The Dusty Back Road of Life

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Well, it’s that time of year again: the annual ritual heeartless genocidal slaughter of the innocent infant trees has started. Not that I have any judgmental opinion about it or anything.

It’s interesting how the “Christians” adopted what was once a pagan ritual of death and rebirth and commuted it to just birth. And took the symbol of the tree, which was part of the ritual of midwinter death and turned it somehow into birth. Although they did keep the idea of the crucifix, which is the more “civilized” version of the tree as it was used. (actually two trees, but you probably don’t want to get into the details of that soon
after a big meal.)

Speaking of big meals, it was while I was riding the bus up to the big town about 100 mmiles north last Wednesday to do the usual founder’s day gluttony thing with friends that I was reminded of the tree slaughter. On the way up I passed dozens of trucks (maybe even scores, but who was keeping score? (The first violin? The conductor? Nope, they took the train.)) carrying loads of the aforementioned boreal corpses heading the other way. I thought that we must have finally used up all the trees in Oregondown south and were having to get them all from up north now, but no. Read on.

Mysteriously, on my return trip Friday I saw just as many loads of victims heading north. Had they been rejected at the border. Doubtful. It seems that the hand of the economy that Adam Smith characterized as “unseen” is also incomprehensible. It must somehow be more efficient to ship dead infant trees in both directions. It must. I’m told dollars don’t lie.
Don’t infer from any of this that I am in any way disparaging other people’s spiritual practices. That’s not my style. (A chorus of People Who Know Me Well: “We deny the preceding sentence!”) At least I’ve never been directly accused of it. My own spiritual practices are unique enough that I would just be asking for it. For ex: I have in the course of my life been given 5 spirit guides or “totems” as some Native Americans refer to
them.

/*
Digression: Wherefore are they called “native”? Isn’t that a real Anglo sounding term? As in “The natives are restless.”? I’ll bet they’re restless: they gave us cornbread and turkey and mashed potatoes and we took a few million square miles. (Not to mention lives. Civilization, ho!) Anyway, they aren’t “native”; they came from Asia. So they got here before the Caucs did, yeah, but that doesn’t make them native any more than it makes me “native” to the Hmong or the Vietnamese or whoever. I suppose I’m relatively native. Then so are the Tlingit and the Anasazi, okay. Then the newer Asians will be native when the next wave hits. They probably already are. End of digression.
*/

And four of those five have been trees. Aside from the fact that this makes the concept of me ever carving a totem pole problematic at best, it gets me riled to see such obvious abuse of the relatively helpless. And talk about natives: these our arboreal brothers and sisters didn’t just step off the boat yesterday.

My suggestion is that people might consider getting a live infant tree to honor in the winter and plant it in the spring. Being a good pantheist, I have kept a cedar tree for eight years or so, as a house and/or patio plant before setting it free, and I have had a bonsai juniper for many years now.

Life goes on. Keep your sunny side up. Bright Solstice.

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Brethren and sistren, is there any among us who has not heard the hackneyed expression: “…where the rubber meets the road…”  ?

BTW: a hackney is a kind of rubber-tired vehicle often rented out as a cab. But so what?

Well, just were does the rubber meet the road? And what happens there?

Think about that:  Here’s a nice quiet stretch of road just lying there taking in the afternoon sun. Then suddenly–wham! Mr. Road, meet Mr. Tire. Hello, goodbye–wham! Mr. Road, Mr. Reartire. Bye, bye!

Pretty short meeting, eh? Not very fulfilling.

And contemplate this poor tire… Road, goodbye, air, road, goodbye, etc. What a way to roll… And roll and roll and roll… Every once in a while, a rock, but not often enough to put any  kind of swing to the thing.

But isn’t that just like the lives we live every day? We may feel sorry for the tire or sympathize with the lonesome road, but seldom do we take a look at our own selves from the viewpoint of the road. Is it really just a series of slapping fives? Low fives, at that?

We may feel like we are in control because we have our hands on the wheel, But isn’t our life just a series of quick whaps on the road? And before we can even think about it, here comes the next slap. Makes us want to cry “Don’t tread on me!”

It’s only the nails on the road that leave us with a lasting impression. The superhighway is just a series of identical fleeting impressions. Expecially in the fast lane. And the dusty back roads may be less boring, but we are more likely to regret the morning after.

And isn’t that what makes a good road, after all is said and done and rolled up into one? The more we regret, the more we have benefited from our choice of routes.

The less we regret, the less we have learned, and the less interesting country we have seen.

Gimme five…

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I would like to give a bigger response to something that someone asked me in the Ask JC forum. Someone named terri asked me a question which I tried to answer briefly but I am not sure she understood. You can look at the thread if you like.

I don’t worry about terri.

Her response to my answer tells me that she already knows what is going on, even if she don’t think so. I don’t know anything she doesn’t know. We all of us know what we need to know, and that is what I want to ramble on about.

Every one of us knows how to use the steering wheel of our life. We feel confused, we have been made confused by our culture and our up-bringing, and so we have trouble seeing the wheel in front of our nose.

But the wheel is there and using it  is simple: Go when it’s time time go, turn when it’s the right time to turn. Or the left time.

How do we know when it’s the right time to go or when it’s time to turn? Simple!

Inside each of us is a guide that tells us exactly where we want to go and how to get there. This guide is more reliable and accurate than one of these here new-fangled GyPSy(GPS) systems that people want to have in their cars.

You can get yourself some kind of spiritual GyPSy system out of a book or some guru may offer you one, but the only reason you would want to do have one of them is because our culture, our society, the paver of our spiritual ecosystem, teaches us to believe that we do not have guides of our own.

Wild things have guides of their own, and that is why our culture is afraid of wildness. Things must be controlled, things must be paved and fenced out and fenced in and dehabilitated.

But the roads that society makes for us are likely to wear out your tires faster and use up your fuel faster that the roads you follow on your own free will.  And gates and toll booths on society’s roads are as thick as grease on a beat-up jalopy’s chassis.

Getting past the gates and dodging the truck scales and speed traps is not always easy, but it ain’t impossible, neither.

And there are no gates or scales or toll booths or speed traps on the Highway of Enlightenment. That’s one of the ways you know you are there.

And since we all do have our inner GyPSy, we can find our own way to the Highway of Enlightenment. All we have to do is pay attention. And be sure not to put up our own toll booths.

So when you come to a place where you need to make a decision, don’t let the signs society puts up make your decision for you. Check your own inner GyPSy and follow its guidance. That detour sign you see may very well be keeping you away from some very interesting country. The speed limit may be there just to keep you from flying.

Drive on!

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Balancing the Road

As we roll along the Road of Life, it behooves  us to listen to the messages we get from our vehicle’s interaction with the environment. There is noise and there is music. And there is everything in between.

And in between is where we want to be. That is the balance point, and the little weights on the edge of your tires do their work to get you there. While of course, they also get you to there: the place you are going to. For without balance, the ride is rougher than it would otherwise be.

So while you are going to the place you are going to, it is important to realize that you are always there, in a sense, if you are in balance with your tires.

Or at least it is pretty to think that you are where you want to be before you get to where you are going. For it is only by being there, then, that you will ever make any progress in the Journey that is your Life.

If you want to be here, now, that is your decision, but we seldom get anywhere by stopping along the way. The joy of traveling may be great, but it is the need to be somewhere else that makes a journey happen in the first place. And in the last place, too.

So if your journey is not happening, it is because you have not yet filled your tank with the fuel of hope. Hope is always for the future, and being here now is not ever going to get you over there. Unless you cheat.

Eroding the Balance

Cheating, of course, as I have learned the hard way, consists precociously of believing that the “here and now” can be made into something that it is not. Namely, the “there and then”.

For how can you be in two places at once, brethren and sistren, when you know not exactly where that is? If you are in fact nowhere, then the world is your wide open oyster. Which means: “Don’t eat it!” (Google “seafood safety” if you don’t know what I mean.)

Mothren and fathren, children and othren, I say unto you as a way of pointing out the obvious that there is no elsewhere other than the elsewhere we subsume along the way of our Journey down the One True Road to the Highway of Enlightenment.

Missing the Point

And if you are going Nowhere, every road you use, every turn you make, every breath you take, will get you closer to that goal.

So open your windows and listen to the hum of the tires on the pavement or the crunch of the gravel and rest assured that as long as you are on a road and your tires are rolling, you are going somewhere.

And remember that gravel is just a whole lot of small rocks.

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By now you know that opening your windows doesn’t cool your engine. If you don’t, you may be in for a dismal surprise.

In the old days, we used to carry a water bag slung on the front of the car when crossing the desert. But with modern technology all that is no longer possible. And only the rich have hood ornaments these days.

So as usual it is the poor who are left to fend for their lives, and who get their spirits overheated in the desert of everyday living. Without a water bag for your spirit, it is difficult to maintain the purity of the 30-weight of your soul.

The soul, brethren and sistren is the lubrication of your being. Even verily as the air blowing through your radiator is the spiritual force of the Universe keeping you cool.

If your radiator is clogged, the air still blow through it, but it does not have the effect of lowering the temperature. In this way, you develop a spiritual fever which can forever keep you swollen and sore.

And how can the thread of your life pass through the eye of a needle if you are swollen with the heat of spiritual malaise?

Pride does you no good in the heat of the moment, and humility only leads to discontent, just as a clogged oil filter indicates a polluted soul. And if the oil of your soul is polluted, it becomes easy to lose your bearings.

I’ve been there. You’ve been there. Who hasn’t?

But that is not the point I wanted to make. The point is that even though the water in you radiator does not touch the spiritual force of the Universe, you are still on the road, and the road is on its way, and the Highway of Enlightenment is on the horizon, and the drinks are on you.

Many are the roadhouses, and abundant is the air.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

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A road is a kind of a trap.

This is what makes them useful. If we weren’t trapped by a road, we would wander all over the landscape like the owners of SUVs only fantasize about doing.

Wandering has its uses, but getting somewhere is not one of them. You don’t have to be lost to neglect your destination, and if you have no destination, then getting lost can be the best way to get there. But many are the turns in the Road of Life, and many are the intersections.

But we all have destinations in our lives and so we choose roads to get us there. Usually we look at a map as if it has the secret answer to the road. And a trip may be only as good as its map, but without it, there would be no getting anywhere.

This doesn’t mean you have nowhere to go. But a road is only proportionately useful according to the understanding we have of its signs. A sign that tells us to stop does not have to tell us to go.

Why is that? How do we know to go, especially if we don’t know where we are going?

And there are no signs to tell us where we are going. We must know that in advance , because the most advanced map or dashboard guidance system is only as good as the choices we make. Those answers come from within.

You steer your car because you want it to turn. It is the same way with the Intersection of Decision. You do not choose an intersection so much as go through it. Stopping first, if the sign says so.

This is why we steer and this is why we choose.

There is no driver so misguided as the one who does not recognize that Life is just a series of adjustments we make to our wrong turns. In other words, the Road of Reality is simply the sum of our mistakes. That is how we get trapped. Trapped in a reality of our choices.

Unless we use a map or a dashboard guidance system. And that will keep us on the road we have chosen to be trapped on until we get to the Highway of Enlightenment.

So put not your faith in the map or the dashboard guidance unit, brethren and sistren, put it instead in the choices you have made and the signs you see.

It is only by looking and choosing that we can see and make decisions. And it is only by being trapped on a road that we can ever get to the One True Highway.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

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As we all know, there are many laws that govern the workings of the Universe. I am not talking about those man-made laws that overwhelm the theater of our minds.

I am talking about the unremitting laws of the indefatigable Universe in which we live.

I am talking about things like the Law of Gravity, which is a physical law, without which we would have to stake our roads down as if they were claims to mineral rights and claim-jumpers abounded. Except it would be the claims that were jumping.

Imagine that.

One of the laws that is the most important to us in our everyday life is the Law of Distraction. This law says that whatever most distracts us in our life will manifest greatly in our future.

And without a future, the present could not help but be the end of the past, but the beginning of Nothing. And as I have said before Nothing is sacred. In fact in these complex post-modern times, Nothing is just about the only thing that is sacred.

But the people who worship Nothing have no future, just as the people who worship Everything have no past. And the people who worship Money have no Spare Change.

I could go on…

And I will…

Nevertheless, the Law of Distraction is very real. Whenever we are distracted, we will find that the things that distract us take on a huge proportion out of our life and, in a way, we become the thing that distracts us.

This is why it is important that we make sure that the things that distract us are worthy things. Remember that there are many detours mapped out on the Unknown Road of Life, and that to reach the Highway of Enlightenment, we must forever be aware of which distractions are guiding us.

Because it is of de rigeur that  the situation that we seek is the one we are in, if only we knew it. Or as the Three Musketeers may have said, One is All, and All is One.

And I suppose that it has to be that way for most of us.

Remember that you can travel the Road on a bicycle or in a truck. But if your hauling freight, the one is preferable to the other. But remember, my Brethren and Sistren, that neither one of them can fly.

And what is more distracting than a fly?

So keep your eye on the sparerib and your mind on the road and your hands on the wheel. And if you are driving to Distraction, I say unto you that you are never alone.

Keep your tires inflated until next time.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

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Without self-esteem, you cannot get the rubber on the road when you put the pedal to the metal. It used to be that it made a difference in the differential if you life was running on high octane, but with the constant-velocity joints of the modern world it is no different than if you had your steering gear out of phase.

And who wants that? All I can tell you is that it’s not me. And you can believe me because I never lie and I’m always right. Bretheren and Sisteren, you know what I am talking about. I’m talking about the long driveshafts of past times, when our self-esteem rotated beneath us as we cruised down the Highway of Enlightenment.

If you have ever lost your driveshaft when far away from home, you will know what I mean. A universal joint could be repaired with the moral equivalent of baling wire and duct tape, but your constant-velocity joint knows no such down-home remedies.

Modern times have made us susceptible to the slavery of high technology, which has freed us from the bonds of universal joining. For when we join with others, our own self-esteem can not keep a constant velocity in the abstract sense of metaphorical travel.

This indicates the importance of velocity when it comes to comparing your own self-esteem with the self-esteem of others. For if you cannot bypass the detour of comparative self-esteem, the detour will bypass you. I’m sure that is perfectly clear.

Nay, verily, and ye shall come to realize that if you belittle yourself your velocity cannot be constant and the inevitable result will be nothing but the inhibition of exhibition that causes one’s self to feel small, or belittled.

Does that seem circular to you? That is of course my exact point, for the tires of selfhood are constantly turning and constantly covering new ground. Although they do not cover it for very long, for almost as soon as it is covered it is once again uncovered, just as the blankets covering you become uncovering when you get out of bed.

There is no simple way to change that, as it is part of the human condition, which is part of human nature, which is a situation we have all had to deal with at one time or another.

So you can see why a driveshaft is essential and more important than power windows or door-lock tweeters. Although door-lock tweeters do serve a viable function in our post-modern social lives. Door-lock tweeters are like the mirror we look at just before we go to work in the morning, and not just another place to prefer our own self-image. Remember that.

Until next time, I caution you all to keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down. You can’t go wrong if you stay between the ditches.

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Let me tell you about communication.

Remember when we used to talk to one another? Even if it was by CB radio? Nowadays we seem to prefer typing on midget keypads to talking.

My sisteren and bretheren, you know you don’t need one of these here Boysenberry thingies or a uPhone or such like. (Uphone me and iPhone U. I&I phone U&U. and you, 2) Sorry, these so-called technilogical marvels just make me want to project my lunch. Humans have been communicating for decades, if not milleniums, and we never needed all this rubbish.

We spent years developing language and writing after starting out in the stone age with icons painted on the cave walls and sticks to point with.

You can bet we never pointed with a mouse in those days. We would have been laughed out of the cave. Then over thousands of years and countless decades we developed language and writing and all of that. This was civilization, folks.

And now we are back to pointing at icons. Is this progress? Reach your own conclusion, but woe unto you if you don’t agree with me.

Sure, we can sometimes use a little technical boost in our activities. I remember building a telegraph key in Boy Scouts many years ago. That was to enhance communication.

I still use it, too. Course, I had to overclock it and add some RAM. But with a car battery and an antenna I can communicate from anywhere I want to. I’m using it right now.

And doesn’t that teach you a lesson in living? You know what I’m talking about.

Sure we want our communication to be fast. It is well known that the faster you go, the closer you are to heaven. Some people say this only applies to riding a motorcycle or falling off a cliff. I say that all that speed does for you is it makes you go faster. You can’t argue with that. But after a while you are going faster than you thought you could, and in the end it turns out you were right in the first place.

So maybe you got you berries in your hand, or your alien mind control module stuck to the side of your face, but are you really on the One True Road that leads to the Highway of Enlightenment?

Oh, please!

They say there are no fools in heaven. That explains why there are so many down here.

Sisteren and bretheren, motheren and fatheren, children and otheren, I say it now unto you that there are no shortcuts and many are the detours on the One True Road.

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First of all, I would like to thank my supporters and fans for their loyalty and forgiveness.

And a special note to “zomiatrotsow”: If you only seek refreshment, even a sip of water will do, but if you are after enlightenment, then I must say that I have found that the bubbles rising in a glass of cold lager rise invariably toward enlightenment. The foam of enlightenment rides on top of the fermenting lager of everyday life. And when we drain the glass…but that’s a topic for another time.

Today I want to discuss movement.

Do you remember that a few years ago the internet was called the information superhighway? These days it looks more like a combination of a traffic jam, a flea market for used parts, and a junkyard.

We know from our travels that all roads lead to a junkyard. Somebody once said that all roads lead to Rome, so Rome must be some kind of a junkyard. I’ve never been there myself, but I saw it on TV. It looks more like a traffic jam.

But if all roads lead to the junkyard of life, we must remember that all roads also lead away from the junkyard. It’s not a one-way street. Unless you can’t steer your car or turn around.

Even then, there is always a reverse gear. Unless the gearbox of your life is broken, in which case you have to get out and push. You can see what this means to your life, if not your relationships.

And who doesn’t have relationships? This is why we say that we travel the superhighway alone, but with passengers, the road is always bumpy. And dusty. And with many blind turns.

And it is dealing with the blind turns of life that separates the drivers from the passengers. Metaphorically. I mean the passengers are still in the vehicle, but they are not sitting in the driver’s seat.

Unless everybody is a passenger, and then how can we find our way to the main highway? This is why government is dangerous. Too many people are content to let somebody else drive. But nobody knows as well as we do where we want to go in the first place.

A highway doesn’t lead to all roads, but in the future, all roads will lead to a highway. Although at the same time they will lead to many side roads. Some of which lead nowhere, as we can see by observing our government in action.

So it is best in the long run that we stay on the One True Road that leads to the Highway of Enlightenment.

For many are the roadhouses, my brethren, and many are the varieties of lager.

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