FB and the Reset ...

Well, here we are then, in the New Year 2021, according to some systems of counting Time.
Given the current shifts in Imperial Power, perhaps we'll soon switch to Chinese Time, drop these HPNY and Christmas dates, with all their ways to cheer us up in midwinter Northern Hemisphere, midsummer in the South, at least those countries colonised by the European Christian types ... maybe even drop the Latin alphabet in favour of ideograms, a whole new way to see the world or worlds ... along with grammar, already subverted in the blog in an attempt to show the word is not the thing described ... hence the lack of full stops. Full stops, called periods in US lingo, confusing readers into imagining Life is static, whereas it's well known it's not ... nouns have similar tendencies and verbing is more accurate ...

The title of this blog addresses vital issues as we enter 2021, since this phase of human activity or insanity offers major changes ... crises do that as old ways to operate fester and demand system reset ... entitled The Great Reset by the representatives of the great and good gathering each year in Davos to plan the future as they see it ... the Blue Book recently published by the World Economic Forum describing a powerful vision for a brave new world, led by them ... a place fit for a new species, part human part machine, and far fewer of us too ...

The puzzling thing about the visionary book was this: despite being written well into the shock and awe phase of their plan, there was no mention of the fear generated by design by illegal governments around the globe, coordinated by the World Health Organisation, since the method chosen to shake us up was a virus ... a kind of flu, not lethal but highly infectious, engineered in a Wuhan Lab and distributed in boxes, perhaps by Amazon, to speed up the transmission rate ...

This strain of Sars, known as Sars-Cov-2, was code named Covid19, after the year of its launch ... that strain ran around through 2020, peaking in April in UK, revived to maintain the fear as a second wave, by devious devices, aided and abetted by complicit media, including the ubiquitous, addictive FB and associated monopolies to divide and rule the people, already infected by existential fears like Death and Love of Money ...

Meanwhile, the next virus to hit the scene and encourage us to submit to insertion of loaded nanoparticles in our bodies is ready soon ... maybe code named Covid-21, WHO knows?

A fascinating game indeed and lethal ... when psychopaths are left in charge, with Head Girls and Boys and Prefects given the authority they always seek to tell us what we can't do, Compassion goes out the window ... we could say that one solution is to laugh at them, since such very serious folks don't like it when their authority is undermined by mockery ... worth a try anyway ...

As for FB and similar addictive tools designed to reinforce our solipcism, always on, posting stories or memes, Me Me Me, gathering the attention we crave ... well fundamentally these corporations only care about money and new ways to make it and keep it ... including selling advertising space to governments, like most mainstream press, all paid for by the magic money tree, already conjuring up the new fear of higher taxes ...

It's soon time for breakfast and an early wander, but in the meantime, dear long suffering reader(s), please note the above is not a theory, just an hypothesis you are invited to criticise, destroy with your own insight and forensic logic and even mock the writer if you want ... he won't mind, since for obvious reasons he no longer takes him self seriously and quite enjoys being teased ... any kind of attention is better than none after all ...

Al Gebra and the speed of light ...

Now here's a question that's been puzzling me for a while, since the brain of your blogger was never wired for Mathematics or Science. In fact at school examinations of my mind, measured in GCE at ordinary level showed Maths so poor that an even lower level of proficiency only allowed Grade 2, i.e. basic arithmetic, whilst General Science scraped a pass at Grade 4 GCE, mostly due to an interest in Biology. The first year at Advanced Level was spent studying English, Geography and History, before the well-meaning old Cambridge Don and Headmaster decided to offer Philosophy as an option, just for fun. Soon after pondering the deeper questions like: Know Thyself; To Thine Own Self Be True plus Follow the Argument Wherever it Leads You, I was out of there and on the life-long quest for Truth with a big T ...

50+ years later, here we are, still curious!

Still waiting to hear from mathematicians or physicists too, about this tricky question of non-locality, called by Einstein "spooky action at a distance" since it expanded the definition of the speed of light, the c squared in the famous equation about the relationship between Mass and Energy, where C had a precise number before it was squared. It all worked fine for a while - you know nuclear energy, nuclear bombs and so on, and other things less lethal, but Albert never accepted the weird world of Quantum Mechanics, since it disproved the constancy of C, squared or not, which therefore messed up the whole equation.

Inward examinations of Consciousness suggests another C might help with the fundamental question of Energy and Matter equivalence ... Consciousness itself! This idea, supported by ancient sages from various traditions through the ages, means YOU dear humble reader(s), are part of the game, though not separate, just a fragment of the whole. You could call that G if you like and many have and still do ... but G is not essential in the new, enhanced equation proposed by an unscientific old bloke and certainly many others: E=mc ...not necessarily squared and standing for Universal Consciouness.

Which is weird and in need of questioning rigourously by smarter and wiser folks ... younger ones too, since the old joke that science progresses death by death also has a kernel of truth ...

Hey ho, on we go, round and round the merry go round, enjoying life, looking forward to a Dawn walk high on the Fell, a nearly full moon in a mostly clear sky on the almost Eve of the New Year in most time bound traditions, but not all ...

The Art of War ...

Shock and Awe, start with that,
... if you wish to control the people.

Scare the shit out of them,
and put most into a state of Fear.

After that it's easy to convince them to surrender.

"Christ! These bastards are psychopaths,
... if they can do that we'd better comply!"
And so it goes on,
Until folks pluck up the courage to resist,
See through the plan ...
To enslave us all for whatever reason
... that's rather unclear.

But what is very clear
Is the invader is not taking over
For our best interests but theirs'...

Be very sure of that ...
Don't trust them,
Resist their orders,
Just don't comply ...

Design of different kinds ...

This theme needs more time, so let's unwrap the concept and see what kinds of design we find.

First, and best known perhaps, is Product Design.
Whole books are dedicated to this and some cynics or sceptics observe that recent practise is rather shoddy ... a cheap and cheerful teapot that fails in its primary function - to deliver tea to a cup without spilling it on the table or worse still on your lap or laptop is hard to fathom when a good potter can make a work of art that effortlessly enables the transfer with the aid of a steady hand and attention to the task.

Next, Service Design.
A smart phrase for common sense and a focus on the primary focus of any service worth its salt ... the customer! Any half-conscious customer will observe that the one delivering the service often manages to artfully manage you ... indeed trade unions are dedicated to the task of safeguarding the interests of their members, not against the customers but the tendency of business owners to drive down the wages and conditions of the workers ... customers often get caught in the crossfire of this battle ... whilst individuals take pride in finding ways to make their working lives more comfortable, putting their interests before both business owners and customers ... perfectly understandable if you reflect for a moment ... it's human nature isn't it?
The way the game is played is key to the basic conflict and its resolution.
Public services, of course, are rarely designed and in extreme cases the customer wonders why and how those elected and appointed to serve the people end up serving themselves and telling the people what to do ... sound familiar?

How about Experience Design?
This is the next big thing and already happening. What on Earth can you buy for the person who has everything? This problem is faced each Christmas by many people in over-developed countries ... even averagely wealthy folks face this problem, leading to the pointless problems and worries experienced at the festive season, plus Valentine's Day, Easter, Birthdays and all the other opportunities advertised by commerce to sell their stuff ... don't blame commerce for the problem please, that's their business and our national GDP score depends on it. Of course, deep reflection and stepping off the merry go round may solve the psychological problem individually, but if we all did it what would happen to the GDP, the profits of national and multi-national businesses, their shareholders, including your pension fund if you have one ... some economists propose a measure better than GDP, GNH or Gross National Happiness, tried out by the Buddhist King in Bhutan some time ago ... hmm maybe, but Bhutan is an economically poor country and the world is run these days not by national but multi-national economic entities, with unbelievable wealth with which to maintain their power. And corrupt all sorts of players drawn into the illusion that money is real ... whilst everyone knows you can't eat it or take it with you when you die .. it seems the human race has lapsed into a mass hallucination, madness really and not just recently ...

Never mind, back to the plot of the never ending story ... Experience Design! Perfect for our atomised individualistic times, a concept which at its best gives each of us, not just the super or average folks already inhabiting a self-created ideal world in their own minds, but humble people who spent their lives thinking of others before themselves ... if you recall yesterday's post you know who and how such a beautiful illusion may be created, if only for one day out of 90 years ... you think that's altruism, worthy of applause? Please let me assure you, such experiences serve not just the one receiving the full attention of the world in one small hall, in one small place but all of those present plus other players supporting, the warm glow spreading through one small Dale and far and wide, globally, through the ubiquity of social media .. from paranoia to pronoia, from despair to hope. .. who wouldn't want such a present next year?!

Design

Boxing Day, 2020, at least according to some calendars.

This day in UK, at least, traditionally is for recovery from the excess eating, cooking if you have that joy or burden, washing dishes if you have that one ...modern gadgets like dishwashing machines are said to help ... giving and or receiving gifts, unwrapping them excitedly, trying to pretend you are surprised to have got the very thing you asked for ... or delighted to have received something you are bitterly disappointed about, nurturing dark thoughts about the motives of the giver maybe ...though such cynicism on the part of the blogger is much too dark for the normal story of peace on Earth for all the world ... which would be nice, Earth being the planet most of us seem to live on, the world, all of which is said to be a stage on which each human plays ... and not only one role but many parts within each lifetime ... each of us at the centre in our own minds, as well as playing supporting roles in the roles of others, not always as supportive as they imagine, but undermining the vital central role of each individual, being the best version of humanity they can be, through some need to suck out the energy of another ... often a close relative or lover .. oh dear! the toxic games we play on Earth in Life School ... the Dracula story springs to mind, not for the terror as much the energy sucking ... the poor old Count is so short of his own reserves he deserves our compassion ... just don't play the part of his victim all the time, especially if you sense your own energy is waning. ..

But that's all psychology of human relationships and not required on Boxing Day ... there's enough of it yesterday as toxic families gather together to pretend to enjoy the love and family connection... and many families I hasten to add, really love the chance to spend the day together in harmony ... or would in normal circumstances ...

For readers waiting to hear about yesterday's Christmas Day in the Church Hall, please ignore all the preceding nonsense and skip to a magical story as told by your old blogger, playing his part enthusiastically to forsake the Silence not stoically but with joy whilst trying to avoid the trap of playing the central role ... mostly successfully maybe, I don't know, you need to ask the others in the play about how they perceived the show! Hopefully, there will be a video coming soon, made by Ruth, an essential young person attending specifically to ensure a record of the Star of the Show, as designed by the others in some perceptions at least ... you'd better ask them again ... Mary, living more than 90 years already, high in the hills, was enjoying what she says may well be her last Christmas, with a small but perfectly social distanced cast, at least by table design, more or less ... though nobody round the table seemed bothered about such nonsense ... before getting to Mary, let's look at the other players in the Christmas Story. ..

Arthur, well past 90, still walking about the village, talking to the people, sometimes taking services, for which he's ordained, CoE department, cheerful albeit waning a little, maybe another player who may skip next Christmas, who knows?
Janet, Arthur's wife, rather younger and very spritely ... a dancer and no longer fully subscribed to the old stories, CoE, Wesleyan, RC or any other version it seems ...
Mick the Hat, from the smaller village just East, incomers from East London, widowed husband of Gloria, his saviour, who came along, oxygen bottles and all, to enjoy the company of the locals in her final years ... she made Mick promise to look after Howie, the little dog, who also attended, wandering about under the table in search of scraps of turkey ... !
Counting Mary, the only truly local round the table, that's four ... add the blogger, keen to join the table as participant not observer or helper ... and a friend of mine at deeper level, Dawn, invited to attend as helper, an artifice to have her there, round the table, to play some part unspecified before but revealed during the Show ... in unearthly fashion, a sound arising from Beyond with deep lyrics sung without recognisable tune yet touching such depths the rest of us were stunned into Silence, applause would have seemed inappropriate and I, for one was choking on tears ... which was nice!

Supporting cast amongst others: Jane the chef, providing far too much food as usual, not present this time ... her Mum, Beryl and Jane's brother Andrew, served up the food, and though invited to make use of the two places laid, to join the rest .. which Andrew did briefly ... they seemed to enjoy the illusion of a posh dinner at a beautifully prepared table, white cloths and berryful holly as centrepiece, with servants wearing masks to protect the important guests ...;
Geraldine and Gillian, stalwarts of Wheels to Meals, on other family duties on Christmas Day, who arranged the table the day before and generally organised things behind the scene ...;
Ruth, who came to film the highlights, who came up with the idea of a community lunch for the elders, alone on the special day and persuaded her Mum and Dad to enrol their friends to cook and serve, which they did for two or three years before handing over the reins to pagans, supported by other Christians behind the scenes. ..apologies for the vagueness, but in some intervening years the blogger was on other duties in Spain or Portugal, wandering about for no particular reason ...

Well, that's nearly enough for now ... let's just say, on the question of design, that just maybe, given all the variables, and all the coincidences, what if the whole thing was designed to put Mary centre stage? Or Mick or any of us? It seems to point that way ... but who is the designer?

Book Reviews ...

Christmas Day, pregnant with symbolic meaning, thought forms everywhere appearing in the minds of excited children unable to sleep and their bleary eyed parents urging them to try, since Santa is still finishing off his rounds down South ... magical!

Disenchantment sets in later, at age 5 or 6 or 7 ... maybe a sense of betrayal, an existential shock that those trusted parents were lying all the time ... possibly a reason for a deep unease about religion, with Santa standing in for God?

At this stage, for any young readers disturbed by the above heresy, please rest assured that this 70 year old fool, writing these magical stories, has never lost his faith in Santa ... whilst still questioning the existence of a Creator God ... question everything they tell you, examine all of it and reject anything that insults your Soul, your deepest instincts that is if the concept of Soul disturbs you ...

Readers may note a reference to a mystic poet, Walt Whitman, who beautifully spoke his Truth ...

Meanwhile, in the Dale, two books have recently arrived in the Library, both by mystic poets albeit writing prose poetically, not fictitiously but autobiographically, beautifully sharing their insights; one into the Dale itself and her life high up on a hill farm, the other his younger life running with the marathon men and women in Ethiopia at even higher altitude ... both touching on deep truths, philosophers essentially, the local writer sitting in circles with the Quaker folks, mostly in the Silence, awaiting information internally, going inside for insights beyond the incessant chatter blocking any chance of deeper truth, the returning Durham City youngster, wise beyond his years after running marathons all round the world, finding flow states in his mind, writing his insights down for you to read and maybe be inspired ... of course, in both cases, the writers can only point towards the truths they find deep inside through the lives they led and lead now ... if you, dear long suffering reader(s), wish to seek your own Truth, the only Way is by living it ... which may seem tough, but it's worth a try, one glimpse of that peace that passes understanding may transform your life, or lives ...

As Dawn approaches and a walk beckons; today promises some serious fun and joy at the Community Lunch with the Elders, fewer than usual for obvious reasons, and featuring, hopefully:
A vicar with his philosopher wife, from the West of Wales, where they ran a Retreat House for many years; a retired professional from the South of London well acquainted with HRH The Queen from his many holidays; a White Witch from the East of Durham; the star of the show our local celebrity, not the author, but from further West, near the top of the road to Cumbria, with so many stories to tell of her hard life ... it was tough, she says, but our values were better then ...
Plus supporting cast, of which more later!

Time for breakfast now ... if you are wondering about the books:
A Shoulder on the Hill by Carol Madeline Graham of Westgate;
Out of Thin Air by Michael Crawley of Durham City and lover of Weardale. ..
You can find copies in the Library in Stanhope, in bookshops everywhere, via that awful online purveyor of everything if you must, other online bookshops too, Hive maybe ..

Have a lovely day wherever you are ... I can't think of anywhere better than the Church Hall in Stanhope personally ... but that's just me, a very lucky man!

Plots unravelling ...

Just after 5 again, time to write a little after a shortish scrolling of the FB feed, to try to decipher the viewpoints of various chosen FB friends, each with their own version, perception or illusion of what's going on politically around the world, mostly illustrated and supported or attacked in comment threads ... fascinating ... please note your correspondent does not exempt himself, not wishing to play holier than thou, a major error ...

After that an hour of reading ... early reading usually reserved for dense and difficult books, when the brain is most alert ... worth the effort to stay informed on topics alien to this unscientifically structured brain or mind ... writing this stuff to entertain any readers bored after all this time with unusual insights, possibly delusional and lacking the daily colour from Caminoing ... none of it anyway an altruistic chore, but purely selfish and mostly fun ... staying fit in body, mind and soul, not with any intention to live forever but to maybe die healthy if possible ... as predicted by the gypsy descendent of Rose Lee a short while ago ...

Weirdness abounds and finds an old mind happy to entertain it ...

An old young friend arrives with books, all written by him just this year ... in case you're wondering, dear reader(s), it's only one book but several copies, dedicated by him, an affectation you may observe, indicating that this would-be writer at least knows one published author ... anyway it looks good in a Library to encourage would-be readers ... the author developed the book from a thesis which won him his PhD, so he's a doctor now ... frankly I trust him more than some medical ones, dispensing drugs to order from drug barons on prescription, approved by NICE, another strange acronym, a linguistic lie ...

Anyway, the Doctor brings with him another Doctor and their delightful daughter, not yet in possession of academic awards, but bright enough not to have forgotten she knows everything and still asks why ... she'll probably comply eventually with cultural norms and adapt and forget the weird stuff not required to progress in this time and place ... though there's still hope, since her parents embrace Anthropology,  a soft science subject which often throws up Shamans ... they go native whilst studying with ignorant backward savages ... in Empire times smart Christians taught them about the Jesus story, often violently. .. a serious error obviously!

Time is speeding up, according to physics and certainly for older folks with most of our future behind us now ... we have the chance to story our life looking backwards, since it happened ... though unless we kept a diary all our life the history of us is not told then but now and how well we remember it depends on many things ... which is where selective amnesia may pay off; a chance to tell a better story, weeding out the weeds we don't wish to find in our garden ... sorry if this sounds flowery and weirdly enough this triggers a memory from a me from teenage years, when a rather bitter teacher judged this aspiring writer's writing "flowery" ... and not in a good way ....

Christmas Eve is upon us already and a clear sky promises a sight of the Sun appearing to rise after yesterday's gloomy rainy day ... all is illusion on this Earthly plane, all the world's a stage and in this individualistic age, on FB and in general, everyone wants to put themselves at the centre of everyone else's story ... imagine that! Chaos reigns, the internet is about to break under the weight of photos of our Christmas Dinners, our families if we are permitted to see them, sunrises, sunsets and so on sitting in huge databanks. .. stored for when the miners can sell them back to us ...

Time for breakfast and a walk before Dawn ... see you on the other side ...

The light returns ...

Just after 5 the day after the longest night
A good time to write while FB is quiet
At least in the North
Our friends from the South are awake
And ready for attention, the existential trap
Of the most powerful addiction known to Man
Not dangerous by design, like fine wine
It's using it in moderation, not letting it use you that's key
Blaming FB, Twitter, Instagram, Wtf's that App
And other attention grabbers
Pinging incessantly to remind us how important we are ...

Language itself, essentially the way we see our world,
Conspires in its very structure to blindside us
So many nouns in sophisticated languages
Whilst Truth will never be found in nouns
Fundamentally, as known from physics and psychics
Truth is a verb, or to be more accurate, it's verbing
Never fixed, always moving, forming and dissolving
In the void, itself not empty, but full of energy
Awaiting your full attention, your Consciousness
To create the World you want at deepest level, maybe

Language explains and constrains simultaneously
And explanations in the mouths of Sophists sound smart
Though thought itself is limited,
Since thought is structured by words
Try Silence sometimes or better still, often
It's golden for a reason after all is said and done ...

Meanwhile, in the void, pregnant with infinite potential
This Universe is expanding and everlasting
Full of Love and your intelligence

From big bang to big crunch again and again

What's beyond the edge of this Universe is left unasked
One Universe at a time is enough for Now!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, from Wear and Dao
Please try to enjoy the dreadful games if you can
Doing what we can where we are
As if all the world really is a stage
The key to happiness in the mundane world

Love wins, it always does ...

The Bishop and the Elders ...

Well, that was fun! A full day for a retired person with nothing much to do ... an early start approaching the shortest day or longest night, depending how you story it, some hours to pass productively before Dawn, itself some Time before Sunrise, itself a misnomer given that strictly speaking the Sun does not rise or fall in relation to the Earth, though that's all pedantry, some say ... this pedantic old blogger demands accuracy however, since language creates our World and if we wish to understand it we'd better be clear about the language we employ ... Sophists use language to deceive us artfully, others fall into the many traps mindlessly set by it ...

The latest semantic game plays out through a recent form of an ancient art - Power and how to use it ... known as Neuro-Linguistic-Programming, NLP for short ... a neutral device essentially, waiting for humans to apply it for good or ill or neither ... in brief, Common Purpose, a fine sounding title for a malign organisation, set up years ago to persuade the human race to behave sensibly, rationally, in order to halt the trends of climate change, gross inequality, greed, conspicuous consumption and more ...all bringing the planet to crisis point ... plausible? Yes, maybe so ... but a cult was smelt by many with a nose and instinct for such things and publicly exposed ... but the cult continued and recruited adherents in influential positions in national and local authorities, health services and so on ... voluntarily submitting to brainwashing ...

And there we are today, cast into despair through fear induced by senseless rules imposed ostensibly because of a pandemic called to deal with a particular flu, no more lethal than the annual one, with mass deception of a frightened people projecting all their fears of death, loss of money, loss of loved ones, a people softened up by excess stuff including money ...

Which brings us to the Elders ... shamefully neglected since Martial Law commenced in March, locked up with no choice about how they spend their golden years or weeks or days, as expressed to me by more than one nonogenarian locally ... actually their wisdom has been undervalued for much longer, given the lives they led, the lessons they learned, the values they shared when times were much much harder ... and not just the snow, barely seen in recent times ... still their grand and great-grand-children learn, by visits if they're lucky, by phone if not, and not at all if the elders have none with whom to share the lessons ... and vice versa, since the young bring wisdom of their own to bear, especially pure compassion which exists in their hearts before cynicism sets in ...

Riding over the fells, reminiscing on places not seen for ages, fond memories about tougher, kinder times, the touchy subject of the Prince Bishops of Durham, based in Bishop Auckland, not especially worshipped by some elders, what with the excess wealth of the established Church extracted from the miners and farmers in the good old days ... never mind, Bishop Paul, the current Bishop, turned out to preach a very positive and mercifully brief message of Peace and Love to all in the name of Jesus Christ, reminding his flock of the similarities between the experience of Mary and Joseph, tormented by Herod, and current times ... well said, and radical in a way, the message received and understood by many gathered round the Tree, the Fear lifting palpably, social distancing, bubbles, clusters, rules of six, tiers of three and all those strange ideas notwithstanding.

One of the unusual features of these crisis times is the demise of the Established Church, replaced anyway round here by more austere Chapels inspired by Wesley who taught that alcohol and gambling were best avoided and the Love of Christ more important than the Love of money ... the surplus value sucked out of the ground and the sweat of the miners, farmers and so on ... though the C of E and Once True Faith, plus other assorted versions of the Truth are to be found around, though many actual religious buildings are finding other uses, since the younger generations seem to have lost faith in the old stories. .. still, as the Bible, New Testament I think, taught : Where two or more gather together in My name, there am I in the midst of you ... a question explored in some depth along the Way in solitude ... basically: Why two humans, not just one?

That's all philosophy, already shared in Wear & Dao for loyal reader(s) with long memories, and best left for now while we enjoy the story and especially the essential message of Christmas time!

Creating the world you want ...

As promised here's a look at the less well known opposite of Paranoia ... Pronoia!

If you, like me, have known paranoia, maybe experience it in daily life, even in dreams ... it is surprisingly common to greater and lesser degree ... worth examining before diving into the magical world of the opposite known to me, the Centre of my own World you may recall, through experience, and perhaps to you, the Centre of your World, times however many readers are reading this story ... if we move from the extremes of both it seems likely most if not all humans have experienced these feelings ... looking rather like yin yang or Dao ... but that's another story!

Yesterday's morning's walk was wet, as forecast ... weather, being complex, is notorious for lack of predictability ... patterns may be observed and best guesses broadcast, confidently since viewers and listeners like certainty, certainly an error in a world fundamentally uncertain, if Heisenberg was right ... and many others, of course! Nevertheless, this mostly waterproof walker didn't drown and met other walkers, though fewer, while in the shops shopping continued with tinsel, sparkly Santas and enough food to last a month or two, much of it destined for the bin ...

Later, a visitor arrived for lunch and philosophy ... a very deep exploration of human existence, existential suffering and all those far too common experiences of human beings ...
The Buddha taught, amongst other things: Pain is inevitable, Suffering is optional! Or maybe that was another neo-buddhist sage? The positive message from that tradition was that there's an escape from suffering on offer ... and there perhaps is Pronoia, the topic for today, how each human being, employing the power of the Mind, has the ability to create a parallel universe, even in the mundane one, where suffering is not experienced, though empathy for fellow humans is an essential part of the deal ... after all's said and done, we're not separate anyway, so any suffering of any sentient being is shared compassionately ... balance being a key point here ... too much empathy, i.e. suffering for the whole world, may mean excess projection and less useful action; too much cool detachment may point to psychopathy, best avoided ...

Today, the forecast is brighter, weather-wise, and the Elders of the Dale, are meeting up for lunch and conviviality ... well a few of those brave souls stepping out of the awful Fear created by Fascist Authorities by design ... but that's all politics, best left alone for now ... perhaps. ..

This evening a Carol Service outdoors by the tree, the Bishop of Durham no less leading the faithful and the faithless too in joyful singing or miming, anyway gathering in a large group from the community for once ... subsequent reports will let you know how that goes for those not attending.

Pronoia? Put simply it's the simple joy of imagining the whole universe conspires to meet your needs and heartfelt desires ... which sounds rather pleasant and much more fun than the miserable fear invoking paranoia driving this mundane mass hallucination created from the minds of ...

... Who? Or should that be whom? Even WHO. .. though that's another conspiracy theory!

Looking like quite a busy day, time for breakfast and a pre-dawn walk to fire the engine, meet the trees, talk to the sheep munching grass in the fields, climb above the slumbering village for a while before descending for some interaction with the locals ... and incomers like me!

The Centre of the Universe ...

Just in case you, dear reader(s), ever wondered where the Centre of the universe(s) is, was and maybe will be, here's a Revelation for you!

You may indeed have had the same or similar Revelation yourself ... since in a sense each and every human being, endowed with Soul (whatever and wherever that may be found), is the Centre.

For clarity, albeit in a vague way, space ships from this planet in this era of recorded history have not found the actual edge of this Universe and therefore an actual single centre common to all of us cannot be found. Any cosmologists reading please share the latest on this question, though more information may be found from philosophers of a mystical kind. Jude Currivan maybe? Her book 'The Cosmic Hologram' offers hypotheses to consider ... Jeff Foster wandered in the same territory, having studied cosmology scientifically for a while before diving inside his own mind in search of some answers, or better questions perhaps ...

So, for this particular individual, real or not, the Centre was revealed as himself ... imagine that! Luckily for his humility, at the same time (since time is relative and revelation is always beyond it); nothing, nada, forget such self importance ... apart from anything else one conclusion to muse upon was permission to hold two contradictory views as true simultaneously, which was liberating ...

Where does this point then? Well, for a start, in case you wondered, you, dear reader(s), are also at the Centre of the Universe, or your own one anyway ... just don't forget the other part or you fall (or Fall like Adam in the Eden story) into the sin, or error (which is really just a mistake laden with judgement from some religions) of imagining humans to be separate from Nature, less than an imaginary all powerful creator God, but given dominion over all the rest, animal, vegetable and mineral (plus fungii) to do as we will ... the results of which mistake are now perceived as problematical, not least since the imaginary Creator was thrown out along with all the blood stained dirty water some time ago as the latest illusion landed, Scientism, with a new caste of priests, with new certainties ... certainly lethal now armed with the means to wreak destruction on the Earth on industrial scale ... as described elsewhere on this rambling blog ...

Bringing us to Consciousness ...
                           ...and the question of whether that is separate, group or Universal ...

Meanwhile a pre-dawn start meant dawn arrived in the woods, and sunrise up on the fell ... which was wonderful ... though impossible to describe and even the greatest photo couldn't capture it ...
As usual key meetings on the Fell add context to the stories, and in the village, on the street and in the shops, more teaching and learning goes on ... listening intently always pays off, and any words of wisdom very carefully chosen, not to evade the issues, but neither to trigger a friend not wanting to hear ... anyway, the other is always the Centre of their own story, so what's the point?

The point at this critical time, when baby boomer hopes and fears intensify as they (we) approach the end of this Scene, or Act of the never-ending story as Shakespeare is said to have written in one of his mystical phrases, sentences, observation, insights maybe: All the World's a Stage. .. perhaps the apostrophe is misplaced ... hmmm

That's nearly enough for now, time is short and attention spans shorter, please feel free to disagree and share your version, if nothing else it will draw you into my story, leaving the small, needy ego at the Centre, where it likes to be ...

Next up: pronoia, which AI needs to learn ... it offers paranoia, which is its shadow side!

The end is nigh!

Less than two weeks to Christmas Day, when the world pauses for one day, with almost all shops closed, almost all humans thinking about big questions:

Is there enough food for at least that day, plus maybe the next?
Who is sending cards this year and should I?
How much is postage costing now?
Have all those adults sending gifts had one from me?
Which crabby relatives must we tolerate this year?

Will I be judged, essentially...?
And who's that Jesus bloke anyway?
Bringing Peace and Goodwill to all Mankind, including women ...
With one or two exceptions, obviously!

All this pointless pontification arises from an early foray to the Co-op Store for essential supplies for a day or three ... negotiating the aisles half blocked by a major delivery from a large lorry, whose friendly driver is taking pause to allow the staff to fill the shelves ... he lives in Newcastle, works out of Birtley, the distribution centre for Co-op shops for miles around, and finds the employer fair, unlike some other delivery companies notorious for taking workers' rights back in time at least a century, before trade unions ... though even unions have lost their way recently, abandoning their members protection from Health and Safety legislation  (1974 or 6) ... working all day in unnecessary masks a clear breach of human rights, let alone health dangers from reduced respiration ... the shop staff mostly comply cheerfully enough, the senior managers, maybe complicit and therefore culpable, encourage them to have fun ... happy staff mean happy customers after all ...

More conversation on the street elicits information that next Thursday evening live Carol singing led by the Bishop of Durham around the tree is planned ... a chance for more community engagement chorally and though it's late at 6pm,  it's in the diary ... why not!

The villages are vying with each other for bragging rights to Light up the Dale, like every year ... going into the shortest day and longest night it helps to cheer us up ... indeed psychologically many humans suffer with seasonal affective disorder, physically deficiency of vitC and D especially ... medics prescribe pills, householders have extra lights inside as well as out, while those who can afford it fly South for a week or so in the Sun, pensioners stay there longer, the costs balanced by reduced heating bills and naturally occurring vitC and D ... plus conviviality, let's not forget that!

This winter retreat is turning more convivial than usual here at Railway Terrace, neighbours doing what good neighbours always do - checking out how we're doing in these strange times, not to pry but because we care ... it's one of the endearing features of humanity ...

The apocalyptic tongue in cheek headline of this post, hopefully not the last, though you never know, points not to the end of the world as we know it beyond the peculiar and serious games we are drawn into ...all the world essentially being a stage as the Bard is said to have said, though even that is questioned by the po-faced miserable measurers whose role this time round seems to be to remind us that there's infinitely more to Life than the mundane ... this particular game is reaching crisis point at many levels ... some even point to cosmic changes ... though we may not need to know that to spot the Sophists if we stay alert, question everything forensically, see the behavioural insights crew, ironically described as Sage, conditioned to believe their work is benign in the longer term ... benighted some might say ...

Anyway, there's more to this longish Christmas Season than politics ... or worries about whether we have enough food and tinsel to take us through to January! By then we will be over the hill and into 2021, a brand new year to look forward to ... a Local Agenda 21 they say, to replace the global agenda 19 which lingered overlong through 20, even though the coronavirus selected to serve the fear we needed to shock us from complacency peaked around April, declined steeply through the Summer and was given a second life in Autumn with specious testing throughout Winter aided and abetted by the servants of whoever is running the show (if not us), let's say the scapegoats plus the escaping goats like plutocrats so in love with money they have temporarily lost their soul ...

The illusory nature of money has been mentioned many times before, but as with the deceptive nature of language bears repeating ...

Meanwhile, back in the village, the best of humanity emerges thanks to the message of the Christ Consciousness, not necessarily to be confused with the cultural religious form expressed and used for a couple of millennia in the West ... these curious forms serve our need for company, solace, some certainties ... certainly a major error in any religion taking fixed form ... but that's all theology and philosophy and unlikely to arise at the Carol Service with the Bishop!

Walking to walk continues, cooking to cook a particular pleasure here ... and what with walking, cooking, engaging with the humans on existential questions in the street and on the fell, reading for pleasure and to learn more from history, herstory, psychology, quantum and cosmic science and so on ... oh yes, and writing to write ... finding some time for that, whether readers are reading it or not is not my business ... it all goes into the void, picks up some energy and joins all the 2D data from all the world in this Universe to expand it ... and so on ... speculation about cosmic big bangs and big crunches, infinity, eternity and universes after universes is really best left to Dao, which is to say, yet again, don't bother trying to describe the indescribable ... have some fun, life's far too serious as it is!

Love always wins ...

More on the Ways ...

Exploring this theme of simplifying Life by slowing down, it's clear enough that this brief visit to Earth, three score years and ten more or less, in perspectives like evolutionary time, geological time, any time that may be measured by the clever deceitful measuring mind, the left hemisphere of the brain, broadly speaking, which sneakily usurped the Right role, to integrate the findings of the measurerers into the whole where we human beings, endowed with Soul, return to the Unity of all that was, is and will be ... i.e. the eternal Now, so often pointed to in art, literature and increasingly science at macro and micro scale ... and as pointed to by mystics of every Age, wonderful to experience, impossible to explain ...

At this point, let's explain yet again, since all we have is language and language lies in its very construction, with all its past and future tenses, the proliferation of nouns, fixing what's always in motion into forms to be measured, monitored and therefore managed ... where would we be without the managers, with their time and motion studies? Big salaries accrue to the smart ones, while the measured, the wage slaves we may say, find ways to subvert the divide and rule through creativity ... trade unions explicitly and anarchy implicitly ... the human spirit inevitably revolts against suppression ... it always has and always will ... NB there's has and will again, how else can we communicate? Poetry perhaps? Telepathy certainly, practised by many and available to all ...
Hey ho, the word is not the thing described, and on we go, misunderstanding each other with our stories ...

Even this 'one thing at a time' teaching has its dualities, and energy often spoken about as fundamental has two poles, + & - in physics, ying yang in Dao, so where's the Unity to be found?

So, when walking walk is not quite true ... thinking, albeit clearer, occurs while walking ... occasionally thinking stops unasked, but that may arise when sitting or washing up, in Silence perhaps, though true Silence is rare and disturbing, even in Nature sound occurs ... birds singing, wind sighing, thunder clapping, sap rising, branches and whole trees crashing to the ground ... though philosophers ask whether it makes a sound if there is no smart Oxford or Cambridge sophist there to hear it! Imagine the arrogance of human beings believing they are so important to the whole of Nature ... creation myths and tales of Eden taken literally, the Separation some time ago, clearly a major error ...

Meanwhile, divide and rule goes on, played by powerful players in these mundane
games to subvert Love, our birthright. .. and if we find ourselves at odds with friends and family, divided by strongly held opinions, what to do? Surrender our opinion and convert to their's? Fall out and demand they convert to ours? Or rise above the conflict, find a way back to Love, suspend
hostilities, allow each other to make our choices freely, without judgement ...

Love will find a Way, it always does ...

In the village and the Dale, imprisoned elders come together on the run-in to Christmas Day, when Peace reigns and old myths play on, ready for Boxing Day when hostilities may resume, modern myths return, conspicuous consumption serving Mammon ... which is essentially our love of money in its many forms ... crackers? Hmm ...

Call me cynical if you must, but isn't it time to drop the myths, ancient and modern, Christian and Scientism, trust our deepest instincts, not to start some brand new system to enslave us, but embrace a simple Life of Love, compassion and patience ... take responsibility and put external authority in its rightful place ...

The wheel of time turns soon, the light stays longer then again!

Though even in the darkness, of course, the light is found ...

Ways of walking ...

When writing, write ... when walking, walk ... when thinking, think ... when conversing with other humans, sentient beings, earth-bound entities, like trees, rocks and so on, listen carefully ... when messages arrive from intelligence beyond terrestrial limitation, listen, look, take note, and wonder ...

It's not essential to wander along the many Ways to Compostela to lose your mind, but it certainly may help!

For readers concerned for the mental health of the writer, rest assured ... there is no pain in the brain or mind, wherever that may be found ... or obvious danger to other humans, sentient beings and so on, therefore it seems the basic happiness and equanimity currently experienced, real or illusory, is not certifiable, on the contrary my dear friend, a fully qualified and certified psychologist insists he was, and maybe still is, one of the saner human beings she knew ... though, as was known many years ago, if this mundane world is sane, then I happily embrace the title 'mad' ... people are murdered daily, often legally in wars, round here ... poverty accepted as normal ...

Tread carefully with the words in these treacherous times ... a 'new normal' is on the scene and this one sounds on the face of it much better ... examine what this brave new linguistic sophistry really means however ... explore 'build back better', 'Common Purpose', 'Local Agenda 21' then make your own mind up, from your common sense, expert uncorrupted sources ... ignoring anything emanating from the mainstream media clearly corrupted, organisations like SAGE, advising this Fascist Government in DUK and elsewhere across the world ... not because they always lie, but because when they can't be trusted, the safest bet is to believe none of it ...

That's politics in this mundane world in crisis ... a blip in space times, but deadly serious to human beings at a cross-roads metaphorically ... more accurately a potential evolutionary parting of the ways by choice: to serve the machines and their masters in the hope of everlasting life through cryogenics, brain enhancements and all that; or, to risk certain death one day, with trust in your own immune system to deliver your carcase to the ground or fire, mainly healthy, well used and worn out ready for recycling plus a chance of ongoing consciousness, basically everlasting life in a more amazing Way ... the secrets not to be divulged in each life, they say ...

Meanwhile, the morning walk leads to even more apples, resting on a lawn, perfectly fresh and mostly unbruised, in December ... a bumper year for apples they say ... plus humans interacting in a civilised Way, fear notwithstanding, because love and understanding conquers all limitations in the end ...and for pedants yes, if eternity is a thing then there is no end ... imagine that!

Christ Consciousness Crisis ...

Once upon a Time, so the story goes, in a manger a child was born, miraculously, somehow simultaneously poor and humble yet revered by three wise men drawn to the birthplace astrologically ... leaving aside for now any feminist quips about the chances of three wise men turning up ad hoc to announce the arrival of the latest prophet, a male again, to soften the image of the old imaginary creator god, forever smiting errant humans for their sins, women, in some creation stories, taking the blame for the problems arising in the groins of men ... astute observers may note the latest religions developed this theme ...

Apostasy?

In linguistic terms it's the apostrophes that concern me, the writer, another bloke ... with a tendency to overthink and overdo the commas and the clever attempts to play with words to confuse the reader(s)  and maybe challenge some of them to question the danger of believing them to be the things described ... which they palpably are not ... mistaking consciousness or gods separate from us to have a gender in Reality clearly erroneous. .. the joys of sex notwithstanding ... and anyway that urge in humans may play out in other ways than that prescribed by dirty minded power mad priests, sometimes perverted by their guilty consciences to furtively fumble illicitly or blatantly ...  please excuse the exaggeration for effect, it's not intended to offend, only to shock a little ... or a lot ... and for those pedants already chewing on about the inaccuracy of confusing apostrophes with commas, obviously such artistic licence is excused to introduce apostasy ... though the game is exposed when explained, of course!

At this point it should be noted that the hypocrisy of the once true faith, still hanging on to compulsory celibacy for holy folks and hell fire for homosexuals, is not judged here ... just discerned since it has been a big mistake causing much suffering ...

So, this two thousand or so year old story held sway in many parts of the world, especially Western hemisphere, and even East, through imperial conquest ... the verity of Love long forsaken for forced conversions ... another major error ... still, we celebrate the name of Christ, though Christian churches were mostly empty, even before the current kindly meant government decrees to enslave the people so we could serve the machines more efficiently ...

The latest religion, scientism, and its high priests, dodgy pseudo-scientists, with their firm beliefs in atheism, serving humans not recognising their own souls, or anyone else's for that matter ... drives the current crisis ... since clearly the robots, clever as they are, are not wise, since they are not endowed with souls ... and, at this point, it may be noted, for sake of accuracy, that the notion of separate souls is erroneous. ..

But all this conjecture is down the line ... consequential not fundamental .. meanwhile, the game goes on, with sophists serving plutocrats serving their love of money ... once that's rooted out we may make progress ... return to Unity ... don't hold your breath!

Meanwhile, in Weardale, the first snow shows itself on the fells, the elders hope to be released from their captivity next week, people start to feel the fear abating, whether through new hope from miraculous vaccines, insight into the nature of the plot, or just a yearning to return home to Love, who knows?

Who are they, if not us?

Yesterday's trip over the hills to the Roman Wall to visit an old friend to press the juice from apples gladly given and received ... autumnal abundance processed as Winter arrives! Though the day is mild enough in early December and pressing questions of an existential nature are examined along with the experiential low tech pleasure of working in harmony with the Nature from which we were never really separate ... despite a few millennia of delusion imagining we were, fuelled by clever, artful specimens, arrogantly asserting our secession ... The Fall of Man, metaphorically expressed in the Garden of Eden, with Snakes and Sex and dire warnings of the existential perils facing the species as division multiplied, brains grew, developed new powers ... language evolved to create new worlds through description ... an error pointed out in the Dao, verse one, line one and substantially the only words we need: "The Dao which can be described is not the Immortal Dao!" ... the truth of which is revealed beyond the babble, in Silence ...

Wars ensued as humans killed each other on command ... despite Universal Law asserting Thou Shalt Not Kill, in any wisdom teaching worth its salt ... and yet killing never stopped ...

Meanwhile, in the current existential crisis, sometimes storied as World War 3 ... not the war to end all war, that was WW1 you may recall ... WW2 was basically caused by the Peace Settlement of WW1 with its gross imbalances promoting economic desperation in the losing nation, fuelling the Darker side of Man presented by Hitler and his gang ... and between us, we clever humans, killed many more due to much improved technology, killing on an industrial scale. Between WW1 and WW2 and ever since killing carried on through wars and starvation of innocents while wealthy humans wallowed in excessive wealth ... such blatant disregard of Natural Law outraged the virtuous, though action didn't match the words ... money, the love of which was rightly said to be the root of evil, sloshed around corrupting us in big and smaller ways ...whilst modern medicines and cleaned up settlements, notably the slums, launched a surge of humans like a virus, a pestilence on Earth, threatening Nature herself perhaps and certainly the comfort of those humans so in love with their money and the power it bought they decided to take drastic action in our best interests, since so many in the middle ranks were gaily buying baubles to compensate for the deep sense of guilt and existential angst brought on by realising that all the charitable giving was not solving the poverty ... meanwhile, the Planet we call home, was warming up slowly but inexorably, whether by human excess, natural causes or a combination of the two, threatening the comfort of the super-rich, defined essentially by having more resources than could ever be needed and relatively by perceptions of each other, which is to say, for a person living in dire poverty, most humans able to read this blog are seen in the same camp as the so-called 1%!

Mark sparked the question in the title of this post ... a reminder of such questions arising along the Way, deep in inquiry into the juicy places beyond language and languages. .. in the Silence where deeper realities may be found ... as well as delusions, of course!

Enough is enough?
How would we know until we tried both extremes?  Buddha set the example, starting a Prince, renouncing that to experience penury, finding enlightenment via the Middle Way.
Quoting Buddha, however, is not to find Buddha Nature ... that must be found each time by living it in each culture by each seeker pushing the limits at each opposite, more or less, and finding the Simplicity suitable ... along with Compassion and Patience ...

That's enough for now, time is short and attention spans shorter still ... apple juice needs bottling and sharing before fermentation sets in ... though cider is an option, freezing too ...

Winter 2020

First day of winter and a glorious start with clear skies, Moon high to the West, Sun nowhere to be seen but expected later on the opposite horizon. Since Dawn lies in at this latitude an early start up the hill is much later than at Midsummer and a little patience is required, plus a torch for those tricky parts, crossing streams and darker spots where Moonlight is dim ... nobody about over the fell to disturb the peace ...

Clear skies promised most of the day and a sunny wander later for VitD top up is on the cards; meanwhile distractions are few and blog wants writing while the muse is mostly immersed in solitary reflection, away from disturbance ... which will be welcomed later ... probably!
This winter retreat is not a strict one and anyway strict structure is not my thing ... relax and go with the flow suits me better these days.

The Retreat House has a library and the latest addition is a new edition of an old classic of "Life and Times in Weardale, 1840-1910" ... fascinating to read and see the photographs, having just walked across the landscape with old artefacts dotted around the fells. Much easier to imagine the ghosts of the old days in moonlight. .. though no spooky thought forms witnessed today. They are said to show up in Killhope Lead mine a few miles west of here ...

The Existential Crisis fuelled by FB rumbles on ... many inconsistencies noted as humans line up to play their parts ... heroes and villains and in this complex drama are tricky to untangle and it's essential to stand back from time to time and see how it's playing out ... stick with the Light whilst keeping the ego out of it as much as possible ...

The virtual world we play in is rather alien to me and it seems wise to trust those known from the "Real" world as much as possible, whilst using intuition to guide action. .. not easy, but it's not meant to be! And also to embrace the possiblity to connect worldwide with like minded people as well as folks with alternative views ...

As for allopathic medicine, it seems modern medicine went off track a while ago, with big money to be made from sick people by greedy people corrupting clever people with big degrees charging big fees and tied into toxic relationships ... this blogger chooses to be grateful for a mostly healthy organism and to treat it as a temple ... not in a serious way but a vague way, relaxing into its Natural role ... not consuming rubbish food, neglecting exercise or fresh air but thinking positive thoughts and accepting its inevitable death ... just not right now!

Consciousness, of course, continues. ..