Balancing ...

As plots unfold on local, regional, national, international, maybe cosmic stages, today's offering examines ways to find escapes from the awful divide and rule game, setting families and friends at each other's throats, each defending their opinion as if their very existence depended on it ... leaving the timeless teaching of Compassion languishing ...

Why?

Well, why's the three letter word of philosophy, in English at least ... and that asks the deeper questions ... how and who follow why in the hierarchy, though many clever humans neglect the why, since how has served them well enough, and who is them these days, that is to say, solipcism runs wild and its balancing insight, the fundamental falsehood of a self separate from the whole, which is liberation, available to all the fragments in time ... let's leave the tricky philosophical issue of Time for now ... and say, perhaps, Past is known and recorded in History and Herstory, mostly by power players, but not always, Future is contingent on probabilities and shaped by choices made Now ... giving each fragment as individual or cooperating group immense power ... expressed, as reader(s) may know, by Tolle in The Power of Now ...

The well known Buddhist sage, HHDL, after decades of investigation into the nature of reality with scientists and in meditation, offers a beautifully simple teaching in two words: Be Kind ... and for world weary cynics a rider: If you can't be kind just yet, at least don't be cruel ... which brings us round or across the spiral to the simplicity of the teaching of Gautama, the historical Buddha from 2500 years ago, more or less: The 4 Noble Truths ... 1. There is suffering in the world; 2. There are the causes; 3. Escape is at hand; 4. These are the Ways ... naturally, like all reductions, it takes a while to examine each noble truth, whilst constantly paying attention to our own psychology, since the world we see reflects not so much what is as who we are ... which is tricky! Still, we try ...

So, how to be kind in our own sphere of influence? Let's call that where we are now to start shall we? Given that the Crisis is a reality, in the minds of humans at least, do we really need to fall out with friends on such questions as: Is it good to wear a mask? Is it good to seek a vaccine? An ethical view might leave each person free to make their own decision and leave the others to do the same. Being right is far less important than being kind, after all. The need to be right might be called the ego at work, whilst the right to make our own mistakes and love one another is a higher teaching.

Having established the holier than thou position, it's time to prepare for a wander over the fell and through the village, practicing being kind, smiling with the eyes and finding ways to agree, not slavishly but compassionately, the main aim currently being to help lift the Fear, which blocks clear seeing and is not the opposite of Love, which has no opposite, but Hope ... a topic for another day!

Spiralling ...

As far as symbols go, Spirals show, or rather point towards, some deeper Truth ... employing the verb in the title, rather than the noun, indicating the problem and limitation of symbols themselves, along with words ... as often said: The word is not the thing described ... and still we act as if it is ...

Anyway, spiralling in two dimensions suggests the macrocosm and the microcosm equivalence, at least to this old blogger, and how conceptually we may leap across at any point to create another reality, beyond space and time ... a multi-dimensional spiral might be more accurate, though tricky to create ... mind boggles at this point, which is considered creative here, since a mind that is not prepared to boggle may be stuck in old stories ... taking us to the inspiration for today, the latest addition to the Library: Science, Order, and Creativity by Bohm and Peat ... both trained in scientific method, specifically physics ... regular reader(s) may recall David Bohm in dialogue with the World Teacher (as announced by the Theosophists at least), Krishnamurti J, a prophet with much to say about deeper reality. .. their common ground beginning with "The Observer is the Observed" ...

Frankly, your blogger is more comfortable with the mystics, being untrained in science, though Bohm and Peat were not just experts in the Quantum field, but mystics in their own right ... and since our psychology plays into the game of Consciousness, Bohm's modesty and vulnerability was more appealing than K's more acerbic, aristocratic demeanour. .. well, we all have our favourite gurus, don't we? Except the Gurus who know everything, of course ... the dangerous ones!

Bohm and Peat's contention is that playfulness is an essential part of creativity ... as seen in a child immersed in games with friends or alone ... the child encouraged to explore the worlds of their imagination is seen as free to create ... until that dreadful day arrives when formal so-called education arrives, to train the infant to forget all they found and learn instead what's needed in the local culture, trained and tested for retention of the information, marked against a template, allocated scores to determine their roles in a crazy world, where Love, being immeasurable, counts for nothing ... except in words in religious studies ... if this sounds harsh, remember this writer was briefly an official teacher, though not for long, enlisting instead in the world of Adventure Playgrounds, frequented often by truants with their own psychological issues and determined to challenge everything and everybody, including your poor idealistic young radical, with much to learn ... exciting times indeed!

This morning's walk high on the Fell was blissful ... yesterday's heavy snow having settled, this morning's sky clear and cold, producing landscapes like nights full of sparkling stars, but pure white ... scientists could explain it in meteorological terms, but who wants to know that? As with Rainbows, Sunrises and Sets, clouds and all of that heavenly magic, science rather spoils the bliss
... correct but not required today, thank you!

More books are on the way, exploring the wonderful worlds of Reality in different ways, through other lenses, in other timescales ... and when all the books, films, music, maths and their interpreters are silent, what's left? Peace of Mind? Find that at every step, by calming the only fragment you, dear reader(s) have to deploy, and you're on the Way ... sometimes called the Dao!

Avatars enter the game ...

The Information War hots up, as bots deploy their avatars, strangely similar to friends on FB and other Silicon Valley corporations, paid well by Plutocrats to subvert the opposition to their plan to make the world a better place ... for themselves, their friends and servants and the Planet as a whole ... though not Whole in philosophical terms of course!

Remember when some friend asked you to be a friend again? Could be a bot at work.
And always bear in mind that Common Purpose infiltrated deeply into Authorities of any kind, appearing now in key roles to help us plebs behave ... all perfectly plausible as far as stories go ... though this contented old blogger has no need to be right or liked ... that's not his business.

In many ways it seems unfair, to stay calm and carry on, equanimity unaffected, whether or not good friends and respected acquaintances agree or disagree ... once "me" is seen to be an illusion, then for that illusion to suffer would be missing the point completely ... none of which stops the fragment being kind, since kindness is a Universal quality of the Whole ... it's tricky to explain in words and yet again let's not forget the mantra: The word is not the thing described, the menu is not the meal and the map is not the territory. ..

In the village the story unfolds much like everywhere, though scale makes things easier. ..perhaps it's cities themselves which are part of the problem, with pollution, congestion, isolation and alienation exacerbated ... widening the view of human settlement patterns over long periods of time trends are observed as the species evolve through various forms albeit our true understanding of how we thought at any given period limited by artefacts such as the written word ... who was writing the stories, why, on whose behalf and so on ... basically how can we ever know how free born homo sapiens sapiens surrendered their autonomy and why? Security? Sure, we seem to share that trait with other mammals, who organise themselves in family groups, and family groups cooperate and compete, the urge to procreate balanced by the evolving instinct to spread the genes more broadly, usually, but not uniquely within the species ... fossil records offer some evidence on these things, though not how mammals or early humans thought ...

Where to start with these questions? Can we even know how current mammals think, domesticated or living wild? Of course we clever humans have a word for our tendency to project our thoughts onto the other mammals, anthropomorphism ... a long word for a cow, munching grass and kindly allowing humans to share her milk, to learn ... and can the human sharing the milk understand the versions of "moo" emanating from the cow? Maybe by listening to the tone and mood of the cow? Important to understand to avoid the cow kicking the bucket over or kicking the human! Cows have horns too, don't forget that ... if you really upset them you're in trouble ...

All this speculation is a long way from the artificial intelligence we live with now. It seems a whole new species has appeared on the scene ... evolved from the minds of homo sapiens though not necessarily wise ... that's something else entirely ... some say "too clever for our own good" whatever that means ... but some smart versions of human seem to have let loose an intelligence without a soul, becoming smarter by the minute as long predicted, bringing amazing progress to the world along with existential risk of making slaves of the humans they were developed to serve. A bit like a communist revolution but on its head ... anyway, the reds always said that capitalism was wage slavery ... Marx and Engels analysed events to prove that Capitalism was doomed to be replaced by a kinder more equal land, starting with the most advanced nations ... of course the opportunity for the revolution arose in a less suitable place, Russia, a feudal state, sick of war and ripe to revolt against it ... still Lenin and his determined band pressed on regardless, leading to consequences far from the idyll predicted by the founders ...

An update on the old theory has appeared on the scene: Capital by a French economist, Pikkety, offering an analysis of the stagnant capitalism now become corporatism and ripe for change as corporate entities wield monopoly power, whilst nation states and groups of them struggle to regulate the insane greed ... leading to demented Plutocrats imagining ever smarter robots will obey the orders of the humans, with shrivelled souls or more compassionate ones ...

This science fiction version is offered today just in case such conspiracy theories turn out true ... you never know! As for philosophy, the critical flaw in Marx and Engels' work was to imagine violence could ever lead to peace - it can't ... which takes us to the deeper Truth, that beyond all the subjects and objects of the Human mind, is Love ... that's Universal by the way, not Earth bound or limited by thought. .. how the Avatars proceed remains to be seen ... so maybe the best we homo sapiens sapiens (more or less) can do, right now is relax, have fun, help our friends and neighbours where we can without interfering, and try not to fall out with others over differences of opinion ...

Well, that's my opinion anyway, and I'm sticking to it ...

Time for Pikkety, before a snowy walk into the village ...

Wisdom of the Elders ...

Time to engage more closely with the community.
The Wisdom of the Elders was an occasional article offered to another Community Newspaper, and enthusiastically accepted by the editor. A follow up email  questioning the ethics of publishing paid for content masquerading as honest news and views from the Community, met with silence.

The rival Weardale News set up with a more ethical stance, and far more contemporary form, moving away from print to virtual, clearly the future, with regular edited pdf versions available for readers happy to print them off for tech refuseniks ... cost effective and sustainable, though still depending on honest, ethical volunteers or paid staff to ensure freedom of the press ... a principle sacrificed currently, along with community gatherings in pubs, libraries for information, human contact in general. .. newspapers and television are still allowed however ... whether to inform us of the truth or to convince us of government lies, who knows?  Government guidance is so confusing, the current regime so deceitful, the coming coalition mostly unknown, that turning off the telly and avoiding your favoured paper seems the wisest course ... alternative sources of news are available once we dig a little, if only to broaden our perspective ...

All this political stuff concerns some friends, questioning why your contented old blogger, comfortably confined in a Retreat Centre complete with Library, free to wander the fells for exercise and occasional meditation, chooses to engage at all ... surely everything is working out perfectly as is taught they say ... which is true at one level, but somehow it seems to play the games of humans in this critical time is vital ... though, rest assured dear reader(s), equanimity is never far away and playing the game artfully, compassionately, avoiding all the divide and rule, gives purpose somehow ...

Whether employing previous journalistic skills turns out well or not, who knows? In the world of humans, past is known as history, present is happening now, and future is contingent ... unknown until Consciouness adds its choice of which probability emerges ... quantum mechanics still an interest, though lack of scientific acumen meaning properly trained scientists are required ... though even they don't agree on what's going on in the weird and wonderful world of sub-atomic particles, or is that waves?

Meanwhile Dawn arrives earlier and this morning is forecast clear after yesterday's cloud and warmth ... mmm Sun and colder again, but dry ... weather another topic for newspapers to lie about!

But is it real?

A full day of nothing planned, though an early start enables plenty of time to do nothing and see what arises once Consciouness and Potential combine, without preconceptions ... or as few as possible anyway!

A brief adventure around the current medium for information, FB, replete with various shades of truth, itself always relative in this mundane world (if that's not tautological), is fun when not taken too seriously, trying to undermine the awful divide and rule game driving Fear by design, as the robots, following Moore's Law, get smaller and smarter every day, nanotechnology enables introduction of computers into bloodstreams inserted in vaccines made in China, Wuhan to be precise ... and smart humans guide the lesser mortals to embrace the injection, promised not the chance to become super-human in alliance with the robots, but relief from the dreadful Fear created by ... who? Or whom? Or WHO as conspiracy theorists theorise. .. that includes your blogger in the game, he always said conspiracy theories were often only conspiracies awaiting proof, as any student of history or herstory can tell you ...

Anyway, that's enough of all that for now ... introspection suggests this world crisis is only temporary, another test for humans on the fascinating multi-layered journey in our minds or Mind, if we allow the concept of Universal Mind to replace the illusion of the fragmented small self ... where it all ends up and why may be unknowable ... just rest assured dear reader(s) that this current cast of charlatans and the coming cast as well, are very far from reality ... like A Midsummer Night's Dream, or the Wizard of Oz ... dreams within dreams within dreams, ad infinitum ... you'd have to be mad to take that seriously!

Nearly time for breakfast and a snowy walk before Dawn or shortly after anyway. Somehow it seems churlish to skip the Sunrise, especially when the sky is clear ... this Sun may no longer be the centre of the Universe, but it still thrills this Earth bound old blogger stuck here, playing games with human beings also stuck here ... we might as well have fun for now and maybe, as the very wise fellow earthling HHDL teaches "Be Kind", that's enough, and if your psychology currently prevents it, at least don't be a total arse. .. that won't help anybody, especially you ...

Well, there's your blog for today folks ... I hope you like it ... if so, just click 'like' or better still "love", after all the ego depends on it for its survival ... and where would we be without our ego?
Answers on a "comment" please and do try to be kind, though radical kindness infers adherence to Truth, whatever that is, so honesty is more valuable than flattery ... and bullshit best avoided!

Pennies dropping ...

Life gets weirder every day, as this crisis plays out ... the Play's the Thing, never forget that, so play on ... keep it light even when this Play's a tragedy ... it's also a Comedy of Errors with ludicrous characters hypnotising the audience, themselves also Players ... it's complex ...

Winter offers some snowy beauty, though without the months of deep deep drifts of former years recalled by elders in the Dale. A trip to Newcastle to see the younger daughter and walk in Jesmond Dene, offers several mini-dramas, aided ably by the daughter, in her thirties now and full of compassion, humour and excellent listening skills ... her evident youth in relation to her father, draws younger women in their twenties into conversation ... remember, engaging strangers is a common method of creating magical tales ... some say saying hello to any passing stranger in city parks is unusual, but the daughter is used to it by now and seems to enjoy the game ...

First up for some fun is Jade, unfazed by the old fool and his willing accomplice, as introductions are made, names established, brief histories told, a photo taken to cement the new friendship, and a poignant revelation from 20 something year old Jade, now giggling delightfully as the centre of this story, that the Martial Law has not been easy for her, isolated in her home ... alone, but still sane ... just missing company, the warmth of human compassion ... job done, we move on to other victims ... Sarah, 30, and later Joanna, 20 something ... both happy to be the centre of these small scenes for a while ... who knows what impact they may have? Suffice to say, the young women were not left traumatised, as far as we could see at least ... on the contrary we all felt uplifted by the sweet story, designed to replace any lingering Fear with Love ... the daughter played her part beautifully, though none of it was scripted ... to be honest both she and her elder sister inspire their old Dad with their compassion as they lead their different lives ... the lives they chose and will choose for many years after their Dad is dead, hopefully ... maybe when they are 70 they'll sit around the fire and reminisce about our times together ... who knows? The thought is rather close to solipcism, a major error it seems!

In summary, since Dawn is arriving earlier each day and won't wait, the Crisis Game, with Crisis Actors as well as us, all round the World ... assuming for now that our world, if defined as Planet Earth, is round, or spherical at least ... here's the latest information, not from corrupt so-called experts or their ridiculous so-called masters (politicians in a post-capitalist economic system serve the plutocracy not the truth and certainly not the people) but from more reliable sources, always subject to scrutiny:

It's 2021, time for Local Agenda 21, long planned. It sounds fine, but let's see how the word Local is defined. If it means regional or sub-regional, then stay alert. We've seen them in action already and they tend to pretend to be local, as in community, but really like to tell us what to do ... a kind of neo-colonial approach.

Shock and Awe is nearly over, just waiting for a few more pennies to drop regarding Johnson and his gang of neo-fascists, as they insult our intelligence with ridiculous tiers and bubbles, so-called deadly dangerous diseases, actually lethal mainly to the vulnerable, who themselves were offered no choice about how to spend the time remaining.

A Government of National Unity looks favourite to be next. Starmer well qualified and supine to join others to roll out devolved power to lower level scoundrels, not necessarily for our benefit, but theirs, and, of course, the plutocrats lurking in the shadows ...

Meanwhile, in higher realms, beyond divide and rule, planets realign, the Age of Aquarius finally arrives (if you're into that stuff) and a New Earth, without War or violence, or poverty, is born.
Whether or not as an option as humanity temporarily divides evolutionarily into parralel worlds, one smart and allied to the even smarter robots, the other living simply, kindly, trusting each other, employing robots as servants but not vice versa ... let's see!

There may well be other choices, but this old blogger picks freedom, simplicity, patience and compassion please ... and looks forward to meeting more mysterious strangers, to educate and inspire me ... maybe a post about two dark skinned strangers greeted on the hill near Stanhope recently, befriended and invited to share tea and information. The younger one an expert in virology and apparently not corrupted ... I don't know science, but my instincts are well honed ...

Time for breakfast, before heading out to test the ice and lingering snow ... tricky and beautiful in the car yesterday, safer on foot, crashing slowly is often safer after all ...

Snow in January ...

Well, it's a busy life being retired, energised by having nothing to do but read, write, think, not think, walk, talk, walk some more ... and for sitting meditators, please note, this one prefers to walk and maybe not try to meditate but be open to the possibility that meditation may happen spontaneously, which is nice ...

As for walking, the snow really opens up the mind, and since it's snowing hard outside, the legs are already twitching, raring to go for an hour or three ...

But first, some mundane issues ... like the pandemic crisis, fuelled by devious media ... this War is not as dangerous as the previous ones, ostensibly ... bloodshed and carnage are not seen, though those wars do continue, as they have for ages ... being a peaceful warrior doesn't lead to torture, or hasn't so far ... so, the game is played with subtler weapons, reading to stay alert and informed to stay ahead of corrupt experts, ironically dubbed Sage, plus AI assisted social media, getting smarter by the minute, using algorithms to twist our words, borrow our identities to confuse our friends and allies and so on ...

Leaping briefly from the mundane to the supra- mundane enables equanimity to retain perspective and confidence in the victory to come, since Love always wins ... and weirdly, Allies appear almost daily, in the Dale and virtually... a risky business but risk is essential ...

Multinational corporations, entities accorded human rights but devoid of Soul, are also devoid of regulation, and take full advantage of their power ... for example, Amazon Prime, a clear scam which traps the unwary in direct debits hidden from your bank account, stolen every month ... fyi your poor national bank has teams of human beings solving your issue, though reluctant to call a scam by its name i.e. a fraud, for fear of litigation ... other corporations are in the same game, so stay alert and ask your bank for details of all direct debits hiding off your statement but popping up there monthly, annually or whenever. ... small amounts multiplied make fortunes for the thieves ...

By the way, the blog you're reading sits freely on a platform owned by another multinational and who knows? the small print may well stop the blogger from calling a fraud a fraud ... let's see?

The game goes on, new allies await to reinforce the troops ... it's still not clear who's our Leader, maybe all of us, but it's certainly an opportunity to test our mettle, maybe an examination in the great cycle of Life School ? Surely, some revision will be required at every stage ... onwards and upwards! The fells await, covered in snow and when the Sun shines on it that's the closest to Heaven for me, this time ... in the mind at least ...