I should write two separate posts as what I want to write about today are unrelated, but as I don't always get here when I want to (or should!) I'll combine the two.

First of all, Edgar.  He continues to thrive.  He has supermodel legs.  They go on forever and are comically topped with this scruffy pin feathered little (in comparison) body.  There are photos of baby crows in Pinterest; all black and fluffy in duck-like down.  He's nothing like that.  He has adult feathers, most of them still encased in keratin somewhere along the shaft.  His eye is pale blue and as he grows and grows stronger, he is more responsive. 

Two days ago I was present when he had a wing flap.  It was then I noticed one wing is noticeably shorter than the other.  Not only shorter but some of the flight feathers are partially turned outward rather than lying flat against his body.  Don't know whether this will affect his ability to fly or not.  Don't know whether it was the reason he was screaming in the long grass.  For such a vocal baby there wasn't a crow in sight - and we have many local crows.  Was he kicked from the nest because he was imperfect?  Nature is not sentimental.  Staying alive is too hard.  Anything that is compromised from birth is ejected/rejected without moral reflection. 

There was a reason he was found by us.  He put everything he had into that metronomic squawking and there was very little left to live upon when he was found which is why he was so weak and ill to begin with.  But I thought Rupert (the rainbow lorikeet) and Lionel (the galah) were fostered by me for a reason too.  I thought they would live - and they did until they were released and then, in a longer or shorter time, they were killed.  No use pondering why (he was found) or if (he can fly), best just do my best for him and see what happens.  In the meantime he makes me smile. 


The other thing I want to cover isn't nearly as jolly.  Much of Tasmania has been on fire.  World Heritage areas on the west coast have burnt to a crisp.  Thousand year old pencil pines gone forever. An interviewed scientist (just tried to find the article and can't) said it was a sign of 'system collapse'.  Another article (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-29/glikson-the-dilemma-of-a-climate-scientist/7123246 ) states that up to a third of climate change scientists believe the situation is far worse than what is fed to the public and that if we don't stop using fossil fuels now we are doomed.

This kept me awake most of the night.  Not because I'm doomed.  I'm 60.  I'll probably eke out another few decades before the planet becomes unlivable (or perhaps, in an effort to save the planet, everyone over 60 will be euthanized).  What kept me staring into the darkness was the plight of all those that don't have a voice.  From the unborn to all the creatures; land, sea and air, which will die through no fault of their own.  It breaks my heart.  If we want to destroy one another, so be it, but must we drag everything else down with us?

So it started me thinking.  Despite the human capacity for self-sacrific, despite our intelligence, our urge to beauty, our creativity, spirituality, generosity - we are a species seemingly doomed to failure.  In the scheme of things, meaning the Infinite Universe, it's not a big deal.  Other beings no doubt have come into existence, shone for a while and dimmed into oblivion for various reasons.  Inborn hubris leads me to think humans are rather special.  We have the ability to ponder, to reflect, to learn  and to know joy.  It would be lovely if those attributes were the ones that carried the day.  For us and every other living thing.  Unfortunately it seems greed, hubris, selfishness, fear and short-sightedness carry the day.  And the earth.

On the other hand, if it's only a dream of Maya, we'll all wake up and shake our heads at the strangeness and overriding sadness of the dream.  I wonder which reality is true.

The Love of Noise

We love noise and hate silence. That's what Prem Rawat said during one of his talks, along with loving war and hating peace. And it's so obviously true. We have what we love. We love upheaval not serenity, we love living on the edge, dicing with death, frenetic activity, and above all else, the false security of money. We do anything for money. We shit in our nest for money. We wallow in it, we eat it and smell it and clothe ourselves in it, all for money. If we can't have the money we'll support and admire others who do. How else would we allow the obscenities of Big Business to continue other than that they have the MoneyGiven, not GodGiven, right to do so.

Sometimes I get caught up in the blame game, the fear and anger and resentment. I have to turn it off. Which brings me back to the first sentence; loving noise and hating silence. In silence there is peace. The noise is reading Care2Causes and all the wrongs done in the world. The noise is signing petitions and wringing my hands. The noise is the radio, the television as well as the computer. The noise is all distraction and playing the Maya game. I can make my pulse race by thinking of the evils of the world. Isn't this why we choose this game of life? To pretend we are mortal and vulnerable and less than perfect so that we can scare ourselves silly? Why are horror movies and thrillers perennially popular? We love being frightened. Why do we ride rollercoasters and jump from planes? If that's all it is, just an illusion we create to make scaring ourselves real there's no reason to get upset. Is there?

Perhaps not but why trash the most exquisite set, the most perfect, complicated and wondrous life *movie* location to test the theory? Couldn't we find other ways to get an adrenaline rush other than pursuing war, pestilence and environmental destruction?

It's a mystery. I don't know the answer. I have to live as though it's real. Try and leave a small carbon footprint, sign those petitions, do the things I can but also, for the sake of my sanity, I have to turn it all off and sit in silence. My silence isn't very silent. My tiny little mind is brimming with slogans, commercials, snippets of songs, images, internal conversations, memories, remorse, plans, have to lists, details and physical sensations. It isn't very quiet in my mind. But I go there anyway. Sometimes the consciousness streams dwindle to one or two or three strands instead of a dozen. Even that is a relief. Because, finally, all that Noise is a Distraction from what Is. The noise is all about what Is Not.

Dreamed a dream straight from prime time television. Vince, no better name, held fifty people including myself, hostage at gun point. I knew Vince. We were driving in the parking lot of a shopping centre. Previous events contributed to the hotage taking but I don't remember them now. What I do remember is driving a car in which we were picking up people who were trying to get away from him only we didn't know it was Vince at the time. So, he was rescued as well. Richard was in another car behind ours. We ended up in a department store. Vince was distraught. We were frightened. Then I asked him why he hadn't sought help for his problems? Didn't he have anyone to talk to? Wasn't there someone somewhere in a position to help him? He pointed the gun straight at me but I kept talking (so cliched a screenplay I am almost embarrassed to record it. Couldn't my dreaming self come up with something more original?). Eventually he dashed down a long hallway. I tried to slam and lock the door behind him but it kept bouncing open. So we all dashed out the door on the opposite side of the building, ran down the mall screaming, Man! Gun! Hostages! Police! That's all I remember.

What is it with numbers? Especially number 11 and 22, the numbers I've always thought of as *my* magical numbers. There was even a time many years ago when I thought of changing my name so that it would add up to 11 or 22. I didn't. That I thought seriously of doing so and went through all the permutations and variations to find something similar speaks of how seriously I took numerology. I still take note of dates equalling 11 or 22, license plates and clocks. It's the clocks that speak the most. Almost every day and every night I wake up at a time that equals 11 or 22. This morning, 5:33, last night when I had to get up to go to the loo, 12:08. I realise that numbers may appear to appear more regularly because I take note of them. I would notice a 9:49 more than I would a 9:50 but that can't be said for those times when I open my eyes and the first thing seen is an eleven or twenty-two. It's still synchronicity playing a part in my life.

I miss those days when Everything Spoke to Me. I studied Wicca and Tarot and Numerology and Crystals and read read read, everything from Joseph Campbell to Aleister Crowley. I was firmly convinced of the efficacy of magic and sometimes saw through the Veil of Maya. Now I am older and pragmatic and have lowered the veil of habit and illusion between what appears to be reality and reality itself. Of course I smoked alot of dope back then, not that smoking dope demeans the truth of what I knew. On the contrary I suspect an altered state can serve as an introduction to an different but not necessarily false, reality. We put too much store in facts; in what we can count, see, touch, hear, smell or taste. Although seeing and counting what we've seen appear to have become our primary senses. At any rate, smoking marijuana showed me that there was more to what was there then I had known. Of course I fell into the trap of smoking dope just to smoke dope. Like so many others. But mind altering substances have been used for aeons to explore behind the Veil. The difference is they were used as an adjunct to religious practices while western society just wants to get stoned.

So now I'm sober (save for red wine), don't read Tarot or Crowley any more. I haven't given the books away, I occasionally get the Tarot deck out to admire the art work (Karma Tarot by Birgit Boline Erfurt), the crystals catch the light in the kitchen window and the clocks remind me that there's more life than can be found in any philosophy. If I could read Tarot for myself I probably would. I could read for other people and was sometimes uncannily accurate (predicting a pregnancy and illness for two friends, the first had no intention or desire to get pregnant but did anyway, the second had no idea anything was wrong with her). So that was simultaneously satisfying and a little scary. But read for myself? I couldn't do it. I read but nothing I read made any sense or came true.

While I'm writing this, rather than do a reading for myself I am trying one of those free online Tarot spots. This is what I got: The Lovers for how I feel about myself now. At least I know I'm ultimately on my side. Death, for what I most want at the moment (cataclysmic change). The Tower represents my fears, my world falling apart (the quarry and having to move), Temperance for what I've got going for me, a "way of handling difficult circumstances with calm confidence." The Hanged man for what is going against me, being hung up while others (the lawyers and the Courts) decide my future, and for my personal card, The Fool...nothing more need be said.