Biocentrism

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Nov 292010

The uninformed view of the Universe is the anthropocentric view of Humanity as the apex of Creation.  The myth that the human species represents a final vision of some ultimate ideal is central to the rape-the-Earth-for-profit mentality that creates everyday atrocities like mountaintop removal, animal slaughterhouses, and elective caesarean sections.  Intelligent humans find inspiration and renewal when in harmony with nature.  The post-industrial travel system of ten-lane highways and airbuses is moving a lot of people to nowhere.  Unfortunately, there isn’t enough concrete and cages to satisfy some people’s need for resource-domination! Our species needs to create a means of mandated social responsibility born from the positive power of community, not enforced externally by fines and media and government-created fear.

Image from: http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/presence_gaia.html

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A Declaration of Truth about Truth

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Oct 202010

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true. CARL SAGAN

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Status Updates from beyond The Edge

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Jun 162010

“The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”  - Hunter S. Thompson

The most well-received words I've ever strung together

Do I need to expend this precious bandwidth to badmouth the BP Deepwater Horizon atrocity some more?  Do I need to worry about technological advancement speeding past the painstaking pace of institutional gridlock?  Do I need to speak out about American war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and all over the world?

Yes…unfortunately I do.  If enough of us were speaking out than perhaps I could retire to nights of apathy like so many of my countrymen.   Perhaps if enough of us cared to take the lead,  upgrade to solar, invest in meaningful education,  and ‘be the change’ rather than just sharing articles on Facebook about how everything is the same, and the same sucks, we’d all be in a better place.  The status quo of my country is choking the Earth, stripping citizens of their rights, and increasing militarism and hegemony around the world.  And I refuse to take part.  I don’t know how to not take part yet, but I know what I see on a daily basis is failure from the institutions so many still naively trust.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote,

Violence can only be maintained by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.

Does this blog need to detail the 30,000-65,000 barrels of lies pouring from the mouths of British Petroleum and the White House on a daily basis?  Does THE BRAKE LIGHTS TOLL-FREE HELPLINE need to clarify its position on this physical manifestation of greed?  There aren’t enough cages or concrete for some people!  The world being built around the rest of us is designed for obedience to a monolithic system that doesn’t pause to reflect when surging forward.  ”We’re not looking back,” our President says.  ”We’re moving forward!”

Mountaintop removal, regional ecocides like the one in the Gulf of Mexico, and industrial farming using Nazi-designed slaughterhouses are some immediate images that come to mind when considering the avarice of consumption.

I found this book by Bill Knott in South Carolina some years ago.  The following lines always wowed me:

To look at things in a new slant is fine
But it’s more fun
To jump into the slant and disappear forever

When you’ve jumped off the edge and climbed back up from the slant, the only remaining abyss seems to be the gulf between what the People want and what the Powers That Be are willing to cede.  If you’re like me, waiting on the other side of the rainbow for a golden tomorrow, I have a beer in the fridge for while we wait.
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Grandpa's Buried in the Rocks

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Apr 222010

Grandpa died last week and now he’s buried in the rocks
But everybody still talks about how badly they were shocked
But me, I expected it to happen, I knew he’d lost control
When he built a fire on Main Street and shot it full of holes

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again – Bob Dylan

Listening to Blonde on Blonde on Peaked Mountain Road the other day, I could almost feel the American utopia of some better yesteryear resonate deep within a core I didn’t even know I had.  Leaves are growing.  The green canopy of the forest is reemerging.  Growth is abundant.

Yet still, crazy ways are evident in the world-at-large.  The things we hate about ourselves seem to time and time again manifest themselves in corporate misconduct, elected liars yelling “FIRE!” in a bellicose political puppet theater, needy Facebook messages pleading with strangers to attend events far away.  You can make your own list.

FB events

An electronic manifestation of the Void

Albert Einstein has that famous quote about insane people doing the same things over again and again and expecting different results. Humanity needs to begin exploring new avenues to the future.  Boulevards.  12-lane expressways of creativity and community rather than the congestion leading to nowhere.

Grandpa’s buried in the rocks.  The old man lived in a different day, using different ways.  The old ways won’t work anymore.  Intentional living is what some call it.  Deliberate living.  It’s OK to realize that you were wasting time, breathing from your mouth, pronouncing banal improperly.  That’s growth.  Despite Earth’s overabundance, too many live in misery.  Until creative solutions are put into practice, nothing will change.  The first change starts with yourself.  Are you contributing to a better world?  I hope so.  We only have one Mother. Happy Earth Day.

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The Brake Lights Revisit the Fire - March 1st, 2010

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Apr 082010

I used to play The Fire every Monday night with all kinds of great musicians.  Here’s a video of me performing two of my old songs when I revisited my friends recently – A Declaration of Truth and All My Letters.

The guitar is a little out of tune and so’s my voice, but I seldom perform live these days. Thanks to Physical Illusion for posting this!

[youtube] y639_KMXD0Q [/youtube]

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The Tan Satchel

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Feb 172010
drinking

There's a little bit of poetry in it, and lots of blood.

No science in politics and no art to war.  No instructions for life or time for truth in the countdown to extinction. Not enough whiskey to shoulder the coldness of humanity. Nor enough coldness to freeze the indifferent toxins of exploitation. What began as the emperor’s new clothes has morphed into the world’s biggest nudist colony.

Because the world is aflame and everyone is lying for money, I take to my Walkman and a handle of bourbon. We’re all pushing each other around until it comes time to ask for a helping hand.  The lucky should be thankful to find loyalty. Amos says, if the market is guided by an invisible hand, that hand is surely attached to an invisible douchebag.

Mountainside bromides. Background of total black night.  Drinking without thinking about the amount of cans filling these construction bags. Truth is, I need more than 5 minutes between jobs to write; I need a patron, some coin, some advantage.  Something. And yet something in a David Bowie melody could come forth and grip me; alcohol could warm me, Aladdin Sane would try to warn me, but I’d ignore the narrative for just a few minutes of feeling.

I once had a tan satchel and within it, the means to nourish myself: water, granola, journal, camera, bandanna.  A plain tin flask filled with whiskey or brandy. Chug chug chug, pick up my stuff, keep moving.  Northern Liberties. There were homeless people everywhere and I knew all of their names. I had invented them myself on the bus headed into New Jersey.

You can hear the consanguinity of life through a seashell or the heartbeat of an alpaca, but you can’t ignore the ongoing history of competition among all things fighting merely to exist.  There’s a little bit of poetry in it, and lots of blood. Somewhere in the combustion we impose our love and hate onto unassuming things. We impose morality where we discern cruelty, seeking an otherwise unattainable divinity through what we call ‘compassion’. But in the end, the War rages forward, silently minding the eyes of the dreaming saints, our drunken eventides, these sleepy eyes, weeping towards eternity, ever-aglow for tomorrow with glorious visions of love and epiphany.
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