Dreams, Schemes, and Propellor Things

A while back I had the most peculiar dream. The setting was one of those stifling midsummer days and I was wandering a dirt road through a rolling pastureland. The air was filled with the chirring of insects which I stopped to indulge while admiring the lofty cumulus drifting in the slight breeze. As the wind stopped, the sound of the insects became subdued and a heavy stillness filled the air. I heard a rumbling overhead, and quickly turned to see a magnificent nimbus formation towering over the hill. Suddenly to my amazement, little objects began to rain down. As they landed, I leaned over the cow fence for a closer inspection. Picking one up, I came to realize these were small incredibly light metal cups that had been fashioned with a peculiar wing on the side, to come floating down rather like a maple seed. Little paper cards also came floating down. These had instructions on how to work these curious little devices. As I stood there in an awe of fascination, a breezy voice spoke up in my mind. "Nature rewards those who truly understand her ways"- indeed I had spent much of the night pondering on nature’s designs before going to bed. Then my reflections became distracted by a distinct sense of presence. I turned again to see a gaggle of people approach from over the hill. They were people of different skilled trades, (from farmer to mechanic) come to see what was going on. They were just as taken by curiosity over these strange gifts, except for a tall man in their midst- who not only seemed quite out of place with the rest, but kept staring at me with obvious contempt. It was then I noticed his vicar’s collar and as I expected he came out with the remark "you don’t deserve it". "Heh, who died and made you god?" I thought, but the words never passed my lips. The fact was that he had obviously missed the point, namely that evolution is all about learning.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned

This is definitely not a story for the faint hearted. Its about a girl I knew who was raised by the two most dangerously superficial women one could ever encounter. This was her mother and grandmother, who both married diplomats, for every opportunity to invoke their own secret dominion. By the time I got to know them, the old ambassador had long since retired, and truly fed up with their games of manipulation, had taken to locking himself away in his attic retreat. On the rare occasion that we were able to communicate, I found him quite forthright and unpretentious. He despaired over the ruthless guile of these two women, and was sure the granddaughter was beyond any hope salvation from their persistent misguidance. Indeed he warned me they were not to be trusted in any way or form. He had confidence, however, in my strong independence of mind, hoping possibly, it might teach them that long needed lesson in respect...but they were even beyond that. These women were totally Machiavellian, with that sickly sweet allure of a Venus fly trap. The grandmother was one of those arrogant divas from the Berlin theatrical scene. Indeed, their idea of friendship was pure theatrical manipulation- with the kind of imposing cordiality I'm sure inspired such writers as Stephen King and John Carpenter. Of course if you tried to say anything contrary, this was cunningly intercepted by "would you like a coffee? a piece of cake, a cookie?"...and no matter how often I said "no thank you" they persisted in this tactic throughout the entire discussion. "Are you sure you don't want one? Oh but you must try one". They just couldn't take no for an answer and no matter how blatantly I refused, they still could not resist the surreptitious urge. Fortunately for all their single mindedness they didn't have a clue about me, so any attempt to beguile my friends only made them leery.

Typically, diplomatic families, for all their incessant social calls, tend to lose any sense in the need for a balanced diet. It usually ends up with them living solely off hors d'oeuvres, believing they can avert any subsequent malnutrition through the compulsive intake of multivitamin concentrates. Needless to say, this girl not only grew up anorexic but so biochemically screwed up that she became psychotic. To make matters worse, those two women had completely spoiled and indoctrinated her with the pathos that men should have no other purpose than prove their love through complete subservience. Of course wherever this failed, she inclined to ever more violent tantrums. Uncannily she had much the same expectations of anyone she assumed to be her "friend". Inevitably this reduced her popularity down to a hand full of fools, who themselves were just as misguided. Of them, one particular sucker for punishment became her mate- who despite the increasing frequency of her violent attacks, would not listen to reason. Like his friends, it was always the same denials- "But you don't understand, she's just so beautiful and talented". "Oh yeah?" I declined, "Just keep on fooling yourselves, and inevitably people are gonna get killed". To make a long story short, that is exactly what happened about five years later. It was hard times, with everyone losing their jobs for all the businesses folding after the Canadian forces pulled out of the area. The last I saw of her was at the employment office, trying to apply for benefits to support their two children. No one is sure what exactly happened, but it is clear they couldn’t make ends meet anymore. By all accounts, after a heated argument with her two matriarchs, she took a spade that night, struck down her husband and assuming he was dead, proceeded to hack up her two children. By the time he regained consciousness, it was already too late. All he could do was barricade himself in the bathroom. It was at that point in her blind rage, that she resolved to stab herself to death with a butcher knife. A friend of mine had the unpleasant task of cleaning up the mess after the investigation. He could only describe the scene as resembling that of an abbatoire. Another friend whose cousin was the chief investigator of the case was equally horrified. This was more than just domestic violence gone amok. The sheer brutality of it spoke whole volumes of a vengeance for everything not being as she insisted. Don’t ask me what the moral of the story is. I do not believe in a perfect world, but what could be more futile than give life only to take it all away with such remorseless brutality? I can only blame it on the delusions of "ideal society" trying reduce human behaviour into something so affectatious, the consequences should be no surprise. What more can I say?

Spoonfed Humanity

Yup, I've come to that horrid realization of just how misguided the greater part of humanity is. When they start using academic institutions as the scale by which to measure intelligence, no surprise that nothing ever gets resolved. Its always the same recurrent problems that through perpetual reformulation, get further and further away from the truth, until that final catastrophy sends them all fleeing. The fatal flaw begins when they start assuming that someone who actually likes to use their brain must have a wall full of PhDs. The flaw ends with something akin to the fate of Ur. Indeed Ur is a classical example of sociological entropy. In the beginning it was an engineering wonder, that provided all the domestic comforts early civilization basically needed. Regulated water systems to supply its many households, and flush away their waste. In the course of prosperity, people started getting too wasteful, while particularly those who administrated the wealth started keeping ever more of the dividends for their own purposes. Of course when supply could no longer meet demand, the administration took this as justification for them to enforce their authority. Of course rather than cut their own expenses, they chose to cut back on the technical people in their employ. As it all boiled down to one man having to maintain the entire water works, this was certainly too much for him to handle. When the sewage seriously started backing up, he immediately fled. A few thousand years later, the horrid smell was the first thing that hit the archeologists when they dug out this city. Need I say more?

Thoughts on Socially Ideosyncratic Gender

Frankly, I think all sociological precepts about gender are nothing other than that. Even though I personally am heterosexual, I really couldn't give a damn about what the "popular concensus" seeks to iconize as infant, child, boy, girl, man, woman, hermaphrodite, gay, transvestite, or whatever. When left to its own designs, causality on the individual level will resolve with whatever survival requires. Often around the arctic circle, where survival depends highly on the most meticulous resource management, it is the women who are the natural organizers, while the men further their natural skills as hunter-gatherers. No doubt this was the way of the world some 10,000 years ago when agrarian culture gave rise to the first major centers of trade. This is not to say that all women or men fall into these categories, as there will always be those of unique talent regardless of gender. Bottom line: necessity is the mother of invention.

My brother has always had a problem with gender "identity" though he himself has always been heterosexual. I suspect that has alot to do with the mockeries of childhood where the kids used to call him "princess"...that was until he cleared out a whole school bus in a fit of rage. These people really must learn that this family comes from a long line of berzerkers. Indeed, I have had my own delightful experiences with those who were always trying to be so "Vogue", but any effort to taunt my "unladylikeness" was usually met by a very short blunt slap across the head while standing on their freshly nail-polished toes. There was however once, I threw them all into the gym shower, to make my point perfectly clear. Each to their own, I say!

Resisting the Forces of Entropy

Pretty well all my life, I've had to be the master of DIY. Most people around me didn't even have the brains enough to realize that this was not one of their talents. As such was especially the case with my parents, as well as my brother (who they thought was such a genius), I found myself living in the most phenomenal conditions of utter futility. There wasn't an appliance or fixture in the house they didn't find some way of hopelessly screwing up. Thus I would wait until they were away somewhere, before venturing to put things right. Whenever they'd start looking for some kind of tool, that's when I'd take off, as far away as I could get until that dark cloud of cosmological disasters was out of sight. I remember one day, my brother, insisting on advancing his driving lessons, got in a row with my father over using the car. Well not only was this car a disaster on wheels (as one would expect of those "lunch-box" Fiats), but with those two wanting to play crash test dummy, heaven forbid! I was quietly redeeming the miss-wiring of a lamp when I overheard the argument. My father was telling him that the battery had to be changed first. This seized me with an ironic grin upon realizing the inevitable consequences, as it was my brother (despite taking an electronic engineering course) had already toasted various appliances of his own. Needless to say, after much calamity of cursing and tools being thrown about, I heard a brief "clack" followed by a louder "PAFF!" I peered out the window, in time to see the smoke seep out from under the hood. Quickly I dropped everything I was doing, and fled for the back door as the words errupted-"You idiot, I don't fucking believe it! How could you do that?!...that's totally impossible!". Don't ask me how, but my brother got the poles of the battery reversed. Upon hearing this, I almost fell off my bike laughing...although I knew damn well I'd have to chip in a couple of thousand for a new wreck.

Realizing Nature Spirits

Its a curious thing that these newage shamanizers haven't a clue of what nature spirits are really about. It certainly doesn't come in a can labelled "shake well before use". It seems this is where most wannabe adepts go terribly wrong when it comes to connecting the dots. Nature Spirits are not just hiding in the forest or in some dilapidated temple or ancient ruin. The bottom line is that its not only in everything but maintains the integrity of existence through shear determinism of realizing local universality. In this respect, the idea of invocation can only seem utterly absurd. You don't invoke it, you simply realize the fact of its part in who and what you are. Expound upon that, into the higher dimensions, and you can not only hear a pin drop, but perceive the whole causality of it dropping. At that level, things take on a fractal symmetry where you can actually see the nodes of causality. When that reactor in Chernobyl went critical, I could practically feel the quantum shockwave pass through me. I jumped up from my drawing board and immediately phoned my brother. I told him of the experience and that judging from the direction and intensity, it could well have been in Russia. Nothing was heard on the news, but in the days to follow, panic started breaking out in the headquarters, as it was some of the guys were second generation Ukranians. By the time the incident finally hit the news media, some of these people had already snuck across the borders to rescue family. One of the senior personnel officers came running into my office, all in a panic to issue a special order that people stay put. All flights as well as field exercises were put on hold. I told my family to stay away from mushrooms and green stuff until such a time as tests presented clear picture of the hazard. Fortunately for us, a huge thundershower neutralized much of the radioactivity. In fact it was quite spectacular. Rain poured down in an absolute flood while massive pink bolts of lightning came crashing all around about every 3 seconds. I remember my family standing at the door to watch this spectacle and me warning them to stay away from the rain. They gave me a leery look and nodded, closing the door again. I remember one fool aquaintance who ventured out, soon developed a growth on his forehead where the water streamed together. In the months to follow, huge toadstools could be seen in the fields everywhere. At least this was a healthy sign as it is these things quickly break down radiation in the soil. This I was able to confirm with a few of those NATO dosimeters of standard issue. As for the size of the toadstools, I measured the biggest one at 35 cm, with a cap 18 cm across!

Ah yes, the Mormons

After returning to Germany, it took us a couple of years to find something we could call our own patch. In the interim we moved from a huge earthquake plagued apartment block, to the ground floor of an old villa in Lahr/Schwarzwald. The landlady was what the neighbours unceremoniously described as another "Geldgeier"  aspiring for the inner circle of the secret hand-shake. Yes, Lahr has been a Freemason town since 1750. Of course the old glory days of the South Baden region faring as the summer paradise for famous artists and philosophers came to an ugly end with Hitler's efforts to reclaim the Alsace under the Third Reich. With the fall of the Sigfried Line, Lahr simply dwindled into another Tobacco and Wine town like any other under the French occupation. When DeGaulle decided France had no further need of NATO, their bases were turned over to the Canadian Forces, and in the course of Trudeau's regime, Lahr became the centre of Canadian Forces Europe. Given the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar and the benefits of "living out allowance" Lahr prospered immensely, soon becoming a haven for ill-repute rather like the towns of the old gold rush days. This, of course, soon caught the undivided attention of various religious fanatics just itching for a wealthy congregation.

Needless to say, anyone living in Lahr with an English name, soon found these loonies knocking at their door- as by all accounts some dirty bastard in the personnel administration office sold them the information. Living on a main street of that town, we were practically bombarded, so I took the liberty of using this to hone my skills in psychological warfare. The Jehovas were a piece of cake because of their inanely singular focus on doomsday. The Mormons, however, had to be the greatest string of outright confabulation I ever heard in my life. Very well, I thought, two can play that game, so I conjured up some quasi-Dänikenesque alien conspiracy cult mythos with revelationist undertones.

Amazingly, the theory was so good, it almost had them convinced, which of course, caused quite a ruckus amongst their Elders. Somewhere down the line, they saw need to send in their head hauncho, as if they had run into the devil herself. He made airs about being some senator's son from Washington D.C, with connections to the NSA. Well, while I tried to stop the sardonic smirk from creeping across my face, I told him he might as well throw in the towel, because the Canadian security council have always been into quite different occult practices since the days of MacKenzie King; and they would certainly not be impressed by some Mormon political heinie encroaching on their territory here. There was also this fact of Joseph Smith violating Native American burial mounds, and no surprise he had to move to Utah to flee the curse. Aside from that, I expressed my discontent with the fact that the Mormon idea of polygamy was just too one sided for my taste, as I wouldn't mind having several husbands to do the housework, so I can focus on "conjuring a few spirits" myself. On this note, the blighter finally fled with his entourage, never to be seen in my whereabouts again!

Encounters with Wicca

On the verge of the mid 70's it seems my generation was going through some kind of spiritual identity crisis. Aside from all the weird religions they were getting into (i.e. Evangelism, Hari Krishna, Bahai, etc.) there were various Wicca covens taking shape. Being of the psychically overamplified by geophysical forces beyond my control, it was pretty tough for me to keep from attracting the most absurd kind of attention. By this time I had accepted my rather overwrought abilities as something none of these people would ever understand without getting vacuously starry eyed, or take it for some kind of power over human destiny. There was even one that tried to take me for the "doomsday angel" (sorry I'm just not into that biblical nonsense) screaming it aloud on the streets of Halifax-Dartmouth, every time he saw me. Needless to say, it was not long before he had a special room, complete with love-me jacket, in the local asylum. Nonetheless, ugly rumours had gotten around about me knowing things before they happened as well answering questions before the words passed people's lips. Thus one high priest of some Alexandrians got wind of it through his brother, who happened to be an acquaintance of mine. I was invited into the house where this coven resided, not far from the free school I was attending on the Dalhousie University campus.

Although they were good and helpful people, and quite serious of their practice; what was explained to me of its rituals, I really couldn't see myself getting into. I remembered some of the things my Welsh gran explained to me, of old folk practices in South Glamorgan, when I was a child. Indeed I could see parallels, and had been to Stonehenge in 1969, so I had a pretty good idea of what they were getting at. They had been hoping I would work with them as a kind of psychic channel, but it was their idea of the old good&evil-white&black paradox that put me off. I just couldn't see their plans working well with natural causality. When they explained of the problems they had with members getting "possessed" and ending up institutionalized, somehow that didn't surprise me. Its the old law of physics about equal opposite forces, and that Nature always sides with the hidden flaw. In order to achieve continuity in this realm of the universe, you simply have to break from such Euclidean norms. Of course to make them truly understand this, they would no longer be Wiccan. Conversely, if I was to channel their will the way they aspired, it would most certainly go terribly wrong- so I decided to leave well alone, gave my thanks but no thanks, and moved on.