Seedbeds of Liberation

February 6, 2025

My latest bumper sticker reads: “Radical Left Wing Lunatics Unite!” Making fun of autocrats helps lessen my dismay and disgust, for a moment or two. Q: “Why did the US bobsled team put pictures of Trump on their helmets? “A: “Because no else can make US go downhill faster.”

If you were starving to death or very very hungry, would you stop and play with a happy looking chicken or turnip, or would you attack it and eat it? A sled dog racer named Brian LaDoone witnessed a very thin, hungry-looking polar bear play with one of his friskiest dogs. The dog saw the bear approach, wagged their tail, did a bowing, downward dog motion and the two began a long wrestling match. The ice had not formed on the sea and the poor bear had no food but it chose to play rather than eat. The bear returned to their camp for seven days in a row and they continued playing until both were tired out. In the book “Play” by Dr. Stewart Brown, there is a photo of the bear cuddling and hugging the dog. When the ice froze and the hunting was viable, the bear went their own way.

In mammals, unstructured play helps us learn how to depend on our wits, our imaginations and our bodies, to thrive. How so? “Deep play” a term coined by Margaret Guenther, Episocplat priest, releases dopamine, regulates the vagus nerve, teaches us creativity, non-local awareness and builds emotional intelligence. Despite the fact that play is often seen by adults as frivolous, and despite the stressors of modern life, playing every day, in some way or other, is an antidote to despair and fear. Play is essentially an attitude. If I notice resentment arising because the autocrats continue to destroy the planet or when the dishes need washing yet again, I recall Marshall Rosenberg’s advice: “if it isn’t play, don’t do it.” I can always pause to feel delight, which frees me up to reframe aversion as a choice: “whoo hoo I get to be alive right now.”

“Play, by it’s very nature is a little anarchic….it’s about stepping outside of normal life and breaking normal patterns. Play allows us to embrace and even sculpt the contours of our fates with an ironic humour and a sense of sharing in our common humanity.” a quote from Stewart Brown, “Play, How It Shapes Our Brains, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul.” Ready for some more silliness?

Q: “What is the difference between Elon Musk and God?” A.”God does not think he is Elon Musk.”

Q: “What is the difference between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg?” A: “One is a human trying to conquer Mars and the other is an alien trying to conquer Earth.”

Catching Some Rays

February 6, 2025

https://printartphotography.ca

How To Be Both Happy And Well-Informed

February 6, 2025

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

FEB 02, 2025

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

The trick to being both happy and well-informed is making sure to expand your knowledge of your inner world as well as the outer world, and learning to get comfortable with the apparent contradictions this illuminates.

It is true that this civilization is rife with tyranny and abuse, and is constantly terrorizing the world with acts of mass military butchery. It is also true that beneath all the violence and wars there is an all-pervading peace which you can learn to experience in every moment. These facts may appear contradictory, but they do not negate each other.

It is true that the world is ruled by murderous tyrants who must be stopped, and ideally brought to justice. It is also true that all beings are ultimately innocent, with even our most destructive actions driven by unconscious impulses within ourselves whose underlying causes stretch back to the dawn of life on this planet. It is also true that from a certain perspective, cause and effect are an illusion, time doesn’t exist, and nothing has ever happened. All of these statements are true with regard to the sense in which they are true, and none of them cancel out the others.

It is true that we live in a mind-controlled dystopia where anything authentic gets marginalized and the masses are psychologically manipulated into thinking, speaking and behaving in ways which benefit the powerful. It is also true that there is a deep wisdom within us all that the propagandists have never touched, and will never be able to.

It is true that there are a great many ugly things happening in our world. It is also true that every single thing in every single moment is crackling with electrifying beauty, and that you can learn to see this for yourself.

It is true that we appear to be headed for planetary disaster in the not-too-distant future on multiple fronts. It is also true that humanity has dormant potentialities sleeping within itself which could awaken at any time and turn this ship around. It is also true that every instant contains heaven and eternity whether we steer clear of armageddon this time or not.

It is true that terrible things happen every day which will break your heart if you are an emotionally conscious person. It is also true that an unshakable happiness can coexist with that heartbreak, and with every other experience in life.

If you dedicate yourself to expanding your awareness both inwardly and outwardly, all of these paradoxical truths will become known to you. And you will learn to simply see the paradoxes as paradoxes, without any need to push or pull on them to square away their apparent contradictions.

I write about terrible things every day, which often leads people to assume I’m some kind of hardened, bitter individual with dark eyes and a callused heart, and I’ve had people tell me that they were very surprised to find something entirely different when they met me in person.

It is true that I spend much of my life staring into the heart of the murder machine and writing about butchered children and powerful psychopaths, but it is also true that I am one of the happiest people I know, and I find life rather blissful. I am frequently hurt and heartbroken by the awful things I see happening in places like Gaza, but the hurt and the heartbreak occurs in the context of something much larger which is always at peace.

I say this not to boast or make myself look special, but to show that it is possible. It is very possible to live a truth-driven life which does not shy away from the harsh realities of the world without being consumed by the darkness. All you have to do is make sure you’re expanding your knowledge in both directions, not just your knowledge of the outer world.

You do this by getting very curious about your own inner processes and your unquestioned assumptions about what this life is and how it’s occurring. If you rigorously interrogate your most basic beliefs about your self, your thoughts, consciousness, the senses, and the outer world, you will find that life isn’t happening in anything remotely like the way you’ve always assumed it is, and you will experience a shift into your way of perceiving things that is much saner and simpler than the egocentric framework we tend to think of as normal.

This might sound daunting, but really it’s no different from expanding your awareness of how the world works and getting rid of the power-serving worldviews that were indoctrinated into you when you were young — which, if you are reading this, you have probably already done to some extent. You’re just taking that same intense investigative energy you’ve applied to learning the truth about the outer world, and applying it to the inner world as well.

Then you’re really seeing life clearly. You’re getting a much more three-dimensional picture of the way this human adventure is actually playing out. And you get to be happy and peaceful while you engage in the work of steering that adventure in a healthy direction.

As an added bonus, you will find that understanding your inner world gives you a much better understanding of what’s going on in the outer world as well. All the destruction and abuse we’re seeing out there have their roots in what happened inside the people whose actions gave rise to it, and if you have some humility you can find things within yourself which could give rise to those same dynamics. The disorder of the outer world is just the inner world made manifest, and deepening our understanding of one can help deepen our understanding of both.

Once we see that we are not truly separate and separable from the world’s problems, we can also see the ways in which we can be part of the solution as well. We have maps toward a healthy world laid out within ourselves.

_______________

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via Adobe Stock.

Who is Running the Show

February 6, 2025

Who is Running the Show

It started with prescription opioids

The grip of addiction was launched

Next came the killer drugs on the streets

Who is running the show

It led to mountains of deaths and despair

The homeless, food banks, and tent cities

Foreign buying of everything in sight

Who is running the show

Governments joined in the dealing

of drugs – they call it safe supply

Expanding the business to high school kids

Who is running the show

4000 groups of organized crime

Billions to casinos, houses and land

Plenty left over to cover their tracks

Who is running the show

Canada is a money laundromat

for the inflictors of suffering and death

They like our ports, our borders and our banks

Who is running the show

dog cooker

February 6, 2025

Updates to the Tribune Bay Park Recreation Enhancements Project

January 30, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Updates to the Tribune Bay Park Recreation Enhancements Project

Timeline, phasing, and partnership opportunities are under consideration.

HORNBY ISLAND, BC (January 23, 2025) – BC Parks is undertaking infrastructure updates and future planning for Tribune Bay Park on Hornby Island. Enhancements will be taking place this winter.

This winter, BC Parks is replacing the septic system in the existing Tribune Bay Park campground to ensure it is ready for the spring 2025 season. This work requires the removal of a small number of trees. Ongoing invasive plant management will continue, as well as assessments of the Day Use shelter for potential repairs, replacements, and accessibility improvements.

Following October’s announcement from School Districts 69 and 71 to withdraw from the operations of the Tribune Bay Outdoor Education Centre, BC Parks is exploring options for the future of this site. Condition assessments of the existing facilities, and archaeological and ecological assessments are currently underway. These assessments are expected to be completed this Spring and will inform future planning for the site, including options to continue outdoor education opportunities and the possibility of this section of the park as a location for the proposed walk-in campsites.

For more information on upgrades and maintenance and for future updates on the Tribune Bay Park Recreation Enhancements project, visit helpshapebc.gov.bc.ca/tribune

# # #

BC PARKS: BC Parks’ mission is to protect representative and special natural places within the province’s protected areas system for world-class conservation, outdoor recreation, education and scientiﬁc study.

Shucking Oysters: Mind Your Bullshit

January 30, 2025

Today, more than ever, we folks need to be very discerning when it comes to character and words, especially words. Whether online or off, fake news, misinformation, and bullshit are everywhere. Even more so, now that Mark Zuckerberg announced that he will replace fact-checking with user-based bullshit meters. Let’s open the flood gates for more controversial posts and even more bullshit to wade through.

But what does bullshit exactly mean? We often associate bullshit with words like “nonsense,” “meaningless,” and “stupid.” Are we expressing our feelings, or are we calling something meaningless or a lie whenever we call something bullshit?

In his 1986 essay “On Bullshit,” philosopher Harry Frankfurt distinguishes between bullshitting and lying. Bullshitters don’t care whether what they are saying is factually correct or not. A bullshitter “just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.” The bullshitter has no regard for the truth. “By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are,” Frankfurt wrote. Which begs the question, if bullshitters are more dangerous than liars, why are we more tolerant of them?

He has been described as a bully, a clown, a temperamental child, a know-nothing, a national embarrassment and even an asshole. But ultimately, Donald Trump is a quintessential peddler of bullshit. The Donald only speaks in superlatives like “the biggest” and “the best.” He even added phantom floors to increase the size of his skyscrapers and we all know his myopic view on crowd size. It’s all about inflating his HUGE persona. In fairness, Trump may very well believe the things that he’s saying, as he was quoted as saying “I don’t like to lie.”

Like the GREAT showman PT Barnum, Trump has an affinity for speaking hyperbole with little consideration for their factual accuracy. “They’re eating the cats.” “They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” Trump’s propensity for bullshit is not a political liability – far from it, it’s a superpower. Like all politicians, he twists the truth, probably more than most, but Trump’s genius lies in his stage performance. Andrew Packer described it best in The Medium: “It’s the netherworld of flimflam, hyperbole, sales pitches, and ad copy delivered with the quiet dignity of a wet T-shirt competition.”

Donald Trump is not some anomaly. He is a mirror. “He reflects an America that runs on bullshit, that has become inured to bullshit, that has come to expect bullshit from its leaders,” wrote Packer. Most Trump supporters know it’s all fake, but they don’t care. It’s a world that pays more attention to bullshit than facts, evidence, and science. Trump’s gang of misfits, like their almighty leader, hold contempt for any hint of expertise or knowledge while continually being blinded by his brilliance.

It was the 1987 book Trump: The Art of the Deal, that introduced the phrase “truthful hyperbole” describing “an innocent form of exaggeration.” The phrase was noted for its similarity to “alternative facts” coined by the photogenic, Kellyanne Conway when she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s statements about how many people attended Trump’s first inauguration. Interestingly, Tony Schwartz (who “co-authored” the book) said writing it was his “greatest regret in life, without question,” and said if it were written today it would be titled The Sociopath.

In the academic article, “The Bullshit Doctrine: Fabrications, Lies, and Nonsense in the Age of Trump,” professors Kristiansen and Kaussler argue that, unconstrained by reality, Trump is driven more by celebrity and showmanship than a genuine desire to govern.

Kristiansen and Kaussler note that Trump’s approach to bullshit sets him apart from the average politician, for he “moves so fluidly between fabrication, fantasy, and deception that standard mechanisms for dealing with falsehoods no longer apply.” As George Will explains, Trump’s rhetorical style is “not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence.”

Trump’s endgame is celebrity. He places no particular value on the meaning of words, for they are merely tools for a different purpose altogether. What is said one day can be discarded the next. Lies, deception, and bullshit are integral parts of Trump’s gold-embossed toolbox and he is not hesitant about using them brazenly.

Days into his new term, Trump moved rapidly and methodically to advance his agenda. He signed hundreds of orders, from increasing border security to limiting birthright citizenship. He also cancelled 78 directives issued by Biden, including those relating to climate change and diversity and inclusion.

But then Trump said he’d bring grocery prices down. Now, he says it’s too hard. He said he’d cut energy bills in half within one year, but he wasn’t aware that oil prices are set globally, not by a narcissistic president. He said he’d end the Russian invasion of Ukraine within 24 hours of being in office. Now, he’s saying the war is, “much more complicated.”

And will Trump raise the tariff, a word which he redundantly calls “the most beautiful word in the entire dictionary of words”? Whether he’s bullshitting or posturing, the only constant for the next four years will be one of “certain uncertainty.”

Working the Medicine Wheel

January 30, 2025

I have long been fascinated by the Medicine Wheel. Originally called “stone circles”, some are as old as the pyramids of Egypt. They represent a very complex cosmology developed by the Plains indigenous people, and together with underlying commonalities, they are interpreted uniquely by each indigenous culture. I knew some of the Medicine Wheel’s most basic interpretation in an intellectual way, having been introduced to it by Mark Wedge, a Carcross-Tagish-Tlingit leader, friend and colleague. It was not until my first visit to a living, breathing Medicine Wheel way up high in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, where I experienced a physical immersion in something so much bigger than I could imagine, that I came to give it the deep respect it deserves. It was there, standing on what felt like the top of the world, in the midst of very ancient stone configurations 2 hectares in size, that took several hundred years to put in place, that I felt pure awe and a oneness with the entire cosmos, a belonging. And a wondrous sense of the living energy of creation, the mystery that is bigger than all of us.

Over the years, as I had the privilege of exploring dispute resolution processes and teaching mediation within many indigenous communities across Canada, from the Mi’kmaq in PEI (Epekwitk) to Lake Babine First Nation at Burns Lake, I would often (humbly) introduce the Medicine Wheel as a way of working with the tensions within us, as a kind of rebalancing tool, give recognition and appreciation of where it came from, and ask for those with an understanding of its meanings to share them with the class. Invariably, people would come forward and offer their insights into the Wheel, and rich discussions would follow. I learned a lot about the Wheel from those experiences, and each community’s interpretations enlarged my sense of the richness of this cosmology.

Considering that many believe the Wheel to be a circle of awareness of the individual self, I began to use it as a kind of touchstone for my own well-being. Radically simplifying it to an expression of 4 basic aspects of our being – the mental (North), physical (West), emotional (South) and spiritual (East) – I would place those in a circle on a piece of paper. Then I would explore the attention I was giving on a regular basis to each of those aspects, by noting under each section what I was doing to feed those various aspects. Where was I most immersed? What parts of my being was I neglecting? Where did I need to give more focus? How was I working with the tensions of a busy family life, career, friends, service to others? What activities fed more than one aspect of my being, and how could I integrate those into my daily routine? My goal was to increase my sense of well-being, because if we have well-being, we can help support others and our world. I called this practice “Working the Medicine Wheel”.

It became such a valuable practice for me that I offered it as a reflective exercise to many adult learners across many different disciplines, over the course of many years.

As for myself, I would often find that I was doing just fine feeding the mental part of my being – reading a lot, learning a lot, challenging myself regularly on that level – and perhaps I was getting lots of exercise, so the physical aspect was fine as well. But what about the emotional? Was I listening to that voice inside me that wanted or needed more tenderness? Was I listening to and working with my anger, and letting it be an informant, or was I stuffing it down? How was I feeding my soul? Was I regularly dancing, singing, soaking in a hot bath, walking the beach? And how about the spiritual – what was I doing in that realm? Of course, almost anything we do can be part of a spiritual practice, but how conscious was I of this necessary element in my life? It seems to me that we don’t grow spiritually without awareness, intention and surrender. We also often need a trusted guide.

When an activity such as T’ai Chi Ch’uan or walking the beach fed me in all the aspects of my being, I would place it in the centre of the circle. The more items in the centre the better! Now all I needed to do was practice them regularly. No “shoulds”, just action, or in the case of those “too busy” to ground themselves, non-action. A dearth of entries under any one aspect became an inescapable message that I was ignoring very important internal parts that need attention. A valuable reminder, and I could then recalibrate as needed.

During the last season of 2024, as wars and violence seemed never-ending, I decided I really needed to “Work the Wheel” every day rather than every few months. I’ve been doing that since early fall, not writing anything down, just engaging in a mental touching of the four bases each day and living accordingly. And I have found it to be very grounding, so I offer it to you dear reader. As Carl Jung so wisely said: “Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes”.

Green Wizardries: Imbolc

January 30, 2025

Imbolc is the festival of the first stirrings of Spring and it falls on Saturday the first of February. This is a national holiday in Ireland which was appropriate as Ireland was very dependant on her sheep for meat and wool. Now, sadly, the Irish have few wool mills that mill real sheep’s wool. It is easier for them to mill acrylic yarn which is practically useless at keeping anyone warm. How the mighty have fallen… I believe it is sometimes less expensive to buy New Zealand lamb in Ireland than local.

The name Imbolc means ewe’s milk as lambs used to be born in the fields in Ireland around the beginning of February. Lambing was a very important event in the agricultural year. Lambs were the very first new life to come in the spring and the people used to depend upon their sheep as they are now dependant on their work-from-home on the computer gigs.

I expect you know the very beautiful Ukrainian Carol of the Bells. It is a New Years carol and has some beautiful lyrics. The carol is about a swallow who flies from afar and announces the miraculous birth of the lambs. “Come here, oh come. Master its time. In the sheepfold, wonders to find. Your lovely sheep have given birth to little lambs of great worth.”

Those lines encapsulate my feelings every time I go into the sheepfold and find beautiful little fluffy lambs toddling about where before there had only been a fat, grumpy ewe. The way lambs hit the ground and learn to walk, explore and drink milk in moments always seems miraculous to even the most hardened farmer.

I will let you in on a secret, farmers are careful to give an image of not being sentimental but even the toughest of them usually has a heart of mush. I remember a shepherd telling me her animals were not pets and that she ran her flock to be an economic benefit. I asked her why she was keeping a post-menopausal goat?

Then there was the farmer who went out to give medicine to a sick calf in the middle of a cold spring night. Finding the calf , who I believe was dressed in his woolen Stanfields shirt, unwilling to let him go, he curled up around the calf to keep it warm and fell asleep out there.

Another farmer friend kept a dry cow for five years. A dry cow means one who will not get pregnant. I asked him what he was thinking as feeding a cow that does not produce makes it a very expensive pet. He told me, “I am trying to save my marriage.” His wife loved that cow. That is what farmers are really like.

Keeping animals is a wonderful experience and I feel very sorry for people who cannot have at least a few of their own hens. I remember a lovely woman who came to visit our farm. Her friend took her into the hen house and made her reach in under a large golden hen and extract fresh warm egg. The woman held the egg in her hand and cried. I think it was the pent up longing for a real life that hit her.

If you do not have lambs to look forward to this year, I hope that at least you have a garden. Imbolc is a great day to start some seeds. It is time to start the seeds of onions, leeks, celery, celeriac and this year, I will be starting some peppers early as the season here is really too short for peppers. Swiss chard, basil and parsley can all be started early indoors.

A lot of flowers should also be started now. Alyssum which is so wonderful for the bees, delphiniums to delight the eye and heart, echinacea, nicotiana which perfumes the night, rudbeckia and Blanket flowers, sweet peas of which you can never have too many, cosmos daisies and sunflowers the same.

Imbolc is a Festival of light returning to the Earth. The Goddess Bridget, now, also, Saint Bridget of Kildare, arrives in the world on the beams of sunshine and spreads her green cloak across the land. Imbolc is the right time to go out and harvest sedges to fashion Saint Bridge’s crosses which are an ancient sun symbol of protection. Make a few of these crosses and place one by the hearth or in the kitchen if you are a poor person and have no fireplace. I make a Bridget doll of sedges and dress her in an apron and cape. Last year’s doll and crosses are given to the flames with our gratitude. Each stable and hen house gets its own cross.

As far as the feast for this holy day, it is traditionally based on dairy products and honey both of which are sacred to Bridget. An easy way to celebrate the feast is to invite some guests to a pancake breakfast with the circular golden pancakes representing the returning sun and some butter and honey to slather on the cakes. I wish everyone who chooses to celebrate this lovely holy day, a joyous celebration.