There's
a Knight standing next to me now. He's got a peace necklace on and
he's holding two black and white feathers found in Texas. Before
that, while he was still in Texas, he was holding flowers. He was a
gift given to me by a stoned and druken WASP shaman from Minnesota.
What he was doing in Texas is hard to say, but so is saying what I
was doing there. I was there to meet people I've been in written
communication with for the last several years. Those in attendance
included a shaman, two ritual magicians, a Dentist, a webmaster
hermit shut in from Alaska, a Druid, a Shaman Witch (for now at
least, and born during the Convocation), and two Druid/Shaman Witch
children.
There
were wigs, and boomerangs, and 50 year old Texas spider monkey
dentists 30 feet up in a tree trying to retrieve a stuck boomerang,
and weather magic, and shamanistic happenings, and a 200 year old
pecan tree that was actually Old Man Time, and tractor joy rides
ending in busted hydraulic lines, and Monolithic dome building, and
out door showers erected complete with a Diner noose, hugel beds
constructed, gray water retention snake heads (I dug a big ass hole),
and my wife walked naked down a limestone dry creek bed by full
moonlight...ohh, and I had an actual fox run across my path. Ayden
Zen was in communion with the fox just before I walked up and
interrupted.
You
should have been there for this meeting of minds and souls. I can
speak to what I was doing there now. I was there with my family
looking for some hope. It's looking pretty hopeless out there these
days, what with the writing on the wall and whatnot. BAU continues
until it doesn't. So some Diners got together in Bum Fuck Egypt
Texas to figure on some hope, and to learn how to build Monolithic
domes, which are earthquake, hurricane, tornado, and fire proof
domiciles that can be built for less money than a stick built piece
of shit of the same square footage. These are domiciles that have
withstood 300 mph winds and American Apache helicopter strikes, and
simply need you to shut the door when a fire breaks out (they're so
air tight that the fire will starve for oxygen before it can do much
damage...and anyways concrete doesn't burn).
What's
the point of a fox crossing my path, or any of the other oddities
encountered during the first Diner Convocation? I'm still trying to
figure all of that out, and there's a lot that happened that I won't
be writing about (including what happened after I found my wife
walking naked down the limestone creek bed by moonlight).
Interestingly, while all of this real life magic was going down in
Bum Fuck Texas, trolls were hard a work lambasting the very thing
that was allowing all of the real world magic to occur. Why is that?
I think it's because they are afraid. They don't want to admit that
it's come to a group of internet forum friends meeting in Texas for
difference to be made in this rigged catastrophe of a petroleum
dependent clustercuss. They don't want to admit that
technotriumphalism is not going to save a damn thing...accept maybe
some people from dealing with the thermodynamic constraints we're all
forced to adhere to.
Will
we build domes as a result of this meeting? Is there a chance for
prosperity for normal people in the near future? Is the Orwellian
New World Bravely going to persist and even evolve into draconian
dystopians unimagined by the doomerist doomers? Why does BAU
continue unabated?
For
my part, and the part of my family, we've only just begun on this
journey that started here at Epiphany Now and migrated to the
Doomstead Diner, and now the SUN. My family is planning a trip to
California soon. We'll be burning a lot of petroleum by way of the
internal combustion engine in our Saturn Vue to make it there. We'll
be camping in state parks just like we did to and from the
Convocation. I've got a cousin getting married, and we've got a
tribe to meet in Fresno. The tribe is a coven of magicians. While
at the Convocation I had visions filled with symbols I'm not ready to
understand yet. My family slept outside of the Toothstead house in
an REI tent titled the "Hobitat." I awoke from these
mysterious visions at the beginning of the Convocation to a monstrous
clap of thunder followed by a torrential downpour. The day before
this I saw intentional weather magic being worked, as well as a group
rain dance in which I supplied the shamanistic beats. Beats I didn't
even know I had. Beats accompanied by impromptu musical instruments
made by using common kitchen utensils (I was using a 3 gallon bucket
myself to drive this thing). This downpour happened amidst a
terrible Texas drought.
I
was confused by all of this meaning. I was depressed after it was
over and we returned to our trailer park Whoville everywhere America.
I'm still depressed by how beautiful it could be and yet isn't. How
it could all just mean nothing, and how we could remain stuck here
where the Zombies will eat our table for lunch. Some things in life
do not make sense, and yet they are magical in spite of Cartesian,
Newtonian, and Apollonian logic. I chose to believe that all of the
Convoction magic was just that, magic. It's not as if anyone can
prove me wrong, not when we know that the act of scientific
observation changes the outcome of the observation. Not when the
truth is that we make our own meaning, our own myths, and our own
minds. What's your mind doing about infinite growth on a finite
planet? Mine is creating 21st century living tribes out of the
virtual reality of the net. We've met, in person, in Bum Fuck Egypt
Texas, and we still like each other. We're all who we said we were.
Here's to the first Diner Dome we're gonna build. Here's to a future
where some of us survive and even thrive. Some of us...likely not
many...but at least my new tribe is trying. How about yours? RIP
Mike Ruppert. I'm already not the slowest camper. It may be that my
tribe is the fastest. However unlikely our Convocation.