Freezing rain

LCH took DCH, JAH, & NJH to SS & church. I listened to HJO on the radio; he had a fine sermon on John.

Drank water copiously.

The sensual world is a phenomena apprehended imperfectly through our senses, as it suffuses through our entire being. Or is it received perfectly? As energy is characterized by radiant movement (from a source, from a concentration, to a sink), we are suffused with the radiant energy of the world that we are immersed in. We receive, and as a localized system of concentrated energy, we also radiate. In this two-way circulation of energy, we are constantly re-connecting with the larger world around us: inhaling energized particles that arrive in our immediate vicinity; drinking a certain fundamental energy source that we have named water; consuming other quantities of energy from the wider system around us. Reaching with hand, striving with foot to promote necessary and sufficient consumption for the maintenance of body and more than simple survival. We expend our life-energies in organizing the world around us, and for that, we eventually die. Before that instance of transformation, time is spent in seeking to realize procreative potentials so that life will continue in its unbroken line from primordial past to questionable future. And when that time is done, body implodes, trading order for disorder, until we become the radiant heat of interstellar plasma.

If the doors of perception were cleansed,
everything would appear to man as it is — infinite.
For man has closed himself up ’til he sees things
through narrow chinks of his cavern.
– William Blake

Changing the course of nature, a series of actions, grew out of a fundamental principle that the embodied and living Self (as organism) alters the existing flows of the ambient natural system — the system which the Self is (merely) the energized extension of. If one envisions life itself as being a negentropic phenomena occurring as part of a field of energy without known limit, then it makes some recursive sense that a life-form would seek to extend the alteration of the flows that are moving around it, through it. Predation is a form of this, eating, consuming; sensing even could be construed to be an alteration (as Quantum) confirms — that the observer changes that which is observed. Alteration, fluctuation, change occurs at all scales.

One easily accessible phenomena that presents the idea of energy flow with a certain universal precision and intuitive simplicity is water. Fluid flow surrounds the body in water vapors, airs, sprays, and floods, while we also consume this flow directly, finding necessary sustenance for the body-system. Although the internal system is, topologically, simply an extension of the surface area of the external skin — both skin and gut are sensitive interfaces with submerging energized flows — with liquid energy flows everywhere.

Life speeding up entropy …

(the tool — axe, hand, mortar&pestle, hammer, rock, saw, shovel, rope (or use ‘natural tool))

“non-destructive” ?? (impossible not to change), but constructive/destructive don’t really apply

chopping down the dead birch tree in the Catskills (@ Bill’s place)
sawing a tree for fire wood
breaking off lower (dead) branches of all trees in an area
pushing down dead timberrrrrrrr(!)
adjusting the flow of water in a creek
trundling rocks (rolling with gravity)
throwing/skipping rocks into/across water bodies (skipper)

tying trees together (rock to tree)

watching anything

digging a hole

the body (hand on things, stepping on ground, in water, etc.)

Video — (finding a rock, digging it out, moving it, digging a hole to get dirt to fill the first, and replacing the rock in the second hole and covering it up.) (crushing a handful of leaves (mortar and pestle))

Changing the Course (of History/of Nature)

This series of performances takes place in isolated areas in the American West where the artist encounters moving water. Water in the West is a fundamental issue. Watch this space for evidences of change:

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or go here…

“If the profession of an engineer were not based upon exact science,” he said, “I might tremble for the result, in view of the immensely of the interests dependent on my success. But every atom that moves onward in the river, from the moment it leaves its home among the crystal springs or mountain snows, throughout the fifteen hundred leagues of its devious pathway, until it is finally lost in the vast waters of the Gulf, is controlled by laws as fixed and certain as those which direct the majestic march of the heavenly spheres. Every phenomenon and apparent eccentricity of the river — its scouring and depositing action, its caving banks, the formation of the bars at its mouth, the effect of the waves and tides of the sea upon its currents and deposits — is controlled by law as immutable as the Creator, and the engineer need only to be insured that he does not ignore the existence of any of these laws, to feel positively certain of the results he aims at.” James B. Eads, engineer, quoted in “Atchafalaya” by John McPhee

versus

“One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver — not aloud but to himself — that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, ‘Go here,’ or ‘Go there,’ and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at. But a discreet man will not put these things into spoken words; for the West Point engineers have not their superiors anywhere; they know all that can be known of their abstruse science; and so, since they conceive that they can fetter and handcuff that river and boss him, it is but wisdom for the unscientific man to keep still, lie low, and wait till they do it. Captain Eads, with his jetties, has done a work at the mouth of the Mississippi which seemed clearly impossible; so we do not feel full confidence now to prophesy against like impossibilities. Otherwise one would pipe out and say the Commission might as well bully the comets in their courses and undertake to make them behave, as try to bully the Mississippi into right and reasonable conduct.” — Mark Twain in “Life on the Mississippi” quoted in “Atchafalaya” by John McPhee

from The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya — John McPhee, 23 February 1987 in The New Yorker.

and this from Bill Gammage in a precursor of his recent book “The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia” (Allen & Unwin, 2011)

I suggest that people turned to crops, herds and stores to protect them from other people. The reason farmers stepped onto the road to civilisation was military.

Aborigines ensured that usually they had plenty of food by controlling their population and by maximizing their resources. But their truly great achievement lay in how they protected their resources — not by military force, but by religious sanction. Even under extreme duress Aborigines rarely took food that was not theirs. That may have been so in early Europe and elsewhere too — most societies attempt to sanctify property. If so, it broke down. Farmers were led to protect their food, thus lost the predictability and security that widely dispersed resources gave hunter-gatherers, and thus had to work hard and make hard work a virtue. Work, sedentism and storing generate individual and collective strivings for surplus, for wealth. That is the road Europeans took, and Aborigines avoided. In August 1770 James Cook could not have known whether Aborigines were ‘far more happier’ than Europeans, but he was right to see that they were content in ‘all the necessarys of Life’, which we Europeans, ever restless for more, can never be. — Bill Gammage, 2005

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It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. — Robert Kennedy

From his University of Cape Town, South Africa N.U.S.A.S. “Day of Affirmation” speech. Looks to be an interesting film.

500 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger-mile flying
250 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger-mile driving

These are very approximate/average numbers and are affected by the type of plane/vehicle and its relative efficiency.

We are changing the course of nature. Or, more precisely, without life on this planet, nature would be different. We are life in this place. Or we are life, as life is a perturbation of basal flows. An always-inchoate flow, but never completely still. This is all we are, a way for the cosmos to increase entropy, perhaps, as some believe, the best way for the cosmos to increase entropy, to wind down, into a cold and silent nothing.

But it’s all in the language, isn’t it? And even the language needs to get shucked, ripped from its stalk, tossed away to reveal and remind of the truth that the word is not the phenomena that it de-scribes …

Back to:

All Roads Lead To Rome.

as principle.

The questions are, What is Rome, and What is a Road?

et cetera

Nine km. in three days, not bad — it’s actually getting easy — I need to do more sprinting and drills, but just moving faster is best, feeling the greater resistance of the water and consequent speed. That and watching the sky and listening to the birds on the walk from my office to the pool. The sky was exceptionally dark and clear last night, it got down to maybe 40F, pretty cool. Totally dreaming about being in the bush, as they say here, in the back-country, the wilds, the wilderness. To watch the stars sink right to the black edge of the world. Squatting, eyes tearing in the chill condensate of mid-night. The Southern Cross is practically at Zenith now which seems strange, but at a similar latitude as in the north in winter, Polaris also reaches quite close to Zenith. Pity no chance of catching a good sky on this tour. Now too many folks to visit with before possible departure, too many things to do, including whether not to leave again.

To every form of being is assigned
An active principle:—howe’er removed
From sense and observation, it subsists
In all things, in all natures: in the stars
Of azure Heaven, the unenduring clouds,
In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone
That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,
The moving waters and the invisible air.
Whate’er exists hath properties that spread
Beyond itself, communicating good,
A simple blessing, or with evil mixed:
Spirit that knows no insulated spot,
No chasm, no solitude; from link to link
It circulates, the soul of all the worlds.
– Wordsworth. Excursion. Book VI, 1-15.

readying for a perambulation around the cosmos at any moment. readying for the moment of full-on change. readying for now.

Gave JFN my comments in longhand on his program. Left for Princeton at 3 PM after a physical exam at the MIT clinic and 2-1/2 hours wasted while I waited for some repair on the car. Had to stop twice for a new thermostat & hoses, finally arrived in Princeton at 1030 PM after driving most of the way in a hard rainstorm.

Clear – Rain PM

Up at 0610 to get to the office early, but didn’t get there until after 0800. I have an appointment at the MIT Clinic at 1130 for a physical exam.

After the exam, I had to wait until 2:45 for the car to be tuned and the breather filter cleaned. The engine overheated, and I put in both hoses and a new thermo. It still ran hot until more water was put in.

Arrived at CHH’s at 1030 PM after driving in the rain all the way. It was good to see Howard & Winifred.

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To write something compelling, in a sustained long form or even a short note, requires the writer to step outside normative social existence. Writing, as with any archival process, makes exception of lived-life, at the very same moment that the writer steps out of that lived moment. It is the same process as with photography except that the photographic stepping-out is typically of shorter, more fragmentary duration. Long term archiving of life — text, images — is a debilitating condition which, while projecting fragments of a life forward into other lives, at the same time, spends more quickly the life that is immediately available. The writer and image-maker begin to live a conditioned life, as actively passive consumers of staged tableau — or so they imagine. They condition themselves to see life as only a sequence of these discrete tableau, while the constancy of life in between, in its fullness, is ignored.

A low pressure system east of Tasmania brings rain squalls that flood the street out front this morning, and a deep bend in the gutter on the back roof is shooting water right down the side of the house onto the electric water heater. hmmm. doesn’t look good.

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Again, back to voice. Given the process of coalescing. In order to bind threads of disparate disciplines, different socio-cultural systems, and idiosyncratic paths, a voice which allows some transcendence of localized protocols of communication is necessary. That voice must needs to be poetic in a fundamental sense. It need not have a particular density or timbre, but it does need to be located somewhere within and without any and all those disciplinary spaces.

Is a poetic voice immediate or is it cumulative? It is supposed that the smallest increment of uttered language, the phoneme can hardly be a poetic vocalization. So, maybe language is generally cumulative, accretionary, in that geologic sense of layered erosional deposition, reification, burial, uplift, and consequent re-erosion. In this instance, it is then possible to find a shiny-smooth cobble of, say, cloudy quartz. Well-balanced, raising expectations of imminent knowledge of something when in the hand, pleasing to the eye. What are its origins since arising from the heart of stars: silicon, oxygen. At one point following the gravitational accretion of the planet, the silicon was oxidized by some environment rich in oxygen. Silicon dioxide. Under pressure, super-heated, igneous differentiation allowed masses of these molecules to collect and form crystalline agglomerations within a cooling batholith. Uplift and erosion brings that raw mass to the surface where it is shattered slowly, washed by waters, and dragged downwards by gravity. The cobble is smoothed with many others, and buried with all those, pressure cementing them all again into a single mass, a conglomerate. Another uplift and erosional cycle breaks the conglomerate cement and releases this smooth stone into a creek bed, into a river, where it is further polished. Holding it in the palm, what is its voice? What does it say? How does it speak to its temporary holder? What does it say other that the mute message of gravity to be let down, to be given back to the earth? If the holder knows, they might read signs in the surface, in the raw presence of the thing-ness of the cobble. The signs point to histories and pathways. The reader has to understand the basic elements of those signs in order to create their own understanding as to the origin of the object. But of its pure presence, nothing need be known, but only the immediate experience of the Self in juxtaposition with this thing. Naming all this is the root of language.

As the poetic, the transformed erosional product of language, the cobble might be heaved through the wall of the proverbial glass house of culture, period. Howl.

Upon the chaotic flux of waters, flying over the deep, tossed in all directions by erratic waves of fluid movement. No reason to expect anything other than transformative change when exposed to such flow:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell

– Shakespeare, The Tempest

The argument may be made that a fence, a window, an article of clothing, a wall are — one-and-the-same — as deflectors of the extant natural flow of energies out there. They represent a set of energy deflectors imposed by humans on their environs.

The other issue, tied to this is the production of waste (unusable) heat energy which impinges on a locality after the use of high energy sources which are subsequently rendered into usable and unusable forms of energy with varying efficiency. The primary source of this unusable energy is in the actual production and maintenance of the energy deflector systems: making and installing a fence, fabricating a window (glass being an extremely energy-intensive manufacturing process), building a wall, a building, a dam.

So: two major mechanisms and the second is responsible for the construction of the first. It takes an energy (depletion) to create these barriers which subsequently carry and direct energy flows as prescribed by their particular socially-mandated configurations.

[This all goes back to the hypothesis about virtuality -- where virtuality is (merely) the presence of a situation of attenuation of 'natural' flows (and here, tool-making is a key component). The question of what is 'natural' may be approached from a couple way, but more on that elsewhere.]

And all the way, Coyote laughs.

The day spent in leisurely absorbing the energy of place. The campground is built under the only trees for miles, (eucalyptus, from Australia!) so there is raptor and other bird activity all the time. The owls at night contribute a fantastic dialogue to the silence.

A short hike west to some low hills, down a wash, ends up, with the recent extreme rains, at a cattle pond full to overflowing. As per usual, I do not do a ‘before’ image (note to self — do a before image next time!). The downstream side of the small embankment dam has been undercut to within a meter of the main body of water which is substantial. With a small stick, I scratch a small line across the top of the dam, gradually increasing its size, using the initial slight flow of water to clear the waste from the cut. After twenty minutes of play, there is a sizable gap in the dam along with a flood of water rushing through, further eroding the dam body. Monkey-wrenching? Nah, this is merely a slight acceleration of what is happening ‘naturally’ — the breaching of the dam will occur eventually unless there is maintenance energy applied into the system. It would have likely occurred with the next substantial rains.

I do take an after image, and then head back to camp circuitously. It is after I see Coyote’s paw-print in the rain-damp soil, walking on a trail, that I cross the wash on which the dam is built. I am surprised that the huge rush of water from the breach is just reaching this spot. It is first a trickle which then ramps up to a full-on rushing creek. Fascinating to see the water fill the bed of the wash, pooling in hollows, flowing over small water-falls. I see immediately this is a perfect audio situation to continue documentation of the ‘changing the course of nature’ or ‘changing the course of history’ project that I have undertaken in the last few years. I lope back to camp, grab the recorder, and race back, downstream, to the wash. The flood is proceeding slow enough that I can run further downstream several times to record the ambient audio and make some images of the process.

Then it’s back to camp for dinner.

Sky-worms bugger the clarity of the atmosphere, attenuation the flux of Light reaching the surface. Obviously this is under a major north-south air-route — the only good thing is that the planes are at 10 km altitude, so the sonic disturbance is minimal. The affect on high-altitude haze, however, is profound. Long vision (at the sky and at the landscape) refocuses eyes through these worn diffracting glass into another focal point. Eyesight goes bad with all the reading and writing. The next year will make all that has gone before (go pale in comparison, argh!) as the PhD takes shape. No life, no sight left.

I have not seen another human the entire day with the exception of a well-armed ranger cruising through the campground. A droll chap, probably 30 or so, from the East Coast, a Federal employee, dislocated.

Around sunset, a car pulls in, first they park in the next slot, but then pull out and park across the campground, 50 meters away. There is a couple, they mill around, looking like they are setting up camp, it’s cold, getting colder, sunset. I’m sleeping on the ground. They turn on a radio playing pop mariachi music. It gets louder and louder as time goes by, getting later and later. They are sitting in the front of the car probably drinking, smoking, whatever. At one point well after 2300 I yell over to TURN IT DOWN. That has no effect. I honk my horn, also to no effect. I contemplate going over, but also realize the odds are that the occupants are armed. I instead pack the car up, fuming, and drive to a side-road further south in the valley and find a spot there. Faugh, why would somebody drive all this way — it’s at least 50 miles from the nearest town — to sit in their car and play loud music? Sorry, I don’t get it. [expletives deleted!]

Later, Orion drags his belt and sword from the sludge of Light pollution that sits to the south: Los Angeles, more than 150 km away or so. To the east, light from Taft and Bakersfield. A strong wind arises late in the night, there are no trees where I have moved to. Uncomfortable night after the luxury last night.

I join the panel Social Energy with Zita Joyce, Caro McCaw, and Sally McIntyre along with a Skype from Eric (Kluitenberg) from late nite NL, half-way around the globe. It’s funny to cross paths with him here, but appropriate in the sense of the networking practice.

There was one point in his presentation that I had a serious disagreement with — when he posited that the remote half of a connection (in this case, a tele-presence ‘wall’ in a working environment), was ‘fantasy’ in the sense that it wasn’t ‘real.’ If I understood this correctly, I would totally disagree. It is rather a situation of sensory attenuation — the ‘presence’ of the remote Other is real, but attenuated (by the communications protocols between here and there). And it is in this attenuation where the loss and alienation from remoteness (and ultimately the frequent dysfunction of online events like ElectroSmog) arises. We didn’t get into it too far as there were other issues to talk about in the panel, but this one really was problematic. When assigning a ‘fantastical’ label to a real techno-social deployment we remove any (human) agency from it and push it into a phenomenal realm where it does not rightly fit. What is implemented is an expression of a human techno-social system — manifestations of this system are never fantasy.

Many good presentations, especially the comments from Mike Poa, the founder of the One River project with the waka on the Whanganui River. It’s hard to hear of yet another river suffering from the typical exploitation/development which ends up wasting the life of the entire watershed and its people. But then the efforts to revive the river culture seem to be pretty successful. The Maori are by no means quitters, and their cultural strength is significant. A couple days ago I spent part of an afternoon talking with a group of Maori women who were reviving/continuing the tradition of weaving baskets, they said that there was a very positive engagement from the young people.

It’s over, so, cleaning up the space and trucking everything back to the Green Bench or the house at the end of the afternoon.

The day closes with another delicious barbie at Don and Ana’s place, with the slow and mild twiLight falling.

Can’t wait to get another dose of NZ!

Workshop day begins: first the waka time on the river. Morning cycle down the river to the Putiki boat ramp, get there a little early, and feel the nerves as to what is possible with the workshop. There have been numerous anticipatory conversations in the last days about what I will be doing. I take a small paper with thought-notes and put it in my life-jacket pocket.

I am fighting with the impression that there is a superfluity of input for the participants — some have not been on a river or so. My dilemma becomes a question of when to jump in and alter the flow of events and protocols which accompany the waka and the enveloping and powerful Maori cultural scenario. It makes no sense to do anything other than participate. Where full participation is a position, an approach to an eventuality of contingent life-flow. I am observing the processes and vibes that are coalescing, seeing if there is a auspicious moment to intervene, but I see none. Back to participating. Enjoying it all. The newness, but also the familiarity and comfort which the Maori protocol applies to that (community-facing) unknown, and The River. (more …)

Today is completely packed and busy: cleaning, organizing, and installing the show at the Greenbench for the gallery opening this evening. The title of the show is BURN and the show is obliquely or directly about hydrocarbons — plastics, production, consumption, distribution. Julian had tracked down a collection of oil samples from an early and now spent New Zealand (oil) field nearby (name?). I am surprised, oil — with the tectonic regime here, the foreshore of a plate boundary subduction zone. Ah, maybe the heat flow is actually lower when considering that because the immediate crust is double thickness with the subducting plate, so there is a lower heat gradient from the mantle. Shallow oil, guess I’d never thought of the genesis of such plays.

I use embodied energy to organize and clean the gallery kitchen for the opening, along with having numerous conversations with folks introduced from Julian’s extensive local network. He asks me if I will talk at the opening sharing some anecdotes about working in the oil business. Completely impromptu, though I had a minute to sit with a piece of paper before and write a five- or six-point list of things to remember to talk about. I am not the best story-teller, especially in such a situation, but folks politely listen to a few minutes of my rambling.

Later in the evening, raucous preparations over wine precede delicious dinner back at the house. Definitely some good cooks around!

The question for me becomes — how to keep track of the dialogues, and the warm humans encountered? Julian mentions there is an artist-residency possibility in town. It would be great to hang here for a time. Somehow, it reminds me distantly of Tornio, in Lapland, half-way ’round the world, literally, in the sense of it being a littoral backwater along a river in a small country, but the community here seems quite activated, and the differences between Finns/Lapps and Kiwis/Maori are complex and significant. Similarities do exist — it would be good to have the time to explore. It looks like there will not be any spare time in these 11 days for much autonomous explorations, although this is okay, as the people immediately surrounding Julian and Sophie’s lives provide a rich environment for encounter. And a site for the exchange of inspiration.

What could better illustrate the instability of protocol-driven social control systems than the phenomenon of a leak? Springing a leak is an irruption through a human-constructed wall (hull) holding back the chaotic flows of the sea. Wikileaks is a reversal of that, where the leak is from the inside of the ship-of-State to the outside. Where inside there are protocol-defined pathways of State-driven communication flow filling a space of partially-stabilized human endeavor. Every so often, one of the nodes of State communication goes rogue, mad, AWOL, counter, and defies the standing protocols by whatever means possible. Opening the mouth and speaking, telling the secrets of State, a yawning vomit of bilge over the sides: merely seasick.

The hull of the ship of State exists across a multi-dimensional space of refined/defined energy flow. Defined energy flow resists change and promotes continuance. Regarding the State, protocol controls individual behavior through internalized patterns of embodied thought. The State seeks any possible way to apply these internal protocols, and is successful if those ways promote the existence of the necessary flow pathways that insure the continuance of the structure of the State. The more rigid the expectations of the State, the more necessary the adherence to prescribed protocols (and vice versa). The State also applies controls to patterns of energy flow external to the body. These two (internal and external) sets of controls are not separate but rather are united in the space of flow to effect more-or-less total control on the participant and the crew of the ship of State. (more …)

Life on Earth is driven by energy. Autotrophs take it from solar radiation and heterotrophs take it from autotrophs. Energy captured slowly by photosynthesis is stored up, and as denser reservoirs of energy have come into being over the course of Earth’s history, heterotrophs that could use more energy evolved to exploit them. Homo sapiens is such a heterotroph; indeed, the ability to use energy extrasomatically (outside the body) enables human beings to use far more energy than any other heterotroph that has ever evolved. The control of fire and the exploitation of fossil fuels have made it possible for Homo sapiens to release, in a short time, vast amounts of energy that accumulated long before the species appeared. — David Price

Perhaps this is a clear-eyed look at where we are in the moment, or perhaps a less-than-optimistic view of the future, or perhaps it is completely blind to the possibilities that catastrophic change will be for the overall good of the planet. Who knows what the future brings? Whatever the case, if thermodynamics has anything to do with it (It’s The Law!), then some of Price’s talking-points have full validity. It’s not a question of optimism or pessimism, but merely the dynamic evolution of this place that we inhabit called Terra and the qualities of all life of which we are merely another expression of. In addition to the small number of other unique characteristics, our species is the only one which causes massive extrasomatic energy (resource) usage at a rate far exceeding the accumulation rate of those same energy sources. On a localized scale, this situation could be faced by any life form, and actually is on a regular basis, the problem with humans is that there is no mobility condition that will mitigate the localized ‘soiling of the nest.’ There’s nowhere else to go.

At this point it is more about numbers than anything else, numbers which are not ultimately knowable: like the quantities of energy reserves available.

Or then there is:

It takes the technical, social, infrastructural, and economic resources of an optimized globalized economy at its peak to extract and use our current energy flows, and even then oil production cannot be maintained. There may indeed be plenty of fossil fuels left in the ground, but following a major systemic collapse, most may remain there as that capacity dies away. — David Korowicz in Energy constraints will collapse global economic recovery

Strangely enough, those who deny all these doomsday scenarios are the same people who, with their stocked arsenals, will be best set to gun for food, water, and whatever Mad Max theater plays itself out on the wide scale of developed-world implosion.

Does any of this matter? Psycho-spiritually, I think not. The flows of energy in the cosmological system will remain the same as they have always been, changeable, changing, yes, and because of a general anisotropy, there are variations in intensity of flows. But we are not separate from all this, and nothing we do will change the trajectory of entropy. eh?

And so, encroaching on the last major procedural hurdle before the doctorate goes to the external examiners (next year sometime). The panel assessment seems to be routine and bureaucratic. Public speaking in compressed time frames is no fun. When there’s always too much to get across in the extremely limited time frame, and the highly institutionalized context allows for negligible true dialogue. In some ways, the process is a deeply laughable (chortle?) imitation of what it claims to be, or what it once perhaps was. That is, learning as a process of open and sustained dialogue between two or more humans. Facing the unknown that each other presents, or both facing the unknown of what is, or what is out there. Contemporary ‘education’ is a thin and watery drool coming from somewhere up above — meagre remains of what’s left of a blasting monsoon of shared life that brings one to a deeply profound awareness of that-which-is. Instead we squelch around in evaporating puddles of shared encounter, wishing for more rain, and complaining about the weather.

Tomorrow, it happens. We shall see. No brolly, no Wellies…

So, over this hurdle, and maybe the final work commences, perhaps finishing earlier than scheduled, or at least that inspiring outcome is a concept on the radar.

Meanwhile, surviving week-to-week, in part through the acupuncture and massage treatments from Heiji Cho and some of the Chinese Traditional Medicine (CTM) students here at UTS. The gall bladder channel is the one being worked — to release rising yang from the liver. hmmm. The treatments work, they seems to diffuse the migraines that do show up and eventually, as is common, with any lock, the migraines will vanish. I am confident of this, and only wish I had come to this conclusion last year, or even earlier as these episodes interrupted life from time to time. The stress of movement came on such a regular basis, but there was no thought to find a source, find a working solution, a cure. It was only the process of gritting the teeth until a dark and quiet room could be found for the duration. Western meds never really worked, they only covered the symptoms at best, and in some cases a single pill cost as much as a full 90-minute acupuncture treatment session.

But choosing to undertake a treatment of what is known as ‘alternative’ medicine was always a difficult stretch. Despite input from trusted others who had benefited. There was the hardship of paying cash from the pocket to the practitioner when cash was never so abundant.

back in the CMAI office a few weeks ago thanks to Meghan — UTS Ultimo, the place hadn’t been touched (not even the white board) since I was here last December. the organization is in deep hibernation or simply decline. such organizational configurations are generally, here as elsewhere, armatures for funding projects.

the sense of departmental decline extends to the plants on the window sill: somebody’s plants, were dead or almost dead. so, begin triage by re-potting the living ones and continue watering them daily. they flourish with the attention.

Understanding this from being aware of my own movements (and instances of compromised balance), and watching locals, I noticed several major differences between their gait and mine. The primary feature of the local walk was that both feet never really left the ground and contact was flat-footed and somewhat stiff-legged. There was a substantial time when the full sole of the shoe was flat on the ice, and it was during that time when forward acceleration was made.

If you try this yourself, you will immediately see that the glutes are not the site of any muscular effort for locomotion as opposed to when accelerating off the big toe and Achilles tendon. Could this be the source of the predominance of flat arses in Iceland?

Aside from the glare-ice technique, there was another endearing and embodied gait by farmers when walking their fields. A thousand years of overgrazing sheep has seriously compromised most of Iceland’s grasslands. As the land was overgrazed, this exposed the underlying volcanic soil directly to powerful aeolian erosion which could strip meters away down to a gravelly bedrock surface in no time. When life again attempts to establish itself on that surface, after sheep are removed from the picture, it first starts as miniscule moss colonies which grow in the shelter of a small cobble or so. The moss begins to capture wind-borne soil which gradually increases the colony size which increases the turbulent capture of airborne sediment. Over a period of decades these moss colonies form a hummocky surface with a relief of perhaps 50 cm (18 inches) and a horizontal frequency of a meter or so. To walk across such a surface is absolutely exhausting unless you conform your body in a particular way. The Icelandic farmers gait consists of the following: hands clasped behind the back, an exaggerated forward hunch of the upper body, and the knees bent dramatically. Leaning forward, and using the bend in the knees to essentially level out the distance between the upper body and the average ground height of the bottom of the hummocks, one takes long strides where the torso never goes up and down, but rather the level changes of the hummocks are compensated by different extensions of the knees. It’s humorous to watch, but is highly effective and a very rapid gait. If one tries ‘normal’ walking, climbing up and down the hummocks, it is slow and absolutely exhausting.

run by Todd and Amy’s place in the ponderosa: a full-on straw-bale home he’s been working on for the last year or so. a monsoon thunder-boomer rips through and drops enough catchment water from the roof to completely flush out the raw granite cistern — a fortuitous inch of rain in a few minutes. the house will be a great place, the straw-bale walls give it an incredible interior ambiance. I’m curious to see the final result … someday!

the yurt raised, a futon installed, some clean-up work left, remediation, a stove for winter, in this glorious location. the month almost gone, and now heading south. coming down from Glade Park, Rock Ridge Lane. and doing the Western Slope: en route Glade Park – Durango and Richard and Holly’s place there, via Ouray and Silverton. classic Colorado drive. hard to leave this place.

and my Self wandering away from everything again, to Oz. this does not seem to be auspicious, ever, for whatever reasons. I do not know what to think of this anymore. the desire to live in Colorado truncated by the inabilities to re-frame the self and the skills possessed in order to work / to live. or is it merely a change of perspective that is necessary? I would suspect the latter as there are more than five million people living in Colorado right now. Most of them manage to live. Given, of course, that 11.2% of them are below the poverty level, that leaves 88.8% that keep at least one nostril above the water line. Of course, I could survive there, without any other degrees or knowledge-bases: it’s all in the (internal) perspective.

whilst the travelog shudders along, firing on less than four cylinders, knocking on too much ethanol, and not going fast enough. (I post this more than six month into the future from the now in the images, damn.)

long cycle ride with Bill first down the Ark which was partly over the bike path at one point. that made for a challenge going back up against the current in a foot or more of fast moving water — the river is definitely at spring flood stage! Then all the way back upstream to the Pueblo Dam which was open and blasting snow-melt downstream. pretty damn hot, but along the river in the shade of the huge cottonwood trees, all is chill. at the end of the ride, I was tuckered, but also impressed with the urban green-space development that Pueblo is undertaking.

A short drive and hike with Karen on West Fourmile Creek to Guffey Falls where we find some teenagers cliff-jumping into the very cold water. We then drive to a development built on the huge granitic batholith exposed below Cripple Creek. Place becomes, as seems usual, the backdrop for ongoing conversations, even the stars from the trampoline in the cold.

An Outward Bound group rafts in, and are lectured to in the Trex seating arranged for “camp fire talks” here in the campground. I find it really bizarre, when there a thousand ‘natural’ places to sit for a dialogue, they make a bee-line to the plastic composite seats. I guess they got lectured on the tamarisk mitigation work around Echo Park, I didn’t ask, as I was too busy prepping for the day. They later went into the woods between the campground and the river and were doing something. Wonder if they saw the carnage I wrought on the tamarisk behind site #7! (more …)