dumber and more acquiescent while we believe that we're too busy for anything really - even reading to the end of an email or having the time to read a book. Who reads when you can skim and get the gist of it? Point being, the gist is what the consumers deem workable but those writing the stuff we skim, know the nuance and the devil to be in the details and that's the place the drones never look until it's too late. 

We may have less and less need for physical "clutter" when we can simply download or stream 1's and 0's to see or hear something that once we held in our hands or placed in a playback device but unless we have a backup somewhere that resides within our physical domain and we don't need a licence to validate the information, we don't actually own it. 

I love technology. 

As a tool. 

But the system is no longer a tool, the roles are reversed and through our total reliance on it, we become the system's bitch. 

So party on, bitches! 

I'd still rather have collectables and tactile stuff that reminds me of times and places as well as the now and I'd like to think I'll always have time to go for a walk with my wife. Those are important things in my life and I own them. 

As they said once upon a time in the Orange Free State: nothing is that important that it can't wait two weeks... 

Amen to that. I'm relearning that ideal and I like it. 

#ODETOROBINWILLIAMS

ODE TO ROBIN WILLIAMS
Oh, Mork! Our Peter Pan has left
Leaving the world, forlorn, bereft.
My captain, oh my captain, why
Depart this world with no goodbye?
No Doubtfire, Goodnight Vietnam
We know you always gave a damn.
There's no Patch Adams red nosed face
Will heal our hurt or take your place.
Aladdin's genie, give us one
A single wish for our favourite son
Our Bicentennial Man can't go
No Death To Smoochy, no, no, no.
Our Garp, our Flubber can't be gone
The Popeye, Jack show must go on.
What dreams may come, you were a dream come true
Our best old dog and we will so miss you.
You'll always be our fisher king,
The greatest dad, you magic thing.
Frenetic, funny, on the ball
You mocked them one, you mocked them all.
The world has lost a special man
Which seems a really shitty plan
While we were laughing at your stuff
We'd no idea you'd had enough
Your soul was ours, you laid it bare
Yet we failed to see your own despair.
If you'd only asked, made a little fuss
We'd have helped you through as you did for us.
While we wept with mirth as you played the clown,
I've this feeling that we let you down.
And that's the saddest thing of all
In the laughter we never heard your call.

Brigit Strawbridge: Mass Insect Extinction; the Elephant in the Room?

Brigit Strawbridge: Mass Insect Extinction; the Elephant in the Room? 

THE PALESTINE PARADOX

The ultimate paradox has to be what Israel continues to do in Palestine. It is the most profound case of collective cognitive dissonance in the universe.

Illusory power driven by innate insecurity is what has more chance of destroying true Judaism than coexisting in an open state which practices religious freedom and tolerance. 

Hamas suffers from the same delusion. 

No belief system or culture has any chance of long term sustainability if it is forced on people through conflict. 

What is really being defended here?

A MESSAGE FROM THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE

By dint of humankind's self-proclaimed custodianship of the planet as the supreme species, we rate ourselves more advanced and intelligent than any other creature with whom we purportedly share the rock.

Ergo: we should have some idea of how to make shit work by now. Sadly, when it comes to our much vaunted egotistical intelligence, we aren't really evolved at all.

Some three thousand years after the birth of mainstream religion (some admittedly came a bit later and many belief systems were extant long before that), we still cannot agree on anything pertaining to what that actually means.

We ostensibly agree (for those who do believe) that there is one supreme divine deity yet we have concocted books that interpret what that means exactly as there is a bunch of real estate involved and divine decrees which appear in some books but not in others.

These religious manuals were written by a host of people back in the day and it seems that this one deity on whom the works were all allegedly based had a real problem communicating its intentions unambiguously which seems rather odd for an all-seeing, omnipresent, omnipotent entity unless there was a mischievous intention behind it all. Who knows? Maybe there's an apocryphal Book Of Goofy still lurking undiscovered in a cave at Qumran that will put it all into context - the world was just a crazy joke and we keep missing the punchline.

Imagine for a moment that you were the Supreme Deity, creator of the universe and everything in it and you wanted to give these talking monkeys you'd just made some form of survival guide for their time on the planet....

Wouldn't you write one manual in the plainest, unambiguous manner and ensure that everyone understood its meaning? Hell, you wouldn't even have to use language or words - you could just program it into their DNA... but as 99% of it is supposedly "junk" anyway, maybe a few thousand years of ignoring our innate higher nature has just got that bit of junk switched off...

Instead, it is claimed, I supposedly wrote a manual for the Jews, a manual for the Buddhists, a manual for the Muslims, a manual for the Christians, one for the Sufis et-al? Why?

If I'd wanted to do that, I'd have made one for the scientists too just to show them that the divine order of things actually does conform to a logical, explicable arrangement - it's just that they haven't necessarily made the equipment to understand or measure it all just yet...but keep looking - oh and tell that Dawkins bloke to cheer up a bit, please.

That's what I would've done if I'd got the job as Supreme Creator of life, the universe and everything - made one book that explained everything and made it very plain that creating different sets of rules and interpretations and using different manuals to further your own loaded agendas wasn't in the interest of acknowledging the single deity nor was it ingenuous in any manner or form.

I didn't say that this lot was entitled to that real estate because I thought they were my finest work... Lucifer and the other angels were actually my finest work and look what happened to them...

Some clever human said at some point that with great power comes great responsibility and that's been the problem with you humans from the get-go - you've never taken responsibility for your own business and deeds - always fobbed it off on me...or that other handy scapegoat - the devil...as if that was an opposing force to the creator of the universe...pfffffftttttt.....

You lot decided to write your own books, claim they were my doing and then beat the shit out of each other when these interpretive manuscripts failed to convince your neighbours that they were doing it wrong when their own manual said otherwise. Can't you see the circular argument that's in play here? No? 

Hmmmmm....

So if you all still agree that I'm the ultimate judge of humankind let me say this - what a bunch of stupid, egocentric morons you are expecting multiple sets of human-contrived dogma to work when they're simply designed to highlight your differences and place one contrived set of beliefs over another.

Rather take all of those books, see where the common ground is and delete all the other stuff that doesn't apply - y'know the stuff that says your mob are better than this or that mob.

Here's the cold, hard reality - none of you are chosen and conversely you all are - and ultimately no matter which strand of life's infinite  spider web you choose to walk along, you are all going to the middle point (whatever that means to you - death, ascension, oblivion, nothing, nirvana, whatever...) and the strands of the web are all linked and validated by a common spiral strand that holds it all together.

If I was to describe that common thread in your language, I'd call it love - it's the universal glue that keeps it all in place.

And after so many thousand years of proving to yourselves that fear and war and acrimony serve no higher purpose but only sow the seeds of discontent and destruction, don't you think that by now you should have learned that this self-serving, fear-based, materialistic, man-made religious bigotry isn't a constructive way forward?

You haven't?

Well, all I can say is that you should perhaps go back to the manual and read it again properly. Not the one that your own brand of manipulators wrote - the one that I imprinted in your heart and that speaks only one common language - the language of love.

It's really simple... 

Try it. It even feels nice.

And there will be no divine smiting involved at all if you decide to love your fellow planetary colleagues - smiting too is the domain of humankind. There will be only good consequences...

I don't know how else to put it really.

And if you don't believe in me, that's also fine - just be kind no matter what. 

You don't have to be a happy-clapper to be a nice person - it's a choice - yours.

May you all one day go in peace and love. That day could be today.

Signed

The Great Architect of the Universe, The Big Bang, God, Allah, Yahweh, Goddess, Wakan Tanka, It, Collective Consciousness, Nothing, Everything, 42, Your Conscience, Morality etc.

GRAMMATICALLY SPEAKING...

There was this:

Which led to this:

Which resulted in this:

Which means I give up....

There is no hope. 

We're doomed. 

OPERATION DUIKER DELIVERY

The small zinc dam on our property, calm, serene and a haven for birds, frogs and other diverse creatures. Until this morning that is...

I was chilling in bed, had just finished a deep meditation, had spoken to my darling wife and was finishing off my tea when the mobile buzzed into life. Caller ID - Johannes, our gardener.  

Strange, I thought. It's well after 8 - he should be here. 

"Yes, Johannes," I said. "What's happening?"

"Hello, sir," he replied, ever polite. "I've got the small bog here..."

"The what?" I said, bamboozled. "I don't understand..."

"The small bog, sir," he patiently repeated. 

"I don't understand what you're saying," I responded. "Are you here?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll find you."

And so saying I leapt out of bed, hauled on my takkies and shorts, opened blinds, switched off lights and discovered that the front door had been open all night. Oh well...

That must be a sign, I thought. Let me head in that direction. 

So I trudged off through the front garden, noticing that the gate to the dam path was open. 

He must be close by. 

And then I heard it. A strange noise that didn't belong in the dam. A plaintive bleating accompanied by erratic splashing. 

Shit! The little duiker was in the dam, trapped in the shade cloth netting I'd installed there to shelter the fish. 

The small bog... The small BOK. Oh shit! 

"Johannes!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. The chop had gone to find me but lickety spit he arrived back at a gallop. By the time he'd reached the pump enclosure, I was stripped to my underpants and clambering over the dam wall. 

"Get in!" I holler at him. "It will need both of us!"

"Get IN, sir?" he warbled very nervously. 

"Get the fuck in the water!" I said quite calmly and so he starts to whip off the keks. 

By that stage I was halfway across the dam with the water level just high enough to chill my nuts to raisin sized pods. Fuck, it was cold. 

The terrified little buck was thrashing even more strenuously at my approach but it was evident he was very weak. I reached him, noting that his head had penetrated the netting and he was locked there, midway up his neck unable to go backward or forward. Or so I thought. My closeness spurred him into one last surge and he broke free from the netting and began a frantic doggy paddle around the perimeter of the dam away from me. 

"Cut him off," I said to Johannes who was by now immersed up to his nads as well and looking none too pleased at this turn of events. 

We steered the little guy toward the lilies but he flitted past me only to entangle himself in the shade netting once again, this time by the horns. 

I grabbed him, twisted him loose then we were both manhandling the duiker to the edge where I handed him over the wall to the shivering Johannes on the other side. 

"Okay," I said. "See if he can stand."

Johannes released him and we witnessed the Bambi on ice scene as he pedaled hopelessly in the dirt, too weak to hold his own weight. 

"Grab him" I yelled and Johannes did. "Right, let's get him to the hok at the back of the house. I'll meet you there." 

And so the underpanted men intrepidly set off toward the house. 

I met Johannes there with a whole bunch of towels and we managed to slowly calm the buck down while drying him off and talking quietly to the poor thing, him bleating and struggling to break free. 

Fortunately I still had the infra-red lamp in there from the days of Peggy's piglets and I got that going pronto. We moved him under the lamp while continuing to dry him. 

I made a couple of phone calls - to Karen and then Nicci at FreeMe Wildlife Rehabilitation organisation, following which I prepped a syringe with some Rescue solution which I administered to the buck. 

We closed off the front of the cage to prevent any scary distractions and added a bowl of water and buck pellets. 

By the time we'd sorted all of this out, the little bokkie was much calmer and was happily standing on his own. No apparent damage. 

This has to be a blessing in disguise and maybe it's the universe working out solutions for all our animals - not that I'm laying any claim to this little wild duiker. But the fact is, he must've been trapped in our property when we completed the installation of the bottom electric fence and he's been on his own in here for over a year, maybe two or three...

So I called Askari game lodge and spoke to Wiempie, the head ranger there who advised us to keep the buck caged for a couple of days and just make sure he had food and water and warmth. Wiempie was very stoked at the idea of taking our duiker and so are we. 

The little guy deserves to be out in wide open spaces where he can maybe even hook up with a bokkie babe. 

All in all for the best. 

Besides, we have no idea or control over what happens when I leave here. Maybe the new owner has a pack of boerbuls or other dogs which could make a duiker's life a misery and even terminate it quite horribly. 

And that, my friends, is the story of the duiker rescue. 

Tomorrow I take Cleo Catra, our old granny cat, to her new owner and then it's just me and the seven babies who'll be heading off to Oz and Karen, or as she is now known, Kazza Muzza...

Happy it's a warm day. My shoes are drying nicely. 

NATIONALITY FIRST - RELIGIOUS IDENTITY SECOND (IF AT ALL)

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Everyone is horrified by what is going on in Gaza or at least, they should be.

It's been happening for a very long time now. It's not new.

But the horror has escalated in recent times and is now very firmly in our event horizon thanks to mainstream, social and other media.

Is that why we seem to care more now than we ever have before - it's just so in your face?

What have we been doing for the last few decades?

Do people have any clue how and when this mess really started?

Someone recently asked me for context on this issue and try as I might, I can only find one real story here and it isn't necessarily a popular one.

It's obvious (if anyone has been reading my posts on Facebook recently) that I have an inclination toward Palestinian sympathy but let me be clear - I don't condone what Hamas is, does or what it stands for and I do not believe for a moment that the average Palestinian Muslim does either but I sure as hell understand their desperate need for something to be done to resolve this humanitarian crisis.

And I think Hamas represents the ethos of the average Palestinian Muslim as much as militant women's-libbers represent the majority of women - they simply don't. But they act out anyway and establish a very convenient target as the bad-guy when the current global enemy has been firmly established as Islamic fundamentalism (now that the dirty commies aren't there any more)... and, hey, weren't those the guys who did the whole 9-11 thing and who encourage recruits to blow up themselves and as many infidels as possible? I guess so. 

It's in the Jihadist manual so it must be how every Muslim thinks, right? 

Erm, no, not the ones most of us know.

However, according to the US - there is no human rights crisis - at least that's what their UN Human Rights Council vote on a resolution into the matter emphatically says. It doesn't matter what low opinions we may have of the UN, a largely toothless tiger with contrived agendas, sure. But it certainly had teeth enough to have created the problem in the first place.

If a world forum is asking the question: Should the protagonists be suspending conflict while we are launching an enquiry into human rights issues in Gaza with a view in mind to addressing such atrocities as may be found? Should we not be addressing that fundamental question?

Instead, people embark on yet another pointless debate about the legitimacy of the UN, the hypocritical stance of nations who have horrific human rights records themselves and once again everything is fudged into a morass of illogical arguments...along the lines of: how can the sentiments of the nations with bad human rights track records be legitimate in the current situation?

Shouldn't we simply be sticking to the original question and answering that with the spirit of innate integrity?

Is Gaza a mess?

Are human rights atrocities being perpetrated there?

Should we be doing something about it?

In short - should we care?

And the answer to all of those questions by any sane, rational, empathetic, humane individual or nation would be a most emphatic yes. 

Not what our opinion of the UN Human Rights Council or their member states is...

The mere fact that the single largest claimant of western liberty and democracy votes NO in such a referendum pretty much indicates how loaded the agenda is when it comes to the situation in Palestine / Gaza / Israel - call it what you will. Ergo: there is no human rights problem. What does that say about the United States?

Everything we should already know, I guess. 

And when the represented G8 nations (France, UK, Italy, Germany et-al) as well as Ireland, Japan and others abstain from voting on such an issue, isn't that simply saying that they really don't care what's going on in Gaza either - it's not our problem?

That's certainly the way I see it.

And that doesn't just stagger me - it beggars incredulity. Are we that cold? Or more accurately - are the people we supposedly elected to represent us that cold?

Apparently so.

Edmund Burke's famous quote always springs to mind under such circumstances: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Well, I guess they have to be "good" to begin with...

And yet some of those self same nations (abstainers and naysayers) were the ones instrumental in creating the State of Israel in the first place when they voted (starting late 1947) in favour of establishing a unitary State in Palestine through UN Resolution 181 in which the (supposedly) Democratic Constitution would guarantee the human rights and fundamental freedom of all its citizens without distinction as to race, language or religion. Which all went kind of pear-shaped when the incumbent inhabitants strenuously objected before the US eventually admitted that the partitioning of Palestine to accommodate what was now being  referred to as a "Jewish" state (there goes the objectivity of religious affiliation) would not be a peaceful process and so the UN would have to get involved...

Not that the UN had the necessary authority to do what it ultimately did nor, it has to be said, was the resolution mandated through the second Security Council process but hey - they wanted what they wanted by a 58% majority so who needs actual due process...?

Thus began the displacement of the Palestinians and the creation of Israel.

I still maintain to my core that even with the illegal implementation of this partitioning of Palestine there may have been a modicum of hope had the world stuck to its original mandate of creating one or two national identities rather than assisting the militant Zionists to create a single State within (at first) then subsuming all of the region into a religious instead of a national identity where, within the space of a year, Palestinian Arabs, the majority of whom were Muslims, were being ruled by a divergent religious hegemony.

The US knew and admitted that this was going to become a military issue yet almost exclusively American Zionists forced the situation to transform the proposal of a unitary state where all religious affiliation was to be guaranteed, into a Jewish (read; militant Zionist) enclave with absolute power over all its residents new and incumbent.

It was a recipe for disaster and that is exactly what it has been ever since.

All that aside, I also still firmly believe that unless there is a shift from the legacy and current thinking based on religious zeal and military authority, there can never again be peace in this region.

It should be the United States of Israel or Palestine and it should be defined first and foremost on a national identity and secondly on religious and ethnic affiliation which should be tolerated with equanimity.

Any form of religious extremism that calls for violence or violation of another citizen's rights to worship as they will, should be summarily outlawed and such people or groups disavowed from representing any group politically.

But here's the thing. That means the Israeli hegemony has so much to give back and those pesky Palestinians so much to regain...

Given the track record of Israeli concession, it's never going to happen without a modern day miracle.

Holy land my ass! It's wholly land and wholly religion that is the fundamental problem.

It needs to go to another level for sure - a sane and higher level of enlightenment not a material level of possession and military authority.

http://www.1948.org.uk/un-resolution-181/

RIP Will Glibbery - a tragic loss to the world

I am crushed. Devastated. Social media can be so stark and unfeeling, never more so when you discover the passing of a friend this way. I recently found out that my good friend, Will Glibbery has gone and I am numb. I cannot believe it. The last post of his that I saw - a Gandhi meme, may have been a prophetic thought and it's chillingly apposite. And just before that the sparkling, upbeat post of him arriving home early to share the joy on his daughter's face, virtually reached out and touched you from the screen.What a tragic, tragic loss. He was an amazing man, husband and father.That he was behind a car wheel, his second greatest passion in life, when it happened makes it even more tragic for me when that separated him from his foremost love and passion - his family.Will Glibbery, you were a man among men, an unbelievable light in this world and I shall really mourn your passing, mate.My heart reaches out to your family.Rest in peace, my friend.I would respectfully suggest (his family permitting) that we honour his memory by continuing relevant posts to his Facebook page, a forum where his irrepressible personality could never be contained.

THE SPIDER WEB IN WHICH WE EXIST

We may elect to laugh at the likes of David Icke but there is certainly significant validity in what he, and many others, are saying about the unfolding events in our physical material realm we euphemistically call, Planet Earth. 

Huxley, Orwell - predictors of alarming societal evolution are perhaps the true modern day visionaries or were they just transcribing the blueprint from information that was extant at the time of their writing?

Either way, we would be delusional if we continued to have faith in the illusion of democracy and a benevolent approach from the governments we've seemingly elected to make the crucial decisions that shape our lives individually and collectively. At a physical, material, spiritual and emotional level. All of those facets are influenced by our bosses. If we permit it. 

And there is no denying that a desire for absolute control of the global population through religion, media, technology, food, health, surveillance, militant policing and now remote controlled weaponry (drones etc.) has become the order of the day. That is the current reality.

And sadly, we simply accept it. It has become normal to be monitored 24/7, notwithstanding the fact that social media and communication technology encourage this, a paradigm to which we dumbly acquiesce and vigorously support as a way of life. Especially the instant access to the agendas of the moment while some more insidious shit may just be unfolding out of the view of the distracted populace.

And it produces an ethos of wholesale guilt and fear; guilt that we're not doing enough and fear that it's all going to go to shit at any given moment when the Jihadists blow up London or Israel elects (as the South African apartheid national party did) to give the world the finger while they maintain that the original inhabitants of the land they now occupy are actually subhuman and don't deserve equal rights and this escalates into full scale war in the Middle East into which the US (and their bitch, Britain) and Russia (hey, maybe even China) are inexorably drawn.

To what degree events are orchestrated and/or manipulated shall remain speculative at best and therein lies the realm of the so-called conspiracy theorist, an epithet that is designed to preemptively provide a mantle of ridicule and dismissiveness and taint the credibility of their proposers regardless of how well-informed/researched or cogent such propositions might actually be.

Critical, investigative thinking is not encouraged - following the pre-packaged status-quo most certainly is, though...the guilt and fear package that the rubbernecking drama-seeking population is conditioned to crave like sugar-riddled foodlike products.

This dynamic of programmed preconception toward (rolls eyes heavenward dismissively) the conspiracy theorist, more often than not throws the baby out with the bathwater and entire hypotheses are unfairly and unreasonably disregarded.  Such is the case with Icke for example.

No one is talking about reptilian shapeshifters here although quantum and particle physics might arguably support that potential; what is, however unarguably attempting to be maintained throughout our world, is a constant climate of fear and an inundation of challenges to everyday citizens to prevent them from rising above and beyond this relentless energetic barrage.

And there can be no denying that whoever was responsible for any current round of scary (and always tragic) events, our fearless leaders contrive to step in, appease our outrage and provide us with a "solution" that we later find out isn't really a solution at all, merely a reason for another fear-guilt decision to be made out of our hands.

Michael Crichton was very vocal on the topic and even penned a novel called State of Fear which conveyed this message through the overly politicised premise of Global Warming (euphemistically called drastic climate change) - another Damoclean guilt-infused agenda that would have us all believing that our collective demise is cataclysmically imminent and everything that happens to the climate is all our fault, the sun, moon and repeating terrestrial climatological cycles be damned. The latter have no bearing on what's happening - it's all about cars and underarm aerosols apparently.

More guilt, more fear.

Let me stress here and now that awareness of our environment and a responsible approach to preserving it through sustainable technology is indeed laudable and everyone should try and do their part but the simple fact remains that the majority of the world's impoverished population is more concerned with daily survival than the procurement of a low energy light bulb, in most cases a superfluous aspiration in any event as they subsist without electricity or even potable water...yeah about that...

But as Crichton sagely asserts - no-one actually knows what is going to happen in three or even thirty years regarding climate and this the scientists readily admit, yet they are willing to incite catastrophic ideologies on this matter based on questionable computer projections looking hundreds and thousands of years into the future when all around us rampant poverty and disease (all of our own doing, it has to be said) run riot.

But instead of focusing the scientific agenda on a solution for such widespread and unnecessary human tragedy, we would rather make robotic limbs, better mobile networks  and let the rock stars worry about world hunger and war. Let's face it, they're a lot prettier than those white-coated geeks with the long words and there may even be a benefit concert in the offing where another long-haired Bohemian can secure an OBE or a Nobel Prize or something - cool! 

Not that I'm knocking the efforts of those who dedicate themselves to improving the plight of the helpless and disenfranchised - I'm not..but it's all just so skewed - the elected leaders and the great scientific minds of our time (science is, after all the modern global religion) should be tasked with solving our ongoing socio-economic disasters yet they continue to make political and fiscal policy decisions that actually perpetuate the problems while, of course, turning a profit at the same time. if it's not worthwhile and it's just some abstract humanitarian endeavour then it really doesn't get the political mileage it should actually warrant. There are too many people anyway so it's all nice and balanced isn't it?

No, it fucking isn't. That's the point. 

There's so much money to be made and so little time after all. Climate change is big business along with everything else that's inevitably politicised.

And it's all your fault.

The Abbott government wants to dismantle environmental regulations, carbon tax (already done), dismiss the protection of flora and fauna, hey - bird flu may come back, the Middle East is set to pop, civilian planes are exploding in the sky, anthropogenic global warming is out of control, paedophilia is everywhere, everything we eat gives us cancer and makes us fat, cruelty abounds at every stratum of society so what the fuck are we going to do about it?

It's all so overwhelming. It's all so depressing.

So we might have another doughnut and a couple of beers and watch some sport on TV. That'll sort it.

The fact is, I believe that the world is being orchestrated for us to sink to these levels of despair and hopelesness where we succumb and acquiesce to the apparently inevitable because it just is so overwhelming and seemingly hopeless.

But it isn't.

There is family and laughter and music and art and creativity and the real connection we have with spirit (not religious fervour or fundamentalism where a pre-chosen religious symbol on "our' flag defines us - not that bullshit) to not only sustain us but to help us rise to a higher level than this dense depressing vibration of fear in which so much of the material world exists and languishes.

It may seem flippant or contrived to assert that creative pursuits will somehow resolve the bitter conflict between Hamas and the Israelis - they obviously won't (not immediately anyway) but if sufficient numbers of us do engage in positive, creative and higher-minded endeavours, that leads to innovation and engagement and sharing and joy and a realisation that all isn't actually hopeless at all and there are more beneficent, constructive ways of sharing this reality.

There is only one reality - just multiple ways of interpreting it.

Awareness and solutions will then arise. The butterfly effect.

Everything is connected, allegorically like an infinite spider web ever outward and ever inward, linked by an endless spiral strand. Make a decision on any strand (your own reference point) and the ripples, no matter how subtle they may seem, influence every part of the web. 

If we elect to perpetuate the drama and live in the global game of fear and guilt then that will forever remain our chosen reality and those ripples will continue to resonate as we validate them. 

Ergo: simply make them invalid and create a new paradigm. 

Stepping outside of the externally contrived perception and unifying our thoughts, intentions and deeds inevitably has a snowball effect and positive change is effected regardless of the agendas of our manipulators.

Taking this power back is the way forward. Thinking new thoughts creates our now.

Our thoughts and intentions do unarguably create an effect on the manifest material reality we occupy and positive actions result. 

What we choose to think and affirm will make that reality bend to our collective will.

The next choice is the only one we have just like the moments in which we exist.

 

HAVE YOU BEEN SOLD A PIG IN A POKE? TEACUP PIGS - WHAT ARE THEY?

So in keeping with having been advised to "do my research", which I actually did do when I rescued Potbelly and Kolbroek pigs from slaughter, I confess to having been more ignorant when it came to so-called "teacup" pigs. I didn't have any at the time so what was the point?

I did, however, on my travels, while seeking to rehome our pigs, pending our emigration to Australia, discover from vets and pig sanctuaries that they are inundated with abandoned pigs which were sold as "miniature" animals and turned out to be no such thing.
When they did, after even two years exceed the "specifications" that had been promised them by the sellers, the shocked owners either sought redress, found other homes or just gave the pigs up. And more often than not, the sellers weren't interested in the plight of the owners when the pigs ballooned beyond specification. They were often just told that they had been overfeeding their pigs hence the oversized outcome. And yet, even when one feeds a pig the prescribed amount and quality of food (that isn't augmented with growth hormones and chemicals as in most of the commercially available feeds), these "little" guys still became much bigger than predicted.

So where is the margin for error and the acceptable parameter beyond which sellers are prepared to go when "miniature" pigs become bigger than envisaged? I have no idea but I do know that there are a lot of disgruntled pig owners out there who were arguably sold "a pig in a poke"...
One pig sanctuary went as far as to say categorically that teacup pigs simply did not exist, at least not as they are advertised far and wide - i.e. being these miniature creatures that do not grow taller or heavier than lapdogs, and Susan Spencer, whose website link I attach, would seem to concur with that opinion insofar as the claims of miniaturisation are concerned.

I'm not about to enter the debate around the genetics involved as I have no expertise in that area at all but logic would dictate to me that accomplished breeders of pigs would originally have been aiming to create animals that comprise bulk, after all these creatures were designed to be eaten so the optimisation of meat yield would have been the primary motivator.
Much later in time, as we (arguably) evolved into a species that took to keeping pigs for reasons other than simply edible commodities, people's needs became more specific and smaller pigs much more desirable as they were practically more manageable. Hence the advent of the so-called teacup pig or so it is claimed.
But the Teacup is not an actual breed which I find to be most surprising after all this time - teacups are merely a variety of pig created by the hybridisation of other breeds to create a smaller animal that conforms to certain specifications.... but here's the thing - they usually don't. And as asserted by Susan Spencer who runs Tiny Teacup Pigs and has written several books on the topic, none of them comply with the claims of the breeders that they will not exceed the size of a small terrier dog and weigh in at under 30kg. And yet these claims persist to the eternal detriment -  not of the humans but of the pigs themselves when they are simply rejected.

One would have thought, given the marketability of small pigs that by now a successful strain would have been created that consistently yielded miniature animals and that those and those alone were interbred to maintain an exclusive breed and not rely on this hit and miss lottery that seems to obtain.

Folks, just be warned if you're considering a piggy as a pet - they start out as really, really minuscule mites and piglets must rank amongst the cutest baby animals around but they grow and they grow and they grow - for up to four years.
And until they officially proclaim that teacups are now, in fact, a breed, there can be no guarantees what your hybrid piglet is going to become - it's just educated guessing and when it goes "wrong", you're the one usually left holding the pig in the poke.

For me, they're worth it anyway big or small but I have 4 hectares in which they can roam and be pigs, others are not so fortunate and a larger than anticipated pig can wreak havoc in a suburban home and environment.
Whatever you do, think about the pig before you think about yourself. Please.
A pig, regardless of its size is a BIG commitment so don't own one if you're not prepared to make that commitment.

Potbellies can go from this:

To this in just 3 years:

I urge you to peruse this website. There is some interesting and very revealing information there.

Tiny Teacup Pigs can be found here

IMAGINARY FRIENDS

I've always said that it's never too late to have a happy childhood and never has this been truer than it is today. 

Once upon a time we were children and we engaged with our imaginary friends. - now we're all grown up and there is Facebook. 

Nothing's really changed then.....

👫 👥 😱

Will the real ISIS please stand up...

How dare these self-proclaimed Iraqi fundamentalist so-called "liberators" (more like exterminators) assume the name of the sacred Egyptian goddess, the feminine principle of that holy trinity.

There she is on the right in the picture with Osiris, her king, husband, lover and god in the middle and their son, Horus, the hawk-headed god to the left.

Theirs was a sacred union of balance and harmony unlike the marauding jihadists who're indiscriminately slaughtering men, women and children all in the name of their supposedly sacred principle when all that is ever really about is the assumption of power, which is an illusion in the first place if your "authority" has to be handed down through the agency of terror and intimidation.

The US "liberation" (aka invasion) of Iraq which ousted the maniacal dictator Saddam Hussein has certainly turned into a halcyon province has it not as evidenced by the recent goings-on? I'm sure people are queueing up to emigrate their in their thousands now that they're free from tyranny...

Oh, hang on - they aren't...oops.

And now these murderous fucktards besmirch the good name of Isis, the goddess...which is really just semantically inaccurate in any event if we are so hung up on acronyms.

Their name is "the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant" which, in my book, acronymises to ISIL not ISIS, so they can go fuck themselves if they think I shall ever associate the true ISIS with this band of amoral fucktards.

Isis lives but not through this contemporary aberration. 

Caution: Unsolicited bumswill coming your way

CNN's iReport, which is news to me (pardon the pun), - are they for real?

Wikipedia describes the service (sic) thus: "iReport (also I-Report) is CNN's citizen journalism initiative that allows people from around the globe to contribute pictures and video of breaking news stories. It is similar to Wikinews in that it allows, and encourages, regular citizens to submit stories, photos and videos related to any breaking news. Submissions are not edited, fact-checked, or screened."

So in essence, it's an unsubstantiated public blogging forum which inundates cyberspace with private opinions - nothing more, nothing less. Then people repost some of the crap that's disgorged there, all neatly trimmed with the CNN logo as if that lends the "article" some credibility... as if CNN was the doyen of objectivity in the first place.

When, in fact, knobrot69's racist vitriol is just that - someone ineloquently venting their spleen and claiming their grammatically challenged bumswill to be factual reporting.

Isn't there enough effluence clogging the Internet pipelines as it is?

What startles me more perhaps than the cludge and the ease with which it gets dispensed, is our own suspension of incredulity as we consume more and more of this as part of our chosen reality.

I long for the return of those days when people just screamed into pillows or hit a punching bag when they wanted to vent - it was private and uninfectious.

Now the slime just oozes from the internet like thousand year old sewage...

Finally - The First Book of PRANA (Parts 1 - 4) available online

It's been a while coming but eventually the rewrite and tweaking of PRANA has been done and the book made available in Kobo and Kindle formats.
To find links to these please visit my author website at the link below...
Book links to my website
This is a story that may change the very fabric of the universe...or maybe it already has.

The First Book of PRANA (Parts 1 - 4) 
The first part of Jack Tyler's dust with the devil.
Suicide?
Not when there are other options available, Jack.
Thus begins the walk-in and Lucifer's first experience of wearing a human "fat suit" in the 3rd dimensional realm.
As if that wasn't debilitating enough - then there are those crazy human emotions to deal with - those damn feelings that Lucifer's brother, Michael had introduced into the mix.
And that's when it all starts to go horribly wrong...

THE "LUCK" OF THE IRISH

I want to hire the ad agency that took on the St Patrick account. 

That organisation did the business don't you think?

I mean, everywhere on the planet, people of every persuasion get dressed up as leprechauns, march in festive parades, drink green beverages (often of the alcoholic type) and generally revere, for at least one day of the year, all things Irish. 

What the fuck happened to the clowns that handled the St Andrew (Scotland), St George (England) and St David (Wales) accounts? 

Where in the world do people go and get blue, white or red for the day and behave in a typically Scottish, English or Welsh manner? 

What did the Irish do so differently abroad that their culture is celebrated through the iconic reverence of a fabled personage whereas the others receded into virtual obscurity? 

I bet that most people haven't even got a clue on which days of the year those other Saints' days fall....

No, didn't think so. 

Bizarre, isn't it.