Last night I awoke at midnight and spent the next three hours skimming along the edge of sleep. Instead of discoursing with the demons that like to alight in those hours, I drifted in love and beauty. From a cocoon of comfort, my minds eye watched colors and shapes. Golden columns rose and dissolved. Waves of aqua and emerald and pink flowed and ebbed. Figures twisted into view before fading into mist. I understood that I was experiencing a history of art. Not viewing art from afar. Not learning about it academically, but being in art as its been created…
51 CommentsCategory: Mind and Spirit
Spirituality, moods, feelings, and thinking free to live free.
(H/T Brad; from the early days of the convoy, but forever heartening) The aristos are scared. Question is: Are they scared enough? That is, do they finally realize it’s time — and past time — to heed the pleas of the peasants? Answer (of course): No. Sure, some of the lower level, more directly accountable ones — provincial and state governors — are grudgingly getting the message. (Thank you, Canadian truckers.) At higher levels, they still seem to think, as aristos always think, that a vigorous ass-kicking or a handy war will put an end to the uppitiness and afterward…
46 CommentsWe haven’t done a Friday Freedom Question in a while, and this one’s definitely due. It’s a two-parter. What will happen TO the truckers and what will happen AFTER the truckers? Oh, and if you haven’t donated yet … please do. Even if you can give only a few bux, you can leave an encouraging comment for these freedom fighters. An Ontario court is trying to shut down the new GiveSendGo fundraising campaign, but it looks as if they’re not going to have as easy a time as the Ottawa cops had inspiring and colluding with GoFraudMe’s* attempt to steal…
23 CommentsA friend of mine works in a field that’s on the cutting edge of the cutting edge. He’s a problem-solving genius and his reputation has taken him all over the world. This cutting edge business (like any industry) utilizes many types of experts. Some are experts in exciting new tech. My friend’s expertise, OTOH, happens to be in a specialty that, while absolutely vital, is old tech. It’s not “sexy.” Even the big schools associated with it no longer teach it. Lots of brilliant young people are never learning it even on a theoretical level, and have no idea it…
39 CommentsI’ve never been one for sentimentality or its fraternal twin, nostalgia. I’m a firm believer that the good old days were never all that good. Boomers tend to remember Davy Crockett hats, “Leave it to Beaver,” and how well-scrubbed and obedient children (allegedly) were in the 1950s while forgetting how their entire generation suffered through constant fear of being nuked to a crisp (“Duck and cover,” as if that would help anybody). Eighties kids no doubt miss big hair, big metal, and MTV “when it was the real thing” while glossing over the AIDS epidemic. Children of the seventies? Well,…
18 CommentsWhen I lived in civilization I used to like to go to plays and ballets and modern dance performances (Pilobolus! Alvin Ailey!) and even the occasional opera or symphony. Those days are long past. Remote living + elective poverty + a growing loathing of cities and crowds washed away my connections to “culture.” But now, although I’m no closer to or more fond of cities than ever, I have a new love (and old friend) in my life. I’ve been searching for a proper screen name for him and I think I’ll go for Rhett, after Rhett Butler. Rhett has…
27 CommentsThe other day I witnessed a conversation I could never have imagined. Picture two successful professionals, thoroughly decent people, respected (perhaps even revered) in their fields. Intelligent, moderate individuals, but outside what was once the political mainstream. They relax over glasses of wine, discussing a certain prominent “public health expert.” They discuss whether prison is too good for said expert, or whether dragging him behind a mule cart, drawing, castrating, quartering, and placing his head on a pike in a public square is more appropriate. And no, they hadn’t had that much wine. Both were embarrassed by their own words.…
91 CommentsOne October day in 1844, thousands of followers of William Miller awaited the return of Jesus in glory and their own glorious ascension to heaven. The non-event that followed became known as The Great Disappointment. It didn’t help that the whole non-believing world was laughing their asses off while the devastated Millerites grieved and tried to recoup. You’d think something called The Great Disappointment would have been the end of the Millerite cult. But only if you underestimate the self-justifying irrationality of human beings. Sure, some walked away. But many who walked simply became True Believers in a different sect…
19 CommentsI’m pausing the “Our job” series to talk about what’s going on now, which is so bad it might become good. —– When you thought about your line in the sand I’ll bet you never thought about this. I bet you thought about gun confiscation or internment camps or invasion by blue-helmeted “peacekeepers.” Maybe you believed your line in the sand would be reached if your religion was outlawed or your son or daughter was drafted to fight in one of the empire’s future foreign wars. Your personal line in the sand could be any one, or two, or three…
50 CommentsGrubby work continues around Ye Olde Homestead and I cannot yet face returning to the “our job” series. I hope you enjoy this somewhat random, mostly occasionally “lite” post in the meantime. My reluctance to return to Serious Blogging is partly because the next episodes are planned to cover ideas for building alternative justice systems and nobody can build a great justice system, anywhere, at any time. Because justice systems, however noble their intent, nearly always involve both coercion and unhappy (for somebody) outcomes. But my reluctance to return is in part because events are moving so fast that the…
12 Comments