Country Zen

To imagine the thoughtlessness
of a thoughtless thing
is useless.
The mind must sing
of itself to keep awake

-Wendell Berry, from "Design of a House" (1969)

I think Berry and Dogen would get along just fine.

Energy

Met Prof. Charles Hall last week, which was fun.  He is all about EROI (Energy Return on Investment) and about getting the social science of economics to recognize the existence of the "biophysical" realm of stuff, which is to say embodied energy.
He mentioned that he had received his training from one Howard Odum , and lo and behold, here's a very lovely scientist-guy who saw the world exactly as the transformation of energy.  And you know he looks a bit like the wise old farmer in "Babe."

You might say, well of course economics is about stuff, but they, the Economists, don't talk about stuff, they talk about money - about interest rates and commodity prices and consumer confidence.  And you might say, well of course the world is composed of the transformation of energy, but you would be surprised how fixated we are by the thought that, no, energy is something you put in a gas tank or that runs in wires. 
That's how deranged we are by our own concepts.

New Year, Old Weather Pattern

Today the Wind came back.  It's a formidable wind out of the northeastthat beats that against the flank of Mauna Loa like a flail from 9 am until 4 pm, approximately.  It had stopped for a couple of weeks, for Christmas and New Years days, when it rained gloriously and gently on the wind-whipped land and green sprouts sprang up everywhere.  It is such a pleasure to be inconvenienced by rain: to have to run my back-up generator because the batteries on my solar-system run dow, to have to remember to roll up the truck windows, to have to wear rubber boots in the morning, and get splattered by mud in the corrals, to find out where the roof leaks, and where the road is pothole-d.  All of those little inconvenieces are a welcome change from the constant, gut-churning fear of running out of feed and water for the cattle.  I hope the Wind does not stay long.  I have hopes that 2013 will be a kinder year.

This morning I had to stop washing the dishes for a minute because a triple rainbow of such intensity appeared against the black mountains. Then the light of the rising sun hit the creamy white underwing of a hawk gliding in an arc above Ka`alaiki hill.

Will James' Smoky the Cowhorse

With me, my weakness lays towards the horse.  My life, from the time I first squinted at daylight has been with horses.  I admire every step that creathure makes, I know them and been thru so much with 'em that I've come to figger a big mistake was made when the horse was classed as an animal.  The me, the horse is man's greatest, most useful, faithful, and powerful friend.  He never whines when he's hungry or sore-footed or tired, and he'll keep on going for the human till he drops. 

Two Simple Things

Feel your own body.
Locate physical reality. 

You would think that we could take these two simple things for granted, but, no.
The American Selves that we construct have no bodies and no place in the world.
It makes us Crazy.
Also Rational.
Ghost-like, God-like Orphans. 

Nothing is any Good
Until You Are Home.

Two Faces of American Maleness

I got emails from the two extremes of the ideological spectrum this morning, one from Free Market Carnivore, the other from Yes! magazine.  Despite their violent differences, there are actually quite a few commonalities:  suspicion of the powers that be, suspicion of the stimulus plan, and the most egregious mis-use of words and concepts so as to overpower their straw-man opponent.  Makes me want to laugh and cry. 

Here's the carnivore quoting from Michael Reagan's book on Reagan versus Keynes:

"The fundamental assumption of Keynesianism - the belief that government drives the economy - defies logic. All wealth is created in the private sector and the government can only tax or borrow that wealth out of the private sector and shuffle it around," he said. In conditions like those around the corner, the government will be competing with the private sector for money.

Of course, that belief that government should run the economy fits in with the left's big government theory. If they convince people that the government should run the economy, then it is easier to explain to them that the government needs more money to do more for them, that tax cuts are a "cost" to the government, that reallocation of the wealth of society should be "fairly" handled by the government and that the levers of regulatory power should be in the hands of the government to make sure no one gets out of line.

Heres the liberal perspective on male psychic mutilation under consumer capitalism:

As in the workplace and war, men’s bodies are also exploited in the marketplace. It is here that powerlessness in the sphere of production is compensated for symbolically. Any consumer product sold as a symbol of manhood can function in this way. Many such products are innocuous; some are not. Millions of men have died in the last 50 years, yielding many millions of dollars of profit, by seeking manhood in a pack of Marlboros.

Teaching males to seek feelings of worth through displays of power, toughness, and competitiveness turns male bodies into readily exploitable generators of profit. The costs to all but the tiny few who appropriate these profits are enormous: ruined bodies and minds, premature death, perpetual war, depression and drug use, interpersonal violence, and the abuse of women and others who are not men in good standing.

What the two also share is the vitality of the argument.  That is a good thing, not something that we should bemoan.   I love peace and harmony more than most, but argument is a vital human pleasure.  If only we would listen to each other, rather than trying to drown each other out.