The Subjectivity Vacuum

In the comments of my last blog a commenter stated that the blog "What is the Matrix" reminded him of a saying he ran across while studying philosophy. That saying goes like this:

When I was young, I knew that the mountain was the mountain and the sea was the sea.

As I began seeking, I had the epiphany that the mountain was not The Mountain and the sea was not The Sea.

Once I finally became enlightened, I finally understood that The Mountain was the mountain and The Sea was the sea.

This made me think about what it means to understand enlightenment philosophically. As I pointed out earlier, language cannot explain enlightenment. As soon as you begin explaining what you think enlightenment is you are already not describing it. This is the reason why the Buddha describes it by always saying what it is not and never what it is. So if that is true, then what is the point in trying to talk about it or understand it philosophically? It would seem a rather pointless exercise in masochism to attempt a philosophical explanation for something in which there can be no explanation. At least there can't be one according to those brilliant beings whom have actually reached this mysterious state of human awareness. A better place to start would be to define what philosophy is. This would seem to be a viable goal.

Dictionary.com seems as good a place as any:

Philosophy: The rational investigation of the truths and principals of being, knowledge, or conduct.

I've made a study of philosophy myself, and the one thing I know is that it's all just opinion. Philosophy is nothing more than the opinions of individuals throughout man's history being combined and separated into various branches of study. Logic and reason appear to be the binding theme behind philosophical debate. The one thing I noticed while studying philosophy was that there is no agreement within philosophy about what is true and what is not. There isn't even an agreement on the definition of what philosophy is (and for different reasons than those of enlightenment). It would seem that the goal of philosophy is to arrive at this understanding, but nothing of the sort will be found. In the end, after your study is complete, you just have to decide which flavor of philosophy is true for you. The irony here is that intellectuals like to use logic and reason backed by the mandates of philosophy as if these things are somehow Gods in their own right. Just invoke logic and reason and you become more correct. Never mind the fact that philosophy is all just mere opinion with no "proof," Or that there's not even an agreed upon definition amongst the practitioners of philosophy on what it is. It may sound as though I'm hating on philosophy...I'm not. I simply wish to point out that it has just as much claim on truth as any other claim on truth...it's subjective.

Alright, so now I've expressed my opinion about the ultimate subjectivity hidden behind those fortified walls of intellectual superiority. What does any of that have to do with understanding enlightenment philosophically? What is enlightenment? Well this is sort of like a virgin attempting to explain what sex is like isn't it? I've made an extensive "study" of enlightenment in my life. I've studied more angles on this than I have on philosophy. I could go on and on about what I think enlightenment is, but I'm not enlightened, so I'd just be wasting everybody's time. So if philosophy is mere opinion reached by bending logic in whatever direction you wish, and enlightenment can't be talked about cause talking about it is already not it, than what in the hell am I trying to accomplish? Maybe if I invoke Jebus I'll start making some sense.  Or possibly Cheesus...or perhaps "Cheebus" as my wife has laughingly referred to the nonsense found in the below video.  I'll leave your noggin' with this gem of matrix gone bad until next time...

Epiphany Now Photojournal 2

We had a fire in the center of the first bed...Ayden Zen is my son's name...we read that Ayden is Gaelic for "little fire."

long exposure...think the shutter was on 15 seconds...soul leaves body

Drawn in with an adult beverage...corn beer

Wendy was doing a long exposure and I walked by looking for something with my light unknowing

we started playing after we realized what we inadvertently did

I received a truck load of free horse manure mixed with pine shavings

She paid the price for the free rocks...I was messing with my seedlings and she fell and her arm landed on the large granite rock behind her and snapped off...

the above horse manure with half a yard of potting soil I purchased for 25 dollars...I hate it, but I had to do it

I mixed horse manure with my compost pile

it's growing...it was 1 in that afternoon when I took this picture

What is the Matrix

Do you want to know what...it...is? I've talked a lot about the Matrix over the last several blogs, so I figured it's time to explain what it is to me. The easiest way to begin peeling back the layers of the Matrix would probably be to start with what reality is and is not. God would inevitably come up, as would heaven and hell, consciousness, your soul or spirit, purpose, brainwashing, mind control, 1984, A Brave New World, the American Dream, MSM, The Corporations, energy, infinite growth on a finite planet, and the Zombie Apocalypse just for good measure. All of that would have to be talked about to explain what the Matrix is to me, but I'm not going to take that route. I've been down that road, and I know where it leads...just read the last 50 blogs. I don't want to rehash all of the things I have said in all of the previous blogs. If you really wanted to know what I think about the Matrix you will have found plenty of opinion up to this point here at Epiphany Now about the nature of reality and therefore the Matrix. Well then, how am I to proceed?

"That thing was real!!!?" Yes Neo, very much so. I still remember leaving the movie theater in 1998 after having viewed the Matrix for the first time. What an amazing movie! Cinematography, special effects, great writing, great story, symbolic on as many levels as you care to dig through. I left the theater with Rage Against the Machines "Wake Up" still permeating throughout my consciousness. Indeed, Wake up, for the love of all that is good, wake up now because the world needs you fully conscious. There is enough mindlessness free ranging throughout the supermegalo maketing maze of Walmart to keep the bull shit black hole supplied for eternity, and there are not many intentional wizards around to make much of a difference. I was 18 when I viewed the Matrix for the first time, and nothing had come close to blowing my mind on the level that the Matrix did. It woke me up...unconsciously. It planted a seed in my mind that germinated into my liberation. Up to that point in my life I had been concerned with typical teenage stuff, sex, beer, women, jumping from high platforms, and all other manner of adrenaline releasing activity (although I did start writing poetry as well as a journal when I was 16).

On the one hand the Matrix is a very real thing, and on the other it's all a product of mind and has no physical location and is not intentionally in existence. I think The Oracle is the most important character in the movie and in real life as well. The voice that speaks to you of your purpose...the mouthpiece of God. "What's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?" Now we are in the territory of a very real phenomenon. I have a coffee mug with a picture of the Buddha in meditation on it on one side, and on the other it says "mind is everything, what you think you become." This idea is the main difference between those of us laboring away in the Matrix and those of us who are following our bliss outside of it. The majority are more asleep when they are awake than they are when they are asleep. Wake up? Wake up from what? Wake up from the lies you've been told your entire life. The lies about what's required from you and what is and is not ethical and moral. Put shortly, wake up from your own unconsciousness. To live intentionally is to be liberated from the Matrix. You can't really live intentionally and still be trapped in it. Okay, so I've liberated myself from this mysterious metaphor that encompasses everything and nothing, so how am I different from those still stuck in it?  Or has my liberation just been another illusion emanating from Samsara?

It's sort of like when I was baptized at 10 years old. Yes, it was intentional because I decided I wanted to get baptized. I did the couple months of repenting, stopped cussing, got my bad temper under wraps(no doubt a product from my father's abandonment), was nicer to people and so forth and so on, but was it really intentional? How much can a 10 year old understand about consciousness, religion, or spirituality? So to say that I intentionally selected Christianity as my truth is to leave out the overwhelming desire I had to please the adults in my life (who all went to church). I was just responding to the very real ques I was bombarded with by the adults in my life. "Get baptized...it's the only way to save yourself, you don't want to burn in hell for eternity do you?" Of course that message was sugared up with nice euphemisms surrounded by typical exoteric mindlessness.  Consequently, shortly after viewing the Matrix for the first time, I had an epiphany that there is no God. I remember a penetrating sense of liberation at that moment...I was looking at a beautiful sunset. My journey to "know thyself" kicked off entirely on that day. All at once I realized that if the biggest truth I knew was a lie that I was told by everybody in my life, then what about everything else? Everything I knew was now subject to being false and had to be reexamined by myself. I was 18...why did it take another 14 years for me to wake up? What did I wake up from?

Just like when I was baptized, the miracle didn't show up and I was left wondering what the hype was all about. I remember thinking, while still under the water, "okay, come on Jesus, I'm ready to fully accept you into my 10 year old heart...where are you...oh no I didn't repent enough...Jesus isn't coming," and then I'm pulled back out of the water to be greeted by a clapping church. I was ready to be transformed by Jesus...I was ready to feel him enter into my heart like I was told I would feel...nothing. Waking up from the Matrix is very similar to that experience. When you wake up everything is the same as it was before and there is no grand transformation. Waking up from the Matrix is simply about taking control of your own mind.  Mind is everything, and everything about society has the effect of keeping us all revolving around the status quo. This is no conspiracy, it's just the nature of man. We are social creatures who's greatest desire is to feel understood by our fellow man. Don't underestimate the strength that this one desire has on keeping you a slave to the Matrix. In order to see it for what it is you have to realize that nobody else is going to understand you once the transformation is complete (at least the probability of feeling understood in person will greatly diminish). What I'm saying is that society is not conscious about their bondage to one another. Society keeps chugging along amidst it's own dysfunction and disease because nobody wants to be alone. The ole "misery loves company" saying comes to mind.

My resignation from the Matrix was simply the last thread that was attached to my desire to be understood by society being severed....intentionally. It was a fully conscious and aware decision to live life in accordance with my thoroughly vetted, researched, and conscious lifestyle. The friction that was driving me mad was simply the lifestyle I was forced into living to live within the agreed upon normal. Job, health insurance, house payment and on and on the circle of dysfunctional living goes. My decision was a simple one...join society completely and therefore embrace my own insanity, or embrace sanity however insane it appeared to said society. I chose sane insanity rather than insane sanity. My escape from the Matrix was more about my complete embrace of the responsibility for being who I am. I am, am I? Escaping the Matrix is taking complete responsibility for who you are. You see, you have to follow your bliss actively or you will never see it. Misery, on the other hand, will find you freely and it will thoroughly hate your company. You will feel understood by all of those swimming in the same misery, and the price you will pay will be at best a low grade insanity.  At worst, however, will be the fact that your bliss will remain right in front of your nose without your knowledge of it. At least you won't be alone though...right?


I still have to make money, or otherwise acquire it.  I still have bills to pay as well as taxes, food, and materials.  I still have an ego that must remain healthy to function in the Matrix.  I still live in a ticky tacky box with a large heating and air unit and a need for petroleum to make the house liveable.  I still go to Lowes and buy stuff that I can't make on my own or acquire any other way.  I'm not able to sustain myself without society because society exists and I can't get around that fact.  I still have a cell phone, computers, and the internet that I must pay for.  I still have to concern myself with coming up with the money to pay for all of that stuff...just like before I liberated myself from the Matrix.  So what does that liberation mean?  It's actually quite simple...the liberation is real, but not too tangible.  It doesn't exist anywhere in reality and can't be pointed to.  It's like the Zen monks are so fond of pointing out...as soon as you talk about it you are already not talking about it because language cannot go there (and I'm not claiming any type of enlightenment by using that analogy).  My liberation from the Matrix is nothing more than a conscious decision to be liberated.  Mind is everthing...what you think you become.  Therefore, think about your bliss and then become it.  So the question you should be asking yourself is this one, what is the alternative to following your bliss?  What are you waiting for? 

Recently in the comments of WHD's blog "Off the Grid in Minneapolis" a reader said that they had had enough of Peak Oil and infinite growth on a finite planet talk.  We all know the truth about the physical constraints the planet mandates.  That commenter was expressing an emerging consciousness.  While Epiphany Now will continue being about my musings surrounding the condition of things, cause I can't help myself...it's cathartic for me, I'm going to begin reporting more about the things I'm doing and thinking as applies to making a living in an intentional Post Petroleum Lifestyle 

Nature's Time

The other day I found myself in a Walmart supermegaloplex cemetary. I left Upstate SC in 1998 to move back to Southern California only to end up enlisting in the navy to become a nuclear engineer (which is another story that I've written several unfinished books about)...I'll share that story here one of these days. At any rate, when I got back from preferring not to in the Navy any longer (I went UA which stands for Unauthorized Absence and it's the same as the Army's term you may know AWOL..absence without leave). Basically I quit the navy by taking advantage of their "0 tolerance" policy as pertains to smoking natural herbs. When I got back from the Navy my high school was a level clay field the size of two or three city blocks. Now it's a Walmart supermegaloplex. I used to do push ups and sit ups in what is now aisle 253.5. While I was there I was struck by an overwhelming sadness for the drooling creitins that were lumbering about with their megalosupercenter, petroleum sugar catchments on a mission to guarantee themselves diabetes and heart disease. I was there because we needed an electric razor for the 67 year old we live with. I think Walmart is akin to hell, but how is it really any different from any other box store that you acquire consumer shit from? It's just cheaper. I avoid it like the plague but there it is.

I'm always struck by the people in Walmart. Where are these people the majority of the time? Walmart is the store for the working poor, the not working poor, and anybody else in America who doesn't want to piss their money away pretending like the green box store is somehow saving the planet. I support organic agriculture because it's the best thing we have going, but I also realize that the term "organic" is public enemy number one on the double speak front. If you want to understand how they change our language this is a good place to look. Organic used to mean a lot more than it means now. It used to mean food that was produced by caring small farmers who's goal it was to use the least amount of petroleum inputs as possible. I've met a chicken mentor who has said that "I was organic before there was a term for organic." We were talking about how he couldn't claim organic because he didn't meet all of the millions of bureaucratically generated bull shit requirements that our loving and caring government demand.

Yet looking around his chicken situation I was struck by how I could not think of anything else that he could do to be "organic." His chickens free range and the majority of their food comes from a large garden plot that he grows food for them in. Roosters are present and the eggs are all fertile. I sat and watched the lucky rooster of the day (he only lets one of his three roosters out at a time so as to avoid cock fights) inseminate probably 30 times in an hour and a half. The chickens stay in 10'X10' dog kennels with tarps moved to wherever they need to be moved to to provide the chickens with the most comfort possible. These were happy chickens. The hens were in hen bliss and watching them run towards me was my favorite experience. Something about a hen running towards me just makes me smile. However, my point is that this guy, Wendell is his name, is a 74 year old chicken maverick who should write the book on what is and is not organic (he's been foolin' with chickens since he was 14 and got in trouble for cock fighting). He can't claim organic cause he's not an international corporation who now control the term "organic" because they are the government.

So this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. The term "organic" has lost it's meaning. I do believe it's still better than conventional, but it's lost all of it's original spirit and intention. The intention was not to have the corporations maximize their profit by plugging into something good and fucking it up. They are only concerned with profit, not good stewardship of the Earth. They could care less about the ground water, or the quality of animal product. They don't care about creating value added products that are actually good for all life. So we need a new term for organic in the Post Petroleum Tribe. Sustainable has been rode hard and put up wet as well. "Green" is nothing more than how the corporations market "organic" to the rich liberals. But then I realized that I really don't give two shit's about the empire and their double speak. Yet, there I was looking at the end result of all of this double think in Walmart. People who have not one clue about what they are cramming into their petroleum sugar holes. I saw some type of lunch box, for grade school kids I assume, at a box grocery store today. It had some petroleum sugar to drink, some "chicken nuggets" with ketchup that was marketed as special cause it had "starch" added to the ketchup (which I still haven't figured out the angle on...is starch the new health food?), and an air head for dessert. It was just petroleum sugar through and through and the only difference between all of the contents was the amount and flavor of petroleum sugar. I suppose the kid was supposed to microwave the chicken shit in a microwave that I'm sure would be readily available at the government subsidized and controlled school.

Everywhere I look now I just see lie after lie. Society has become one large double think lie. Everything is the opposite of how it's presented. Health food is bad for you, allopathic medicine is bad for you, organic has become conventional light, diet products add more weight and are more toxic, media says the opposite of whats true, the government lies to you. Society has become a lie in total and I saw the end result of that in Walmart. Why is it that it's so easy to see the solution and yet it's nearly impossible to do anything about it? I don't believe that "the powers that be" are actively trying to fuck everybody, but that's what every action they do results in. Why? Micheal Ruppert has asked this question a lot lately. It's almost easy to believe in evil cause nothing else makes any sense. Is this just the dance that creation dances? It just requires duality to function and that's the way it is? So how do you believe in a creator god that created it that way? I believe in nature and all things natural. Maybe "natural" is the best word to replace "organic." I know they market with that word to, but at least it would be a bit harder to change the meaning due to it being a concept since we developed the ability to think. I have no doubt that they would, and so there is really no point in looking for a new word just so they can highjack it as well.

Since my resignation I've had many opportunities to "explain myself" to the people who are in my life (mostly through association with my wife since I'm mostly anti-social by nature and my entire family...both sides...are in California). "So what are you doing now?" Is what I get asked most often...as in how am I going to make money and support my family. "I'm practicing permaculture" is my reply. Blink...blink....inevitably followed by "what's permaculture?" Nobody has heard of permaculture. Even people I've been having an intelligent conversation with, literate, educated, intelligent people who have no idea about permaculture. I start talking about it and they can see the need for it yet somehow they forget about it just as soon as they take a bite of the next petroleum sugar laced whatever. I think petroleum sugar blocks critical thinking.

I have been told by everybody who I have interacted with, who knew me before the resignation, that I am much happier now (they usually tell my wife that when I'm not around actually). Well...yeah...bending over for the man while scrubbing the under belly of society has that effect on you...you tend to have a pissed off and crass demeanor. Granted..I'm still crass...but some things are just genetic. Yes, I am much happier now and I can't stress enough that if you can do this you should. Really take a look at your life and ask yourself what your time is worth. Is it worth 15 dollars an hour? 30? 100 dollars an hour? What if it's your last hour? We are guaranteed a last hour, but we aren't guaranteed that we haven't just burned through the first 59 minutes of it are we? So what are you waiting for? Look hard at your life situation now. The first place you should look is to your boomer elders cause a lot of the wealth of this nation (stolen wealth no doubt) went to them and they still have it in the way of houses and land that are paid for. I'd be willing to bet that my family is no different from yours. I bet you have an elderly relative (or in my case in-law) that is languishing in their own lonliness. I know I've said this already, but it warrants repeating, drop out of the rat race and get on natures time now. What are you holding onto anyways? Medical insurance? What about that last minute?

If any of you have any questions for me about what I am doing, please ask, the goal of this blog is rapidly becoming to assist in the liberation of minds and bodies from the Matrix. I'm kicking around a blog in my mind that will outline exactly what that means to me.  

Epiphany Now Photojournal 1

The back view

Wendy...the love in my life

my cold frame

The South facing and evoking beginning to the Tribann...otherwise known as the medicinal herb bed

my son and I's work horses

The biomass I harvested with my push mower on two acres

The Talisman my wife found at a thrift store in Hilton Head SC...the Witch...Sarah...hangin' in her Jade plant in front of the Cave window

The view from my den perch

My Escape from the Matrix...

For most practical purposes I have given up on society in total. I completely dropped out from MSM's continuous drooling blather. Before, when I was servicing the machine for money, I didn't have television at home but I had it at work. When not on a call, and not navigating the continuous stream of bureaucratically generated bull shit, I would often find myself in a recliner in front of an idiot box. I was too emotionally tired to do anything about the brainwashing while at work. The pull of easy entertainment that required no thought on my part was overwhelming during those society induced comas of mine. Now there is zero programming in my life. My internet time has clocked in at about 10 minutes a day since I resigned...sometimes less or not at all, but a fair estimate would be about a 10 minute per day average. I've realized that I simply do not care about the insanity any longer. While it is my problem, as it is yours, I've liberated myself from any guilt associated with not doing "something" about the world. And I mean something in the protesting/activists with faith in the political smoke screen sense of something. I consider trying to inform zombies and drooling creitins about the near post petroleum future to be akin to pissing and shitting in a toilet of potable water...it's just stupid. 

 

I haven't been reading or writing at all. While I was working I would read one or two books a week on top of studying Druidry. I haven't read a thing and yet somehow I have become more spiritual. How is that? Following your bliss comes with many positive side effects. My bliss is to act in accordance with my best analysis concerning what is true about the world. My entire life has been about finding the truth, and now it seems that a part of that search has finally ended...dissolved into my own bliss.  I no longer have any dead lines, meetings, or mandatory training. I don't have to sign admissions of guilt for doing nothing wrong. My purpose has become a practice of good stewardship for all life. That is to say that the majority of my "responsibilities" are about raising and husbanding young life. I am here for my son everyday. I am actively watching his mind, body, and spirit evolve. That is my primary purpose in life now. Just to be present for him as a loving and guiding father. I'm also raising seedlings in a cold frame that I built out of salvaged and scavenged materials (although it appears there will be no need for such technology seeing as how it was in the mid 80's today...there is often snow on the ground about this time around here). I will soon be raising "biddies" as well (baby chicks).

I have found that I have a proclivity towards scavenging. I've always despised the idea of waste, and now I work towards salvaging as much resources as possible from America's waste stream. The cold frame I mentioned was built with wood siding that I saved from a demo job on my house (the one that I walked away from) and glass shelving from an old refrigerator. The first composter that I built was made from salvaged shelves and the one I'm building now is being made from box spring wood (if you've never completely demolished a box spring you should try it some time...and I'm talking about one that was made 30 years ago back when quality was a large percentage of making consumer trappings).

There is still a lot of irony that is unfolding in my new living situation which all revolves around the 67 year old aunt-in-law growing up when she did and where she did. The variety of irony I'm talking about here can be summed up nicely by a quick anecdote. The other day I came into the house from constructing things out of scavenged wood and it was 74 degrees in the house. It was 70 degrees outside. I said to her "it's too hot in here," as I felt the temperature of my sons skin who had been in the house playing. "I'll turn on the air conditioning" was the reply I got. I said, "no, just open the windows up," to which she replied that it was not summer yet and she doesn't open her windows until summer. She's paying the utilities and it's her house, so what was I to say. I just mourned the stupidity quietly to myself as I made my way back out to my constructing sanctuary (I spend a healthy portion of my time in the two car garage next to the house that I claimed upon the first day here...I didn't want my wife getting any ideas this time, and I strongly considered pissing on the walls to make my claim). As I walked back to my cave the massive heating and air unit kicked on. I could go on with many such anecdotes but I believe this one will suffice.

 

However, I have managed to abolish paper towels from the house, I've enacted a program for saving organic matter formally known as "waste" generated in the kitchen, and I've slapped a PUR filter onto the kitchen sink so that we could stop drinking chlorine, fluoride, lead (from the aging infrastructure) and god knows what other not good for life chemicals that have found their way into the municipal water supply. I've still not got around to setting up a recycling program and every time I haul the trash off to the dump I feel a strong tinge of guilt...but priorities. I'll get around to it as soon as I can...soon I'll probably resolve to just going through the trash and sorting it myself. There are more pressing concerns like acquiring more stones for the beds, setting up my 500 gallon cistern for rain water harvesting, tending to my seedlings, making soil as quickly as possible to put in said beds, constructing a chicken coop, and all of this amidst taking care of my son and aunt-in-law as well as all of the other tasks that come with living in a ticky tacky box. The family in-law-member that was responsible for keeping up the house for my aunt-in-law, best I can tell was a jack leg, and so I've been having to go through and un-screw all of her jack leg work. 

 Today I cut the 2 acres with a push mower and enjoyed every minute of the work. I viewed it as harvesting biomass to alchemically transform it into soil for my beds. My heart sunk when I realized that I had once again found myself gardening on top of rock hard red clay. I'm sure it's possible to amend clay, but it's not worth the effort as Steve Solomen himself has warned against. I'm here to tell you that if you have red clay, don't bother with it...grow on top and let the soil critters do the work for you.

So the big picture looks like this. I've had to do some adjusting to get used to not bringing home the money for my family. My wife has been doing that with her camera and innate proclivity towards hustling needful things. I'll be making money eventually, but I'm on natures time now, and she can't be rushed. Eventually my practice of permaculture will pay off and I'll be able to ferment my way into money. William Hunter Duncan said in the comment section of my last blog that the fermentors will be like a national treasure in the future...I think he's right. I find the alchemy in fermentation to be amazing, rewarding, and very desired by people. I've not once witnessed somebody who likes kraut eat my kraut and not have their minds blown. The only problem I have is that I haven't been able to keep up with the demand for it because I've been so busy making my way in the matrix while not being a part of it. To be fair, I still acquire money from the Matrix through my wife's use of it, but the world requires money from us. It's a sad fact, however Wendy (my wife) loves taking pictures and doing what she does for money.  She's following her bliss as well, it just so happens that a side effect of that for her is making money. 

 

I was asked to say something about how my family is adjusting to the new arrangements. I can say that my son, my wife, my aunt-in-law, and I are all much happier than before we moved. Resigning from the Matrix was the best thing I have ever done and I have not regretted one moment of it. I've had doubts about it throughout this process, but no regrets. Most of my doubts revolved around money, and the fact that I'm no longer making any of it. The things that I can now provide for my family are priceless. What kind of price tag can you affix to being able to be a father for your child every single day? I suffered from constipation working as an EMT for many reasons and I now have bowel movements three to four times a day. My body is telling me that I have done the right thing. Being home I'm able to cook every meal with all whole foods every day. I have no deadlines and no schedule. I would advise anybody who has the ability to acquire a living situation without needing to work for the man to do so now. Give up some of your cherished autonomy and start learning how to live with family...now.

The end result, or the take away from my experience with the resignation and move, is that it's all been a product of following my bliss. Everybody should follow their bliss relentlessly all of the time. In one of my favorite movies, "Waking Life," a dream character says, "it's bad enough that you sell your waking life for...for minimum wage...but no...they get your dreams for free."  Stop selling your dreams and start living them. Let go of the fear that has been programmed into you and trust that the universe is divine, and so are you. You are Jesus and the Buddha, and they both said as much. What I have done is shed that programming. Sometimes society forces those of us who are sane to walk away. That's the literal place I was in. My choice was to walk away or go insane servicing the myth of the machine and progress. I now service my own dreams, and in so doing I service the dreams of my family and of the post petroleum humans that will make it to the ectotechnic future. Stop delaying, stop buying into the brain washing that they pump into you intravenously, let go of the programmed fear and follow your bliss...or stay miserable servicing the death of everything within the machine. This is real, and it needs to start happening now, while things still resemble "normal." 

 

I'll be posting pictures of what I'm doing soon...I plan on taking the pictures later on in the day when the light is right.

The Stone at Fox Haven

This is going to be a short update with an expanded version as time permits.  I've been very busy with moving seven years worth of domesticated trappings along with a garage full of "retail" that my wife has busied herself with "picking" over those seven years.  We've got enough to run a small business selling needful things to people.

I suppose the permaculture heaven I've got growing in my brain has officially started.  I built a rickety composter out of scrap wood and placed it in the center of where the annual garden beds are going to be.  I plan on making the beds into a very large tribann and using stones in it's creation...eventually.  This year I'll probably have to use scrap wood on the cheap and then build the stones around it...the wood will eventually decompose and become soil.  The composter has become the "stone" in the middle of the Fox Haven.  I thought about that a little and find it to be fitting and symbolic.  In Druidry, stone is the symbol for Earth.  Stone breaks down over time and becomes soil.  A composter builds soil, and so I find that it works pretty well.  

I haven't spent much time at all online since the move.  The Matrix lost it's temporary hold when I made the move.  I've got to say that I enjoy life greatly without the use of the net...makes life much simpler and that's at the heart of the point to what I'm doing.  I haven't even read the last two Archdruid Reports since the official resignation.  I'm in the middle of four books that I haven't touched since the move as well.  Eventually things will settle and I'll get back to lurking online.  Writing will take precedence.

I'm thinking of taking pictures of the progress here at the stone and sharing with all who care to see.  My plans are to sell fermented hotsauce, all manner of kraut, and some fermented beverages such as mead and hard ciders made out of various fruits I have access to.  I've got two mature apple trees (of the large variety) a pear tree, and several crab apple trees.  Not on this land, but on my mother-in-laws.  The 14 acres ended up being a wash for various reasons so it looks like the goats aren't going to happen...at least not here.  However I have 1.6 acres that will be willed to my wife and I with no large trees to soak up the sun's rays...and it's all fenced in.  1.6 acres is plenty of land to produce more food than my small tribe will need with plenty left to turn into value added fermentations. 

So that's it for now...I'll be sure to share my progress with ya'll and I will eventually get back to blogging regularly...maybe even on a schedule.  Don't forget about me cause I plan on being active with blogging again.