Mourning

There are losses we never get past. The death (cancer) of my older sister was one of those for me. It's 20 years this year, and I'm only really beginning to mourn her now.

It was a *bad* year for me: I miscarried, never to conceive again - and my mother was dying of cancer. Sandwiched in the middle of those two, shattering-and-could-not-allow-myself-to-let-go moments, my sister died.

Today, thinking of my impending move back to MI and realizing how it might have been for us to recover the closeness we had as children, I am finally lost in grief.

Time to Breathe

Report Card for the last 10 days.

1) Yard:
Completely cleaned out (10 pickup truck loads to the dump)
Planting plan designed for 5 areas. (Three to figure out)
Two car-loads of plants purchased
East side soaked for some initial planting (tonight)
Front soaked for additional planting (tonight)
New quick release thingys for hoses purchased

2) House:
Several attempts at matching/recreating the faux paint job in the dining room. Solution found
Wood putty for holes purchased.

3) Contractor for front porch selected, hired. He starts Monday.

Personal:
1) Added a 1 to 1 & 1/12 hour walk per day

Right or wrong, I made the decision that lots more people like the idea of having a garden than are brave enough to tackle creating one. So I stopped worrying about planting in a manner that is "not to the taste of the new owners" and made a full commitment to simply choosing wisely to make it look good and to be efficient in the spots chosen. And I'm really excited to see it taking shape!

I'm even planting a veggie garden for them. No, I'm not doing "exactly" the way I would have done it for myself, but I'm getting it established for them. Whoever "they" are.

This yard is too big, the slopes are too difficult; it's daunting to those who aren't gardeners. I suspect even many good gardeners would prefer to take on changing a garden than creating one from scratch. I wasn't afraid to tackle it (and the big projects to establish the "bones" were successful - a 12 foot long bay laurel hedge offering privacy, 5 large well-placed bushes, a short wall to terrace the front hill) but it's so difficult that I am very slow. And while slow was fine while I was living here, it's not so fine if I want to leave.

I found a great landscaper with a strong back at a good price, and the problems I struggled with are melting away. This weekend I realized again that no, I'm not strong/stable enough to dig even small holes while standing on the downward side of a steep slope without sliding and falling. So I skittered around on it, used a hoe to make a spot flat enough into the hill to balance a pot, and placed - but didn't plant - a dozen each Yarrow (mostly in shades of yellow and gold), Powis Castle Artemisia, and sage (in reds), all in 1-gallon pots. I've another dozen Powis Castle on order.... that will extend the row behind the roses in a second "scallop" around the small wall that wraps the hill.

But boy. I sure am glad that my farm is flat. I can dig a hole in flat ground. Sigh. I have to acknowledge that, now that I'm closer to 60 than to 50, hard work is ok -but risking a fall or hurting my back is not. Judicious caution will keep me in the game for the long haul.

And now? I have a long afternoon to relax, meditate, do some spiritual work. This evening I'll put in some more plants.

Dreams of secret gardens

I daydream about growing forts of sunflowers for my nieces' kids to play in; I dream of planting willow twigs fastened together in the form of chairs and benches, and think of the time to come when I will be able to sit in them.

In the meantime, instead of having my landscaper limb the "weed" tree up, as he suggested, we cut a secret path through the cascading limbs and blanketing leaves. There is room, on the far side, to create another garden room if someone has the energy and interest. My contribution will be only the path.

Too much is "cleaned out" and on open display; yards need room for the hidden and secret, where our hearts can learn to bloom freely.

Let the new owners limb it up if they choose: but I leave them the promise of secrets if they choose to indulge.

Saving Energy

Thrilled to get a postcard from the power company. Despite the fact that I'm always home now, and cooking all meals, the improvements I made on the house a year ago have resulted in a 9% improvement in energy usage.

That's huge! I wonder what it would have been if I was still eating out and going to the office?

Will I get the "full value" of it back when I sell, particularly in this market? Impossible to second guess ... but as a citizen, I'll get the benefit of fewer greenhouse gases, and someone will have a snug, efficient place to live.

I'm delighted to be part of the solution.

Using turmeric

Turmeric, dissolved in oil and eaten with black pepper*, has the outstanding ability to reach inside a number of different types of cancer cells and turn off their growth. This has been seen in the lab; both in the petri dish and through human testing. Given that the current thinking is that having cancer cells in your body is common, possibly universal, and that the difference between those with and those "without" cancer is simply that the cells have not been stopped, but encouraged to grow: given this notion of the disease it makes sense to me to incorporate foods in my diet that are known to have an impact against it. Doses are unknown.* Epidemiology suggests that 1/4 - 1/2 t per day is enough: that number is based on average consumption in India, where despite much worse environmental exposure to carcinogens, the average incidence for cancer is, relative to the Western countries, low.

But hey, the bottom line is, it's easy to add to your diet if you think it through. I no longer use a straight prepared curry powder, the percentage of turmeric is only about 20%. Instead, I mixed my own batch, using 4 teaspoons of turmeric to every one of curry powder, and to that adding another 1/2 t of black pepper. A half teaspoon of this blend isn't too hot, and adds lovely flavor to a number of dishes.

In scrambled eggs it's delightful - but curried mushrooms over nearly ANYTHING are one of my new favorite add-ons. Use oyster or shiitake mushrooms and some garlic and onions, and you have a potent health food that tastes like a delicacy.

Yesterday, though, I tried something different. I had some blended veggie soup made (primarily) from the green romanesco cauliflower. I typically add a few T of yogurt to give depth and interest to veggie soups - but this time I also took a little coconut oil, added my turmeric blend to it, and let it foam on the heat. After a minute, I dumped it into the soup and added a 1/2 chopped fresh tomato.

It was bowl-licking amazing!

I don't try to eat turmeric daily, but it becomes part of a meal 3-5 x a week. There are lots of outrageously good-for-you foods out there; it makes sense to me to eat as many of them as often as I can - but not to eat any one of them constantly.

Here are a few:
berries: blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, etc.
Cole crops: kale, mustard greens, cabbage, bok choi, broccoli, cauliflower
onions and garlic
nuts: walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pecans
red/orange veggies: beets, squash, yams

What good-for-you and yummy foods do you try to incorporate regularly into your diet?

*turmeric pills don't work well. black pepper improves the ability of turmeric to cross the intestinal barrier by 2000%.
* Funding for studies is nearly non-existent. Numerous 'preliminary' studies have received a lot of popular attention and professional interest, but the kind of rigorous followup required to get to the details languishes for lack of finding.

ghosts from the past

not jumbies kind a' ghosts, just the ordinary things you don't expect to see again.

went to download a couple of photos and - they were "gone." In their place, 11 photos from 2006, including the last one of my beloved friend, Clicquot, in March - and shots of the baby Jake from 7/4/06. Strange. But I'm delighted.

Clicquot, on her 21st birthday, ailing from diabetes. She died within a month.

Baby Jake staked a claim under my desk immediately. And then dragged stuff back there with him.

Don't you DARE touch my toy..... don't play with me.... I'll push this toy in your face if you don't try to grab it, though...



my favorite.... little eyes gleaming with mischief. He looks so adult-like now, his puppy eyes are gone. Still likes to play, still gets a mischievous look... but the puppy eyes are matured.

Resolved...

Have gone "back to work." Since being laid-off I've drifted (joyfully) sleeping/napping when tired, eating when hungry, studying/practicing shamanism, pretty much doing what I want. (Scandalous!) But... vacation is over. There's lots of work to do yet, and no one but me to do it or organize getting it done. (Landscaper starts Wednesday.)

Today I woke with the understanding that, at 8:00, I "go to work." At 10 I grab a coffee break, 12-1: I do lunch, and so on. I'm pushing for an 8-hour day. Time to get things wrapped up and this house on the market.

Today is a painting day, and there's a guy coming at 10:00 to bid on doing the front porch.

Too Big to Fail

Oh look, fresh vids on my former employer here and here!

enjoy!

Come on up, Javi, Great View!

Hey, wait....

Humm. This is strange.

Maybe I should just enjoy the view.

But... my buddy is way up there!












HOW DOES HE DO THAT?!!!

JEESH. NOW WHAT???

Setting Intention

Just wandered over to Tara's blog, and am so impressed by what she accomplished last year, and her huge goals for this, that I thought I'd try to do something similar. Of course, being in huge transition and not having a job at the moment, it's tough to come up with "professional goals," but given that I'll need to work again before I shed this life, perhaps concrete steps towards exploring my "next steps" will be the way to go.

I know that feeling settled in the new space will be crucial to my ability to get things done, so that will rate high.

But wait... I'm still here in California, still puttering around making a lackadasical effort to move! Hummm, maybe that becomes part of the focus...

1) Sell (or rent) California house.

2) MOVE.

3) Paint new bedroom and get "really settled" in that one corner.

4) Paint new study and get "really settled" in that second corner.

5) Sheet mulch new garden area in the fall for spring planting

6) Prune Orchard

7) Put in garden in spring

8) Establish tunnel greenhouse for planting in mid-summer.


oieeee.... I'm tired now, I think I'll go back to bed!

Maybe something on a monthly basis, with goals for July instead.

1) call contractor to bid on re-building front porch (done today)
2) call landscaper to bid on cleaning up back yard, planting grass, making small patio w/ slate tiles. (done today)
3) call painter to bid on painting outside of house.
4) patch paint in dining room.
5) paint all trim in dining room
6) paint all trim in living room
7) paint all trim in hallway
8) re-plant areas of front garden destroyed by moles.
9) clean out weeds from side garden, prune fuschias, plant more fuschias.
10) Minimum of 1 hour of daily spiritual practice.
11) Pack and ship all CDs.
12) Host a dinner for friends.

sheesh. I'm STILL tired.

Let's reverse it.

Accomplished in June:
1) Massive number of gigantic weeds cleared from front and back of house, including obscene quantities of mature star thistle, blackberries and wild rose, also fennel.
2) Front garden leveled (subsequently un-leveled by moles), slate tiles added to create path connecting two areas, one for plants and one for chairs. BIG work.
3) Plants added and coddled in front garden. Watering routine established.
4) 10 boxes of books packed and shipped.
5) Weekend spiritual training workshop done
6) Vision quest achieved on Mt. Shasta
7) Another closet emptied.
8) 2 more loads of stuff to good will.
9) Lumber from garage given away/cleared out.
10) 4 boxes of Christmas ornaments etc. gone through, most given away.
11) Daily (almost) spiritual work, abt 1 - 2 hours /day
12) Stuff given away/tossed from hall closet, allowing me to move tools from dining room INTO closet.
13) Two dinners hosted for friends

I have a profound*, week-long, workshop coming up in BC in mid- August, so my goal is to complete EVERYTHING this month, and get the house on the market by the middle of next month.

I wonder if I can pull it off?

* translates as "probably good but energetically draining"

The Alchemical Soul ----

Transmuting substances, from one into another. O for Oxygen, C for Carbon.

We are carbon-based life forms; at least, we are when we're sitting in our jammies in front of the fireplace, a glass of tea or wine cupped close to our heart, staring into the fire and musing. In this (extra) ordinary world, in this universe we call "ordinary reality," we know our boundedness to bodies and the limits so created. But when we drift... or sink... and our brain slides deeply into Theta waves, both hemispheres of our brain entrained and seeing together for maybe the first time in our ordinary lives....then the world transmutes/changes/evolves? Suddenly the bright, streaking electric streaks and colors and threads of energy bodies are easier to see than mundane bodies, and I reel in the effort to understand this old world seen in new ways. My vision isn't yet acute.

Still, faulty as my Vision and vision are, the transmutation of poison into nectar serves me. No, I'm not taking drugs. There are poisons we create alchemically -- hatred and distrust and fear and shame -- created, whole cloth from completely disparate experiences, misunderstood - or not understood deeply enough. Understood, perhaps, at a grade school level, when survival with gold intact requires grad work. The jumbies rustle menacingly 'round; themselves disoriented, lost. The spark of fear fires up a backbone and descends back into the belly as hate. Poof! Just as simple as that, misunderstanding and fear sparks hate, which will escalate to mutual destruction.

It is possible to transmute these poisons back, to replace an Oxygen atom here, a Hydrogen atom there - to create something pure, lifesaving, nurturing again.

But to find the alchemical truth, to learn to transmute ordinary poisons into equally ordinary nectars, takes stepping off of the known path and taking a chance. It requires sinking bravely into the ocean of the unknown.

a "modest" talent...

There was a time, not so many years ago... no, not long ago at all, within the lifetime of many trees, although humans transit more rapidly, like fireflies, almost... yet still, back in the beginning of the 20th century, in the times of our mothers and grandmothers....

A time so archaic, so anciently quaint that I'm almost afraid to breathe a word and disrupt the dust of that forgotten time...

So backwards, so primitive it was.... imagine.....

Everyone DANCED! Everyone SANG!! Everyone made ART!!!

I'm cringing with humiliation for them! Did no one tell them that they had no talent? Did no one harumph and hack, cough, look skyward with an embarrassed roll of the eyes?

WHY WERE THEY NOT SHUSHED, THEIR FEET QUIETED, THE BRUSH PLUCKED FROM THEIR HANDS? Where were their parents and friends???

The most embarrassing thing of all, is simply that, being primitive they had no idea that these things were best left to professionals, to those with talent, to those with a special gift. And no one had thought to tell them that they were not the ones so gifted.

And so they DANCED, SANG, made ART, and were happy in doing it.

Disgraceful.

Energy

Have been reading fascinating stuff from "unacceptable" PhD scientist-types who are integrating the new physics with reality (as I see it), and by-passing Newtonian physics in the process. Given that Newtonian physics has long sense ceased to make sense to me...this is interesting.

I hadn't thought about the lag: the interminable 200 year lag of insisting on solid matter and no energy fields ala Newton, when we all know now that we, and the world around us, is made of energy, and there are no "base particles" that we are made up of, and that our bodies are more space than matter.

So I followed the exercises given, and stared up at the blue sky, and darned if I didn't begin seeing it.... a gazillion white flashes of energy, tiny little balls of light with tails. And then I gazed at a tree, at the margin, and saw it.... a shadowed area just out from the tips of branches, the trees' energy field. Aura. And the white balls of energy smoosh into the tree's energy field and dissappear, somewhere out at the edge of what I can see, and long before it gets to the tree itself.

I wonder if those are the same white energy flashes that Edger Mitchell, astronaut and PhD rocket scientist, saw as he was returning from the moon - and that eventually sent him off on his current quest to explore the intersection between what we've long called the spiritual realm and science. I wonder if they are the identical phenomena.... flashes...

Seeing through an illuminated darkness

Stopping in on Paul's blog and reading his post on nature, my memory slipped back to the time when I was ten years old and learning to walk in the woods alone at night, without a flashlight.

Those were safer times; the cougars and wolves were gone, the bears terrified. Humans in the US were undisputed at the top of the predatory food chain, so there were no critters to fear. It was a time, too, when coast-to-coast kidnappings weren't replayed endlessly on TV, expanding the entire fear-print of the US to include the entire country... so we felt safe among our neighbors as well. Feeling safe, we knew them. Knowing them, we were probably safer than we would have been in a world of strangers. So night and day were both less feared...

When you rest quietly, and allow your eyes to adjust without the stress of a flashlight, the night becomes illuminated from the faintest glimmerings of moon and stars. Flashlights blind you with their glare, everything is "in" the light or out, and if out, it becomes invisible. When I learned this I quickly felt much safer without a light, since I could see further and wasn't limited to the tiny pool of light at my feet. Too, I knew that most humans don't know this trick, but rely on flashlights.... so while I could see them and their ever-present flashlight, they wouldn't be able to see me in the dark and I would again, feel safer in my invisibility.

In the woods, if there is an open path the moonlight will illuminate it, reflecting gently off of the open ground. By watching ahead it's easy to stay on-path and not be lured off by falsely open patches; and watching ahead - pushing my glance to include the larger view - meant that I longed to meld with my surroundings. I learned to step softly, practiced avoiding twigs so as not to send the sharp report of a broken branch careening through the darkness. Sometimes I simply stopped, breathing into the darkness, listening hard, trying to sense everything. The hoot of an owl thrilled me, filled me with the sure knowledge that I wasn't the only one up and about.

No, I was not allowed to simply roam the woods at will during the night. But camping is camping, and bears aren't the only ones who used to sh*t in the woods, so I always had a figleaf of purpose to cover my nocturnal wanderings.

Many years later I tried to show my city-boy X that flashlights blind, and it's only without them that one can truly see at night; but that lesson was about reality, and he was gripped by fear of an illusory shadowed world and residual childhood terrors of things-that-go-bump-in-the-night, and he rejected any attempt to know the truth of the darkness.

I've thought of outside lights when I think of my farm, sitting off alone on it's ten acres, and know that although outside lights were installed last spring, I won't use them much. 7 acres surrounding the house is clear - too clear, needs trees - and all a light would do is blind me to anything that happened to be outside the ring of glare.

A cheery glow when friends are expected.... sure, I'll flip on the lights. Visitors are already night-blind from the ring of their car's headlamps and will welcome the transition from headlights to yard lights. But for me, on nights when I don't expect anyone, the lights will remain resolutely off.

So I can see.

Avocados and Eggplants for Paul

Italian-type eggplant - the kind I used. In the pics in the next post, the eggplant is in the middle pic - 2 vaguely oval slices, cross-hatched grill marks on the far left, and one still unmarked on the upper right. Rubbery and NOT TASTY when raw, it becomes very softly succulent when cooked. Also absorbs olive oil like a sponge. No wonder it melts in your mouth!


Eggplant types more common in Asia and India. I especially like the flavor of the long lavender ones, lovely cut up and cooked with a medley of veggies and lots of spice.


Avocado, probably a Haas (variety). Haas is the most commonly grown commercially, with one of the deepest black skins. Eaten raw. Very rich in natural oil, which is omega 3. Used in the US most commonly for guacamole... mashed w/ lots of lime juice, some cilantro, tomatos and hot chili, and used as a dip for corn chips. In California, we slather avocado on anything and everything. Lovely in scrambled eggs.

Summer Indulgence

No one has ever accused me of not being self-indulgent when it comes to food.

I adore grilled food; unfortunately, I've never had the desire to master grilling it over charcoal. So I use my iron grill on top of my stove, and it works well. Yep, I miss the flavor of mesquite, but....

sorry it's blurred... it's not out of focus, that's the steam. Squash, young onions, green pepper. Several grills-full, in fact. Why stop at a little bit?

Summer squash, eggplant... they don't excite me, unless there's grilling involved. Even tomatoes benefit from a quick pass, their sugars carmelize.

Fresh shrimp! It just keeps getting better and better....

I guess I spent way too many years being shouldered away from grills, as the men around automatically cued up to do grill duty. Grilling and waffles. Why those two things seem to have always been done by the men is a strange and curious thing. But to this day I never do waffles, and confine my grilling to inside.

Now, living alone, I've tried - in a vague, desultory way - to learn. But - I kind-of just don't care enough to bother.

But when the results turn out this good, who cares?



Salt goes on side 2, after brushing it with olive oil. If it pulls a little moisture out, so much the better... I'll re-plump it with balsamic vinegar later.

I like to get the grill cross-hatching, when I can, but for me it isn't enough to cook the veggies to succulence. Maybe if you cook them on a covered grill it's different. I finish them by being piling them in a bowl, covered with a towel to steam. While they're still hot, sprinkle with a soupcon of blond balsamic vinegar and let the heat suck the flavor deep inside.

YUMMM.... (and plenty of leftovers, for pasta, for side salads, and even to serve, barely warmed, with my morning eggs. One session at the grill will keep me in veggies for 2 days!)

Summer Solstice: Praise to Father Sun!

This morning was one of those rarest of rare occasions; no screening fog shielded the sun, so it spangled my living room at 6:10 AM. I emerged from the kitchen, coffee in hand and was caught by the novelty; even Jake, all a-wag with good cheer, seemed to enjoy an early morning backrub in the sun, pushing his back into the carpet and wiggling back and forth with obvious relish.

I've been beating back the jungle my yard has become, and today was planting day - or transplanting day, take your pick. By 9:10 I was down in Half Moon Bay, plundering my favorite nursery of it's most choice stock. A quick errand to my favorite fish monger there, a swing by Raymond's sourdough bread bakery (we bake fresh every hour!) and home again before 11:00.

The plan was to wait until sunset to plant: it's easier on plant hairs, and easier on my fair skin. Somehow, though, instead of fixing a nice lunch of red snapper, at 1:00 PM - in the full heat of the day - there I was under Father Sun, digging holes and placing my new charges in them, pressing the lean dirt against the roots. Lavender, ornamental oregano, allyssm and such - I pick plants that I love, but also plants that do well in my soil and who don't require too much water. Except for the miniature sunflower, of course, which I'll handwater a couple a couple of times a week with joy, rewarded by their sunshine yellow faces.

Friends have been pushing me to hire someone to do the landscaping, but I've resisted. Some years ago I pulled a lush garden from nothing here, and I knew some of my plants were still lurking under the thick cover of neglect. When I went back to grad school I toured the garden and told them, sadly, that they were on their own: it simply wasn't possible to work, study, attend class and maintain them. Many, always marginal in their positions, didn't make it. Others surprised me, growing rank but strong. A good pruning will put them to rights.

It seemed a formidable job; I found other tasks to do, deeply worried (and in denial) that this time it was just too hard, my back not strong enough. My fears were a proxy for my anxieties over the new life I'm committed to in Michigan, and I knew that for this reason, I needed to do it myself.

Finally I started the task, carving out the small rectangular garden at the approach to the front door as my beginning point. Weeds were cleared, fennel chopped out, the ground leveled. And leveled again. And yet again. Slate tiles were carried, six at a time, from the backyard through the house, down the front stairs and into the garden. Laid out, taken up, and laid out again. A pattern emerged, cottage garden with slate at each end, a hopscotch tile path in between.

A row of dead Breath of Heaven bushes was wrenched from the ground below the upper retaining wall.

There is more to do, much more, but today I was able to plant most of this small area (about 16' X 10') and I am not only heartened, but enthused. My drifting into the garden at 1:00 tells the hidden story of how gardens lure and pull me in, and how once I begin I find myself wandering in them, weeding, dead-heading, at all manner of times when it wasn't at all what I intended to do. It is this propensity to garden, once started, that makes me think I will like making it an integral part of my life. For now, I'm staring hungrily at the next patch that needs clearing.

Longing for Wilderness

For as long as I can remember, I've honored those who are able to walk into the forest with nothing but what they can carry in their pockets, and survive for a time. "For a time," because I well recognize that indigenous folk, no matter how skilled, rarely did this for long themselves, but returned home to family and storehouses and cleared and planted land.

My library houses shelves of adventures of men like Craig Childs, and of a few women, too. I don't focus on the women because their heroic adventures seem to be chronicles of a single exceptional adventure, while men like Childs manage to make these retreats an essential part of their lives. I admire and appreciate those single adventures, and while they more closely match my own longings, I am drawn to read of the serial adventurers.

I've dismissed the longing to be one of those people while holding it close: saw it as a romantic fantasy, as active residue of the wild-man creed of my father (who was just such a man, though he never taught survival skills to his daughters).

The idea of trekking into the wilderness has stayed with me, transmuting through the years and my mounting physical limitations into the deep desire to spend a month alone, canoeing or kayaking the boundary waters. A month is an arbitrary span of time, chosen to be "manageable" while extended enough to require serious skills. While there are many maps to guide the path, there are no markets to fill the gaps with things forgotten/left behind. Sometimes I've recognized this as a longing to have the skills it would require, and sometimes I've recognized it as something deeper and more unspoken, a time when I would enter into relationship with the world in a new way.

Regardless of which perspective I view it from, I've always known that to do such a thing would be to emerge forever changed, with new notions of what matters, and a new conception of my own possibilities.

Recently I've been obsessed with vision quests, conflating their transformational capabilities with the journey into nature I've imagined.

What I didn't understand until now is that a hungry heart, open to the spirits and to teaching, doesn't always require an extended venture to receive the blessings of being taught. Sometimes a night or two in the woods, alone, is enough.

Wild theories, no proof

I figure I might as well weigh in with my latest unfounded theory.

Hey folks, ever go on a strict diet? What happens? You start craving things, that's what. I don't know a single person who hasn't experienced that - no, scratch that. I know someone who has always been thin, doesn't like/eat starches or sweets - has been on Atkins since birth, by preference, before it was given the name. No dieting there. But for the rest of us not raised to see starch as déclassé, sooner or later, as we age, there seem to be diets and their resultant cravings.

Hold that thought, I'll circle back to it in a minute.

I've been reading an increasing barrage of data coming out of the testing centers about the low nutritional quality of the food you put on your table. Not the processed food, everyone knows that's crap. No, I'm talking about fresh veggies, fruits. It seems that there has been a decline of 30-45% of nutritional value - we're talking vitamins here - since the 1940's. The FDA is nonplussed. Folks seem alarmed, don't want to talk about it, are rushing around in circles a bit, not sure what to blame it on*.

That's a lot, particularly juxtaposed against the increasing evidence that vitamins in a jar aren't successfully assimilated by the body.

So - hey, I'm just asking here - isn't it just possible that people have trouble controlling their appetites because their bodies are effectively declaring that, despite quantity, there's a famine happening in their cells?

* Note, not knowing what to blame it on is not to be confused with not knowing why. There are ample studies showing vitamins at much higher levels in older strains and organic foods. But that is unmentionable, because Monsanto & Con Agra owns the FDA, the US and much of the world. Focusing on that inconvenient fact would be bad for business.


in other news, without dieting, but while eating an average of 5-9 organic fruits and veggies daily - over the last 2 years I am slowly continuing to lose weight. No, it's not because the volume makes me feel full early. Following the really big veggie meals I am HUNGRY within 2-3 hours... and yes, I then snack. Often badly. Ice cream. Bread. But what I've noticed recently is that the crazy cravings have mostly disappeared, so I'm more apt to eat - even extra times a day - because I'm hungry, and not because I simply am gripped by sudden, irresistible cravings. What is changed is that the veggies/fruit/protein are increasingly desired, and, by rule, almost always eaten first. I may still end up eating the bread/rice/potatoes etc, but between meals or late in the meal rather than as the main feature. I fill up with the good stuff, and only then go to the fun/comfort foods. And yeah, there's a batch of blue cornmeal polenta in the oven right now....mmmmmmmmmmmm

Mt. Shasta

I wanted to say that I spent an enchanted week at Mt. Shasta, but that understates, makes enchantment trivial.
Here is the main road leading into Mt. Shasta City, with the snow-capped Mt. Shasta looking down. Breathtaking, isn't she?




The view, a day earlier, from the spiritual resort that hosted my workshop.

another view, from near Lake Siskiyou, where I camped.

Sanctimony

Turning in on myself, folded as a twilight leaf, I contemplate my own civility. Or lack thereof.

It is an unpopular subject in the US, perhaps everywhere; the attempt towards "goodness" is considered outmoded and generally inspires only a lifted brow, rolled eyes and a sardonic shrug.

Some of that cynicism, surely, is not because we think goodness is not worthwhile, but because we do not accept the messiness of human imperfections. We see someone striving towards goodness and our eye swoops falcon-like to catch the flailing commotion of inconsistencies, of moral failures that are meanwhile surreptitiously swept under the rug. For we cannot bear the sight of our failures; we focus on eliminating one or two short-comings while blinding ourselves to others.

The will to be good is often confounded by the sanctimoniousness with which it often mingles. Ego battens on success : without success it grows weak and unable to try. How to achieve the confidence of success without the blindness of ego?

The ego-less state is applauded by many in this era, but I am not one. It seems to me that a strong ego provides the strength of self to hold to a chosen standard, a state that says "I am not a person who will stand idle while ______ happens."

The challenge is not losing ego, but losing denial. The flaw that requires denial as part of our ego is the assumption that we are perfectible, and the absolute insistence that less than perfection is rubbish.

It is not rubbish. Moral failure followed or accompanied by a strong intention to do better is called learning.

Raw Milk fiesta...

Despite warnings from a few blog friends that my death from drinking raw, pastured milk was just a matter of time, after about 2 years I can only report that I've never had even the slightest problem.

Obviously, the fact that I've switched to mostly pastured meats & eggs, and organic veggies, is part of this puzzle.

The fact remains that for 2 years now I've been seasonal allergy-free, and haven't had a single flu. I did have one cold for a couple of days, about a year or more ago. And that's it.

My general health was always reasonably robust as a child, but I never managed to get *perfect* attendance, there was always a cold or flu somewhere along the way that kept me home. As an older adult it got worse: I averaged a couple of colds or flus a year.

So while the change isn't dramatic (except in regards to the allergies) it's noticeable, particularly when I factor in that it seemed to be deteriorating very slowly before now. I was just more susceptible to the bug-du-jour than I was as a child.

In general, the risks of raw milk are directly proportional to the strength of your immune system, and my immune system seems to be improving.

Recently I deconstructed raw milk yogurt and entered the second circle of heaven. Angels played trumpets in jasmine-scented air and the gates yawned open....

Here is the short version.

Standard recipe:
You can treat it like pasturized milk and re-pasturize it (heat to 180, scald w/o boiling, then scrub-scrub-scrub that pan clean!) cool it slowly to 110. In my world, that means discover it at 100, reheat, let it cool again. Stir in the culture (a T of active-culture yogurt per quart. or so.) Pour into sterilized jars, cover and leave it at 110 for 4-12 hours, refrigerate.

Or, if you're scratching your head the way I was, wondering why you'd pay extra for the benefits of raw milk, only to kill the enzymes yourself by pasturizing, you can do it the old way.

Pour your milk into sterilized canning jars (I like the convenience of the 1-quart size, but if you want messy little individual servings, go for it!). Cover and put them in the oven at 115 for about an hour - (long enough to take the refrigerator chill off). Stir in a T of yogurt. OR DONT. (That's right, you don't need it with raw milk, the enzymes are already present.) Cover the jars (I use saran wrap) turn the oven down to 110 degrees and WALK AWAY. No pans to scrub, just wipe the drips off of the counter and go on with your life. I usually wait 24 hours, then transfer them to the fridge.

HOW this will be different from yogurt from homogenized, pasturized, commercial milk:
A couple of things. Since it wasn't homogenized, the cream will be at the top, you'll want to skim it. It's the most heavenly sour cream - and in such a small quantity that it's only enough for a treat, not for a giant slathering of it on everything.

Next you'll find a layer of whey. I think this is because commercial milk almost always has dry milk powder added, which makes the milk and yogurt thicker. I don't like to see dry milk powder as an ingredient in my food, since most of it comes from China and has been implicated in multiple problems.

The yogurt is more delicate, 'breaking' more easily and giving off it's whey. That makes it easy to separate out the whey for cooking (soups, breads, smoothies... don't toss it. You'd pay a lot of money to buy it dried in a health food store. It freezes beautifully. For soups, I toss it in after the cooking is complete, to preserve the enzymes.

I usually make 2 quarts of yogurt at a time, and I tend to pour or spoon off the top whey, and use one jar for everyday yogurt-type eating, and toss the other jar in a coffee-filter lined strainer over a bowl or pyrex quart measuring cup, and leave it to fully drain for "cheese." It makes a lovely thick cheese to use on deserts, potatoes, fruit, pancakes, what-ever. You can mix the sour cream back in if that floats your boat.

How long to drain it? umm... did I mention that I'm lazy? Longer than you think. Long enough so that when you lift one corner of the filter the cheese is solid and peels away. If you don't wait that long, you get the goopy job of scraping the coffee filter with a plastic spatula, dripping here and there, and watching it run down your arm to your elbow, and then either onto your jeans or the floor.

You would do that - why? Instead, wait a few hours and when the filter peels away cleanly, it's time to package and freeze the whey, and turn the cheese into a container for use within the next 2 weeks.

The flavor is amazing!!!

Things that go BUMP....

Jake no longer pays attention. While he'll wake from a sound sleep with a low growl at an "inappropriate" sound from the street below our bedroom, he no longer bothers to 'alert' when things bump and thump inside the house. A couple of months ago he'd bound to his feet, stiff-legged, barking frantically (if not bravely) and cautiously take a few steps in the direction of the offending noise, then glance around to be sure I had his back. He wasn't going in there alone.

And I did. I was as alarmed as he. But I wanted him to go first.

Somewhere along the line he grew bored, and only roused enough to raise his head from it's cushion on my ankle, while cocking an indifferent eye in the direction of the sound.

Now he doesn't even bother to do that, leaving me to stiffen and then try to relax my way through the lingering unease.

Recently I've taken to scouring the house for signs of mice, hoping. It would be an explanation, you see. But it is spring, and even in the days before my contractor caulked and faithfully sealed every fraction of a crack that they crept through, they never bothered in the spring. It was the cool and wet of fall that drove them in, and left them in my traps. And no, not a sign of mice is to be found.

Anyway, it never sounds like mice, they are just an excuse, a potential fleshly presence that can be blamed for the odd thumps and sudden scraping noises.

So I watch Jake drowse, and close my eyes and listen with my spirit, and know that there are no new presences here, nothing that I don't know.

Last week a friend came to visit, the first time this year. He's heard tales of my exploits and workshops, and while he is no skeptic, he has a familiarity and a healthy nonchalance about such things that insures that he doesn't give it too much importance, either. It wasn't until the next day, when he called, that he told me he was stunned when he walked into the house, startled by the sense that things had gotten crowded since he last visited. "It felt like you had a full party going there, girl!" he exclaimed, amused.

It's odd. I do this work willingly, but there's denial, too. I want to do it on my terms, and only when I want it, and I wish it to be invisible the rest of the time. Perhaps sometimes they think I just need a reminder.

It's a good feeling here, I'm told. Recently a friend visited for the first time, and settled in for a visit comfortably, volunteering that the house feels very welcoming and warm. So it's not creepy things going bump in the night, they're definitely friendlies. But sometimes I wish they'd be very, very quiet.

inertia wrapped in paralysis

I think I've finally broken through. It isn't that I haven't been working towards change, but that I haven't been doing ENOUGH nor consistently enough. Lets face it, packing is no fun. Add to that a formidable number of tasks related to "finishing" last year's remodel, and the undeniable and unattractive fact that I never managed to crawl out from under the remodel and re-order my house - well, it didn't look like I could possibly be finished this century. And for those of you not paying attention, that's 91 years of half-arsed efforts.

This weekend packed and Monday shipped many more boxes of books: the end of book-packing is in sight this week.

Better, I finally slapped my bedroom into shape and it no longer looks like a cross between a toxic dump and an abandoned storage facility. In fact, it is now a tranquil retreat, well suited for resting my spirit.

or perhaps a moment of meditation in the AM.


I also took another HEAP of clothing (mostly work-related) to GoodWill (along with the inevitable 3 more boxes of books.) My goal this week is to finish the books and create order in my study (which, as packing central, is now scattered/piled with the odds and ends from the other rooms.)

And yet I managed to continue to take care of myself in my own inimitable way - cooking beautiful, company-pretty, breakfasts. This morning shitake mushrooms will top my eggs.

First I sweated them dry in a mixture of olive oil and butter, stirring to keep them from sticking. When they squeak across the pan, you'll know they're ready to re-plump with your chosen assortment of liquids.

I sprinkled in a bit of gorgeous, floral balsamic vinegar. When that was drawn deep into the pores of the mushrooms, I moistened them with white wine. When they'd absorbed that, I tasted --- yum! But enough? Oh no, I'm shameless about guilding the lily!

I made yogurt a couple of days ago with raw milk: when I'd finished, the yogurt formed a tight pat at the bottom of the container, the whey floated in the middle, and the cream formed a layer on top. I skimmed the (now soured) cream, and poured off the whey - still with a creamy top that I couldn't easily remove. The sour cream is AMAZING. I've never had anything remotely like it.... just plain raw milk, covered lightly and left in a 110 degree oven overnight, then the 3 parts separated (cream, whey) skimmed/poured off.

It is spoonfuls of that creamy whey that I now poured into the mushrooms, enough to let them stew lightly.

Just before serving, I stirred in that scant T of sour cream I saved.

Pure Heaven.

After a year of using this same source for my eggs, I still marvel at how HIGH the yolks stand, and how yellow they are.



(tips for cooking low-fat eggs without a non-stick pan:
FIRST HEAT THE PAN. This step is usually neglected, but heating the pan and making the molecules swell from the heat helps 'seal' it. Then add a t of fat - I use pasture-raised butter - and lower the heat. Add the eggs to the melted butter, cook for about a minute, then add a T or so of water and cover the pan. The steam will cook the tops and get rid of the goo, leave the yolks soft (if you want) and the small amount of water will also help "float" the eggs loose from the pan itself. The amount of water needed will vary based on the size of the pan used and the tightness of the seal for steaming, but in a couple of tries you'll figure it out. I just slop a little in and don't worry much about it.)

past time to move....

I've enjoyed living relatively "out" from SF and being able to listen to the birds sing every day.

But I've forgotten what mockingbirds sound like when they aren't imitating electronic beepers.

Mother said: Eat A Good Breakfast

I'm learning ways to incorporate turmeric into my diet. It turns out that while science seems overwhelmingly agreed that it is good for you in a zillion ways, study at the micro level has revealed that turmeric can't penetrate the cell boundaries unless it's accompanied by pepper, and cooked. So if you're buying turmeric capsules, you're wasting your money. The turmeric will work fine in a petri dish by itself, but to work in the human body you need to do it the old fashioned way, by adding it while cooking.

Traditionally, Indian cooking briefly cooks the spices in a bit of oil prior to adding the food.

I've found that my much-loved pastured eggs make a wonderful healthy omelette:
spice mix: 1/4 - 1/2 t turmeric, 1/8 t madras curry, 1/8 t fresh ground black pepper
saute the spice mix in a bit of oil (I use CLA-rich pastured butter) until it foams and smells wonderful - maybe a minute on lowish heat. Add 1/4 c each minced onion and green garlic and a bit of water (I used the cooking water from my sweet potatoes) steam for a few minutes until the onion and garlic are soft. Pour in the 2 beaten eggs and stir it all together, cook (low) briefly until the eggs set.


Look at the beautiful color of these eggs! The yolks are dark dark dark orange. And no, that's not added color or annatto or turmeric. That's carotene, pure and simple, the natural result of chickens who live a good, natural life.

The other thing I've thought to do again incorporates turmeric, black pepper and curry (heavier on the curry this time) with the same onions and green garlic - but, when cooked, I stirred it into yogurt cheese* to use as a dip for crudites. It was so divine that I am using it on everything, especially sweet potatoes!

*Yogurt cheese: simply drain yogurt through a clean dish towel-lined strainer until the whey separates out. DO NOT THROW AWAY the whey. You pay a lot of money for this hi-protein elixir in a health food store.... use it as a liquid for cooking, mix a little into your dogs food, drink it in a smoothie. It will hold in your fridge from 1-4 weeks, depending on how fresh your yogurt was. I make my own yogurt: that means 4 weeks. Last night I used the most recent batch to mix with some home made tomato paste for a cassarole. Oh yeh, the thick stuff left in the strainer is yogurt cheese. Good for sauces, dips, whatever!)

Now, to tuck in to a fresh start on a fresh new day!
Bok choi, curried eggs, pastured bacon illegally purchased on the underground market, sweet potatoes, curried yogurt cheese. Served with green tea, what else?

The rest of the day may suck, and I may or may not eat well, but even if I don't eat anything much good for me, I've still had 4 servings of veggies and some probiotics today. And turmeric and green tea.

Bring it ON.

Puttering

I think it's the spiritual work I'm doing.

I don't know.

My energy for "stuff" is low, the days fly by with little "accomplished." In the meantime I'm working spiritually almost daily, and my spirits have done a couple of healings. Those who received them report that the "before" is radically different from the "after." I don't prep people on what to expect "during," because I am never sure what will happen. When I ask them to describe their experiences "during" they tell me things that vividly mirror the experiences I've had when being healed. So - ??

Yesterday I tried a different process that my spirits have been urging me to learn - explorer work, really, with them to point the way. But that means that there is no one in ordinary reality explaining what to do from the human perspective, just images to follow/recreate. I think it "worked" but along the way there was a "technical glitch" and I - kind of got "lost." Hard to explain. Within an hour or so of my return I knew there was something wrong, could retrace my steps and figure out that I hadn't fully returned, even know what I did that I shouldn't have. Wandered around the house all afternoon as if I were drunk: spilling tea on myself, creating a huge mess in the kitchen as I clumsily attempted to cook and satisfy sudden cravings, stumbling, staring vacantly, sliding into a nap that didn't refresh.

I called a buddy from the workshop, got some suggestions that all sounded good but that I was mysteriously unable to do. Called another, who blurted out the single word that I instantly recognized would be 'right.' Stumbled outside to visit a nature "friend," and from the moment I entered her aura I felt my soul streaming back in through the top of my head, felt energy taking hold. We are old friends, she was one of the first plantings I made when I bought this house 12 years ago; many times I've complimented her spring blooms and told her how gorgeous she is, how pleased I am that she lives here in my yard. We have a comfortable relationship of many years, and I instantly knew that she could/would help. And just that simply, she did.

Jake and I then headed out for a walk, and I visited a place I've been only once in real-time that I see often in non-ordinary reality. I have been annoyed by the way I see it in non-ordinary reality, because I see it "wrong." Things aren't quite where I remember they were in ordinary reality.

We went there and I discovered that my memory is wrong, that my non-ordinary visions are the ones that accurately show where things are.

sigh. learning is such a struggle. colleagues are critically important, but in the end, we each journey alone.

Transformation

When a caterpillar entwines himself with that soft sarcophagus we call a cocoon, he dissolves completely.

From that liquid, mysterious forces coalesce him back into a solid with the form of butterfly.

He is new, even his DNA has changed.

What strange, hidden lives inside the collection of lives we call "butterfly" create this new thing?

Letting Go

It can be brutally difficult to help me. I can think of a thousand excuses why something shouldn't happen, or 1,000 things I should do "first" - which, since they don't all happen, ends with me passing up on an offer of help.

Today I let someone help me. I had to fight myself to let it happen, even knowing that it was helping someone else in turn.

But I did it, one of my "headaches" is permanently out of my life, and the person I "allowed to help me" is so pleased with their side of the deal that they think they are the winner.

They have no idea how difficult it was for me.... not because I felt the "cost" of the help was too high, but because I feel so "beholden" because this problem of mine is now resolved.

Such a tangled web.

New Life, New Priorities

I've finally realized that my current sloth is due, in part, to complete aimlessness when it comes to establishing priorities.

For most of my life, priorities have been crystal clear and accepted without question. While they varied a bit, it was mostly a matter of wavering back and forth between two firm poles: my job and my education (with occasional time-outs for 'urgent family matters' or, 'health concerns that can't be ignored.')

When I've gone back to school "seriously" I had to consciously re-order my focus, putting job on auto-pilot, 'required effort only' and school at number one. I typically managed both just fine, but usually by completely neglecting everything else. And that was ok. And this has been the guiding push in my life for ** ahem*** lets just say, many decades. Since I was 14, so functionally all of my life.

But now neither of these priorities apply, and I'm mucking about in the second and third tier of things that have always been classified as 'if there is time.' And in my heart, I haven't elevated them to priority status, so stuff like, oh, packing and getting ready to move - is being woefully ignored.

This week I began the process of book-ending my days with some structure. I choose to prioritize 2 things, my shamanic spiritual practice and walks for Jake. I find that both together do wonders for me: I sleep incredibly soundly and awake quite rested.

Perhaps having deliberately chosen to celebrate these twin poles of spiritual and physical health, the rest will come more easily.

Enjoying our last California spring

Jake's Dark Secret

See the shadows on Jake's body?



They aren't shadows. Jake is not a white dog. He is a spotted dog.

A few pictures

From my workshop...the weather was perfect.

Symptom: Missing Joie de Vivre

Jake isn't well, and of course, it's a weekend.

Thursday he went to the groomer and got pretty much shaved. Mats in both ears and tail were beyond cure, so my little sausage-boy got a major haircut. The important part, and the part he hates, is that he needed to get the hair in his ears pulled. To facilitate this, I gave him 5 grains of a sedative provided by my vet. While I hated the idea, I figured it's safer than a complete knock-out to pull foxtails from inside his ears, and the groomer hasn't been able to do a decent job when Jake is at his usual energy level.

Thursday night he was drowsy and seemed to be chilly. No dinner. I figured his system was still a bit depressed from the sedative, and that getting used to all of that fur being (temporarily) gone made him cold. So I pulled out a hoody I bought when he was a young pup and has never been willing to wear. He accepted it gratefully. Friday he still didn't want to play, and I started keeping a careful eye on him. He ate breakfast, skipped dinner.

Saturday he didn't eat. I wondered if he was pouting, so I took him to the marina. We had a nice, 90 minute walk: he played with two maltese and made friends with a very sweet Siberian husky. Home again, he seemed to be cold, so I bundled him back up in his hoody and lay on the couch to re-read my 3 books on dog health, with him cuddled up on top of me. Can't figure out anything from them, except for the one on applying Chinese medicine to dogs. They say that "spring is liver and anger" and I remember that he's growled at me several times recently. Each time I took careful note, he didn't seem aggressive (just cranky) and so I bought one of Cesar Millan's books to see if I could figure out if I was doing something wrong that encouraged it.

For the last two nights we've slept with him curled up partially under the covers, against my skin. It enables me to monitor him and still sleep - if he starts trembling with cold I feel it and curl around him so he has more body warmth, and he calms.

This morning I got him cuddled up on the couch and there he stayed, regardless of where I went in the house. (Usually he stays with me, curls up in his favorite spot in each room).

Not interested in getting up to eat. Since yesterday he fasted, I wanted to see if he had any appetite. I warmed some frozen chicken meat/bone broth for him and held his bowl while he contentedly lapped it up. About a half hour later I fixed him a special breakfast of 1/3 grassfed beef (raw), and 2/3 lightly steamed veggies... 1/2 dandelion greens, and the rest asparagus and a small raw beet that I blended with 2 T of yogurt. He ate it with a good appetite, but again wouldn't leave the couch so I brought it to him. Dandelion and asparagus are both thought of as good "spring tonics" so I figured they might help support his system. I gave him a small-normal serving, and he loved it, polished the bowl (while I held it.)

I've poked him all over his body and nothing seems sore. I took him to the dog park and he was subdued but very happy to be there, make the rounds and leave his calling card.

His pee and poo look normal.

In general, his energy seems incredibly low and his face is very sad. He is often serious, but rarely sad. He smiled briefly at the dog park, but only for a moment.

Based on the fact that nothing specifically seems to hurt and he still has an appetite, I've decided not to take him to the emergency room to have him looked at - but we were on the way there when we decided to stop at the dog park first and see how he responded there. He was acting pretty normal, so after 40 minutes we came home. And he went to sleep in the sun - normally he'd be bringing me a ball and pestering me to play some more.

If anyone has any idea at all of something I should do/look for etc., I'd really appreciate hearing from you.

I know the description above doesn't sound like it, but I don't typically baby him at all. I grew up with big dogs and tend to treat him like one - I got a small dog because of the practicality, but wanted the "biggest small dog" that made sense. So no, he's never before had me bring his food to him. I figure if he isn't hungry enough to eat, it's fine for him to miss a meal or two until he is. Dogs are like that, and every day doesn't have to be a feast day. Normally he's bursting with energy and constantly underfoot, teasing me to play with him, throw a ball etc. He's pretty rowdy.

Seeing him like this has me terrified.

Karl Rove Lies (yawn)

A moment of humor in a bleak political war: Karl Rove called Joe Biden a liar.

Karl Rove? Calling someone a liar?

The man that has been snipping and cutting reality to fit his own goals for years - the man that was a primary agent (with Libby) of Cheney in outing CIA agent Valerie Plame and then denied it under oath, then recanted his denial when the evidence mounted that he was lying -

Karl Rove? DARES to call someone else a liar?

It beggers the imagination...

Floating back...

Slowly re-entering the "normal" world. Since I returned from the 2-week intensive I've heeded the advice to neither 'push' nor 'punish' myself for not responding to things with the usual urgency and efficiency. It would have been hard to do otherwise: I'm deeply sympathetic with those who needed to go straight to work on Monday. But then - everyone responds differently, I'm told.

For me, attempting to enter into a state that requires focus was all that was required to bring on the sense of floating - for instance, getting behind the wheel of a car. So, while I have been driving, I've been careful to minimize it to whatever seemed necessary, to allow myself extra time and to avoid highways where possible.

Other focus tasks, like making wire-wrap jewelry, seemed to plunge me further back into the other worlds. I don't yet know if this is specific to the wire-wrap and linked to the fact that one of my spirit guides has pushed me towards doing this work, or if it has to do with the type of work it is. After 2 weeks of intensive study, I have a strong sense of how little I really know or understand this.

What I no longer have, are doubts.

What I love about this practice is that it is based on experience: there is no party line, no set of beliefs that I am asked to subscribe to on faith. The central tenet is quite simply going and seeing what we find, what we are told by the spirits, what we are shown. The program provides us with core techniques, with information on how other cultures have done these things in the past.

When we were asked to journey to explore the realm where souls go when they die, our instructor, a former nun, was quite clear, and neither condescending nor playful when she said "We've not found anything like the Christian h*ll, but go and see for yourself. If you find it, let us know."

Suicide by Planet

You know that weird phenomenon where some guy confronts cops (it's always a guy) in a way that's sure to get him killed? They call it suicide by cop....

(apparent non-sequitur)

It occurred to me this morning: the problem with science is it's fetish with absolute consistency. It seeks a complete freedom from anomalies - from mundane interactions between drugs as well as from spirits - that simply isn't available in the real world. What we really have to work with are approximations and on-going explorations, but neither of these provides the safe reassurances and predictability that science promises and that we have learned to crave.

Predictability and safe harbors aren't part of the real world, as our ancestors knew and as wild animals know in their bones. The further we abstract from "what is" the further we move from truth. (wish the financial markets would learn that lesson!)

Further, just as domesticated animals become dull and unable to care for themselves, we've dulled our connection to the bright worlds, told ourselves that the things we see on the periphery of our vision aren't there, ignored the whispering spirits that would keep us safe and have pretty much unfitted ourselves to survive.

It is only in this dullness of vision and spirit that we are able to commit suicide by planet.