May Day! May Day!

Well, since April ended yesterday, today must be May ... if you choose to live your lives by specific calendars that is ... and looking out the window as dawn appears and a Moon lingers in the sky, with another light frost on the fields to confirm that Spring is still cold and mostly sunny in the year of 2021 ... a number not signifying the beginning of the universe of course, since that is still unknown, but co-opted by adherents of the relatively recent religion called Christianity. .. more ancient ones and more recent ones have their own numbers, but basically accept the compromise of BCE, i.e. Before Common Era instead of BC ... still, numbers, like words, have power, so please be aware!

May Day at sea is a call sign from ships calling for help as they sink of course. On land it's long been a call for workers to fly red banners to warn capitalists of the danger to them if they continue to exploit the common people ... whilst the common people when peasants in rural areas used the day to be merry, take a break from their toil for the feudal masters, dance around the maypole on the village green, drink cider, plant seeds and celebrate Spring, often resulting in harvests rather later than September, but nine months later ... producing an ongoing supply of workers for the wealthy to exploit. .. the cycle of life on Earth!

Meanwhile, on May Day this year, the sap is rising and the oppressed are awakening from their slumber once more ... this time not to create new systems of government which tend to degenerate as new masters assume power to resume the oppression, corruption being a strange habit of the species, not to mention a susceptibility for Fear, which weakens the immune system at every level, individual, groups, nations and worlds ... but what is it we Fear, fundamentally? Perhaps that's the existential question in need of exploration. When we humans look around for other humans to blame, perhaps we might start by looking within our own psyches, hearts and minds, to root out any Fear lurking in dark places as described by Jung, or Joe Campbell  (In the Cave You Fear to Enter, Lies the Treasure Which You Seek) and innumerable Ascended Masters throughout history ... therein lies Liberation and Peace of Mind ... just don't try to organise it into a new government or religion ... that's been tried before many times and it simply can't work, since the Universes are not fixed forms but always moving, always moving ... from energy to form and back again ... from Big Bang to Big Crunch and back or forward or whatever word you like ...

Still, it's fun to explore the Nature of Reality, and there's plenty of Time in Eternity or no time at all as some say ... so make haste slowly and enjoy the journey! The destination of the human body is well known ... consciousness however goes on at every level, they say.

Happy May Day! Time for breakfast and a walk in Nature ...

Authorities ...

Well, well, what an interesting game we are invited to play. Using words.
Now then, or Dao Zen, to play with words which rhyme.
We know for sure that words this time are often used to mean their opposite.
Take Sage, for example, meaning wise, yet the tricksters advising this regime are called that.
Smart, yes, clever maybe, wise never ... they're sophists serving psychopaths and the challenge is to take them down and beat them with better words in better stories.

Examining the power struggle, it's clear the Authorities have the upper hand for now.
Hypnotism, Fear of death, love of money and a temporary loss of common sense conspire to confuse many if not most ... so far censorship and false narratives have sufficed and it's better not to mention the other powers held in reserve incuding: Utilities turned off; gas, electric, internet, water; ATMs off selectively or all at once; food supplies disrupted and so on. Living rurally, with solar panels, woodburner, wood in woods to collect, water springing from the hillside opposite, kind neighbours, and food growing wild to forage means a survivalist approach might appeal ... many have joined that system over the years ... but what about the cities, where most people dwell? And where current conditions are more severe and resistance is growing daily. So, dear reader(s), it's all well and good out here in Stanhope, with books to read, thoughts to think, moments when thought stops and so on, but is it good enough?

Anyway, next month, May, a holiday is planned for London! Not so much a holiday for elder daughter in need of dentistry, but certainly one for her old Dad, delighted to spend time transporting her in Daisy, and between appointments for nearly a week. A chance to wander in old haunts and maybe catch up with long lost friends - who knows? The next big demo, by the way, is planned for the day before we arrive, and it seems a lot to add another day or two when her family are already going to miss her company. Still, memories flood in of marching to Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and Hyde Park, red flags flying with the comrades chanting, many different sects uniting for the day, and mostly defending our own dogma ... rather like The Life of Brian, without the crucifixion. Those were the days!

As for these days, peace of mind is more important, and agitation is not advised. The curiosity about The Nature of Reality exercises the brain cells and working out what the Dark Players, like Johnson, Cummings, Hancock, Schwab, Gates and Common Purpose cultists are playing at, keeps the Left Hemisphere working while supporting the bigger picture in the Right.
For readers in need of books to explain the above idea, try Iain McGilchrist and The Divided Brain or The Master and His Emissary. And, as if by magic, a book from Ivan Illich, well known in the 1970s,  Limits to Medicine , turns up at Oxfam, just reopened thanks to the kind Junta, and explaining how iatrogenisis was a scandal (and still is), since the medical model, with Big Pharma bribing all and sundry in pursuit of profits, was causing illness. No change there then!

Never mind, some much needed rain arrives in Stanhope and the Light emerges as Sun rises with clouds covering the rays, and a walk with waterproofing calls ... the birds for sure are still tweeting, though what they're saying is not clear. Maybe Attention, Attention as described in Huxley's last novel, Island ... Aldous, of course, spent a lot of time travelling in other dimensions, aided by Mescalin and other drugs, which showed him future options when the Doors of Perception opened ... including The Perennial Philosophy, which includes the idea that the past is gone, the future uncertain, and reality exists in the present moment: Here and Now, or Wear and Dao if you are happy to play with words ...

The Light at last

As April moves dryly towards May with sunny days bringing hordes outdoors in search of vitD and company after the strange advice from charlatans to stay indoors and avoid everyone, except a few trusted humans like carers, couriers, post deliverers, some randomers nominated as bubblers  (whatever that means!) and so on ... imagine coming generations of researchers earning PhDs explaining how whole nations were hypnotised into a New Normal, where Fear was the order of the day and many obeyed the orders ... hmm that excuse was used at Nuremburg after the Nazi Regime was toppled, and a good few culprits, including doctors, swung from gallows for their crimes ... anyway courts are sitting, evidence given by honest experts about the plot ... whether we hear about it on mainstream propaganda depends on censorship rules ... evidenced by an absence of reporting of a million on the streets of London protesting yesterday, by the way ...

Yesterday in the Dales was warm and sunny as Daisy set off for a run over to Hexham where friends were gathering again to Stand in the Park and chat with social distancing observed except when shaking hands and hugging ... a nurse sitting nervously nearby was drawn in to share her evidence of censorship at work, and lots of theories about why the coups had been launched worldwide were explored ... covid cops completely absent this week, though, of course they're welcome to share their views and hugs too ... meanwhile Lynne distributed The Light, a paper dealing with the truth as seen by seers and others standing by the Bandstand ...

After a wander around town in search of coffee, found in a small place where a double shot espresso hit the spot and a conversation with a volunteer who brought a young man with cerebral palsy out for the day, and the non-verbal but happy young man, ensued as the caffeine settled down and a pilgrim from the Camino de Hadrian Wall, busking in town before returning to the route East to Toon a couple of days away, engaged in conversation for a while ... Will lives in Gibraltar normally and was stranded in England thanks to the fascist coups and after a warm hug he returned to his ablutions, declining a lift up the hill while Daisy, waiting patiently, set off to the Garden Station ... where quite coincidentally three women from the Park were found and lunch was shared as well as conversation about Buddhism and the Land of Joy, known to all of us ...

Back in Weardale, Stanhope is full of tourists and Daisy drives slowly along Front Street, before returning home, to find neighbours sunbathing and ready for The Light and seditious conversation ... and to end a busy day an old friend arrives to share her stories with a cup of tea and The Light to take away ... synchronicities abound, books seek time to be read, today is Monday, the last week in April and the last day before some rain that Nature requires to boost the growth of plants ready for the warmer, moister May ... when local elections happen and Local Agenda21 Springs forward with who knows what consequences ... though clearly the plot still plays on ...

Time to walk, it's light outside, a Moon lingers as Sun rises ... yet again!

A Day in Durham ...

Since Daisy required attention from Fred Henderson, the main dealers just outside Durham City, an early drive East left a good few hours for wandering on footpaths on a fine Spring day, with daffodils in crowds, though the paths are far from lonely and clouds completely absent ... and Houghall Woods, the site of coal mining many years ago, long since remediated by humans who previously extracted untold tons of black gold to power the nation and beyond ... not that the workers enjoyed the profits of course, they were basically slaves ... slave masters, however, built mansions and monuments to themselves, many open to the public these days, since slavery lost favour and reforms and taxation led to the National Trust and other bodies ...

The first human encountered was Cat, with two dogs, wearing a shirt with a logo with a pun readers can easily work out ... a pleasant exchange left Cat amused by a new word for her customers, dogalyst, which obviously infers catalyst, but dogs, sparking the reaction from humans when their dogs sniff each other's rear ends ... moving on, a sign by the farm said Camino Ingles, which runs from Finchale Abbey, to Escomb Church and Bishop Auckland, before disappearing and reappearing in Ferrol, Galicia and ending a week later in Santiago de Compostela ...brief chats with two more walkers before crossing a busy road as the River Wear flowed under on its way to the sea at Sunderland, leading to a poignant conversation with an elder out walking to exercise in the Sun, after serious surgery, a triple bypass, which he barely survived ... naturally, this led to questions about death and dying ... before another elder arrived with an old spaniel, a retired GP with strong opinions about the fascist coup and the reasons for the criminal lockdown, which he found completely unnecessary to deal with a coronavirus relatively mild in its effects, though highly infectious ... and lethal to the vulnerable, who should have had the option to choose whether to shelter and hope for the best, or take their chances with the rest of us as herd immunity spread.

Next up, a testing tracking compound, with a masked individual answering questions as to what they were offering, since your blogger had no idea ... the testy tracker kindly replied and convinced me that poking things up my nose was definitely not part of my plans ... so I swiftly moved on again ... and found a retail opportunity, essential for dedicated walkers, but closed by the Junta for no good reason ... a pair sandals and new shoes later, the pack heavier, wallet much lighter, we left Ken at Rohan and moved on. .. a FB friend called John was entertained briefly as he socially distanced about a metre and advised the Indoor Market for a pee, though the coffee shop was closed, despite the Indoor Market being open, since coffee and other items can only be consumed outside ... if you're confused or from another planet, like Ancient Greece or Rome, where logic pertains, there is a reason ... just don't believe the lying media, ordered to report the bullshit devised by the Behavioural Insights Team at Cabinet Office ...

Time is speeding up as mortality, or immortality (who knows?) gets closer and stories get wilder and wider as most humans these days create their own variants of tales and self-publish on social media ... remember the good old days before Gutenberg when the written word was controlled by a few folks and stories depended on people like Popes? The Library in Stanhope is filling up with stories of many kinds, from different cultures and different subjects to help us understand
the Nature of Reality ... which is the main question for this old blogger, unsure whether to walk, talk, write, read or simply enjoy Silence! Ah, silence ... now that's the language where Truth lies ...

Anyway, Durham was Friday and full of walks and talks, yesterday was reflection in Stanhope and insurrection in London with a million on the streets protesting peacefully, and others in cities all round the Earth, tired of the old stories ... today is Sun Day and yet again more Sun is expected as a few friends propose to Stand in a Park nearby and discuss Love, Peace and the Nature of Reality,  in which, by the way, we humans may play a part in creating ... the tide turns, Earth spins, Sun shines, Moon reflects Sun and moves water in oceans and humans ...

Daisy, the Light blue Chinese MG, meanwhile, is repaired and passed fit for more adventures!

Daisy goes travelling ...

The Chinese MG3, having sat around in the snow too long, required a decent run to exercise the parts, since cars, like human beings, are not designed to sit, but to move, and so we both set off down South to check the motorways and dual carriageways to see if they were still working in these times when humans are advised to stay inside to avoid a deadly virus, which, as we're told, loves to wander in the Sun just looking for hosts out and about and scared by warnings from our kind, compassionate Government and their corrupt advisors with shares in drug companies, not to mention newspapers with full page colour ads paid for through our taxes ... whoops! did I write "kind, compassionate"? that should read "cruel, evil and neo-fascist" to be accurate ...

Basingstoke was the destination, which perplexes people who know it ... designed to keep vehicles separate from pedestrians and cyclists, it's a challenge for drivers without satnav since the roads tend to go in circles ... pedestrians, however, have paths, many shared with cyclists, who mostly move faster than walkers, who are often about with canine friends and happy to talk to strangers, especially when the opening gambit is: "Excuse me, I'm lost, I wonder if you can help me?" This frequently leads on to other questions, including obvious questions such as: "So, would you agree that we are living in a fascist regime, and it's about time the Resistance came out and just resisted the silly orders and basically said: "No thank you";  no masks, no arbitrary social distancing, no fist bumping or cold shouldering ... maybe a handshake or a hug - why not?"

Whilst Daisy had a well earned rest, the friend from school who moved East from Dorset shared stories of other friends, though her memories of them was superior to mine for sure. Listening intently to her story of how she moved from plenty to less, via a marriage and two male children, both living in Basingstoke, plus their Dad nearby ... all on good terms and now in four houses, one each ... the younger child, now a man of course, arrived to discuss issues of current concern,  including the need for Resistance as outlined above.

A very early return ensured roads clear enough to avoid jams and Daisy made the trip on one tank and one brief stop for relief and a chat with a professional trucker about the need for Resistance and a firm handshake. After a full day's rest for me and Daisy deciding to book a service due to issues of her own, a friend lent her car for a full day's run to Scotland to see elder daughter for walks and talks, including the need for Resistance ... and by sheer coincidence her next door neighbour held similar views ... after hugs all round the return over the hills was fine and after a sleep we set off for a shorter trip to Newcastle to see younger daughter for a walk and visit to see her new house ... a project really since she and her Mum enjoy doing houses up after securing bargains in need of repair ... more hugs and talk of Resistance, including with random strangers in the Park. .. plus a brief chat with the celebrity manager of the football team, looking rather sad since many fans have turned against him due to poor results and a flirt with relegation ...

All in all, a busy week, observing the motorway signs to minimise travel on the gantrys along with advice for truckers going abroad to pull over for covid reasons ... and don't start on the Smart Motorways with no hard shoulder to create an extra lane ... seems safe enough, as long as you don't break down!

In vino veritas

Since the phrase in the title is rather oblique and well known, it seems worth exploring, not least because Latin is dead these days ... albeit useful to learn languages derived from it ... not least French, Spanish and Portuguese in which your blogger is able and willing to greet locals, request food, coffee and a bed for the night ... this helps endear the locals to us Brits, notorious for our insistence on them speaking their language in our variation of English ... Yanks meanwhile take the prize, whilst mangling the rich inheritance, simplifying its anomalies and persisting in offering English (US) virtually ... still, we can't complain, since the Great British Empire spread the King's English throughout the world whilst civilising the others and suppressing their languages ... and for Gallic speakers from Britain please note the suppression of your languages is noted including that wonderful, unsayable place name in Wales, Llanfair ... anyway, the USA usurped our Empire for a while and still carries on as if it owns the world, whilst wiser heads learn Chinese and Russian, just in case ...

Anyway, to say that the Truth emerges from the wine has different levels ... if referring to the effect of alcohol consumption we observe that it relaxes the mind and reveals the personality, otherwise stuck in cultural roles ... let's take the strict, stuffy, sensible, responsible person who starts wanting to hug everyone at the party and tell them he loves them ... or, by contrast, the holier than thou one who loves Jesus and all his flock until he gets stuck into the communion wine and reveals his dark side ... perhaps dementia plays a similar role for the elder, having spent a lifetime in a subservient position in a family, breaking out and lashing out before being cast out into a Care Home ... and so on ... other theories say that vino might stand for other plants and fruits with psychotropic effects which release the mind from current limitations and reveal other worlds with deeper Truths. .. who knows?

Alcohol in excess, as is well known to many, destroys many relationships,  whilst in moderation some claim a glass of red most days counts as one of the daily doses of fruit and veg recommended by public health experts ... however, adherents of religions like Islam are forbidden to drink the fruity dose at all ... it's said some sheikhs are known to claim exemptions, but that's quite normal for rich folks to have one rule for them and another for the rest of us ... as is also well known Prohibition in the U.S. was not a success and before that the Methodists banned booze as well as gambling, though such rules are now relaxed, since it's hard enough finding members for any religion as churches and chapels close for lack of faithful folks ...

Well that's in vino veritas laid out for inspection dear readers, now back to earwaxing and very weird weekend dreams!

Complex Life

Merlin Sheldrake's book opens a whole new world to explore, with his well researched and beautifully written story of how fungi rule the lives of all sorts of species in complex ways, offering radical solutions to the environmental destruction caused by a highly intelligent and not so wise species called homosapiens. .. yes folks, that's us!

Now, to be clear, Merlin the Magician learned a lot from his birth and on to the present time, having imbibed deep wisdom at the breast from his Mum, Jill Purce, world renowned author and expert on family constellation therapy ... and his Dad Rupert an heretical biologist from Cambridge who famously went head to head with humourless evolutionary biologist Dawkins, much published with his illogical insistence on Atheism and slated by Rupert who saw other worlds, possibly with the aid of mind altering substances. .. all the rage in his youth, with friends like Terence McKenna, Aldous Huxley and all the cosmic wanderers of the 50s, 60s and early 70s. .. Rupert's big idea was morphogenisis which upset the scientific elite of the day, who were stuck in scientism, now seen as limited, left-brain nonsense, insisting on evidence which could be measured and managed and missing the point that the observer is not separate from the thing observed, leaving huge gaps in any understanding of the universe, these days known as dark matter and dark energy ... basically theoretical constructs pointing towards that which we have yet to discover, if ever ... awaiting the light to illuminate the dark and so on ...

Complexity, of course, is not just complicated or even very very complicated. It's in another category entirely. Let's say since everything connects to everything else in the universe and linearity is a simplification to explain cause and effect in a straight line for a purpose ... we easily fall into delusion and miss the reality that straight lines are never found in nature ... only loops, spirals, curves self-organising systems, everything evolving from energy to form, decaying, reforming with and without the attention and intention of human minds ... no wonder arrogant humans through linear time appear to create amazing things with the potential to improve our lives and destroy them too ... nuclear power for electricity for heat and light ... and to wipe out whole cities in Japan and potentially the Earth, currently the only planet known to us as home ... though some suggest otherwise due to astral travelling ...

Meanwhile, in Weardale, snow settles on the ground in April to remind us that global warming is not a simple issue ... it looks beautiful in the early Sun which rises demanding early walks on the Sunday after Easter, before a trip to Hexham over the hills for minor mischief to encourage fellow humans wishing to stand in the Park to gather and shake hands as if that was normal ... more connections ensue, other stories emerge, each true to those espousing them and the listener, warming to the teller, paying close attention to the tale, builds another layer to his world story ... still completely unconvinced, by the way, that the great conspiracy against humanity, led by whoever, is to be bowed to ... ethics come into play, each human in the end, at their very core, knows right from wrong ... call it soul if you like, though scientists have yet to identify where that exists ... know thyself is the first task, our deep psychology producing the illusion of separation ... and the joy of playing human games free from Fear ... escaping the traps of solipsism and sophistry, allowing the complicated and complex to be without the need to explain it all, or any of it ... relax!

Sun rises on another day, this one promising a route map out of lockdown U.K.. .. let's see how that goes ... Royal games take over the narrative as the 99 year old cranky king who never was, lies in state with more divide and rule for the peasantry to amuse or offend us ... can't we just chill out, find allies from any source, shake hands and simply agree on what unites us?

Feel free to keep asking better and deeper questions, of course ... as far as this old blogger is concerned, the answer's yes ... just be kind, starting with yourself and moving out like a wave ...

Words and Things ...

First and foremost, yet again please remember when reading words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books, theses, newspapers and anything at all, whether written, spoken, imagined, and pretty much the whole world, or worlds, we humans create ... let's reiterate: "The Word is not the Thing described; the meal is not the menu, the map is not the territory ..."

In fact the Thing, being a noun, is certainly not Reality according to Ancient Wisdom and Quantum Physics. .. these do their best to point to "That which may not be described" (Dao De Jing verse 1) with ideograms originally, letters in translation, and many interpretations ever since  ... as for Physics, Max Planck, an early pioneer, is quoted as observing: "When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change!" ... clearly a clever device to blend experimental evidence and insight ... (btw Wayne Dyer, well known teacher and published author, often quoted Max, without attribution, which rather concerned some folks already questioning Wayne's cowboy approach, love of money, fecundity and tendency to overuse personal pronouns ... still, he's dead now, and his books continue to inspire many seekers, so why quibble? Messages arrive in many forms with Messengers of different types after all is said and done! Who knows? Perhaps Wayne was experiencing the Reality of looping time, eternal time, and just said those very words at the same moment as Max ... ) meanwhile, back to paragraph one and apologies for not popping the words in parentheses into a footnote. .. also, verbing better describes reality ...

Words explain, words constrain you see? Limited use of thought, trapped by words, insists that an opposite cancels the other ... of course, more complex thought sees past the trap and insists both can be true simultaneously, depending on the point of view ... Dao Zen, let's extend these musings and move to the problem inherent in stories and their role in explaining the world or worlds, when the Word is not the World described  ... for example, Shakespeare is quoted as writing that: All the world's a stage and humans merely players acting in each life many different roles ... imagine your favourite actor, convincing the audience her role was really her, then going home to her family in costume and continuing to play the role! Stick with this metaphor for a moment and play with it yourself, in the knowledge from mystics throughout the ages about the illusory nature of the egoic self ... or role .. you see there's no point playing your various roles inauthentically is there? And when existential angst arrives, as it must, don't worry! Just remember who you really are beyond all the roles ...

A sunny Easter Holiday, quite eventful so far, reaches Monday, the holiday for Banks and many other institutions ... though if you wish to do banking things, online is always open for business, plus cash machines for a while longer, though beware, ATMs can be switched off at any time ... local economies with community currencies look like the best bet now ...

A trip over the hills to Hexham yesterday proved fruitful for humans keen to be resurrected after a year asleep, in a nightmare imagined by Governments gone rogue last March ... sane folks stood around the Bandstand conversing, hugging, shaking hands a radically playing ancient human behaviour without the strange rules imposed to embed Fear ... Stanhope meanwhile attracted visitors from miles around providing opportunities for discussing deep questions. ..

Sheldrake's book reaches new heights with its poetic prose, learned words on lichen, magic mushrooms and so on ... and a smattering of snow on the ground gives way to a sunny morning, with strong winds forecast for later ... time to walk!