Maebius Musings

First, sorry for the lapse in posting. We’ve had a cycle of pneumonia, flu, and other plagues that worked its way through the entire family, and back through.. again. Poor little one was out of school all last week with a fever, and we are finally on the upside of illness, though not quite totally healthy yet.

Now on the the musing!

In this age of Facebook, ubiquitous mobile cell phones (is it even Cellular anymore?), and bluetooth Live Online IM (“I AM” not, thank you), it seems like the youth and upwardly mobile of today are more connected to each other’s personal daily lives than ever before. Folks are commonly known to Text, Twitter, Twirp?, and such from almost anywhere, any time.

In relation to this information overload, I’ve heard and read Op-Ed articles ranging the topics from the invasion of personal privacy, to the detachment to personal relations.

Yet one thing I pondered this weekend, which I had not really seen on the media sites I frequent, is that this interconnectedness and online availability of personal frivolities, may simply be a return to the small town community, redefined by current technology.

Back in “The Good old Days”, you hear some talk of the small towns, where everyone knows everyone, and the gossip grapevine bore plentiful fruit. It may have been true that everyone KNOWS old man Maebius likes to play some damned MMO computer game or hated tomatoes, but it didn’t matter in the overall scheme of things, since if you alternately needed gardening advice or cheap farm-fresh eggs, Maebius could hook you up.

I don’t recall the recollection-minded mentioning huge inroads on the personal privacy lawn, like online information does now (except in references to Big Brother or “the commies” depending on era).

Today’s mobile-connected are looking more and more like those communities, where the intimate details are available if you care to look, but most people aren’t looking anymore, because it’s so available. The communities are essentially becoming the Small Town Mind again, but instead of geographical locality as a border, it is self-limiting by Network Interest.

Imagine, if you would, if technology advanced to where sunglass cameras, or RFID devices on every person’s common gadget were hooked up to a Global Database. At a glance, if you wish, you could pass by some stranger in the hall, queue up their info, and instantly know marital status, favorite hobbies, and name (as described by that person’s self-described bio profile).

To make it more current and specific, the cellphone signal on that guy next to you on the bus would load their Facebook page and display it on your phone, if you loaded the appropriate app. In this case, nothing you would find out would be “private” as it is culled from the stranger’s public profile. They could even lie about things.

But why would you care? Just because information is available, does not mean it is necessary to see by everyone and by everyone at all times, like some folks have stated while decrying such social networking sites.

Such transparency in your personal life is only created, if you, yourself, choose to create it. And in doing so, you join the Little Big Town of today’s Network-Now.

I think overall, this just shows humanities intrinsic desire to belong to a Clan/Tribe/Family. We just keep shifting the lines on who gets included to ours, and how it is defined.

The trick though, is to forge communties as best we can, using whatever method we can. For those of the druidic persuasion, that may involve physicality again for the event of a technological network outage. For some folks though, such a situation is too far in the future, and the online communty still has value Now.
In the end, I don’t think it’s that big a deal, potentially knowing the minutiae of Maebius. I don’t update my Facebook anyway.

…and if you do need fresh eggs, stop over to Everthorn Farms for a cup of mint tea from my garden. I’ll share that with you strangers anytime.

2 Comments »

I’ve posted in the past about the awesomeness that can be found by taking an ‘ordinary’ object and treating/viewing it as something amazing and special. There’s some deep powerful Magic in such an act.

So, for your further amazement (or is that amusement?) I preset you with the following link.

http://improveverywhere.com/2009/03/18/subway-art-gallery-opening/

Go. Read it.

Then, look around you at something in your local field of view, and look at it again. It is art.

Regardless of what it is, from a pencil, to the fading poster of some 80’s band, to a potted plant on the windowsill. It is Art.

Enjoy!

No Comments »

Inspired by a passed-along link to this Witchvox article, I want to take a moment and thank my mentors who stand out in my head as being quite important to my current Spiritual path.

Thank you to Polly Gainer, my high-school Physics teacher. While she never discussed anything probably remotely related to pagan spirituality, she was the first lesbian adult I remember knowing first-hand, and one of my favorite teachers even beyond this facet of her personal life. She made Physics Phun, and opened the door of my mind to alternative quantum states, directly influencing my religious growth. Her dedicated “well, try it!” teaching style showed me the power of personal experience in learning how the world works.

Thank you to Mr Bowman, and solar energy astral projections, as one of the more memorable “hey, lets play magic” times of my experimental spellcasting phase, where I actually felt a different energy while we tried to “pass the flow”. This stands out as a good benchmark moving from all that Llewellyn study to “I tried it and…hey, it works!” Also for visiting Spoutwood Farm Faerie Fest and associated “social gatherings”.

Thank you to Shara and Jessa, for opening their circle gatherings to me, and exposing me to a slightly more organized side of pagan practice. I learned a lot, some that works for me still, and some that drove me away, but it was all an excellent experience in the larger picture. Sorry for my abrupt departure from your circles, since maturing wisdom has shown me there was much learning potential with you, even though I wasn’t ready for it at the time. The t-shirt graffiti party was awesome fun!

Thank you to Wren of the Zenporch, for friendship and Renaissance Frolics. Your palm reading and close friendship showed me another aspect of kitchen witchery and a more gentle lifestyle-based side of pagan Paths in contrast to the active ceremonial circle-workings I’d seen before. The ZenPorch remains one of my mental “safe spots” when meditating, in a large part because of you.

Thank you to B, for the memories sipping tea in the moonlight with drums echoing through the stillness, spinning Poi under the stars, and crash-space while visiting and being surrounded by Art. Also, thanks for your politico-socio-philosophical topics, which I may not agree at all times, but help me clarify my own Path. You helped blast open one of the biggest doors along my journey, knowing it was also OK to walk through.

Thank you to Nettle, for more Zenporch musings, eastern philosophies, herbal understudies, and quite a lot of inspiration in subtle and unworded ways. Thanks also for introducing me to Starwood, and by extension, FaerieCon, ShareFest, and a myriad of other social gatherings with varied styles and energies. I’ll never forget sitting on a Philly roof-porch with a dark mirror feeling rather frightened because my reflection changed, and knowing that was still OK. You’ve probably showed me how to push open more doors than anyone combined.

And finally, thank you to the pagan Blog-o-Sphere I follow. So many viewpoints, facets, and diverse opinions and virtual correspondances out there, I can’t help but grow and deepen my own Path through shared learning. I won’t list them all here, but the best are in my blogroll page, linked on this site.

Thank you.

No Comments »

Sorry for the slow updates this week. It’s the final stretch in tax season (Corporates are due Mar 15th, Personals are April 15th) so the computer at home is dedicated to my wife this time of year… plus I got paged to cover the night-shift at work, midnight-8am this week.

My brain is just too sleepy and mixed-up to coherently muse on deep philosophical topics lately.

However, in the interim, enjoy this post from a blog I follow. It’s suitably non-sequitur for my though process lately.

http://slowwolf.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/moviewatch-bumblebee-tuna/

…or, if you just want the catchy song and YouTube Video, click here.

-Maebius goes off to dance and sing a catchy song in random anime-esque fashion….

What, you want more Hip-hop Anime AMV stylin?
Go here, watch this Candy Pop. (slightly risqué, like most hiphop videos lately)

O_o’ <-- Anime Sweatdrop emoticon.

No Comments »

It’s no secret to some folks who know me, that I am a contradiction in lifestyles somewhat, in terms of my current job and Life Philosophy.

I have an active Virtual presence on a number of forums, MMO games, and of course, this blog, plus I work as a computer-support tech for a multinational corporation. While I don’t own the t-shirt, I have what I consider an appropriate amount of geek-cred on the intarwebs.

Still, my personal/spiritual/whatever life is one based on the sacredness of Nature, a relationship with the Divine (in whatever form you choose), and things that at a glance are the polar opposite of “The Internet”.

Facebook, MySpace, and such are pointless to me, and I’ve been quoted at work as saying that I dislike digital media and (while I do not practice what I rant) understand that Vinyl Records are probably the penultimate sound-storage concept. Even this Blog is a contradiction of Virtual and Reality, yet exists as convenience to share my thoughts with an otherwise unconnected population of e-friends.
I will not probably ever own a Kindle, or an iPhone, or any such “must-have” tech gadget, unless purchased for me by kindly associates and friends, though I’m starting to lean towards buying a cheap MP3 player just to listen to some good grooves while meditating outside under the stars during campouts when the usual crickets are too quiet.

Also, since the days of working at the local library during my school years, I just like books too much….
…as so wonderfully mocked explained by the folks over at Penny Arcade:

2 Comments »

As a sort of followup to the recent New Moon entry, I was pondering Human Nature and the fact that we erect hominids have a great propensity to create and destroy. To Play God, as it were.

I’m no biologist, but beyond making homes or nests, my perception of other animals is that they seem pretty content to exist and be themselves. Sure wild hogs uproot the landscape and destroy grasslands, but it is usually for a physical need like food and over-population stressors. Termites build huge towers to live in, which helps them stay cool in the hot environment. The list goes on…
Yet people don’t make bombs or poetry to get more food, or shelter, really, do they? Only humans, to my untrained eye, have an apparent inner-need to create and destroy the world around them.

I see it in myself, when winter drags on, and I get bored, my thoughts always turn to creating a never-to-be-played RPG setting, drafting back-stories of RPG characters in my favorite video games, or grab a handful of craft supplies and start gluing them together.

It also seems to happen the other way, where unrestrained Guy-ness wants me to chop down a tree, or clear brush, or burn trash and toss in as many leaves as I can so it all turns to ash as I watch the world burn. On some level, I can rationalize to myself the destructive urges are a form of creation, like Kali clearing the way for Newness, but it’s still destructive and usually not a healthy kind. I can feel why putting a gun in someone’s hands is enough to make them want to shoot things. It’s empowering. The details of the acts draw the line between good-empowerment and selfish ego-gratification.

Yet why is this so, this Tragedy of the Commons? What makes us, besides self-described terms like “higher intelligence”, want to control the world so forcefully?

Could it be a hold-over from our more supernatural past, where the unknown was full of danger and mysterious spirits and gods beyond our control? Has that frightened start steered the course of culture towards embracing that which we most feared? Do we seek to be gods of our microcosm, because we felt pawns in the macrocosm?

I don’t have the answer, but it’s a good thought to muse on this weekend as I prepare to see the new Watchmen movie next week.

God isn’t just an American, he’s US.

No Comments »

Turn and face this Page
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be different, man
Time may change me
But I cant trace time…(apologies to David Bowie)

The astute reader here may have noticed that the banner image has changed, and the blogroll has suddenly vanished from the sidebar and begun a slow migration to a completely separate page. Those less astute, or reading this through and RSS feed, feel free to check the page itself out briefly and tell me your thoughts on the new banner. Do eeet!

The new (temporary) image is a cropped picture out across the briar-strewn fields of Everthorn Farm taken last summer. Eventually, I’m trying to figure out a fancy way of taking similar images throughout the season, and semi-automatically rotating them at some interval, to virtually “evolve” the image and have it reflect the general weather patterns here in meatspace. I don’t know if it’s even totally possible, but it’s a good dream. Anyone with knowledge of automated FTP server-scripts, webcams, or other associated technologies, I’d love to hear from you.

The blogroll moving to it’s own page sill eventually be much more populated than the old sidebar was. I personally follow about 80 blogs, some of them with actual regularity. To be fair to those I like best, I think having a full page to list them would be more convenient than a growing sidebar list, and can be sorted semi-topically.

That’s all for now. If you see any other unusual little tweaks on the site, just remember the words on the cover of that excellent book.

No Comments »

Just a quick note to advise folks I may not post much for a few days… There’s a plague in our home currently. Wife feverish and spent the day in bed all yesterday, kid so far healthy but still mild snuffles. Myself, I cand breed oud of by dose at all. Dis means sore dhroat, sniffles, and achy feeling ad work dis morning. BLAH!

(Bad timing too, since I have a free-trial of Lord of the Rings Online, and couldn’t keep myself upright to be on the computer much this weekend. Double-Blah!)

In terms of Spam, I am not sure what has been happening across the general wordpress Blogosphere, but when I checked my comments today, there were exactly 186 new comments awaiting moderation?!?! (update: since I posted this, another 54 new ones!)

All from the same fake-sounding email, and for everything from monster [roosters], and other ‘enhancing’ services, or young/old/group/goat -related activities best confined to private quarters. Sheesh! … Or I apparently am also pre-approved for debt-inflation cards, and can get really inexpensive wrist-borne timekeeping devices bearing a well-known branding. /facepalm

I am also fully aware that even these semi-tame words will queue another round of such things soon in reply to this post! Do people really click on those types of link? They must for it to continue to be a ‘viable business model’.

Anyway, I’m sick, planning to pass out at home for the next few days after I get home from work, and if you comment here and it does not immediately show up, you know why.

No Comments »