Truth Against the World

Sunday, February 24, 2013

The End of BAU

For the last six years I've made it my business to understand the plethora of fibers that compose our modern day reality. We live in a society that requires the rest of the world to function. Our modern industrial civilization has engulfed the entire globe. Our oceans are acidifying as we busy ourselves with destroying the last bastion of oxygen production, the great lungs of Gaia, the Amazon. Our species is very sick, but just like a patient with pancreatitis, hepatitis C, and cirrhosis we can't put the bottle down. No matter how much pain it will cause us, we can't bring ourselves to stop drinking. The fun has long since past, and now we just do it out of desperation; we do it because we don't want to feel the immense pain that we have and are creating. We also continue drinking because we are scared of the future. The bottle we are drinking from does not contain liquor. It contains a fermented liquid that the Earth concocted using lots of algae, high pressure, and millions of years. Like liquor, this liquid had the ability to produce a great delusion for the human race. It's this delusion that is responsible for our reckless destruction. It's this same delusion that has us destroying the only home we know of in this infinite expanse of space. We are hopelessly addicted to this magical substance that might as well be the Earth's blood. Like vampires we stick our fangs in the Earth and suck it's blood to quench our addiction. We don't care who pays the price so long as we can get another fix.

Our children are the ones who will pay the price. They are suffering from our debt in this toxic environment that their physical brains must mature in. Trying to figure out why this has happened is about like trying to figure out why a drunk continues to drink. His addiction has him homeless, laid out in the freezing cold street in his urine soaked stitchless rags, and yet he doesn't care because that's what his dark substance provides him. He's in unfathomable pain, and yet he can't feel any of it. Not until there is no liquor left will he finally be forced to face the reality. He wakes up in the cold street, piss soaked pants, peels himself off of the sidewalk, and begins begging for more. Death would be much better for him. This is our species. Drunk on oil. Until that oil is gone the delusion will remain. Business as usual. We don't even care that our children will pay the price for our recklessness.

Maybe the irreversible damage is done and there is no point trying to repair our diseased organs. In which case, I suppose we might as well just stay drunk until we're dead. Maybe it's just going to be too painful to bear the sober burden waiting for us. Could it be that this pain has grown so monstrously large that changing is impossible? Is there a Rubicon that our collective pain has crossed? If this is true than we might as well get on with it and put ourselves out of this misery. Save our children from the misery that we are ensuring for them with every action of every miserable day. If we are to just continue this madness than I would prefer we put an end to it. Problem is, I'm a father, so I don't have that luxury. I've got to find a way to conjure up some hope for my sons to believe in. Yet every place I turn to find just a miniscule fiber of hope I'm met by the blindness that is a pervasive aspect of the holograms programming. It's hard wired into the falsity that the hologram projects. How our species got to this point can only make sense metaphysically. It can only make sense in the quadrants of existence that the Matrix cannot detect. We have collectively lost touch with spirit. In our quest to conquer knowledge and nature we have lost our connection to the natural processes that are created by that spirit in the first place. We need nature to exist, but nature does not need us.

Those who control the work at the power plant that burns the Earth's blood to perpetuate the Matrix's hologram programing are not to be trusted, nor is their message. They are the catalysts that keep this drunken delusion disseminated to each and every human mind. Their intoxicating message must be ignored. Unfortunately everything about BAU is designed to continue perpetuating BAU as an endless positive feedback loop. Communication technology has become the great controlling opus of BAU. Cell phones, the internet, and television are how this great evil ensures it's continual existence within the human psyche. These things ensure that the message is being projected and received. If there is to be any hope, it will be found in learning to use these things to reverse this destructive process. The solution to our problems is staggeringly easy to understand. However it won't be easy to employ. I'm positive that it's going to be painful. We just have to accept that fact and move forward regardless.

The solution to all of our problems is to begin ignoring BAU, but in order to successfully do that, we must extract ourselves from its clutches. Ultimately, BAU is kept going by the electricity that is created by burning hydrocarbons. The electrical infrastructure is the Matrix's Achilles tendon. Electricity is magic, and by itself is neither good nor bad, but the system uses it to keep us all enslaved. This magical force used to be the product of nature alone by way of what might as well be called lightning, and our species seems to be proving that it should have stayed that way. We proved incapable of wielding that one...fire on the other hand. It's starting to look like the Amish were at least correct about the nature of electricity. I want to make it clear here that I'm NOT saying electricity should not be used, or that it's even evil by its own nature. What I am saying is that it should not be used if it's coming from the Matrix's infrastructure. This one step would ensure our extraction. Simply put, in order to fight the Matrix, we must remove ourselves from its physical clutches. Our species flourished long before the grid, and it will flourish after it. But if we do not begin taking the necessary steps towards extraction than our species will lose the chance to flourish.

Our spiritual amnesia must also be addressed. Unplugging from the grid would allow each one of us to once again remember sacred and natural divinity. The white noise emitted from the hologram blocks our spiritual receptors. The incessant drivel that is audible beyond the white noise is about nothing of consequence and is projected to every mind plugged into the grid. The last time I heard about that drivel, I was enjoying traditional Mexican cuisine, and it was intrusively going on and on about some poo poo cruise that the entire world was watching...and for some reason it was considered normal that those poor souls had to continue eating onion sandwiches and shitting on the deck. Some vacation...at least they got to shit in the great outdoors...albeit on the deck of a cruise ship. I bet those processed loaf bread and onion sandwichs were some god awful smelling turds . Come on people, my chickens have more dignity and sense than that and they shit all over the damn place 24/7.  

I was talking about spirit. That noise from the machine...it's function is to ensure we don't get the chance to contemplate spirit. Our minds and bodies are being filled with corporate programing when they need to be filled with sacredness. Yet they are so full with the former that there is no room left for the later. The cup has runneth over with the hologram. It's far beyond the mental realm. We are controlled on a physical level as well. Man made chemicals are ubiquitous in the very cells that compose our bodies. You need electron microscopes to even study that level of control. Some of these chemicals are prescribed to us by the Ministry of Health, others we willingly ingest, but the majority we have absolutely no control over. Our bodies absorb those toxins autonomically. Between the Matrix's mental control, and the physical chemicals pervading our biosphere, we are left almost hopeless. This is why we must begin extracting ourselves from these horrible mechanisms of control and destruction.

I understand that advocating for the avoidance of hydrocarbon fueled electricity seems excessive. That's because it is. It's excessive, purist, anal, unrealistic, idealistic, and probably impossible, and yet it's our only hope. Unless the amount of petroleum we are capable of getting at is less than what will be needed to bring the Earth's biosphere to it's catastrophic environmental threshold of chaos. We can pray that this will be the case, but just hoping is not good enough. We must begin turning our backs on the way we have done things for the last 200 years. The only successful strategy we can have towards righting our wrongs is to begin ignoring the Matrix and it's delusional hologram. Protesting does not produce results. The machine simply does not care what we think. Its got it's own momentum now, and it views itself as unstoppable.

Fact, our way of life is going to destroy the biosphere to the point where it will no longer sustain human life. If we continue BAU that will be the outcome. That being the case, I don't think there is anything that is too extreme if it can reverse that outcome. If the solution is unrealistic should that matter? Should it stop those of us who have identified the problem from trying to correct it? I don't think the solution being unrealistic should matter to us. Maybe it is too late. Maybe there really is nothing that can be done at this point. Yet without hope there can be no point to existence. If we are just doomed to failure as a species than we might as well destroy ourselves and get it over with. I don't think that is the case. I want to believe that we can fix our biosphere so that it will once again become healthy for our children. 

There is a great spirit that has all of the answers. In Druidry we call it AWEN (pronounced Ahhh Ohhh Ennnn). Funny how that word sounds like AMEN isn't it? I wonder if that's just a coincidence?  We have lost touch with that source. Unless we learn to once again sensitize ourselves to the stone, we will destroy all current life on Earth. This is the message that needs to be heard right now. This is what we need to wake up to. Our job is to awaken that spirit in as many people as possible. The only way to accomplish that goal is going to be to use the Matrix and it's hologram against itself. Somehow we are going to have to find a way to channel all of that Energy that is being created by burning the Earth's blood into consciously destroying the Matrix. I don't know how to do that, but that's what needs to be done. The solution may reside in enough people realizing that a different way is not just necessary and possible, but that it is most importantly desirable.  I happen to believe that the 100th monkey is about to wake.  But he won't if you don't.  That's the point...isn't it.  It's easy...wake up...

Some Piedmont Hope from the land of the Fox.
 

12 comments:

John D. Wheeler said...

I think the Amish had it very close but no cigar....

I think all you need is one simple rule: depend on nothing that you do not understand so thoroughly that you could make it yourself.

Now, a couple caveats: that "you" and "yourself" is the *collective* form. It applies not only to an individual but also tightly-knit groups. It does not, however, apply to random assortments of strangers.

The other caveat is that as long as your group has the capacity and the knowledge to make what you need, there is some room to trade for efficiency, especially for anything past survival.

Luciddreams said...

John Wheeler said:

"Now, a couple caveats: that "you" and "yourself" is the *collective* form. It applies not only to an individual but also tightly-knit groups. It does not, however, apply to random assortments of strangers."

I'm not sure I understand what you mean with this one. Could you maybe clarify a bit?

Anonymous said...

"I think all you need is one simple rule: depend on nothing that you do not understand so thoroughly that you could make it yourself."

I like this rule, John! Is this something that you have read somewhere before? If so, I'd like to know where so that I can read more from that author. If not...wise words, my friend! I agree completely.

Jeff Z said...

Maybe I can elaborate on what John has said- and John can stop me if I'm off course.

Many years ago- when I was in my 20's, I made a pledge to myself that I wouldn't acquire any technology that I couldn't understand and fix myself. That ruled out cars, but I became a fairly good bike mechanic in the process- mostly because I knew people who knew how to fix bikes and who had a lot of bike parts from scavenged bikes.

It also ruled out computers for the most part, and I still used a telephone, but didn't own one. I did learn how to sew, at least to fix clothes I wrecked, and how to acquire clothing for next to nothing. And how to grow food, though I never came close to feeding myself entirely through my own labor.

Having a circle of trusted friends to rely on made all the difference. I was able to gain the skills of others by asking and occasionally barter for what I needed. Beyond that, I lived on a couple thousand dollars a year.

Now if I were to use a computer I didn't understand and burn petroleum that I couldn't mine or refine myself, that would be relying on random assortments of strangers. That is, the oilmen in Texas and the pimply-faced guys at Best Buy.

In some ways, it was a charmed life. Unfortunately, for me it didn't last. Family expectations, and finally, marriage ended my idealistic existence. Now I have a car and a mortgage and a couple of computers. And I'm less happy, but I do have two wonderful kids.

I think I'll return to it someday, whether voluntarily or not, I'm not sure.

The Amish have a community that supports their lifestyle materially- with a neighborhood blacksmith and farrier- but also spiritually, if I can use that word- as a support network- to remind each other that their existence is not so crazy. That they're doing the right thing. That it's going to be worth it.

In some ways, I feel like you and WHD, and John and Hepp and Andy and some others do the same. You remind me that I'm not crazy- no matter what my dad or the newspaper says. That the future will be different than we have been told, and it makes sense to prepare.

All while I live my life mostly in the Matrix.

Damn good writing by the way, Lucid. Lots of heart there.

Luciddreams said...

thanks JeffZ, I take your compliment seriously . So thank you.

Also, I've got a 2 almost 3 year old and my wife is six months preggo. We are doing this for our children. I mean, it's hard to imagine completely unplugging and all you have is a piece of land. Yet still, and I'm talking about the Doomstead Fox Den here (the 150 acres in NC) what we have is each other and our talents. We have the will to make this happen and the knowledge of why it's necessary to do it now.

Getting past the fear is the hard part. But I have faith in Nature. it will provide for me and my family. It's the same faith religious people have in God just expressed slightly differently...but only rhetorically.

Jason Heppenstall said...

Could this be your best piece of writing yet? Very profound and thought provoking.

As a fellow dad, I must admit that it is the thought of my kids' futures that keeps me tossing and turning more than most other things. We're in uncharted territory here ... how best to proceed?

As for the matrix etc. yes, turning the power back on itself, that's one of the ways to do it. At least the internet, for all its drivel, allows the dissemination of ideas across unfathomable distances. You mention Druidry - that's going through something of a boom as (some) people are increasingly turning to Earth spirituality.

You might feel a bit silly wearing white robe and lighting candles in forest glades, but at least you are focusing the mind on re-sacredising nature, rather than just consuming it.

John D. Wheeler said...

Thank you, butterchurner. No, I haven't read it anywhere, it is something I have been trying to distill for years. You guys are helping me put the finishing touches.

Jeff, you have it almost exactly right, and it points out a third caveat: I said, "depend", not "use". Or as you said, "rely on". So, for example, it's okay to use a car to go to the beach, as long as you're not relying on that for your mental health, but you shouldn't need one to get to a job that you can't survive without.

And of course, this is the ideal, the guiding principle; I honor it more in the breach more than the observance. But it is what I work towards.

Now, lucid, Jeff had the right idea about the random assortment of strangers. Let me state it as part two of the rule: do not depend on people who you not know thoroughly enough to be able to predict how they will react to most situations. They don't have to be perfect, you just need to know them well enough, and for most people, that implies a limit of about 150 - 200 people.

Luciddreams said...

Thanks Jason, that means a heck of a lot to me coming from you. I don't know how I pulled this one off? Think it had something to do with AWEN ;o)

Speaking of, there is no reason to wear any funny robes if it makes you uncomfortable (well, there are reasons, but if that's the reason you don't come to the source than there is no reason). I'm probably the most hands off Druid around, and a lot of "Druids" would no doubt snicker at me in disgust for using the moniker. Doesn't bother me. I take Druidry seriously and practice it in my own way. Last Alban Arthuan marked my first complete year as a Druid Apprentice under JMG. I paid the 50 bucks to AODA, started a Druid Journal, and then resigned from the Matrix. I should write about that experience because it was chalk full of magic. To put it shortly, everything I wrote in that journal started happening...I would call it weird if I didn't know any better.

Not sure if you've been on the Doomstead Diner lately, but we're working on a physical location in the Piedmont region of NC (the region I'm in in the hills of Appalachia). 150 acres of forest and pastures being reclaimed by that forest. Lot's of great goat food in those pastures now. At any rate, it's going to be an off grid site for a lot of new and interesting ways for being in the world. The land owners want to leave it to a Permaculture trust, which I and two other Diners are working on (Roamer and RE...and hopefully WHD sooner than later).

Interesting isn't it Jason? That we both begin building a Druid response to the jacked up future in the name of the Fox. We are indeed kindred souls you and I. I was pushing for "The Doomstead Fox Den," but my wife seems to have usurped my title and presented us with the Foxstead Diner. I like that better. I'll just stamp "Fox Den" over the entrance to that Airstream that we'll be living in for the first little while.

Luciddreams said...

John, I agree with your principals. You should let us know about them when you have them complete. 150 to 200 people sounds about right to me.

Jason Heppenstall said...

That sounds like a heck of a plan you have going there! I'd join you, if I didn't already have my own little plot brewing.

As for the druidry business, you're ahead of me in the game. I ran out of excuses (to myself) - it seems like the only sane and logical response to things. My particular 'guru' is Phillip Carr Gomm, rather than JMG, although the two of them are friends.

I will check out the Diner.

Jeff Z said...

Between the location (Appalachian NC is one of the most beautiful places I've been) and the Druidry, you sound prepared to create a new version of the Amish experiment- with the off-grid rural location and spiritual coexistence.

And that is a compliment- not an insult, as it might appear coming from within the Matrix.

I will live vicariously through you and the others, as I'm anchored down in my city in the northland.

Having some experience in living collectively, I'd advise paying attention to the group dynamics and making sure everyone still has enough personal space to escape the group when needed. I lived in a student co-op for years, and collectives can be a real pressure cooker.

That said, it can also be a wonderful way to live. I wish that for you and your family after what you've endured over the last year.

Luciddreams said...

thanks Jeff. I think WHD and I are close enough in our beliefs to craft some unobtrusive communal hippiesque, tree huggin' star gazin' spiritual quasi ritual ceremony involving trees...and possibly some herbs...or not ;0)

But seriously, thanks, nothing can stop an idea who's time has come. Lots of energy is coalescing with the Foxstead. Lot's of brilliant minds that are ready for it and that are bringing their own unique talents. I think it's unstoppable.