Green Wizard Zombie Whispering Permie Ninjaness

The world is a hopeless messicus...just like I outlined in my last blog post.  Zombies jacked up on “bath salts” chewing each other’s faces off in public, never ending war for resources, financial melt down, prisons being ran by for profit corporations, healthcare for profit, debt slavery, destruction of our biosphere without scruples, 67% of the worlds prescription fuckitol prescribed here in the once united states, and the law of the land stating that nobody can send anybody to prison for no reason never to be heard from again.  You’d have to be a master of denial to not feel mostly despair for the future.  Nothing is going to save us from this trajectory of tragic destruction.  Is it really hopeless?  Without hope what is the point in continuing to breath?  Why bother living in a world with no hope?  As a self proclaimed optimistic pessimist doomer...let me attempt to make a case for something resembling hope...because that seems to be in very high demand just now for my kind.  My kind being members of the aspiring virtual Post Petroleum Human Tribe (with tribe being a grave abstraction from an actual tribe due to it’s mostly virtual nature). 
   
    I have some hope to offer.  Follow your bliss.  The world has always been a fucked up place.  It’s always been a place where joy is intermittent at best and suffering stays attached to each of us as a planet sized ball on an infinite chain.  “Life is suffering,” and to my knowledge this was the seed of the Buddha’s message.  Start from there and work your way to the joy, cause otherwise you’ll never find it.  But it’s not my intention to get all newfangled W.A.S.P (white anglo saxon protestant) spiritual on my kind readers (as I wrote this paragraph Zee Avi’s “Mileston Moon” was playing, and it seemed very fitting for the tone, mood, and message I’m trying to convey...so listen to it as you read.)  I suppose inserting “life is suffering” here was my disclaimer for ultimate truth.  I mean such being the case, what should we expect from reality?  Right?

    I’m supposed to be in Asheville NC right now, 70 miles away from my home, participating in the final weekend of the Permaculture in Action class I’ve been attending all summer.  Instead I’ve been catching up on blog reading and now blogging.  My internet time has spiraled to almost zero due to my laptop dying.  I was reading John Michael Greer’s blog a week ago when my computer screen blinked a couple of times and then went dark.  My first reaction was to take up cussing and get all bent out of shape about it...but I refrained from that action.  Instead I put my laptop in an obscure corner of our room and it has remained there.  Fuck it...I don’t need a laptop, or the internet.  Now I have occasional access via my wife’s work computer, so I won’t be blogging much going forward.  I will still be around on occasion, and I still have every intention of posting a new photojournal entry at some point soon.  In the past laptopless week I have taken to viewing it’s death as a blessing.  I just wish I had a way to listen to spotify out in the garage while smoking herbage from a bong. 

    It’s just another obstacle being removed from the path my bliss follows.  A couple of days after the laptop died I found myself with ten Delaware hens and a beautiful Rode Island Red rooster.  I also found myself planting a cherry weeping willow tree in the garden.  I dug nine two foot deep post holes and constructed a circular chicken run in a dandelion patch that I have let grow.  I have made peace with “weeds” in my garden.  I consider myself a weed gardener (and no, I’m not growing any marijuana).  I actually have some prized weeds that I have allowed to grow to great heights in my garden.  So if you cultivate weeds in your garden are they still weeds?  I love weeds.  I relate to them and draw strength from them.  What is stronger than a plant that can grow in concrete dividers on the interstates?  What is a better symbol for the magic in the plant world than a plant that can grow in concrete?  I want to revel in those weeds that will one day be the pioneers that cover up all of the vial and insidious destruction our species has wrought on Mam Gaia.  Isn’t there a word for hating your own species?  I mostly hate the human race because I mostly see nothing worth caring about.  No other species shows contempt for every other species on the Earth accept for ours.  Shit...I’m supposed to be outlining hope here aren’t I?

    I consider myself a Green Wizard...a sooth sayer, a prognosticator....I can see into the future...centuriessss into the future.  I’ve even been there lad!  And having been there, I can tell you that it’s fubar until we get to 2400 or so.  We are headed into a dark age, and that is based on factual reality and not on the delusional technotriumphalism aided and abetted by the likes of the MSM.  Where is the hope in a dark age?  Being a Green Wizard, I figured I’d give the other end of the popular strategy being offered by members of the PPHT (post petroleum human tribe) a chance.  Basically we have the Transistion/Permaculture end, and the Green Wizard end, and that’s what the PPHT spectrum of strategy looks like.  I became involved in permaculture because I was looking for some hope.  Asheville has a very healthy permaculture crowd, but where I live...not so much.  My dilemma is that Asheville is the closest Transition/Permaculture hub and that ain’t exactly local.  So start one here where I am right?  It’s not so easy as that.  You see if everyone in your community has their head up the American Hologram ass, what good are they going to be to your transition aspirations?  Yet, the cabin in the woods is doomed to failure.  What does that leave by way of strategy for dealing with the future?  To my estimation it leaves Green Wizardry. 

    I would start a Transition/Permaculture movement where I’m at, but unfortunately I’m too optimistically pessimistic for that.  Yet it is what I’m doing via my practice of green wizardry.  It’s just that I’m planning that transition for my neighbors, who care about football and fried cheese just now, for the future.  Which is pretty much what John Michael Greer has stated is the point in the practice.  Our job is to learn how to live in a de-industrialized and petroleum scarce civilization ahead of the collapse curve.  The predicament that is to be dealt with is the fact that nobody gives a shit about paying attention to much beyond the zombies chewing each other’s faces off in-between bouts of America’s got Stupid Fake Anti-reality Television show.  However, when the not reality, reality television goes away, and they are forced into accepting reality of the reality persuasion, they will begin to care about things like how to dig a permaculture hole and how to keep chickens happily poopin’ out food from their poop shoots.  They will care because they will be hungry.  That’s where I come in (and also where the hope I’ve been desperately trying to tease out of myself to offer it up here comes in...and here’s another song to bring you to the end of my rambling rambles)

     It’s not much hope, but it’s something.  So there are nothing but zombies in my community who enjoy yelling at their children for digging in the dirt (I heard one of the trailer’s next door cussing and yelling at their four year old for digging in the dirt “how many fucking times do I have to tell you to stop messin’ in the fuckin’ dirt?”  I had to endure that while digging in the dirt in my yard.  Their four year old was simply copying me, an adult, doing interesting things in the dirt).  Well we have chickens now, and they are very visible to the inhabitants of my anti-culture community.  My wife and I have decided to attempt to get the neighbors interested in buying our happy chicken eggs next door for two dollars a dozen.  It’s part of our “get to know the zombie neighbors” initiative.  There is nothing but a chain link fence separating us from them.  One would have to have one’s head up the American Hologram ass to not think that when the zombie apocalypse kicks off full steam ahead they ain’t gonna be jumpin’ the fence to ransack all of our green wizard creation for their bellies.  Might as well deal with it now and start trying to form relationships with them. 

    The thing I’ve realized is that zombies are very hungry.  So I’ve decided to work with that theme.  Therefore my strategy is going to involve Zombie Whispering.  I’m cultivating my son into a Green Wizard Zombie Whispering Permaculture Ninja, and I’m doing that by doing that myself.  Yes, I am a Green Wizzard Zombie Whispering Permaculture Ninja...want to fight about it?  Just be forewarned...I can shoot chicken shit out of my wand omnidirectionally and by design and at my command. 

    I enjoyed the permaculture gallivant I’ve been on this summer.  I’ve learned a lot and etched out a reputation amongst the Asheville permaculture scene as one bad ass hole digger.  I never knew that I had a proclivity and talent for digging holes.  I even have a mattock that’s been dubed Axcalibur by my wife.  I think the most important attribute about myself that I’ve come to terms with is that I’m a loner.  It’s an attribute that makes for good green wizardry, but not so much Transition.  I think it’s because I don’t like dealing with the hierarchy ingrained in our lower brains.  When you are in a group you have to deal with pecking orders.  I just want to be king...which is a topic for another blog.  I’m beginning to think that a monarchy ruled by a genuinely good king is the best way to organize ourselves as a species.  But then that’s the point of the once and future king isn’t it.  So that’s it...my ode to hope.  It’s the best I can do.  Learn how to grow food and keep food producing animals and prepare for your local hungry zombies because they are going to be interested in the holes you dig and the birds you keep one of these days. 

P.S.  smoking herb out of a bong also helps with the hope bit.  I find there isn’t much better therapy than watching the chickens that live in my back yard scratch in the strong weeds for bugs while stoned.

Hopless Messicus

What does it mean to prepare for the collapse of our petroleum laced convenience anti-culture? The easy answer is to learn how to grow your own food, but that's too easy. Growing food isn't easy but that answer is. "Ohh, just learn how to grow your own food, that will prepare you for the end of petroleum!!" Now walk out into your yard (which is probably surrounded by zombies) scratch the sod off and plant some seeds. Wa la...or as Merlin might say, "hockity pockity wockity wack." Now just go back into the house and turn the television back on secure in the knowledge that food is on the way. Well you might want to make sure that you have at least planted something that is going to yield a lot of energy...like taters. Now all we have to do is get everybody in this anti-culture to start planting taters in their yards and we'll all make it...won't we?

While the taters are growing, let's look at a few more items of concern for our petroleum people in this petroleum society which is made possible by...well...petroleum...and corn. The reality is that we have become fat and gooey in our air conditioning. About those taters that we just planted. It's wonderful that we don't have to worry about such things as colorado potato beetles or any of those other pesky pest insects. Let's not forget a few other factors we would have to worry about if it were not for technotriumphalism. Factors such as the unknown affect of GMO's on humanity, migrating insects that are in the wrong place at the wrong time due to the changing biosphere, or soil that looks more like the wore out innards of an elder prostitute. If it were not for those scientists out there pounding the "manipulating physical reality with cute gadget" pavement, we would have to worry about subjects like the laws of thermodynamics and biology.

Did you hear that ding? It was the sound of the potato that just got cooked in the ground. Thanks to nuclear power plants that are just leaking radioactive shit to beat the band out there in Aikido land, we no longer need microwaves to nuke what little bit of nutrition was left out of them taters. Now our genetically modified tater chips can add some nice radiation to our diet. Who needs radiation therapy any longer when you can just buy it for .99 cents at your local convenience store, and with free monosodium glutamate. Wait...but isn't that fighting the cancer causing agents with cancer? Okay, I'm confused. Phew...it's a good damn thing that high fructose petroleum sugar green guilt gulp drinks are so cheap. If they weren't so cheap, I might have to drink that even cheaper rain water complete with every fucking toxin you care to guess at. You know the space brother's are close when the rain water ain't fit for human consumption and we've got zombies chewin' each other's faces off on the side of the interstate due to "bath salts." Whatever the fuck that is...is that the slash and burn Walmart Meth that's causing all of these zombies? Is it true that people go to Walmart and gain everything they need to manufacture meth while there? And is it true that they even make the meth there and then use it and leave? I heard that was true.

Our world has past the point where fiction can go. Orwell and Huxely didn't even envision zombies chewin' each other's faces off as reality...at least not to my knowledge. Is this really reality now? I heard another story that broke my heart the other day. I heard that if you go to jail your gettin' strip searched. Better not go to jail for any reason. It's a good thing that the police can't just pull you over for no reason and then take you to jail because you are suspiciously acting suspicious. It's also great news that the federal government can't show up and take you away for doing nothing wrong. Wait...so you can get pulled over by the law for no reason and then never be seen or heard from again? It's a good thing I don't have a job to drive to, or I might have to put myself at risk of never being heard from again for no reason. I guess it really doesn't matter because just being alive gives you cancer these days. What a fucked up prize to inherit. It's a wonder I'm not a pessimist, or facetious for that matter.

We need to learn to let go as a species, and I'm not talking about Buddhism here either. I'm talking about learning to let go of the leisure we have all grown accustomed to for the last 100 years or so. I suppose the "middle class" didn't exist until after the second world war. That means this illusion we have been living in has only existed, this time around at least, for roughly 70 years (there's always the possibility that technologically advanced civilizations existed on Earth and vanished with no trace...like Atlantis). Everything we know as normal about society these days ain't even old enough to have died from old age yet. It's gettin' there though isn't it? Think of all of the things about our technopoly that we take for granted every second of every day. Drinkable running water (you won't die from a waterborne pathogen at least), electrical outlets, personal motorized transport, food that magically appears sterilized in grocery stores, climate control, free entertainment at your command, telecommunication technology. I could go on, but I've gone on long enough.

Knowing all of the above, who would remain optimistic about our future? Or as Archimedes might say, "Whoooo...I'ddd like to know Whoooo" (I've been brainwashing my son and I with Disney's Sword in the Stone"). My wife has baby fever now that my son's learning to use the potty. I'd love to have another child for many reasons. However...see above. The world is a clusterfuck and the prognosis is continual clusterfuck status for the next 100 years or so, and that's being optimistic. If we are to listen to magi's such as John Michael Greer, then we've got another 300 years before something like a steady state world will exist. That's 300 years of worse than the year before, for members of civilizations at least. I keep thinking that I need to inject some hope into this blog, but I can't seem to stop paying attention to reality. I feel like a fraud when I try to muster up some happy shit to say about the future.

I'm marinating in a permaculture tribe right now. I'm making connections with real people in person. The only problem is that I have to drive 70 miles to participate. I have to go up the mountain. How am I supposed to do this where I'm at? There's nothing but zombies out there...chewing each other's fucking faces off. They don't even have the decency to do it in private. That's the reality that I'm supposed to fight with optimism. I'm supposed to start my own tribe here in Stupidville, where they water their plants with electrolytes and they can't figure out why they won't grow. Where they think their vote for president counts and Coca Cola is good for them when they are sick. They go to the Dollar General to buy their sustenance for cryin' out loud. Let's not forget the shit house rat crazy southern baptists Christians that are the majority. These are people who like to spend their time exercisin' demon's in retard tongue. They don't have to worry themselves with reality because Chebus is coming to save them. It's enough to make a grown man cry. A majority class of people who never left their childhood.

I want so badly to believe that the 100th monkey is going to arrive for humanity before it's too late. Yet I know that it's already to late. What do you do when hope becomes gossamer delusion? Sometimes sadness is appropriate and healthy, and our society is a sad mess. There's a very real human drive inside of me to do something about this fucked up prognosis. I am doing something about it, but men can't be islands unto themselves. So I want to get on with it. The shit has already hit the fan but society is to anesthetized on stupid and ignorant to notice or give a shit. How am I supposed to grow a tribe in Stupidville? I can't leave because leaving takes letting go of any sense of stability on my families part. My wife and I fantasize about becoming gypsies, but it's just fantasies. This is where learning to live in the moment comes in handy. Much past the present moment and your just trying to kick water up hill. Why do we insist on trying to kick water up hill on our way to Hopeless Messicus?  I'd like to know.