Earth and Fire

All the materials are readily at hand without major extraction or damage to the environment...the natural world provides. This and wilderness basket making, simple elegance.

Our Thoughts Make the World

Change requires action, but the place within which that action comes from is most important.

“We are what we think, all that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world.” – Gautama Buddha

Physics is pointing to the fact that the observer shapes the reality. The way we think and perceive could be responsible and play a vital role in the physical construct we see in front of us.

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” – Unknown

Let's try to remember this in all our social constructs. Our thoughts do make the world.

Dilemma...man vs. nature.

 Our wetlands are so full of life, more varieties of water fowl nesting than I've seen in ages. The beaver have created two step dams, each with about three feet of head. With the 3/4 inch of rain we've rec'd, apparently the drought is over...and the water level has risen by about 18 inches by the township road. A couple of years ago the DNR dredged a channel upstream, taking out a beaver dam and putting in a control for a wild rice lake...the township/state collusion (partnership) dug up the road and placed two 4 foot culverts beneath the new road bed...no apron, no rip rap...now the water is high (my choice...not tearing down the beaver dams, preferring to have water stored here)...had the road "engineers" built the road up two feet higher along with the culverts and added aprons/rip rap...there'd be no problem. Today one of the township supervisors came knocking at my door...he'd gone to the DNR to tell them of the high water undermining the road by the culverts (poor engineering) and the DNR told him to consult with me. We looked at the road together...I made suggestions as to what they should do with the road and told him I'd drop the level of the water by a foot or so...so as to not disturb the nesting waterfowl...so, Cheryl and I walked out to the dam, and I clawed about a foot to 18 inches 6 feet long out of the dam on two sides...about 100 feet apart. The water is rushing, but not so much as to be uncontrolled and flood downstream. I'm keeping an eye on it, but I must say...it was all okay with me before...why not engineer the road in concert with nature, rather than try to control nature for some road? This is a forest area, after all.
Off my soap box now.

The Anthroprocene...it's not all about us.

As a species, we’ve gained an impressive degree of influence over our environment by deliberately simplifying ecosystems so they will support more humans, but fewer other species. Our principal strategy in this project has been agriculture—primarily a form of agriculture that focuses on a few annual grain crops. We’ve commandeered up to 50 percent of the primary biological productivity of our planet, mostly through farming and forestry. Doing this has had overwhelmingly negative impacts on non-domesticated plants and animals. The subsequent loss of biodiversity is increasingly compromising humanity’s prospects, because we depend upon countless ecosystem services (such as pollination and oxygen regeneration)—services we do not organize or control, and for which we do not pay.

The essence of our problem is this: the side effects of our growth binge are compounding rapidly and threaten a crisis in which the artificial support systems we’ve built over past decades (food, transport, and financial systems, among others)—as well as nature’s wild systems, on which we still also depend—could all crash more or less simultaneously.

~Richard Heinberg

http://www.postcarbon.org/the-anthropocene-its-not-all-about-us/

Trying to catch up around here...

What I've learned over the years.

What surprises me most about my 60s is seeing our world and personal realities still very much divided along the lines of race, culture, money, gender, group identities and/or personal strengths and weaknesses. It baffles me that some individuals and institutions use their resources to contribute to these divisions and drive them deeper by their desire for more - more money, more power, more control for resources while others work so hard to make life better. When I was little, I really believed the world was going to be much more unified than it is. I believed we were going to have accomplished more and that we'd have better skills in doing what's good for the earth and for life that needs sustained and nurtured. I do love that I have been able to witness this time in history and despite what I've written, I hope that I personally can do more at this time of my life to contribute something positive to the lives of those I know and in the communities where I live, whether it's here or some other corner of the world that I find more hospitable.

Civilization

Each morning, a missionary advertises neon sign
He tells the native population that civilization is fine
And three educated savages holler from a bamboo tree
That civilization is a thing for me to see

So bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no no
Bingo, bangle, bungle, I'm so happy in the jungle, I refuse to go
Don't want no bright lights, false teeth, doorbells, landlords, I make it clear
That no matter how they coax him, I'll stay right here

I looked through a magazine the missionary's wife concealed (Magazine? What happens?)
I see how people who are civilized bung you with automobile (You know you can get hurt that way Dani
At the movies they have got to pay many coconuts to see (What do they see, Darling?)
Uncivilized pictures that the newsreel takes of me

So bongo, bongo, bongo, he don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no no
Bingo, bangle, bungle, he's so happy in the jungle, he refuse to go
Don't want no penthouse, bathtub, streetcars, taxis, noise in my ear
So, no matter how they coax him, I'll stay right here

They hurry like savages to get aboard an iron train
And though it's smokey and it's crowded, they're too civilized to complain
When they've got two weeks vacation, they hurry to vacation ground (What do they do, Darling?)
They swim and they fish, but that's what I do all year round

So bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no no
Bingo, bangle, bungle, I'm so happy in the jungle, I refuse to go
Don't want no jailhouse, shotgun, fish-hooks, golf clubs, I got my spears
So, no matter how they coax him, I'll stay right here

They have things like the atom bomb, so I think I'll stay where I am
If that's civilization, I'll stay right here

~Andrews Sisters, "Civilization"