The Diamond Island

The Celtic new year has just gotten underway, and here I am a little dazed at the last year of activity. Never mind all the nuclear meltdowns spewing radiation from afar, east coast earthquakes that feel like a jackhammer wedging of earth, hurricanes of doom missing by a few hundred feet, and rainfall soaking the loch above levels I’ve not seen since I can remember. The external world has been an expression of an inner volcano clearing its throat for an eruption.

Building a UFO can seem a little like a Noah’s Ark project at times like these.

Internally, all my life energies have gone into deep, sweeping currents rushing through the earth. I’ve had to get by on emergency life support and reserve warp only. Right at a time when I’ve been fighting a lot of battles on the home front. Lucerna’s kung fu lessons have basically kept me alive long enough to adapt to the transformational energies going on. The last year has essentially been panic and fear, dialed way up for sustained periods of time. The blinking and beeping lights on the emergency panel have been loud and overwhelming.

Thank goodness for the life support music from UFO girl!

In other news, it ain’t just me. Hek-sistah X is off on a retreat to re-visit places of great meaning to her, Hexe the Incorrigible is recovering from illness, and Alexi is busy fighting for his dream in a new land. The Quest Station is full of notes and doodles galore, all around adventure is ON THE GHOD-DAM AIR.

The garden is in shut down procedure, cats are in snuggle mode, and the honeycomb hideout and killer bees are settling in for the long winter. And it’s going to be a doozy—ran into a wooly bear and it had no orange stripes, which means you better be stocked in the larder and armed with plenty of anti-ice-weasel traps. Ol’ winter wolf has reared up dramatically and her howl is driving away the last of the summer lifeforce. Batten down the hatches and brace for impact at your stations of the cross, icy depth charges ahoy.

I made sure to give out lots of candy to the monsters dressed as humans and the kids dressed as monsters, while I still have candy to sacrifice.

I helped the bees.

The killer bees who came to rock me been wintering over and building strength.  As the spring rains of radioactive doom spill out over the land, they been buzzing slowly into hot activity, like a magma swarm of super-charged sparks under intense pressure.

All they needed was a shelter from the mindlessness of humans caught in their repeating basic mantra of bad brains programming. The killer bees grow stronger in my mind; can’t help but feel a little like a king bee, if only in a small way.

I helped more bees.

Since I decided on becoming a beekeeper, I figured I ought to start at Level 0 somewhere.  K ordered this hang-able bunch of cut bamboo wrapped and stapled together, and I put it outside for mason bees to find a home.

Those bees are rover bees, wanderers and nomads without a hive. Heh, pretty cool. They’re all over the place, but you never notice them because they come in so many shapes and sizes not always resembling the humble honey bee.

K had her doubts, but I stubbornly insisted on getting started. Next thing I know, bees! Gathering their pollen for their little larvae and mud to seal up the little nursery capsules.

She was so excited by my success that she gathered up some bamboo and created a makeshift home bunch herself.  Next, she took a block of wood and drilled holes in it.  All these things were hung in a place so as to avoid the rain and get regular sunshine (warmth and dryness being key).

Okay, so it’s like six or seven sealed nurseries now. Very small results, but still so exciting!

Started looking up YouTube videos of beekeepers, and K tuned me into the top bar method of raising hives. This looks awesome. In particular, the video of the dude installing a queen without gear and only a pipe for smoke while his kids watch strikes me as incredibly brass.

It’s a preview to get me excited about one day being capable enough to help the bees. Yes, the honey is a benefit—I am thinking of myself at least a little. The satisfaction of exploration and experience, however, is what draws me. I must know more about bees!

And I will. Muah-ha-haaa!

So, what’s going on in doomsville? Been a while since I took a seat and rapped on the corner side here. The menagerie is alive and well, if at times it seems to have sprouted wheels and is sighted all about town.

I’m working on book two.  Book one is in a final stage of transformative elation text-wise; I promise to have the Gimmie Stuff page updated as soon as that is complete. Also working on a cover for the souvenir physical version.  Once that’s done I’ll look into converting for e-book files. My brain stem is acquiring all manner of new knowledge during this feisty process of refinement!

Seems like the planetary forces have been all stirred up.  Meteor showers, solar flares, floods and earthquakes.  Hek even on the metaphysical plane we got Cardinal Climaxes lined up, not to mention a heavy dose of psychic interference from all manner of weirdzo dimensions and denizens.  I’m having to expend a lot of mental energy keeping my health and my attention up to snuff.

The summer is a scorcher over here in the central wastes of indecision land. The garden is taking a lot of supply runs to keep going. Those bio-nutrient counteractants come at a high price in mosquito bites, sunburn and poison ivy, let me tell you! Onions, potatoes, basil, and tomatoes are bringing in the reinforcements in small amounts; hey whatever margin of survival we can manage we will. Corn, sunflowers, and peppers bringing up the rear.

The cats are in hyper reorganization mode, which is good. No news is good news as they say. As long as they are able to keep the hydroid bombers at bay with lazors, hey that’s good pattern.  Michael has a new nickname though: Tarball.  He’s big, he’s fat, and he needs to protect you from yourself by laying on you until you get the picture. Is this what Mad Max survival has been reduced to? No cool car chases here, just scavenging eroded out gas tanks on hulking wrecks, hoping to score some ten year expired dog food.

The crummy spaghetti and stir fry recipes we’ve been working on have been refined to our tastes. It’s helpful to have new fall backs we can hit the automatic switch with and get something to eat without panic. Have to say its a success. Though we still need more do-fers in our bag of tricks to make it more complete a meal plan. Still, anything that is cheap and easy and healthy is good. Keeps us out of the McFood troughs.

Long drawn out patrol while repair and reprogram procedures are refined and worked on. Lots going on in the furnace, just no heat yet in the hallways. The trans warp warm up takes a while.

My dear friend Kim-a-roo was working on a garden project this summer.  Part of that involved what is often referred to as “busting sod”, or digging up the earth and turning it over.  Mixing it up.  Break open the ground and serve it notice that you intend to practice a conscious relationship with it for a specific end (which itself is a push-and-pull process like the Chariot of the tarot).

There’s a cost involved.  It’s hard, back-breaking work if you want it done right.  The earth reserves the right to do the unexpected, and test your resolve.  Push and pull.  Sweat and toil.

Our planet has withstood comets, the rumble of it’s plate-like skin shifting, volcanic ejections of the turbulence deep below, radiation, asteroids, gravity and the solar wind.  Titanic, goddess-level stuff that obliterates us on a sublime level.

But down to the human level, in the earth are countless hidden things, ideas in the form of treasures or forgotten objects.  Thoughts and feelings stored for later, traveling through time to emerge down the line for an encounter with a human consciousness.

So Kim-a-roo starts digging up all sorts of crazy artifacts from the recent past in her yard.  The most striking to me is a red plastic goat, likely a toy part of a farm or animal set.  She takes a picture and I bug her to let me share it with you.  This is a little bit of a sideways thanks to Xtine, who’s hooked me up with the goat of the week.

I have a yellow version of this goat (many of my old toys from the ancient days are still intact), which like the picture of me as a young wiselet I promised Xtine is “somewhere” in my dimensional storage chambers.  At some point I’ll lead these things out into the light for all to see.  When the moment is there.

Kim-a-roo is breaking ground in her own life, building a family, starting a garden both inside and outside.  Doing the real deal, push-and-pull, sweat and toil, getting permission to know what the momma knows and discovering the earthpower secrets inside herself.  Hard core goat stuff, Saturn stuff, pan stuff.

Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr pulling the chariot.

Carl Sagan in the Cosmos series talks about life on earth as examples of matter becoming conscious.  Through us, perhaps, matter is witnessed in forms that might never reach a moment of experience.  The tyranny of objects is that they wish, through us, to be used and reckoned with.  We are the (perhaps unseen) agents of their object-existences.  And they provide for us a concrete fact with which to work out our projections.

Kim digs up a red goat because that’s where she is, doing the work.  She shares her experience online and I pick up on it because I love earth secrets.  I mull over the significance for several months and then it comes to me.  Red is passion, fire, innocence, trust.  Goats are a pure animal or a diabolic one, depending on belief, but they are a magnificent creature worthy of respect.  It occurs to me that Kim has dug up a Yule Goat.

The Yule Goat is associated with making sure all is well, that people are doing what they ought to live their lives.  This is similar to Santa Claus making a list and checking it twice.  How cool for her to find such a wonderful ornament, a toy from the past to delight us in the present!

An unexpected trickster goat out of the earth to be sacrificed and rise again, to ensure that we see another return of the sun.  A holiday season present from the earth reminding us we have work to do in the year ahead, that there is much healing, crafting, and learning to be done.  For we are in the Celtic New Year in one sense, about to experience the time of the year when this world and the unseen world have a party, disguises which unmask us.

Mehhh!

Tomato canning season is upon the clan once more.  We’ve been shifting strategies over time.  The most significant to date has been the staggering out of the bushels.  Rather than do 6 in one fell swoop, struggling to finish the tail end before they turn to mush we do them in rounds.  1 here, 2 there.  Takes longer, but we get to rest in between cycles of canning.

Well, now we’ve upgraded the process significantly, with the Norpro Sauce Master Foodstrainer.  Before, we had to boil the tomatoes, scoop ‘em into a bowl, and while still hot skin and slice the little hot coals.  That’s all ancient history now.  Just dump in the hopper, crank twist, and the pulp and juice comes out into the bowl.

Skins and seeds are left behind, and the jar gets filled with puree.  No need to open a jar and dump it in the blender first.  This stuff is raw material nutrient plus, mutha-scratcha!  It’s a little disconcerting to see a major part of the equation completely removed.  No more need to develop asbestos hands, no more nicks and cuts on the fingers from handling a knife willy-nilly for days on end.

I’d say that easily we’ve cut our time requirements in half.  The boiling of the filled jars still has to take the time it does, but now we can move the loads along without any delay due to not having enough pulp on hand to do a load.

Oh, man, and the delicious wonder of having a tasty treat in storage in the winter.  It’s awesome, being able to open a jar of tomatoes as fresh as harvest day, popping the lid open with a snap.  This is what it means to do honor to the fruits of the earth.  And all those skins and seeds?  Oh yeah, compost baby, microbes will be getting busy to-night.  Down the line for next year’s garden, oh you know the earthworms will be eating good on next year’s menu Hek-yeah.

I wasn’t going to post this one. Sometimes what I cook up, trawl out of the nets for a glimpse and witness in the wild woods is a little too personal, somewhat disturbing, or not ready for prime time viewing. This one skirts the edges, perhaps in need of a twist and turn to the spoon, a light touch on the strands, or a respectful pretending not to see quite what one sees in the shadows.

I mean, maybe I make it look easy. This dancing through the darkness of the other world for fun and Hek of it, with a slight hope that what I find might be of use to the larger us of us. Sometimes you have to show mercy to the unknown, and throw back what you catch. Generosity is required when one is immersed in such matters. That quality requires a foundation of focus, else things turn to goblin gold (that is, sand and bones) in the light.

“Don’t turn around,” says the scary voice of our dragon enemy-forward slash-instrument of destiny, “there might be something behind you.” Can you dig the Behinder? It creeps up from the past and jack moves you. That horrific aspect of yourself that makes sure you don’t escape the sins of your past. But oh-ho, without sin there can be no redemption. Or so I heard from a wise man dressed in red and offering me a get-out-of-jail-free card if I would only confess.

I confessed for real, and got that card. But as surely as one can’t buy redemption for the price of one’s soul, knowing isn’t always the same as understanding. I still had work to do.

Like getting down with the psychic planting of community seeds. We do this thing—leave seeds in the psychic ground of the people we meet. When the time is right, those full bore crops call to us to complete the cycle. Maybe this is too complex for how life really is. I mean, who can keep track of most of the impressions we make on people?

Maybe the folks we make impressions on do it for us. It’s a complex, social-contract thing that might seem complex, but which is really easy. Because that’s how we’re made, how we’ve become made. And we don’t know what seeds people are carrying. It might not be for them at all, it might be for us, and handing it off helps them move forward in whatever strange winding pathway they choose to explore.

So what the Hek am I doing carrying all these seeds for other people? What kind of reality am I experiencing where I have ground for people to drop by and plant a few? Am I a peddler, wandering about with a huge backpack on my shoulders, plants galore growing out of it, my hands full of all-you-can-eat seeds?

I have a few secret entrances here, so I’m going to pry one open and meander through a while so I can make sense of this one.

It’s irrational, this watering and fertilizing of other people’s burdens in the deep tunnels of the sideshow life. What’s it got to do with me?

Everything. I want to scream EV-RY-THNG, but that’s just blowing off steam that isn’t mine. Hek, who says the plot I’m standing in is even mine? What if I’m just the lamp showing people where to try?

Past the wind-swept tunnels of hillside regurgitated youth I roam, until I find the flowering I’ve been seeking. I don’t know whose backyard plot I’m trespassing on, or even if I haven’t gone in a circle and ended up back on my own immediate brain-garden.

You always return to yourself. Where else would the fruits of your own soul come to light? I’m thinking you have to take care of your own business, with a mindful realization of the selfishness yet still able to be yourself. Hard stuff to take care of our business, when so many outside demands and inside eruptions distract us. It’s a balancing act.

I got gardening to do. So I head over to the plot. Where the weeds are driving miss daisy crazy and the ground is making me feel full effect. The big tomatoes are all huge and green, but still not turning, even after a ferocious, record rainfall yesterday.

Let’s see. There’s a gray, mole like rodent thing moving through the plants and over to the horseradish to hide. Until I water that area. See, I keep a section open for the weeds to run free, just because I’m crazy like that. Bermuda grass, thistles, morning glory spiral pests—they all get to play in that plot.

I spot a spider with an egg sac clutched below its abdomen, migrating to the next safe zone. Gotta stop at the intersection and let her pass. A carpenter bee takes some time to examine the weak spot of my wooden border. Yellow finches fly overhead looking for physical seeds to eat (physical hunger needs a physical food, spiritual hunger needs…you get the idea).

An elder ladybug of many spots shows up, hanging out on a thistle leaf. I move aside a wooden board to hand-scrabble some earth and find myself face to face with a blackish-crimson, squishy salamander. Whoops, that’s somebody’s home, gotta make course adjustments.

I leave the critters to their own devices and dig up some earth, coming across several rocks. The plot is far from having been cleared of obstacles. Rocks are like storage batteries. They hold minerals, particles, nutrients for us until we need them. Likewise, they hold truths for us until we need them. I feel bad putting them into a pile to be tossed into the woods when I’m done.

I pick a bunch of small cherry tomatoes that are definitely done. The smaller fruits are ready faster than the larger ones I suppose. As I pick these gifts I stare back at the plot where the weeds grow taller than me.

I remember last year, a woman working on the plot, trying to get her two sons to help her. She’s serious, striving, taking care of business. That year she got a lot of great peppers and pumpkins. The sons are all bored and squirming, as if this is the worst thing in their lives they have ever had to endure.

Funny thing is, I know what those kids are feeling. I remember when my mom dragged me over here and made me help her bust sod and fill water jugs. I was like, why do all this work when we could just buy it at the store? Complain, fuss, moan and resist. Yet, here I am decades later plunging head first into the struggle of my own free will to snatch a smidgen of something worthwhile.

Seeds planted, full bloom.

I talked like that plot was a graveyard of those who tried and failed. But for all I know, the two-second look of encouragement I gave those kids, the chitchat I had with the mother, placed seeds in a plot not visible. An appreciation of something difficult for its own sake. Or they might pass those seeds along to someone who needs to have that experience.

We’re pollinators of psychic flowers like dat.

My mom drops by and gives me a bunch of tomatoes from her plot. Overflow procedure, too much to use. Same here. I got my hands full of little tasty morsels. I’ll bring them into work, where I know a bunch of folks will revel in the gift. People need what we generate. Generosity, as we march along the weird road of understanding.

I mean, yeah, the seeds that are exploding in you right this very moment. They’re going to last a brief while or they’ll go dormant and come back next year, but it’s a cycle. Down into the dirt again. Is that any reason not to water yourself? What flowers, what fruits of your life are you hiding under a bushel because of the crows you grant power to?

Let yourself grow, to fill the mammoth form you inhabit. There’s a bursting forth right this moment, having been laid in the ground with care or scattered carelessly, but ready for you to connect the dots. And you have, you just don’t want to admit it.

You know about the special bonus plants right?

What if your harvest is the one that gives others the margin of survival?

Or gives you the margin of survival?

Some people deposit crops in you because it’s their quest. What, you thought it was just some fed-ex XP thing they had to do? Yeah it was, and who knows who designed their adventure. Look around your immediate psychic hang-out. Stuff is growing that you have no clue what it is. Some people dump a load on you, and it’s fertilizer man, you just got to roll with it. Other times you’re so messed up it’s God’s good humor and a wheel of fortune as to whether you let anything sprout.

One things for sure, yesterday is becoming today and tomorrow. It’s in yur plot growin yur foodz.

It’s all about farm games.

K and I break out the tea collection and get busy organizing the life support system module number tea-oh-yeah.  My friend Snow would be modestly and politely moved by our devotion, as so Level 3 it is to her Level twenty-four forward-slash seven, know what I’m sayin’?

Side note:  I mean it.  When you’re that level, you are big dudette generous and make it look easy.  “Here, have everything you need to start.  Here’s a location on a map.  Get adventurin’ and maybe you’ll connect with ultra-power tea-ness your own special way.”

Back to K and I.  We’ve bought a number of glass milk jars from the local upper-cruster Whole Foods.  Plastic caps, but what the hey weeds have to make do with what they have right?  While we do have tea bags, our focus is on resealable containers of loose-leaves for mix and match.  Since I’m a honey-freak, I have my honey in the rough for getting my freak on.

Now K is pretty crafty.  We get tired of boiling the water the usual way, so she investigates a location on the map and we find ourselves with the bonus round—an electric teapot that rapid-boils water in less than five minutes.  Just fill with water, plug in, flip the switch, and pow.  Yes, this is very much dependency on instrumentality (not to mention electricity), but as I said this is the approach of the lightning age (which is very aquarian).

So now we can make large quantities of water for brewing tea.  When it’s cool we fill the jars and put them in the fridge.  Goodbye, buying high priced tea in the store!  I’m also a soda-fiend, so anything that alleviates my vice for soda varieties is good.  Water’s too boring for me, juice too strong, milk too bland and coffee too strong.  Tea gives me the watery goodness, and a flavor, so I can drink lots of it and not burn out.

Special bonus:  I tell Snow about this amazing teapot and she’s floored.  I give her the info hookup and I get the feeling she teleports one to her kitchen while I’m standing there talking to her.  Next week I run into her again and she tells me the thing opened up a new level for her in the tea-realm, allowing her to adventure in a new area.

The teacher shares what they know and maybe it’ll pay off in those hidden rooms you missed when you were fighting the tea ogre with squid tentacles back on level eleven.  When you hold onto that hunger for knowledge, keep striving with joy for what you do, it pays off.  Snow polishes that gemstone of a hankering she has a little more, while K and I get life support system bonus for more XP.  That’s what generosity does for you.

So what does this have to do with farm games?  Well, seems like on Facebook lately there’s been a surge in farming games.  You socialize with your friends, care for each other’s farms, raise crops and harvest goodies.  Mainly in the dungeon and dragons kind of reward cycle—you kill monsters so you can get better at killing monsters, only here it’s grow crops so you can get better at growing crops.

It’s a slight paradigm shift in games, I think, which bears careful watching.  Is this the seed that falls in the right ground at the right time, the spark that kindles a new way of thinking that will grow grow grow?

The thing is, there’s a growing interest in resource management games (SimCity, the Sims, Civilization, and so on).  The shoot-em-ups and the side-scrollers are still there.  But now you have a growing awareness of “Hey, it’s fun to farm.  To raise animals, plant corn, and build wells.”

Yes, the reality is hard work and thankless repetition.  But it depends on how you look at the reward cycle.  K and I are looking to be healthier and happier.  This formula (of many) is about the reward of having something we make that keeps us going without resorting to the kiddie pool that is mainline industrial food production for loyal, stunned workers.  For Snow it’s about a passion for the pursuit of what interests her.

Both operate under systems that farm games mimic to a degree.  You look for stuff, gather stuff, make stuff, improve your skill with stuff, and then the stuff benefits you.

Then you get into complex games like Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility, where you need to have good relationships with people to get the stuff.  There’s lots of stuff to master—mining stuff, cooking stuff, animal stuff, plant stuff, clothing stuff.  You’re in the realm of a community and the need to ration your time to develop the stuff you need.  The ultimate goal:  To be the best “stuff” person you can be, in this case the archetype of the farmer who are their own means of production.

What does being a good farmer mean?  That you can court a partner and raise a family (and the game allows you to do this, ending only when it is the next generation’s turn to find their fortune), and you can also save the world (or the world of this game anyway)—your knowledge as a farmer revives the Goddess of the land and brings blessings back to the community.

You got that?  Your ability to beat things up here is worth zilch.  Your ability to be patient, adaptable and friendly can save the world for everybody!  Or allow you to have a happy home life—either as a farmer who just loves making bread for the Hek of it or as a family person moving things forward to the next spiral of that life that is greater than ours.

I’m living it a little, others are living it, and the games are representing it.  What level is your watering can skill yo?  Can you make perfect pickles?  How’s that ability to make butter?

I’m wondering what the next signpost will be to what’s evolving right before our eyes.  In the meantime, I need to get more and better skills, talk people up more, and get busy on the farm!

Because I think there’s a comprehensive picture here forming.

Harvesting this year’s crop of tomatoes, corn, and basil.  A much better outcome than last year’s withered out crop of rotten potatoes.  No joke about it, last year’s harvest was a crash and burn bummer.

This year was worse in a way though.  The weeds kicked us around the block with their modifier-bonus allies the insect brigade.  With morale low, the agriculture worthiness guardians could have easily made us cry uncle.

Hek, our plot neighbors didn’t show up once this year.  I can see the skeletons of their hopes dashed to the ground, in the form of scattered forgotten tools and half-opened fertilizer bags colonized by wind-borne seeds.  Their weeds and brambles are taller than me now.

For a moment I catch a glimpse of another labyrinth traveler’s camp, taken over by the wild.  Could have been us.  No shortage of remains around here!

I might have mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating.  I emphasize with the weeds, and admire their tenacity and inventiveness.  If there’s something in the plant world that I think of as resembling the hyper-ferocious predators from the Alien movies, weeds fit the bill.  Break ‘em up into pieces and they spread doom.  Removing them is tricky and back-breaking work.  If you let them past the beachhead of sprout they soon grow out of control.

Weeds are also our friends in a twisted sort of way.  They move into hostile ground and turn it to their advantage, wresting a baseline of nutrients out of almost nothing and returning it to the ground.  You can’t argue with a series of plants that insist on growing no matter how difficult the repression of our desire for the “order” of a cultivated garden.

Do weeds suffer, and cry out as they transform the land into something from nothing, messing up our plans for an easy go of things like tricksters keeping it real?

Artists today are like weeds.  The environment of inauthentic wasteland monoculture breeds tougher and tougher weeds.  Until those who aren’t committed to growing to their vision, and I mean committed enough to be humbled by the whole thing yet keep doing the work, end up not being there the next time.  You’ll just see their remains, swallowed up by the earth.

If they do suffer, they’re singing the blues, from the ground up mutha-scratchas.

The time has come to get real with the earth again.  My folks are already there, turning up the earth as they consider what will be necessary in order to plant this year’s crops.  They wheelbarrow huge amounts of weeds to the discard pile.

K and I shamble over to our plot and take in the landscape of this year’s post-winter, spring revelation.  A hawk screeches and chases after a group of four birds.  Hawks like to hang out at the massive public plots we partake in.  Birds love the plentiful seeds and insects of our cooperative.  The cycle is happenin’, man!

We rid ourselves of a bunch of extra tomato cages that serve no use for our plans.  We’ve re-fenced our plot well from last year, so we hand over our extra fencing to another person who is re-doing their own.  We dig up past plants that have gone dead, and take out the detritus of past failures.  I saw apart branches from someone else’s garden making an invasion.

K discovers an honest to goodness salamander of red and black, which we leave alone to dig its way back into the garden.  Despite the countless seeds of pest plants, we do the easy work and let the garden know we are back.  Even if it looks like we are not in shape for this year.  Last year the garden beat us into a bloody pulp.

But there is a bonus.  The onions and garlic we thought had been defeated are growing strong.  And the rosemary, even though it has croaked, the leaves are there for us.  Dried and ready to be picked.  K grabs ‘em all and puts them into a packet.  There will be a chicken potpie tonight with a rosemary pump-up for sure.

K spots a dandelion.  I see robins looking for worms.  Yes, spring is here, and the cycle has begun again.  I send blessings out to the living spirit, those who have been before me, the monsters, those who love me, and the losers.  As life stirs back into my consciousness, I realize how hard core it always is.

The worms are getting busy; the fire of life is waking up.  My friends are living their lives.  A psychic apparition of Grace Jones is whupping Batman’s behind with a garden hose as she shouts attention to all the people who give a darn.

I know nothing; I’m just plucking away at the dead magnolias to make room for this year’s crop.

I’ve finished the third set of revisions, and am going down the line of my list of weaknesses to double-check if I’ve missed anything.  Maybe another two weeks, and I’ll have a finished draft.

I’m considering the possibility of doing a short comic book series and posting it here.  Got all the materials and the know-how, I’m only waiting for the right signs to take place and I’ll do some work on what it’ll be.  For now, I’m reading and researching.  Must make stuff for people or Hulk smash!

My folks have a bunch of tapes of a quirky truck-driving friend of theirs that might make for amusing listening.  I may turn them into a podcast at some point, or heck, make my own weird audio show for a limited time.  Must make stuff!

As Guy Caballero from SCTV said, “We need programming!”

The garden had gone weird on us.  The weeds won the battle, and we have mice living in the garden now.  Peppers are all a bust, and the tomatoes have gone whacko – either dying out if they are the big tomato variety, or growing all over the place and producing a handful of tomatoes if they are the small version.

The leeks are ready and good to go – they are huge!  The onions have made an unexpected comeback, while the horseradish is looking not so good.  One of the wildflowers went nuts and grew huge, with wonderful blossoms.  Crumbs, the marigolds are doing amazing, and we were surrounded by bumble and honey bees getting busy.  It was a shock.

We planted some autumn lettuce, but we’ll see how that turns out.  Oh yeah, the corn turned out nice, we got about five half ears with maybe three or four to come.  K and I cut up the corn and cooked it, then had it with the small cherry tomatoes.  The bounty was good as a side for our dinner, but it tasted so very good.

I don’t know what to make of the garden this year, it defies my puny knowledge to the +1.  I can’t explain how we got some of one thing, and nothing of most everything else.  Meanwhile, the folks have tons of lettuce growing like mad, along with garlic.  Pump up the jam for them!

My cool dude artistic friend Xtine has a new astrology website, so here’s the plug.  I don’t actually go there as a watering hole, or it’d be in the blogroll.  But I’ml placing her in the classic links section, as that may be of interest to my esoterically minded guests.  I can’t wait to see what she starts putting into her studio website when it goes to the max.

I stumbled upon some interesting explorations of the Minotaur phenomenon by arctangent at this link.  I especially like how she draws the distinction between a maze (a place to mess you up and keep you lost) and a labyrinth (you always meet the center and it’s occupant, because the route is inevitable).

I’ve been fascinated by the premise of the book House of Leaves, a rabbit hole beyond human comprehension, even though I haven’t been particularly interested in reading the book itself.  Puzzle mystery books don’t do it for me, mostly because I’m no good at puzzles and get hung up on them trying to figure out what’s happening.

However, the idea of getting drawn into an exploration of a supernatural house to try and experience its mystery intrigues me.  I’ve always been very fond of the Minotaur myth, and find the background behind it really cool.  Arctangent’s analysis got me thinking about it again, and I can sense more clues to come from out there.