The Book of Imaginary Friends

Again?

2011-09-02T13:19:00.000-07:00

Honestly...

I'm sad when I wake up in the morning to a beautiful place where I have so few friends. I wish someone would stay here for as long as I'm here, so we can do what friends do and have a great summer.

And so far the summer has been very challenging in that respect. But, please, understand that I am a privileged white boy. I don't have to work or go anywhere or do anything. I live in a place of great potential. I take it all for granted every day and I beat myself up for it because my education taught me to be disappointed.

And to be an adult, to reach that plane, one must move beyond old paradigms.

Old paradigms wake with me in the morning and go with me to bed, as do the new paradigms.

I need a huge paradigm shift. I need someone to come down from heaven and wake my ass up and make it very clear to me as to what's at stake, what the hell I'm doing to undo myself, what I'm missing, what I can do, and so on...

Last night I was calling myself out on nearly everything that one could fixate their attention on. Yes, selfish, yes, mindless consumer, yes, yes, yes, all of that.

I was laying near the fire pit, dozing off, and I listened to the others around the fire objectify me. Not me, but the body they see and know as Aha. I am so much more than that, but you know how that goes. Anyway, I could feel a "he's weird" energy around the fire when they mimicked my idiosynchrocies. "Uh-huh, uh-uh." I got up to go to my tent, I didn't want to be around that energy, and someone said, "Goodnight, Himler."

Oh dear God get me out of here.

I'm taking it personally. I choose to. I don't want to be around people who objectify me. You can objectify my work, but not me. I am nothing.

The thing to remember is that when you die you're going to be leaving a lot behind. Everything you've created to create a "self" will stay behind. All your stories, all your dramas, all your stuff, it's all going to stay behind when whatever you really are moves on.

Or something like that.

So I don't want to be around people who are not aware of that. Young, cool-acting kids.

I want to be around people who are sensitive.

The more you resist something, the more it presses on you.

Why the hell do we live with this? Why can't the universe reflect something like, when you resist something, you get away from it and it gets away from you.

I don't get it.

Ugh. Now I have a headache. Maybe it's a sign that I'm purging something or bringing something to the surface, so let's keep going. I don't feel better, but what the hell. I'm frustrated and I don't know what else to do.

Let's start again. I don't want to be here. Why? I have no friends here. I'm bored out of my wits. I would rather shoot myself. At this point, to leave my body would be heaven. It's me versus them. They smoke tobacco and have habits that I allow myself to get sucked into and then I'm just lost lost lost. I'm blaming them. I'm blaming them because they don't create space for healthy living. But what is that? I'm sure they're wonderful people. So, it's not them. It's me. It's how I'm reading this moment right now. It's how I'm using it with my mind.

I want to go home and sleep. I want to lay next to another man's body and hold on for dear life. I want to cry and lose myself a little bit and be humbled. I want to start over again. I want to get back on my feet.

What can I do?

I can pack up what I've got and leave. Just go. Leave the sanctuary. If I stay here, I continue to desire death, because I feel incredibly unworthy of living, of living near natural springs. I don't always desire death. I don't even desire. I just move around space, lost, dumping everything out, thinking and thinking, and going crazy, and all the usual.

Again, I ask the universe, God, to please send friends. Do I have to be specific? What am I missing here? What am I not seeing? What's really going on? I don't get it. I don't get why I'm here watching this movie. Can you imagine watching a movie and half-way through, the main character turns toward the camera, weeping hysterically, bashing against the glass, crying out, get me out of here, please, I don't want to be in this movie. I want to be with you, in a park, as a child, where the mind is still fresh, making up stuff.

I'll just go for another walk now.

If it's all in your head, why have a head?

2011-08-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

Here at the sanctuary, it appears that one does very well according to their "act," or how they talk, what they talk about, how they move their hands around, how they sit, stand up, walk, how they dress, how comfortable or uncomfortable they are in their body, how they respond to situations and people, how they drink, what they drink, if they have "things" that others can ask for and if they are willing to dole out. Most important is if anyone is watching.

And before all that: what am I really writing about here?

I am an intensely idealistic mind. There are many moments where I am watching the dream and not the film in front of me. For instance, I would rather be sitting with people I can create fun with than sitting and writing this, because I feel insidious making these notations about a place that I struggle to feel at home with. I mean, I am certainly at home wherever I am, wherever I go, in this body, outside this body. That's my way of saying, "it's okay."

There's something inside us that has to work to keep us "sane." Maybe it's denial, maybe it's renunciation of a self altogether with feelings and thoughts and a heart that mostly goes without mention.

I'm bothered that I am a ghost here. We are all ghosts here to a certain extent, living in queer purgatory. Visually it is paradise, but there is a deeper current missing altogether. I think it's all those little things that surmise into "community" that I feel missing, that subtle thread that connects you to me to them, an energy web of compassion that arises out of somewhere.

Some people welcome you with open arms and brilliant eyes - sensory outputs for what is undoubted support of your existence. Some people don't even look you in the eyes day after day after day after day.

I'm really sad about that point.

You know, there are some strong personalities here, strong, developed characters with acts and they have sketches to perform, cycles of them. I'm sorry, we do.

So I don't know what "it" is. I'm not a leader or a hero or anything. I don't really want to be here. I would rather move mountains and fly, and making music sometimes is like that. I would rather be having fun. I would rather hang out with a group of kids. I don't think I can take much more of this if this is what being young and 20-something is all about, this daily, weekly affair of apathy and "fuck you" with my eyeballs staring at you with that look of "and what the hell do you want?"

It's this part of the river I don't understand. You give it all up to some higher power, some more enlightened energy that sees where you've been and maybe what direction you're heading, so you give it all up to it, travel, meet lots of people, visit communities.

I don't know.

Why bother writing?

I'm defeated anyway. Everyday I am defeated. I go to sleep and there's no "thought" of "defeat." And there's no consciousness, until the dreams come.

There's a lot of compounded frustration here in this moment, right at my forehead, like it's all about to shoot out. Everything is there, everything I've thought of, every way I've looked at all this.

So, I am defeated.

I give up.

Again.

And again.

Sometimes writing makes things worse.

2011-08-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm in a place where I don't matter, or the necessity to matter doesn't exist. I'm just here and I'm doing the things that I'm doing. I moved my tent far away so that I could find quiet time and then walk the trail to the main hub of the sanctuary when I felt the need for it.

I'm afraid to write about disappearing, but there it is.

I talk to few people.

I'm going to write it: there's nothing heroic or honorable about forcing yourself to maintain your body when the other side is calling. There is a place out there, in the ethers.

I don't know.

I tell myself that I'm in paradise, I have everything here that I've ever wanted. Loneliness, too, seems to be something I want, and I fight it and hate it in my mind, conjuring up broad fantasies about a long-lost lover who appears around the corner in the woods, and then disappears because nothing lasts for too long, whatever that means.

The things that other humans say and the way they say them, the tone, the desperation for connection even though it's just self-listening. I do it too. I usually enjoy talking most when I'm engaged with myself and what I'm thinking and what's coming out of my mouth. I don't really care if anyone is listening or not. There have been moments where I will just spout something outloud, because it sounds beautiful or interesting to me, and at first it will be for everyone to hear, and then it will be just for me when clearly their attention is focused elsewhere.

Maybe I'm surrounded by deadbeats? Am I a deadbeat? Burnt out youth with no energy to save the world, no energy or enthusiasm or passion or courage, so we create this mask of despair, this clown, this running joke, this parade of silliness. That's what is left. Nonsense.

And perhaps I am surrounded by incredible inspiration. We definitely make music here, in fact it's the music making that soothes our shrugs, our "I don't knows." So many angelic voices, and their instruments of sound, there's no urgency to compose words about them. There is a sadness there, in noticing this music we create. Because there is nothing else, it seems.

Indeed. The world we've inherited is under gridlock. Tight borders.

Over and over again I wish I could really travel. No passport. My feet are my passport. And if I could just move through spaces and meet genuine farmers (notice: gentle farmers), and go go go, sail on a ship with a small crew, like a sea-faring commune of music-making not-hippies-hipsters-deadbeats-gardeners-homesteaders (but something else, something we don't have a word for yet).

And, you know, all the trash in the oceans.

So part of my sorrow in living at the mountain/sanctuary is that here I am, a privileged white boy with 1/16th Lakota blood, ridding himself of everything that confines reality into definitions and dualities, "healing" from trauma, sometimes "inspired" to create, thinking again and again about things, mulling them over, then casting them aside when they "don't work," calling on the ethers for allies and friends, watching the movie before me going in a direction that I did not foresee, that I'm not sure is in my best interests, and do I have "best interests?"

This whole experience is so strange and alienating. It really is just a dream. And I take comfort in knowing I don't have to study it, because, honey, there is no classroom here. Your brain is doing a lot of work to stitch this film together in such a way, and you don't want to see what everything looks like when your brain doesn't stitch the film together, when there's no longer a "story," and there's just empty space, which seems to be the true state, because there's no thoughts that box you in, there's no mental chattering that keeps you down. In fact, what gets you down is the full-frontal view of your worst nightmare come true, that your life before waking up had been spent just going on and on and on about things that were never true.

Just as you can be lucid in your dreams, you can be lucid in your waking life.

Do this trick with me now.

First, notice that you are watching a movie.

Second, ask yourself with no words if what you are seeing is "it."

Notice if you feel a subtle "otherness."

I wish I knew what this whole objective was in being, because then perhaps it would make sense to run around and "play."

I tell myself that I came here with the specific intent to redirect humanity, to help guide humanity. Alas, I have become humanity, so I am one of them. I am still not them, something "other," but I have gotten into the rut of human suffering, which I think lies in the mind.

Imagine apes being bestowed with high technology. How long would it take them to figure it all out?

That's what this is like.

I have nothing, you have everything, I have nothing

2011-08-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

The Sanctuary is a machine that chews you up and spits you out
Are you hot? Are you not?
It's a reduced example of the larger culture
that we're also escaping
We tear each other apart
With snide little comments
that we can't help
Because these words are coming from somewhere
And going somewhere
And we're blind fire hydrants
Spewing whatever it is that is pushing through us
And your communards address you by your hands
And not your eyes
We avoid eye contact
Just as in the larger culture
avoids contact of the spectators behind the masks
Avoidance, we play this game
We try to hold onto our highs
Kicking those who are low that are desperately searching for understanding
Understanding of same or similar
Of, yes, I feel you too,
We have been there too
You are not alone
These are words I need to hear everyday it seems
And yet we play these games
what have you done today?
Or how are you doing?
Always doing?
Doing.
Do.
What are you causing?
How are you reacting?
I say I'm breathing, goddammit,
And I can smell the sigh from their nostrils
whiskey breath of indifference
you're a saint if you got weed
you're a hero
you're a ghost if you're hurt
Inside
From parents, siblings, teachers, peers, pastors, elders,
who would shame you
for having a penis
for daydreaming
for questioning
for overlooking
Just as God would
Just as Goddess would
Just as your Heart would
in the face of a child who is just hurt
And isn't healing
And the Sanctuary is a school
of cliques
who talk about you
study you
when you are away and out of sight
Well, there is no curriculum
There is no class
There are no teachers
You will not be quizzed
You will not have homework
There is no grade system
You will change costumes
The Sanctuary is a play
And the character you're playing is lonely
And your playmates are just trying to remember their own lines
Not even understanding that there are other characters
And people acting
Trying to remember their lines
Where's the character that is there in the eyes
Who looks into your eyes
Whose eyes are saying
I know you are there
Inside of yourself
Afraid
And I want to hold you
And I am holding you with my gaze
It's okay whatever happens
because it's a play
it's a machine
it's a school
it's a pirate ship
it's a blip
we'll talk after this is over
And relax
And know that this isn't it

all writing is propoganda
and the ancestors whose sacred ways glint across our imaginations like vague scents of past times,
some image of a place so familiar
that in this lifetime you've never been
and is more real than this moment before you
now,

we just want to go home
we are so tired
and so weak
and so defeated

it is okay to fail
it is okay to leave

you don't have to keep pushing and pushing and making up motivations
inventing trophies and awards you'll give yourself when you "win"
at the end
you don't have to

not-haiku

2011-07-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

that small part of me that keeps going
despite the unbearable death urge
you should be in command

the power to move mountains
dormant lying dream energy
awaken inside a spaceship

reality one and reality two
related and inseperable
remains undefined

i have forgotten the mission
calling all allies and ancestors and the people of the planet earth
use this vessel

i cannot side
i do not compete
i have been away from home

winning and losing
duality i long to transcend
a ghost in a teacup

music charging body
shivers as the field moves
let me hear that sound again

Goals

2011-06-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

To provide my brothers and sisters and cos with the knowledge that they may grow their own food without tilling the earth, and find that nature provides.

To sing, for singing opens the heart and floods every cell with healing vibrations.

I started harvesting white clover seeds yesterday for this natural farming dream.

Here's what you do:
Find a patch, pinch off the brownest, driest flower heads you can find, rub them between your hands in a bowl to release the seeds, strain seeds through a screen, and gently blow on what's left to remove the chaff.

My other idea was to just harvest the dried flower heads and store them, then scatter them on the field when the project starts. The thing to remember is that if there is an easier, lighter way that gets the same job done, then go for it. It's not about working hard. It's about working smart.

Looking forward to more seed harvesting.

Affection

2010-11-22T19:41:00.000-08:00

Tonight, my ego is telling me how terrible I am at affection.

So, I agree. I am pretty awful at making signals to people that demonstrate how much I like them. I am afraid of touching people, looking them up and down, flirting, and saying nice things about them.

I'm not surprised that I'm single. I trail people off away from potential and into confusion. I talk and I talk and I don't really enjoy talking because I think my nature is more physical, maybe more intuitive, and learning to be in touch with my nature is like writing with the other hand.

I believe sexuality is so much interconnected to our humanity and everything we do.

I don't know what people are thinking, but I definitely create stories that convince me otherwise. Here at Twin Oaks, everyone I meet thinks I'm crazy and weird (the bad kind of weird), and I'm not interesting, I don't make any sense, I'm just not cool enough.

So, to my ego I say, you're right. You've always been right. You dwell within a pretty pitiful being.

I agree because it's my coping method. Years ago I used to fight my self-inflicted criticisms and that seemed to stoke the flames and make things worse. Now I just agree. There was one time over the summer where I was waking up every morning to my ego telling me how lazy I was, that I was a sloth for sleeping in so late. So, I agreed and refused to leave my tent until my ego could empower me. I told my ego: Fine. I'm lazy. I will just lay here like you said and be as lazy as you say I am.

I usually wake up pretty rejuvenated now. Telling myself I'm lazy is just silly.

So, telling myself I'm unaffectionate is silly, too, yeah?

When you notice another guy looking you up and down and making eye contact and find him sitting next to you at a party and getting right to the point with: "My name's Jesse. You have really pretty blue eyes," how do you respond? How do you regift that affection?

I don't know how to do this. I don't know what to say.

So, I'm disappointed in myself.

Stories and otherwise

2010-11-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

Handwriting 1,667 words every day for 30 days is definitely a lesson in handwriting technique. Once I get to the last two pages I'm writing in the day, I start to feel my elbow and forearm muscles responding to the work I'm putting them through. I haven't yet reached that point where my wrist starts to feedback, so I'm hoping I'm doing just enough not to hit a tipping point. And also, these appendages do everything else for me besides think. They prepare and put food in my mouth, they help me make motions that accentuate oral communication, they assist in maintaining hygiene, they wipe my ass, they put on my clothes, and so on and so forth. They really do a lot for me. So, thank you hands. I've really been meaning to use my left hand in writing. It holds the book in place, but it's really been begging for a turn. And even now my right arm is exhausted, or at least close to it.

It's too late

2010-02-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

It's too late, or at least that's the general feeling I'm getting about our culture's impact on planet Earth.

And it probably is. It's too late to bring back all the ecosystems we stole from all the species that once shared our world. It's too late to bring back from the dead all the indigenous cultures we annihilated for the sake of progress and expansion. It's too late to go back 10,000 years to find out exactly what the hell happened that would drive us to think the world was made for whatever humans wanted to do with it.

And it may as well be our course to plow this train full speed into global collapse. Our imaginations explore this through story-telling. Many of us want to take a glimpse into that future. What will it be like to live in total collapse? And then: what would cause it? What would be the first domino falling over in this catastrophic effect? And maybe, is there a way to foresee this? To prevent?

It's fascinating.

I agree whole-heartily that it's too late. I don't know what drives the general consensus to maintain the status quo, but from my vantage point I don't see enough change of mind. It's cute and admirable if a lot of people are doing their little share to - say - recycle, compost, drive less, or spend more time with family and community than with television, but this is not enough. Our way of life is deeply rooted against natural laws. Shit, even "Green" is a brand. As long as you're okay with filling your void with products and categorizing your memories with what name of brand you associate, it will entirely depend on our global collapse to see the kind of changes each of us dreams of. Hence the adage: "it has to get worse before it gets better."

But please don't misread me here. I am not fully engaged with fatalism. I don't read on every item that talks about how things will eventually be, simply because this one single moment we are always in has yet to reflect the visions our cultural seers are forecasting.

I don't think it's healthy to think about global collapse every day. At the same time, I don't think it's healthy to fully trust in the global system. I don't like buying food shipped in from hundreds and even thousands of miles away, so that's why I grow my own food or join a Community Supported Agriculture with a local organic farm. I don't like buying products that eventually have to be stuffed into a landfill, so I go towards recyclable and compostable or nothing at all.

I think within the conscious there has to be a state of balance, just like the two hemispheres that form our brain. You have to think of the inverse and the converse at all times, the "what if..." and the "what if not...".

I may be reading about our coming global collapse, but in no way does this impede my pursuit of self-sufficiency, mostly because I think "why not?" I'm sticking to my gardening plans for many reasons, one being that I enjoy learning about this kind of thing. Tomorrow morning I expect five different herbs to show their little seedling heads to me. This is my joy. Less than 10 weeks from now and I expect my body to reside in an intentional community known as Dancing Rabbit, a place where the residents live closely to a neo-tribal state.

Right now, I'm living with my family whose mainstay depends on the status quo. They frequently buy food shipped in from thousands of miles away, typically forget to recycle, lesser so to save compostable scrap, and generally abide by what the global culture has to offer. It's challenging for me because I feel it so necessary for me to question these things, and to live amongst people who don't frustrates me to no end. In fact, we live in mostly separate metaphysical camps. We probably regard each other equally with "why can't you just do this!" But we still do what we do. What can we do to improve our social body? I don't know how to convince people they'd be better without television. We know that we love each other, but perhaps each of us shares a kind of yearning for closeness that we blanket with distractions. We're all afraid to make the first move and even then, what would one of us say?

I think we need more boredom. Daniel Quinn says humans need more of what humans need, and this has to do with what makes life honestly worth living.

I think a global collapse would be interesting to see. I wonder what would people think to do when they won't be able to use the television or the internet or "things" to occupy their time. Cormac McCarthy certainly gave us a desperate and moody depiction with cannibalism and nomadicism and grayness.

But until that time, I'm learning. Part of me wants to stand on a soap box with a megaphone and appeal to everyone in earshot how we need to take matters into our own hands. Let's band together, here and now. Form one of many thousands of tribes to support each other indefinitely in the name of a better human life. And why not for your kids? Why not in general? We can't be babied like this forever.

Ah, idealism, but then it surely is entirely possible. I could get laughed at or arrested, but who cares? It'd be worth a try.

Next week I want to build a compost bin for my family. I'm taking pictures of jewelry to sell on ebay. I'm reading a lot of books. I miss hanging out with friends and having long conversations with many tangents that leave me with a refreshed state of mind.

What keeps me going is that I generally believe I'm following my own unique path. It's true that we think we have time and that it's this illusion that has afforded us a state of life dependent on finite resources, but damn, I don't think I can just stop doing what I'm doing because it's all too late. I'm still apprehensive about car culture, but still, somewhere deep within the timeless essence of soul I feel it can never be too late. All this human drama is just a silly drama, and it's very well a nightmare, but you're only part of it so long as you're in that human vessel of yours.

So, I suppose what keeps me going is the belief that whatever my soul is, it's not distinctly human. I probably won't be remembered, and judgment may be nothing more than a human mythology, but I believe it's important to do what you feel is right. The idea of always being Aaron Jay Schmidt is a little maddening.

A bunch of random

2010-02-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

So, I’m going to start this entry on a sort of random whim that I’m not really sure what exactly I’m going to be writing about. I’ll probably just mention a number of different things going on outside of the internet world. By the way, I think it’s obvious that the internet is a real place. Maybe not something that you can physically be in or experience by the five senses, but for sure it tweaks your state of consciousness. I know it does mine.

I really want to start challenging my mind. I’m using my left hand to do things my right hand would normally do. I remember back in high school art class I made a drawing with a pencil in either hand going at the same time. I drew a little cartoon person. It was interesting. One half was decent, the other a little more nervous. I think I’d like to revive this for regular exercises. Also, I heard that if you write in yellow, your inner critic will have no idea what to correct while you’re writing. For writers, this is fantastic.

I still have hemorrhoids. Yeah, by now we’re good friends. Frequently I’m needed to address certain issues, like “What is that smell?” or “what is that awful pinching feeling?” or “Toilet paper is making this worse.” When I first started getting these symptoms, I felt like I was one of those hopeless young adults with failing health, that this was just the beginning. Earlier in 2009 I felt like I had an evil presence in my body towards my stomach. I referred to it as cancer, and I frequently dreamed about it. When my hemorrhoids came about, I thought this was its ugly head rearing itself. And then I was ashamed of myself and embarrassed because the idea of telling others about this felt like I would have to be pitied. Maybe it’s no one else’s business. It’s certainly a little gross, so I can understand why it would be taboo.

But I think having hemorrhoids is a way to get in touch with my body. I’ve been asking my body questions at certain times. How do you feel? What’s up? And it certainly responds. I’m uncomfortable here. You’re sitting on me weird there. Move a little bit this way and the pressure will ease. Thank you. And I breathe deeply more. A lot more. I read from Andrew Weil, M.D., that he had never met a healthy person who did not breathe deeply. That helped me. And reading on hemorrhoids has clued me into certain bad habits. I’ve been aiming to share time on my feet with my ass. I go for walks. I think I eat healthy.

I’ve been thinking about that musical side of my mind – I would really like to record what I’m hearing in there.

I have this dream that gives me goosebumps whenever I think of it, and then following this rapture of good feeling is another feeling that one day I’ll do that. One day. What does this mean? The dream is a film, it’s full of color and moods and motions and pantomime and it just moves me. I should probably elaborate. I’ve been having this experience since a very young age. Bus rides to school were more like meditations of the imagination. I would listen to my trance music and see extraordinary things playing out in that universe of the mind. Imagine a part of a song or a scene from a movie that gives you the chills of your life. I mean, chills that run down your back and up from your legs and into your arms and then up into your face. I regularly gave myself goosebumps and I would hide them because I thought someone would find me weird to just be getting goosebumps on the bus. In the end, I don’t think anyone even looked or cared.

I’ve been using this skill (I’ll call it that) to work on my projects. Most of my drawings come from this meditation of the imagination. I capture the key image in what I’m seeing, in what I’m hearing, and I put it to paper to see what it looks like out there.

I’m probably not that important. But then I am. What is that? I’m important as far as the limited scope of humanity is concerned in that as one of a great common, the small part that is played by me actually tips the scales. But concerning billions of microorganisms and billions of galaxies, I’m not that important. I think of this paradox as a blessing. And maybe it holds the tinge of what freedom is. Old adages hint to this, things like “God has a sense of humor,” or “I’m sincere about life, but I’m not serious about it,” or “row, row, row your boat…life is but a dream.” I think we needn’t fool ourselves. We already know the truth. I also think that’s why I liken to reincarnation. Nature is cyclical. There are no wastes. There is no linear way. So why is consciousness different? Why do our souls transmigrate to judgment and face what is essentially black or white?

I suppose it’s the Ishmael trilogy that has me chuckling to myself. I always wondered about the story of the Fall – it just didn’t seem right to explain our existence. But explained from a different perspective, from indigenous cultures, it makes all the sense of the world. We abandoned God, our union with perfection, 10,000 years ago, and whatever we did to do that, was best told in an allegory. It has to do with how we grow our food, why we’re driving other species into extinction, why we shit on thrones, why we send our children away to factory schools, why we have cancer, and why most of us hate our jobs.

I’m not sure what it is, but I feel like there’s a mental block in the way of fully understanding The Crack in The Cosmic Egg (“Yeah, it’s called stupidity”). But really, there’s some truth to what my inner critic (also known as The Voice of Treason) has to say. The Crack has a language that makes sense, but I couldn’t tell you after reading a chapter what in the bloody hell I had just read. I could tell you more of what I was thinking about – books that don’t exactly “capture” tend to lead the reader astray. There’s a level of interest and curiosity that keeps the book in your hands (you want to FINISH it!), but while your eyes drift lazily from line to line, your imagination is looking out the window. You’re daydreaming. That is what is happening here. I’m not saying the book is badly written, I’m saying that my comprehension level isn’t there yet, or maybe the subject matter hasn’t yet reached significance in my life yet.

I recently adopted a macramé hanging basket from my grandparents and immediately transplanted the spider plant we had gotten from our neighbors. The photo shown here is of it three days later. It’s definitely showing some new growth. And the soil I used? I combined the old stuff that came with the pot with compost I harvested from my worm bin a few weeks earlier. This probably goes against some old gardening adage, but I’m experimenting.

I guess that’s it for now. I never really have just one thing to write about.

The wonders of squatting

2010-01-20T10:31:00.000-08:00

So, I'm not very good at keeping up with this. But while I'm on here, a few things:

The earlier post about squatting - remember? The kind of squatting for effective bowel movements? Well, I've been doing it for (I'd say) at least a month now. It's great.

Now, if you're one of those lucky humans who has twice daily regular movements, this probably won't help you. For people like me, who have slow snail metabolisms, I recommend whole-heartily. And now I say why.

It's real comfortable. More comfortable than "sitting on the throne."

Now, remember: the reason why our culture sits on a throne to pass their poo is because, obviously, it's a symbol of wealth, an act of kingship, a philosophy that we're not animals, we're made in the image of God, et cetera. I've spoken with a few people about squatting, and the general reaction is a screwed up face along with an "ew."

That's fair. It's powerfully ingrained in our collective cultural mind that this is the way the world works. If you choose to doubt it, well, you're heading into dark territories. Good luck.

This is prime experimentation for me, though. I revel in thwarting cultural norms. I questioned compulsory schooling, our monotheistic religion, and the workplace. I am now aware that all of our deeply cherished cultural trends are illusions. They're silly and mostly laughable.

When someone says "that's the way the world works," I think about the natural environment, which for the last 10,000 years man has been desperate to divorce. The way the world works, for me, lies in how the natural environment works.

And how humans naturally pass their poo is by squatting.

Unless you experience this, you might still think of it as disgusting, however, you should be aware that this notion is entirely illusory (in the sense that the monster in the closet is illusory).

When you sit on the throne, you are forcing your body, your bio-machine, to work against itself. That is why many of us strain, because we don't know that if you squat, your diaphragm against your thighs (when you simply inhale) naturally creates the pressure needed to poop.

Keep in mind that sitting on the throne keeps your large intestine locked and hinged - you're not giving it the proper signals to tell it that you are in the correct position to poop.

I'm not really keen on what damage continues to occur to the body if you sit on the throne, but from what I've read it's not good at all.

I did read that it explains why almost half of us get hemorrhoids. Yeah, that's an ew.

Okay, so I need to get off this fire and brimstone talk about sitting on the throne. Just remember that it makes all the difference if you squat. It's a little awkward to do it with a throne toilet, but you'll probably get used to it. I even developed muscles in my thighs I never knew I had, which makes all the difference when I'm standing, walking, and running.

A lot of people talk about getting back in touch with nature. Something I recently read and felt was so true is that we humans can never be divorced from nature - it's always inside us. It is us. We are nature. Why a long time ago we decided that we were something more astounds me. And I find that it explains why a lot of us feel despair with all this shallow entertainment and alienation.

Nature is you. It's in you. It's around you. So, if you want to get back in touch with nature, start squatting. You'll be on your way in no time at all.

Squatting, dude

2009-11-30T21:17:00.000-08:00

I think my next article is going to be on squatting for effective elimination.

Until then, read this.

Purify bad air and modest sleeping

2009-10-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

I like to keep plants around my desk area. I have five altogether in my bedroom. Feng Shui has taught me that one should keep an inviting image from the vantage of the doorway, so in the far corner there is a keyboard waiting for my fingers, artwork neatly filed against the wall, and plants in the general range of light from the only window. "Cozy" is the common utterance from every guest. Ah, yes.

Aside from the nice distraction, they also do a great deal of handling the air pumping out of my computer. I'm not too fond of this machine, granted it works well and I'm using it right now to conjure this entry, it's a strange and alienating entity that keeps me from living my dream of a perpetual nomadicism or complete, permacultural balance between myself and nature. Maybe one day I'll try it out.

I can't give you the numbers or the names of whatever these plants are doing for me besides cleaning some of the air and providing some interesting, psychological companionship, but I remember reading from somewhere that having a plant next to your computer counteracts the bad stuff it exhales. I'm very gullible and anything that touts the benefits of organic life has me jumping on the bandwagon.

Here's something else: I don't sleep on a typical mattress bed. Aside from potentially being incredibly comfortable, I find that they take up usable space. A friend of mine told me he had horrible back problems and that his chiropracter advised him to sleep on a flat surface. Enter the pallet.

I layer mine with several blankets, some thick and thin and one colored like a lucid dream, and I coccon myself in a few of those blankets depending on the season. It's not like sleeping in cotton puffballs or clouds in the sky, that is for sure, but after six months sleeping like this, I feel more upright throughout the day and have virtually no backpain. Plus, it rolls away so my room is that much more spacious.

The best sleep I ever had was on a pallet in a tent in Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. The gentle orchestra of insects lulled me to sleep and I awoke the next morning greatly refreshed to bird songs. I believe this is the direction we need to be going in as a culture, back to our natural roots and away from synthetic sound machines and shrill cries of alarm clocks. I've already taken note of my health in either environment, and I can say that waking up to anger and apprehension is no way to live. I want to keep enjoying my life as much as I do now, even if the "right now" isn't what life "should be."

Trashy Findings

2009-10-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

So, I am a worm composter and have been since May of 2008. I enjoy the company of worms. They've complained only once when they were underneath my kitchen sink behind closed doors (yes, I was dumb), and so I've been very conscious about what environment they're in. Currently they reside in my parents' basement on top of a filing cabinet, readily available to display their secret makings. My inner child enjoys watching them stretch and wriggle through the stuff. They don't seem to mind that they're in a bin.

This is what I found in the kitchen trash. Oooh, yes, lots of little goodies. Egg shells, coffee grinds, potato cuttings, tea bags, unusable carrot pieces, and plenty of cuttings from the 40 or so houseplants that keep us forestlike. The paper plate was also in the same bin. Yes, I forgive my family for trying to sneak this stuff to the landfill (maybe I've been watching too much Wa$ted). I'm an avid green/eco/nature dude. I feel tremendous guilt when I take part in the general, careless doings of mainstream society. Then again, as I learned from a sustainability lecture last spring, we're all learning. Eventually we'll get to a point when we're consuming equally or less than can be provided to us. It's rather nice musing about how humanity is now in this movement toward a slower lifestyle.

Anyway, worm composting is great. I'd still like to have other composting methods to work with along with this one, just to keep things interesting and to constantly make OCD comparatives between the rates of decomposition, and so that my worm bin won't get overwhelmed.

Look for more random things like these to come up every now and then. I have a smorgasbord of interests. Boredom is the mother of creativity.