What Do I Have to Offer?

Dinner last night with friends. Encouraging to find they are seeing some of the same things I am: people are awaking to accept and promote the idea we're screwed and need to change. It is coming from many different sources now and coming faster.
Complaceny and fatalism arise...and I suggested we need to turn to and work within our local communities, to rebuild our true social networks which reliance on the Nanny State has decimated and replaced with dependence on the Federal Govt, debt-based 'prosperity' and consumerism. FB and G+ are faux social networks.

This is not a short term fix. This requires a fundamental change in how one sees the world and lives in it. We take back our freedoms and rights we've given away in exchange for 'security' and entitlements. There are no entitlements. There is no security. The Nanny state is bankrupt financially, morally and ecologically. Where will Food, Energy and Water come from? Especially Water?  It is time for change. Those of us who take action will  have the advantage. The new world will be created by those who show up.

The rest will find it happens gradual, gradual, gradual, suddenly. They'll wake one morning to find the world changed and ask: "Where was I? How did this happen?  I was told the America Dream would save me. Reliance on the Government would save me. Abdicating my responsibility and action would save me. Working hard would save me."
Don't say you weren't warned.
Nothing will save us except ourselves. Thinking, learning, being open to new ideas, avenues and ways to live.
I find this an exciting time: We are being bombarded daily with cues, reminders and pointers to awaken and change. In some places it is subtle. Some not so much. We are being invitied every single moment to shift and live differently. This has always been the case, yet seems to have a greater urgency lately.
Reminds me of an old story:
A man is leading his mule to the market and as he crosses a small stream the mule stops and refuses to cross.
The man begs, pleads, prays, bribes, pushes the mule. All to no avail. The mule won't budge.
Another man comes along and asks what is wrong. The first man replies "I cannot get my mule to move no matter what I do."
The other man picks up a huge branch lying by the side of the road and hits the mule square in the middle of its forehead, HARD. He then takes the mule's lead and says "come along" and walks the mule across the stream easily.
The first man asks "How did you do that? I beg, pleaded, flattered, bribed, prayed, pushed, but nothing worked."
Second man: "Sometimes, you first have to get their attention."

I'd rather avoid that branch, thank you.

To change requires thought, reflection and action. I see people all the time say they want change, as long as they don't have to do anything differently or take action. I find this odd. It doesn't work like that. If you want things to be different, you have to make them different. Talking about it is one thing. It's a start. But action is required. You actually have to take responsibility, make a choice and act. Erich Fromm says people would prefer to submit to authoritarian rule than choose to exercise freedom and authenticity. I have only to look within my own life and see where I do that. Excellent, fertile ground for change.

It is a matter of priorities.
There is abundant time.
There is abundant resources.
When we act out of fear and complacency we create what we fear the most.
All the opportunity and resources we need are here and have been all along.
We have the opportunity to rebuild the world as we want it. We have always had that opportunity and many are taking advantage of it. Again, the world belongs to those who show up an act.

When taxes go through the roof in a final last-ditch effort to steal your hard earned money to support the Nanny state, redirect your money to the .01%, and bribe the unproductive masses with handouts, food stamps, other state largess, faux health care, crap made in China, Multimedia TV and movies, will you be ready for the coming shift?

I close with the question: What skills do you have in an agrarian economy? What do you have to offer of value besides gracing us with your presence? I subscribe to the idea this is about exchanging my best effort and value for yours.

Think about this. Even if all the above never come to pass in our life time, how much richer will your, ours and my world be. How much better will be the world we pass on.

Peace, inspiration and love to us all.

Happy Independence Day

I take this time to share with you some thoughts about what it means to me to be a US citizen, and a citizen of the world.
For many years I have been focused on inner transformation. I was not unaware of the problems facing us, but I relegated them to a back burner. Some parts complacency, some parts fatalism, some parts wanting to see it all collapse to force us to be humans again.
A few weeks ago I read something that catalyzed me. A shift occurred. It seemed as though for the last few years I've 'been on hold' waiting for something to focus on: the outer transformation.

Now something has come alive. I feel renewed, committed and ready to bring the power and light of my own inner transformation to begin transforming the outer.
An old and dear friend likes to say "Reciprocity is absolute." I've never really gotten that until lately. And so I reach out my hand first in friendship.
I am asking myself: What can I do to make a difference? to be the change I want to see in the world. And I accept the answer to the question: "What is wrong with this country and this world? I Am."
I am tuning into what is going on, what is being done, how and why and to whom. Reading, learning, educating myself.
I am turning onto what I am feeling called to do from my own internal compass. What actions to take and where to focus my energies.
I am dropping out of old outmoded patterns of thought, beliefs and behaviors, as well as the complacency and fatalism that have been there for so long.
I wonder if this is how our founding fathers felt: excitement, energy, promise and, yes,  some fear.
So with a renewed sense of citizenship, patriotism and commitment to my friends, neighbors, community, state, country and world, I reach out to my fellow citizens and patriots.
Lets take back our country. Lets rebuild our country anew as the old husk bankrupts and dies around us.
We are all in this together.
There is so much more that unites us than that which divides us. Not competition, but cooperation. Not at the point of a gun but willingly, freely and with a sense of the Oneness that unites all of us living beings.
We must hang together, or we will assuredly hang separately.
Happy Independence Day.

Disposable Food for Disposable People

 I've been food and nutrition conscious since I was 10, when on a fishing trip I 'caught" a wild tuna and watched it thrash itself to death and simply could not eat it at dinner that night.

At 15 I turned strict vegetarian (for yoga) and had to cook for myself as my father "refused to make two meals." So I began to read and learn about nutrition. I started with the Veggie's Bible: Diet for a Small Planet. I learned about protein complementarity. I learned we eat so much meat in this country as a way to get rid of the huge surplus of corn and grain we developed after WWII with the introduction of nitrogen (petrochemical based) fertilizers. It takes 7 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef. A great food sink - a way to solve the over abundance. Prior to 1945 Americans did not eat red meat more than a couple times a week, unless very wealthy.

I have had times when I did eat meat- as part of an inner transformation I did eat meat for a while.
But, I stopped eating turkey right after having a personal encounter with a wild turkey (the bird, not the bourbon).
And since then when I see live fish or crabs at the market the image comes back and I simply cannot bring myself to eat them. I saw pictures of pig gestation pens, what is done to baby calves and how animals are slaughtered (see below). I feel connection to other living things and do not wish to bring extra harm to my fellow animals. and I am not OK asking someone else to do that which I cannot bring myself to do.
I've read recently that plants may be sending signals to each other, indicating possible consciousness, but I have to draw the line somewhere. I'm not a breatharian (people who live on light and air).

So now I am back to being a vegetarian. Eggs, OK, in moderation. And then they are organic, free range…Maybe a clam, mussel or scallop now and then. A shrimp here or there. But very infrequently. I don't do it out of convenience or make the decision lightly.

A few years ago I watched the movie Food, Inc. I knew about industrialized farming and had driven past miles and miles and miles of abused, gross cattle land (piles and piles of manure which liquify after rains and runoff into rivers and streams further polluting our water). The movie made quite an impression.
Interestingly, one is not allowed to film inside commercial slaughterhouses. Some video was shot secretly and the images are raw, to say the least.
What struck me, besides the inhumanity of how the cattle are processed (they can hear the sounds and screams of fellow cattle being killed. This stress releases extra hormones into their bodies which humans eat and causes all manner of side-effects, higher aggression being one of them, but I digress) is what happens to the low-paid, typically migrant, 'unskilled' workers who do the butchering. They loose fingers, hands, are maimed and get minimal health coverage. Many are illegal aliens, most are simply poor, uneducated or this is all they can do to feed their families.
And it struck me:
Disposable food.
Disposable people.

Food is 'engineered' in laboratories for 'mouth-feel' - deliberately created with high levels of sugar-salt-fat to directly stimulate the pleasure centers in the brain to make us want more, yet actual nutritional quality is low. So therefore we need more. Artificially flavored and colored.
Did you know that if you ate better quality food, you would actually need less of it?

Our topsoil is all but gone. 97% of our food is grown in sand using petrochemical based fertilizers. We have to use harsher and harsher pesticides as the plants have less and less naturally occurring resistance to disease and pests. And our yields are diminishing. So we have to increase our production as yields decrease, costing us more.
We are the first organism on the planet to create food at will. This was made possible by plentiful, cheap oil. What happens when oil begins to run out?

How aware are you of:
How much food do you consume each day?
Where it comes from, how it was produced?
What chemicals, additives are used?
The effects of these chemicals on your body?

Did you know corn is grown below cost using US subsidies (your taxes) - and so corn syrup and high fructose syrup are in almost everything.

Have you ever eaten something you have grown yourself? I learned to be an organic farmer a couple years ago and the difference is amazing. Eating something I grow in my own garden tastes better and is arguably healthier for me and changes my relationship to that which keeps me alive. I live in a condo now, but still manage to grow vegetables and herbs in pots on the balcony.

Seems to me People and Food and Education and Life-style were designed to serve the industrial engines of the industrial age. Consumer-based-Cogs in a machine. Replaceable, disposable and cheap. And my internal transformation is now expanding into an outer transformation. Part of that is an expanding awareness of food, my relation to it and desire to simplify.


I read the labels of my food closely.
I buy organic, not just for food quality, but it's the price I pay for rebuilding our topsoil.
I support Community Sourced Agriculture. Get most of my food at farmers markets or organic markets that support local gorwers. Or grow it myself.

Lastly, I don't eat anything (e.g. ingredients)  my grandmother would not recognize as food*.

To quote Michael Pollan: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.



*Note: I'm human and make occasional exceptions, and sometimes simply cannot know.
I am making a larger point.

Engagement

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself.

I have been 'asleep' for many years. A combination of factors, personal, psychological, emotional, spiritual have given me the excuse to ignore the outer external reality, to a great degree. I would rather not have known exactly how bad things were. And certainly not done anything to help fix it.
For a long time I was focused inwardly; nothing wrong with that. However, it came at the expense of what was happening in the outer.
I didn't want to really get involved in community, state or national politics,
I thought if I ignored it, it would go away. I wasn't totally oblivious, but was not very engaged.
I mouthed the typical sayings that we are poisoning the earth and how we live is unsustainable and agreed...
and simply went on living my life.

Last year I learned about Peak Oil and Read The Long Emergency.
A part of me looked forward to the big crash/reset - the isolationist in me was still strong. I thought we needed that level of suffering and it would bring people together. And it would…but.

Then something happened a few weeks ago. I began reading about economics and this led to learning more about our Financial systems and then a web site and then book by CHS.
When I read:

"That is why I subtitled this book "Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation." To
believe that we can prosper individually without regard for the actions of our fellow citizens and the State (government) is simply not practical. Yes, a handful of very rugged people have the experience required to live in the deepest remains of wilderness; but the wilderness cannot support more than a handful of people, and most of us do not have the requisite skills or ruggedness to survive that splendid isolation.
This, then, is a practical book for the rest of us."

Something in me shifted. I let go of the isolationist direction, took personal steps to minimize its effect and suddenly it seems a whole world opened up. (It also led to a better personal life ;-)

I am reading more and making up for lost time.
OMG we are in serious trouble.  Is it too late to change? I don't know. I think it is for some.
I also saw the film 2012:TimeForChange. This showed me a vision for a new way to live. Smaller, more communal and more responsive to our environment and each other. Showed me what is possible and a deeper value for what I do: teaching people how to develop software. Rather than creating bookkeeping systems for the Elite and State, the software could be used to support new types of currencies, businesses and endeavors to benefit us all. A new look at what it means to work, contribute, Be Alive.

Kinda like being overweight: I thought a diet would help.

No. A diet: changing eating habits for a while to regain certain weight, then resuming same habits that caused the weight, is not the answer. I have to radically change my eating habits. Permanently.

We have to radically change our living habits.

I rejoined Facebook and G+ and have been writing and posting there. I like the idea of the Fair Tax and am learning more and helping to spread the word. That's all I can do at present.
And will continue to do so here.

Does anyone read this? IDK. Words appear in the mind and I type and they appear on the page.

So, like myself, have you been ignoring the bare, cold truths out there? and if not? what have you been doing to plan for yourself, your family, your community, nation and world?

We need a new way to live. It has some of the feel of the possibility and energy of the 60s. I was too young then to do anything but be influenced. But I think this time I can do more.

I'll be writing here more and sharing what I've found, what's going on and hopefully this will entertain, enlighten and encourage you to tune in, turn on, and drop out (of old patterns of behaviors and beliefs).

Nemo's Notes is Evolving to Fit the Times

I've heard it said that humans only change out of necessity and that necessity has to be brought about by crisis. (Ok, Terrence McKenna says psychedelics can do it as well, and faster, but, I digress).

At a company I worked at, it seemed management was incapable of taking any impending deadline or issue seriously, if it was more than 2 weeks out. Now, that worked OK (sorta), if the problem could be resolved within two weeks.

When it couldn't all hell broke loose.

People historically sought spiritual development to ease suffering. Who the hell would go through that crap if their life was perfect and all shits and giggles?

Even the promise of  Freedom, whatever the fuck that is, is not enough to get people off their ass. Especially if they have not tasted, or simply can't remember what it felt like.

So, perhaps the current challenges and threats to survival, sanity... provide a need, a necessity, to learn how to clean up our act. Necessity being the mother of invention.

Question is if it's too late. If nature cashes our check, I don't imagine there will be a lot of pissing and moaning over us across the rest of the planet. In fact, it might just breathe a sigh of relief.

The image at the top is one that came to me years ago: A rabbit pulling itself out of its own hat. The image seems perfectly apropos. Hasn't made it to tattoo status yet, but give me time.

I am starting this blog to educate, warn, entertain and help us to wake up to what is going on, organize,  and not just survive, but thrive. The current state of how we are and run this planet is not sustainable by any definition.

We need to adapt, help each other...or we'll simply disappear.

What can you do? well, start with these links:

http://www.oftwominds.com/Survival/OverviewSP.pdf

http://www.2012timeforchange.com/

and tell someone about this. Share, read, think. breathe.

And don't give in to complacency or fatalism.

It is as it is, but not as it seems.

The Doors and the Airplane nailed it 40+ years ago. Now it's our turn (for some of us, lets finish what we started).

Five to one, baby 
One in five 
No one here gets out alive, now 
Gonna make it, baby 
If we try 

The old get old 
And the young get stronger 
May take a week 
And it may take longer 
They got the guns 
But we got the numbers 
Gonna win, yeah 
We're takin' over 
Come on! 
] 
Your ballroom days are over, baby 
Night is drawing near 
Shadows of the evening crawl across the years 
Ya walk across the floor with a flower in your hand 
Trying to tell me no one understands 
Trade in your hours for a handful dimes 
Gonna' make it, baby, in our prime 

Come together one more time 

The Doors Five to One 

We should be together 
Come on all you people standing around 
Our life's too fine to let it die and 
We can be together 
All your private property is 
Target for your enemy 
And your enemy is greedy

We are forces of chaos and anarchy 
Everything they say we are we are 
And we are very 
Proud of ourselves 
Up against the wall 
Up against the wall motherfucker
Tear down the walls 
Tear down the walls 
Come on now together 
Get it on together 
Everybody together 

We should be together 
We should be together my friends 
We can be together 
We will be 
We must begin here and now 
A new continent of earth and fire 
Come on now gettin higher and higher 
Tear down the walls 
Tear down the walls 
Tear down the walls 

Won't you try 

Jefferson Airplane - We Can Be Together

Zoltar Lives!

It would appear my wish was granted.


For a fairly long time I've felt that I've been waiting for something...on hold.
Went through a painful divorce last year, but we are both still close friends and both doing better for it.


I've been reading off and on about the coming crisis we face. Last week I "happened" on a book that has energized and inspired me. Then this weekend, in taking a break from the book, watched: DMT: The Spirit Molecule. After it was done I was looking around for something "lighter" to watch and "happened" on this: 2012:Time For Change.
I think you can see why it captured me so. The balance between the book's careful analysis of where we are, how we got here and why this time is different and the movie's impact caused a shift.


Somehow I feel called, purposeful. I'm writing, reaching out and participating. Reading, sharing.
Me, Mr. isolationist. Well, not so much anymore. Perhaps it's as simple as the survival instinct overcame the isolationist instinct.  Or maybe a bit more. Maybe consciousness is evolving and I'm being carried right along with it.
There comes an agonizing reappraisal of technique and 'practice'. The brutal negation of ND work was useful, and now time to move on. Don't Stop, Further:

Words are false; only the meaning they convey is true. They are illusion, but they give a meaning. Therefore, all is illusion but to understand the illusion, illusion is needed. For example, to remove a thorn in your finger you use another thorn; then you throw both of them away. But if you keep the second thorn which was used to remove the first one, you'll surely be stuck again. 

Much movement and reconnection. Lots happening. Lots of Mo'.

You'll see more to come.

Wonders and mystical and magical.

And, we're in for a rough ride. 

It's going to 'worse' before it gets better.

"Ladies, hold back the edges of your gowns, we're going through Hell."

Stay tuned...


P.S. It ain't just me.