Maebius Musing

Plenty of muses, not so much free time to put thoughts to e-paper…..

I’m happy to report I finally got the .htaccess working properly for this blog, and configured to show the actual topic-subject when you link to pages. Thus, instead of the URLs being simple and harder-to-comprehend things like (../Musing/?p=123) it shows the year, month, and title of the post (such as ../Musing/2008/04/of-april-cleanup-and-recent-posts/?p=100). I know, it’s a little thing, but I got frustrated with the defaults and have gotten it setup finally! Now I’ll have to make sure the post topics are accurate and creative though!
It’s that time of year again when the Everthorn Farm crew swings into action for springtime cleanup, fence fixing, garden digging, and the like. It’s a bit like later winter, early spring for Mrs Maebius (tax season!) but involves a lot more outside work and a lot less hermit-of-the-computer-cave on her part. *grin*

Even my World of Warcraft time has suffered, especially since I share the enjoyment of getting back in the fresh air, having sunlight beyond just-getting-home-from-work, and being able to get my hands dirty a little bit. It’s probably my second favorite time of year, when things have all the potential now that snow is gone, yet the yard is not starting to look overgrown and in need of constant trimming/mowing/upkeep.

The Hops vine is now a solid 17 inches tall, and well on it’s way around the support tree. I took a measurement of it yesterday, so I cna compare actual-length and see how fast the thing shoots up. I can almost literally watch the tip inch upwards if I sit still for a few minutes. It’s that fast! This of course is excellent news for those friends who want a cutting or two later this year. Very encouraging, in that I will probably get my first harvest this summer!

As per usual, the results of the cleanup will be piled high for our annual MayDay party, with traditional ribbon-pole and picnic dinner. Granted, there won’t be any driving of the livestock through the flames, but you can be sure that if the weather holds, I will have significantly shorter/curlier leg-hairs after that particular evening.

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Regarding the recent posts related to food shortages, mindful consumption, and such, those musings have been bouncing around my head quite often this past week. It may be the fact the news is reporting on the riots and starving around the globe. It may be the topical-meme from other communication circles I frequent. Yet, I think the more I think about it, I worry the media attention may not be a good thing. Over-marketed paranoia does not serve a purpose, and while it is important to draw attention to the crisis, I think it’s safe to say we knew it was coming, if we would have stopped to look&listen to the world around us.

Again, I have no clear answers, and refuse to let myself fall into the cycle of pessimistic complaints, or overzealous activism. I know myself, and if I get too worked up about a topic, I will dwell on it and get nothing positive done. Likewise, ignoring the problem won’t make it go away. So, the best option I can see for me, right now, is to keep doing what we are doing.

Plant our garden, and build up the Labyrinth. Clean up the property. Try cutting out a few little things here and there to help pay off the credit cards.

Live. Love. Laugh.

It’s the least, and possibly the best thing, anyone can do, really.

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Inspired, somewhat loosely and somberly by this post, this thought kept bouncing around in my head today for some reason. (note: any sarcasm below is not intended to be directed towards Nettle or anyone else reading this…..consider this post privately cathartic and thought-provoking, not ranting)

Perhaps one underlying cause of a mis-balanced economic, ecologic, and commerce-centric infrastructure is due to overspecialization. In life, very few people want to be sailors; they want to be captains. Why be a soldier when you could aspire to be a general? Why be a slave when you could be a slave owner? Everyone wants to be great, and there simply aren’t enough peasants to go around, so people get frustrated and let their lives fall asleep. I am guilty of having a “great character” complex, so yes, I’m part of the problem.

I won’t pretend to ignore the problems with rising fuel/food prices, shortages, and the spiraling problems that affect not only our country, but the worldwide system. As Nettle mentioned, I too feel a certain fear and sadness that I probably can not do much to help those kids in Haiti who are starving and eating mud. But then I wondered, should I?
Should I rally against the world, selflessly burning my own resources to create some Great Charity which will help re-stabilize the socio-industrial machine? Should I cast off my own greediness and eat only minimal rice and beans so that the 3rd worlders don’t have to export their own meager supplies of grain to my bountiful abode? (a rhetorical question, of course).

Nettle describes her own efforts and lifestyle which certainly aligns with the current trendy ‘green’ lifestyle pushed by the eco-media lately, but I know she does them out of respect and her personal sacred paradigm. These simple efforts may not stop the suffering overseas, even if the entire east coast starts living to the same standards. It might be a start, but I doubt such efforts will resolve those issues within the next few decades, and by that time, Hubbert’s Peak will be a historical news-item, and our own culture will have moved on or pushed away.

But that does not mean the little things like buying local are useless.

It is the overspecialization of industry that makes the little local lifestyles like Nettles stand out and appear somewhat “puny”. Why grow a few tomato plants, a few corn stalks, a row of beans, and the like, when for far less personal investment, and with far greater efficiency, we can dedicate one large farm to beans, many fields to corn, and the like.

Problems like disease and natural disasters aside, monoculture makes real Economic sense in the short term! Even on a local level, my in-laws have a big garden which raises foodstuffs that are not found in my own personal garden. We share the bounty and are both enriched by it. It’s easy to extrapolate this outward to today’s mega-farms.

Yet, there crosses a point where the ‘mega’, becomes a mega headache. Even so, we humans still build and build, and build up each thing until it becomes top-heavy. I’m just as guilty of it.

Business, almost by definition, finds a niche and needs to grow until the niche is the standard. You either grow and expand, or you fail. Yet why should it be failure? Does everyoneneed to be the biggest best and baddest in the neighborhood? Human nature seems to say yes.
In the medical industry, this effect is being felt.

The AODA’s archdruid reported on this very topic, and it finally clicked with me. And his words are stated far better than my own ranting ones. Go read it if you want. I’ll wait….

But I wonder, what’s wrong with being a peasant? What’s wrong with a bit of humbleness? If we work in some little things every so often, our lives become simpler, and do not really require the existence of overspecialized industry. Walmarts would vanish (Doubt that will ever happen though).

This may sound like a plea for humanity to regress to a pre-industrial world, and in a sense it is…but I would hope it to be an intelligent regress. Having your own garden is a bit of work, true, and it is much easier to go shopping than it is to go weeding. I won’t deny that fact.

Yet, at least on out own tiny scale, the little changes add up. Being humble helps that person, personally. It may not feed the starving kids in Africa ( or elsewhere, since the shortages are felt in the US now), but making similar changes in my life might feed Me.

When it comes down to it, affecting ME is really the only thing I can do with assured success. I can help myself, and hope my own efforts offset the global gestalt so that one other kid gets to eat tomorrow. Maybe being humble, helps.

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(warning: A Looooong glimpse!)

Last weekend (April 12-13th) my son and I went on a trip to the 4-hour-away-now hunting cabin I used to frequent when I was younger. My dad, brother-in-law and his son, and some of the old “hunter gang” were there, plus a few kids I had not seen before. We had a fun time! *** -No Girls Allowed- ***

In talking with everyone, we realized I was last at this cabin around the age of 15 or 16, which is around half a life ago! The other man there, my age, had two kids with him, and while we were never really that close (being simply sons of our father’s friends) it was nice to reconnect on a mutually understood ‘weekend campfriend’ level and discuss random life events and swap parenting stories.

There were 6 younger boys there, ranging in age from 3-14 with all but the teen being under 9 yrs old. They had fun catching salamanders, having adventures in/on/around the broken down pickup in the side yard, and a few impromptu ball-and-bat games that bore no resemblance to anything World Series. The older men, in addition to the three of us 30-somethings, were the three “grandpas” and the group rounded out with “Uncle Bud” who was father to one of the older grandparents there. Bud was fully blind, and had the timeless manner of a different way of life. He was spry in his steps, slow and warmth in his wisdom, and quick with the wit of a practiced cynic.

We joked to him, after catching enough salamanders to feed a third world country, that his rocks on the trails were all overturned, so he should be careful, yet a quick hike to the nearby spring still saw him shuffle with remarkable spryness that defied his years and lack of eyesight. He KNEW that cabin and the woods around it. He may not have viewed it clearly for years, but it was his land, not by property deeds, but in spirit. (Having visited the property for more years than even my own father was alive, this could, I suppose, be expected)

The weather was perfect, with a bit of cool drizzle the evening we arrived, yet cleared up and sunny for Saturday. While I am not really into the hunter-mindset, it was with a fond nostalgia that I watched most of the others go through shell after shell of ammunition. No soda can or plastic water-laden bottle was safe from the .22 rifles. A box of orange clay-disks soared and shattered above the field in a flurry of shotgun pellets. Even yours truly, who has not fired-off anything remotely boom-sticky, took 20-gauge to shoulder and blasted 3 out of 4 clay skeets.

And those flying targets felt good. The shotgun rested tight; the bead steady as I swung towards the sailing clay; and a gentle tug on the trigger. #BOOM# missed the first, then three more broke apart like I had been doing this for years. Pull…aim…Boom. Reload. Pull…aim…Boom. Pottery fragments flew apart. It felt magical.

There was the not-quite-as-fun moments, like breaking up the inevitable child-argument (anyone with young kids knows that playtime sometimes requires adult intervention). There was the late night, sleeping in the room full of military barrack-bunks surrounded by either snoring old men, or wrigging dream-held kids and listening for the ‘THUD’ of gravity finding one outside the cots. There was the alternately cool and over-hot of the woodstove that made dressing a delicate dance of t-shirts and wool undergarments (often within hours of each other). And yes, there was the diet of crackers, soda, and grilled meat for meals (with the standard meat and eggs for breakfast). By sunday night, I wanted something green and leafy. *grin*

Still, even with the ‘challenges’ of camping, it is part and parcel of the experience. Such weekend outings need the minor bumps to make the entirety of the days a wonderful blessing to have attended. It felt deeply -fun- to be with the guys and just do whatever. They shot their guns. I tried a few shots myself. We hiked through the woods, drank directly from the spring, and cooked marshmallows over the coals. We slept in the next morning, and feasted on hearty sustaining camp-food. It felt magical.

And thinking back, as I did my daily meditations today, I realized it was magical.

Perhaps it was reconnecting to the primal hunter mindset. Yet, in some sense, the same thing happens when I visit the old Zen-porch crowd. In that group, no guns are blasted against cans, yet the bond is the same. It goes beyond words and eases into a comfortable silence watching some movie or game. And even in that group, I am blessed that the women are liberal-minded enough that any wise-cracks about their gender, or other male-centric topics (such as gastric processes) are accepted and retort-worthy in their own right.

This past weekend was, to glance quickly at it, a bunch of guys just hanging out at the woodland cabin. To glance closer, it perhaps was a bunch of guys attempting to connect with some primal hunter mentality. As I think a bit deeper on the weekend, it was more powerful, and yet more simple. We bunch of guys hung out at the woodland cabin.

It was something I had not done for a long time, and is sadly missing in a lot of mundane life in today’s culture. I begin to see a hint of why the AODA’s current leader frequently talks about fraternal organizations. There was a sense of deep connection between everyone there. Something unspoken, and brushed off as “girly-talk” if even dared to be mentioned by one of the kids. Yet it was there.

Thirteen men and boys, together in one place for two days. Four generations from varied backgrounds, and two states, sleeping within feet of one-another, sharing the same table, and vowing-without-saying to leave politics, religion, and our outside lives behind for a day. To just enjoy the weekend and Be.

I loved it.

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As a follow-up to this posting, regarding being mindful of food, here are my thoughts after doing that practice for two months.

Initially, the process of stopping for a brief moment was irritating after the first week. Intellectually, I understood that my process for this experiment was going take a bit of determination, but it still seemed that my “monkey mind” rallied against the effort for a few days there. Interesting….

Eventually, that rebellious nature gave up and I actually started to enjoy the vague challenge of tracing foodstuffs to its’ sources. It became almost second nature, and did not require much effort at all. Towards the end of the month, I didn’t even mentally make the connection in compartmentalized terms of Sandwich >> Bread >>Wheat + Sandwich >> Meatloaf >> Hamburger >> Cow + Garnish >> Gardens. ( alternately, Egg salad or marinated chicken strips for the protein part of the sandwich innards)
It became more of a matter of “Sandwich > process” and even that was not so much words and images as it was a vague sense of feeling “I understand the origins of the meal”.

In retrospect, I am very glad I did this little experiment, and while I no longer mentally rationalize the matter, I think it has helped subtly steer me towards a better eating regime. I still do not got out of my way to be totally organic, free range, and all natural, but when faced with a fried chicken sandwich at work or a salad for lunch (on the Rare times I do not pack leftovers) I am leaning towards the salad instead.

A side benefit of this change has made me not nearly so snacky during work. I used to nibble of sunflower seeds, or a bag of popcorn (bulk from this store, not the microwave kind), or more usually, a bag of candy. More recently, I skip the salty nuts and either grab some gorp I made, or just chew a stick of gum all afternoon to cancel the oral fixation of chewing something.

As part of my next experiment, since this one I consider a success, I will begin setting aside 15 minutes a day at work to sit quietly and meditate on some subject or other. At first, I am thinking I will just concentrate on de-stressing and relaxing while at work. I’ve done it for two days this week mostly to see if I could remember to take time out of my lunch and sit quietly in my car, instead of not leaving my desk and surfing the web. Seems like it will work out.

I’ll check back next new moon, to report on the newest incarnation of mindful moon-musings! See you then!

PS: Since twinkies were referenced in my original musing, and I am still an avid world of Warcraft player…here’s an image I found quite humorous.

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On the eve of re-dedicating my blog, and preparing a lovely solitary ritual of Moon-charged spring-ness, the celestial heavens aligned to bring a bit more magic to the night. While a full and glowing silvery disk rose in the southeast, casting the amazing “I can almost read outside” light, it soon began to darken…. [/epic prose]

Yes, this month’s full moon was a total lunar eclipse, which reached peak around 10:15 or so, and thus was quite easily watchable, without resorting to severe sleep-deprivation. It was awesome!Most of the viewing was spent from our enclosed porch, due to the temperature outside hovering around 28 degrees (kelvin) or -2365324.8 F.

Unfortunately, we had some company over, and a surprise sleep-over of one of our friend’s (15yr old) sons so that he could stay and help clean up the barn the next morning. (He has a standing offer, $$ from us, manual labor from him).

Thus, I had a little moon ritual on the porch after everyone else went to sleep around midnight. The eclipse was over, but the feeling in the air was wonderful. The light dusting of snow sparkled a bit more ’sparkly’ than before, and such.

I’m learning after a bit of experimentation that music can play a huge part in getting in the ‘zone’ for ritual work, specifically my recent forays into a sort of “trance-tripping” meditation, where I hold an idea or question, or intent in my head, then turn on the tunes and let myself flow out into the vibe. It’s hard to explain really, and am still playing with the technique, but it’s a fun adventure so far!
Random shuffle of playlist songs for the moon-celebration started off well with two back-to-back songs from Steve MacDonald Sons of Somerled, followed by a strangely trippy song by Kid Loco. After that, toss in Life Giver, one Dido song (”Life for Rent”), and a Freezepop “Just want to Rokk” and it seemed a good place to go back inside where it was warmer.

The meditation was mostly a freeform nature, to celebrate/witness the eclipse, mentally take note of the full moon, and ground out after a hectic start of the week at work.

Results: Formalized my intent for this blog, was inspired for something that’s been bothering me in Warcraft and playtesting resolved it works! (new spell rotation and talent distribution for easier solo play), and generally felt happier and more stress-free the last few days at work by thinking back to watching the eclipse.

Thus, the mini-ritual was a success, in that it brought me to a more balanced and happy day afterwards. Positive lifestyles are the goal of any religion, right? If so, I found my religion. w00t! *grin*

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