We are Family

[curt]

We don't need another / a new discussion to prove it.

It is as it is.

Let this "fred" (discussion thread) live under the theme .......

long live this family

brothers, sisters, brethern, dogs, cats and birds, ants and flees, water and air and gas and Clare and Jim and him and the window Simm (??) and you and me and he and she and we and them and us and puss (???) and fish and the dish (it's on) and paper and pen.

Yip.

[waldopaper]

sis and bro and i... returned from a rally in indy-noplace... on a saturday wake from spring-break take. 

of course there is no Union here.  it was broken some time ago.  and i keep going to "peaceful protests" because i really can't figure out what else to do... well-- i KNOW what else can be done-- took the kids to see their graves when they were very young.  the "other" kids, that is... not the ones standing today whom we need to save from ourselves.... but the ones below the grass at Gettysberg... the ones who cry through time like Wilfred Owen. 

the "educators" were there... my age... many younger.  many kavetching about "funding," But at least "solidarity" was there.  i seriously doubted that many understood the forces their solidarity has arisen to oppose; the fascists, war fetishists and the stunningly-stupid "deficit hawks." 

Now scuse me while i go file for social "security." 

 

[BO]

I'm giving my kid, my totally worn out copy of this...

[waldopaper]

This is It. 
"As complex and weighty as these issues are, collapse simplifies the process."  -- Lundberg 

 

The "collapse" is happening right now.  Most people can not see it any more than they can watch corn growing or paint drying.  Jan Lundberg offers this observation: "Minimize violence: Prepare for collapse and "new" culture."  "Collapse is a Law of Nature," and we "prepare" for it the same way we prepare for the collapse that is coming to us all eventually.  We can fill out paperwork and try to minimize the effect of our collapse on those left behind.  We can try to hype our hippocampus with some kind of belief system in a leap we can not possibly imagine.  

In part, the paperwork and paranormal is a sort of Slipcraft, but then again, so is denial and dissociation.  Becoming the very thing you wish to avoid, a more subtle form of Slipcraft, is regression from the triad to the monad and perhaps that is the natural path of so many things.  If the collapse does not kill you, it may subtlety make you stronger.  We do not seem to do nuance very well.  "We trust that the story will end in God's glory... but at present the other side's winning."  The gobs who gobble about God, smack their Scripture and wave their papers appear to be part of the problem. 

It seems prudent to avoid them if possible, persuade them if practical and disable them if necessary. Most of us reject dogmatic pacificism but we should remember the primary lessons of self-defense; the first being "conflict avoidance" and the second being the objective is not to kill your adversary... but to make them stop.  Perhaps we could also add a dash of Zen: that there is no "self" to defend in the first place, merely a fictional autobiography we write in our heads.  Mix in a few slices of the Willie Keeler method: "...hit 'em where they ain't." 

One could apply the Wee Willie Way to IEDs, but it may be wiser to splice it into Slipcraft.  The sunk-in-stone solipsisms we make of our own rich history only become baggage when the broad road narrows and peters into a path to the Twilight Zone.  Pulling out a Pauline ponerology still won't make us King of England, and even if it's a good-boy google, there are no more plums left in petty cash.  We are on our own, alone together and we must embrace the paradox like Jacob did the Angel.  There is truth in the Text, and the lost-cause myth is only a pretext. 

The Paradox poses a question.  It is a mute Mondawmin to let us up easy only if we gather strength by becoming fasting frail.  This is not to be confused with Lost Causes, Apples of Discord or why we fight so nobly for "causes" so evil.  Or vice-versa.  Or any kind of Hokey-Pokey and we turn ourselves around a pie in the sky.  It is before all of us and we face it alone.  Sure, we can gaggle our goose-eggs and the Yankee Hoards can bury us under boards of directors.  Or vectors.  Or smoke detectors.  The Corn Kernel bawls us up and to our posts.  Or toasts.  Or pot-roasts. 

It wouldn't do to bury him where any Yankee stands. 

Compost Modern(ism) begins with the die-off, like the mild one as the post (modern)-WWII-baby-boom turns seventy and heads out the back of full monty python.  It gets more intense than that over the edge of the Olduvai energy cliff, and culture seeds sewn in past epistemological bull-exhaust mix with bedding, microorganisms and oxygen will grow a permaculture. The most likely die-back flickers like foolish fire in the bog of war, likely raw untreated ideology sweeping through a field of dry rushfire brains.  Death by stupidity… memes and not genes or germs is now the most likely cause of rapid reduction in humans. 

Social dominators  are the arsonists who see themselves as “wild-life management,” mad as “human resources.”  Whatever the cause of human population reduction, civil-war ghosts emerge from the smoke; the “CSA” is Community Supported Agriculture, and will be seen as advancing rebels to market-fundamentalist agribiz skin-walkers.  The ghost-battle fades in Compost Modern dawn.  Slipcraft practitioners are phantoms to other phantoms, peace and conflict continue in parallel universes and the meme-stream diverges.  Vehicles slip efficiently from “capitalism” through “socialism” and on to the Green where cycles assemble and not militia, where social dominators are an invasive species. 

It wouldn’t do plant new culture on a firebreak.  In the Compost Modern world, Slipcraft are muscle-electric hybrids at much slower speeds.  Invasive species blow through like tumbleweeds.  Superstition takes no root here, but metaphysics are macro-biotic, little religion and much spirituality.  Saints are anonymous here, face-dancers who have shed the illusion of self.  Individuals ripen as egos die back.  The Compost Modern garden tends carefully to its memes and metaphors in stewardship, digital guilds for true direction when the old deistic moral compass loses attraction.  Think 1930 USA with wireless networks. 

Like the hill-folk knew their mushrooms, Compost Moderns know what memes are metaphor.  Some are good for stir-fry, some are good to get you high and some are sure to make you die.  Truth is as basic to Slipcraft fliers as inflation and rotation went around with tires, and you don’t need Punch and Judy to tell you what is True.  When governing bodies are puppets, they are composted into less-pathogenic material with more useful components.  As such, old governments can be used for bedding once splintered, dried, de-toxified and reduced to walking distances with locally-produced food and energy. 

This is it: Slipcraft, the skill or vehicle combination that enables transition to Compost Modern via Slipspace, the physical and mental path through the Commons.  This is it: peak resources and die-off for the Postmodern Industrial Globalization has begun, it is the collapse, it is unstoppable and it is useless to fear it.  Social dominators will try to manipulate transition to their extreme advantage as usual.  It will be easier to spot their fetish spike heels in the Compost Modern world, anchoring them “selves” to the mulch.  The sheets and rigging recycled hemp on Compost Modern scholarship, time for the hope-a-trope  to end. 

Slip us a rope and sail on around the bend. 

 

 

[Cal]

Just clocking in.  You all have been quiet ... ?  Me too.   I upgraded my interenet line speed and went 'uncapped' and promptly buried myself under an ever growing pile of 'treasure' - more books, audio books, dvds & music downloads than I'll be able to get through in the rest of whatever life time is left me.  It's addictive.  I find myself scratching around for 'The collected works of William Morris' and things like that at well past midnight.  Then I copy the audios onto cds for listening to in the car when I travel for work.  The plan is also to listen to them while exercizing on my stationery 'exercize bike'.  But that hasn't happened yet.  It took me a whole week to put the bike together from the assorted bits and screws out of a large box.  And now there is sits gathering dust balefully in the middle of my sitting room floor.

I have been relocated from inland Piet Retief to coastal Richards Bay to work as 'Forestry Planning Analyst' at our main pulp mill.  It's hotter than hell there and I never in my life thought I would ever move to Zululand, but I signed the new job appointment effective end May.  I have been shopping for a house for me and the dogs there and was losing hope because everthing there is half the size and twice the price of my current abode.  Then I struck a bit of luck on Thursday and found a small wooden house with a large tropical garden and six geese in a town about 25km out of Richards Bay - Kwambonambi.  So next week I have to find out if the bank will finance the house and if I have a buyer here .... and the move begins.  Wrenching the rootlets I have managed to send out here in the last two years is upsetting ... I have noticed that whenever the first lemon  appears on the lemon tree I always plant in my gardens I get transferred. 

 

Nice job - the department is aging (more than half of us are 50+) and I have been shifted sideways to make room for younger folk, to mentor them & pass on my knowledge and to overview our procedures and technology and advice how to align and move forwards into the future.  They made the job specially for me.  It sort of verges on being retrenched/fired for being over the wall - but they must be serious about the job because it is going to cost them a lot to move me and the dogs to the coast.  They could have just shifted me sideways to gather dust where I am ... and it is a dusty place.

 

Hope you all going well!

 

 

 

[pan]

We keep hoping to see our trees grow.  Unfortunately the stupidity here has continued - no middle level administrator seems to have the balls to do what is obviously needed and they keep channeling through (4 different Chairs in 3 years) so they don't have the time frame to finally get fed up with the continuing nonsense - so Ms. Medusa has joined me on the job hunt.  Getting too old for all these constant moves.

[littleoldme]

Sorry to hear this Pan, seems like you haven't been there that, long have you?

 

The boy child (40 in May, hates it when I call him that lol) is going again, Kaylan and my new baby are already up in Mass, Clancy leaves on the 30th. He's selling his house this time. He has an opportunity to open a new restaurant on the Cape Cod. Can't blame him, there's not much down here for him, at least it'll be easier to visit.

I'm gonna put a pic of my new baby in my pics so ya'll can admire her too, lol.

[hannah j]

I hear everywhere this story of incompetence.  I just couldn't have done what you all do.  I would be fired for sure for insubordination. 

 

Our solution was to pull all appendages in.  We do only 1-2 shows a month, and make many more pieces than we can sell, but i am sitting here watching a downy woodpecker out my window as i use my high-speed wireless to send this message and download a bbc drama, while keeping up with libya, etc, bradley manning protest, and waiting for the first hummingbird. Seeds all over the table waiting to be planted, a mild warm breeze wafting through the door.  I just couldn't bear being out there in the fray, being employed.  We bought the lot across the street, with water, sewer, gas and electric all there, for 500 bucks in december, so we could look out  the window at nothing, and maybe start a little apple orchard.  Now if we can keep global warming from screwing up our retreat, we are okay.  Granted the political climate here is not exactly our liking, but it is pretty tolerant.  I think we are what most people would consider retired. 

I just heard a hummingbird!!!

[BO]

Your place sounds great, Hannah. 

Wonder how long I'll be able to keep going myself. I retired from one company after 25 years, and collect a pension from that, but my freelance income now exceeds my pension. Plus I get to work in my jammies. I could never work for anyone --as an employee and on premises-- again. Makes me barf just thinking about it.

Gotta raise the kid to be a plumber or a lawyer so he doesn't have to work for anyone else. There's just no benefit in working for any institution these days. Except maybe, as a parking lot attendant.

[hannah j]

This is an undiscovered place for sure.  My friend who moved here also from Port Townsend, is now on social security/ssi, and gets lives on about 800 per month. 

Just found out about a house that may go on the market, that had the best garden in town.  The old guy who lived there just died. 

I do believe a handyman could make a pretty decent living here as it is inexpensive.  There are some people with money, but even the poorest can afford a home. oh and did i mention it is unzoned. 

[BO]

So, where is this Kansonian shangri la? I need to get on Google earth and check it out. Ya got a town name?

Wow, 800 a month. That's about 3/4 of our mortgage payment. In seattle, you need about 5k a month just to squeek by. And livin' here ain't what it used to be.

Waisting away in a one-horse town sure sounds good to me. Seriously. 

[littleoldme]

Sounds good to me too.

[hannah j]

okay, first you must swear to not spread this to others.  understand i moved to montana before everyone else, and then to port townsend before it was 'discovered' so i am only 'releasing' this information if you will keep it to yourself.  granted, we don't have majestic mountains, or romantic sailboats (holes in the water), or epicurean restaurants, which are the usual drawing points.  but this is a place you can realize a dream of having a simple life.  you can actually be an artist in this area.  the downside is that the nearest metropolitan areas are 80-90 miles away, but we wait till we have a long to-do list.

our neighbor, who is a longtime friend of mine, came down to visit us about 7 years ago and bought a house.  she hadn't planned on it.  she said she felt almost instantly grounded here. she is a sculptor, painter and collage artist.  if you need entertainment outside of your own pursuits, this probably isn't the place for you.  not that we are cut off from society, indeed, on saturday we went to wichita to demonstrate our continuing objection to war/masters of war, and went to dinner with about 8 other like-minded folks.  great people you all would have enjoyed, a recently retired teacher who has visited cuba, a musician with labor creds, a psychologist who was a "red diaper baby". 

There is a great blues festival that we help with, and sell at, over memorial weekend every year.  It is about 20 miles away, camping all weekend with admission,  http://www.cqbluesfest.com/

Okay, have you sworn to secrecy?  Our county is Elk, 25 x 40 miles, ~3k pop. Our town is Moline, 67353.  We have a PO, bank, gas station (m-f tires, oil chg, and an orange cat), mini-mart (also with gas), feed store with farm/ranch stuff, tavern with crappy beer, liquor store with our favorite IPA, a cafe we don't go to in a converted convalescent home (they rent rooms mostly to hunters).

We have a building downtown we don't use.  It does need roof work (and more), but it is 25x50 with backyard.  a double storefront, 1/2 bath.  You can live in it legally.  It is full of our crap, right now.  We used to use it as a studio.  Now we don't need it.  I had thoughts about some sort of coop, at one point....

We have a beautiful old house which my great grands built, but it needs plumbing and such.  Haven't figured out what to do with it.  Still wishing we could rehab it.  Lovely really.  It is across the street from the recently closed school, formerly k-12, then k-6, now closed.  I would love to see it transformed into a living place or studio/living place thing like this:  http://harveyvilleproject.com/

okay, oh, one more thing.  we have been eating together 5 or 6 nights a week, 4 of us, my son william (who will probably move to portland this summer?), jane and us.  we take turns cooking vegetarian, mostly organic, scratch meals.  we are so civilized!