I had a short but odd dream about a small tribe of ghouls. I’ve never dreamed of ghouls before. Zombies have appeared more often, and sometimes Lovecraftian deities, but ghouls are a first.

Actually, it was just a female, her parents, and her suitor. I’m not sure what happened to the rest of her tribe, but I had the impression that they had been decimated in some fashion, and that the remainders of her tribe (that is, her elderly mater and pater, plus one) were on the move to find a new home land. In fact, I believe they were fleeing the decimation of their tribe, possibly caused by the tribe of her suitor.

They were travelling into what they thought of as mountainous Badlands, but the female knew her parents would not travel through them so suddenly in the dream the “Badlands” were rapidly replaced by stones which might best be described as “flagstones” interspersed with boulders. Over these the elderly ghouls traveled easily without ever realizing they were in Badlands at all. Because if her elderly parents had known, they would have killed themselves. They were old and losing the strength and agility of their race, and so it was only proper that they sacrifice themselves for the good of the tribe (and to provide meat for the youngsters).

So they finally got under the mountain, but oddly enough it was all held up by scaffolding through which the ghouls did gymnastics the Olympic teams would have been jealous over. The female went first, her parents in between, and her suitor last. But once they were under the mountain, and her parents realized they’d been duped into the Badlands, they kept trying to fall off the scaffolding. And the scaffolding was none-to-sturdy. So first the mother tried to slip through the warped boards and had to be saved, and then the father tried to tip himself off of the platform.

It was very annoying.

I’ve been spending a lot of time at Catalyst4Change at tribe.net just so you know what inspired the thoughts below (and/or if you’d like to join in the discussion at C4C). Sustainability, how to spread the word and how to get there is the current topic seeming to occupy our thoughts.

I don’t think things will or can change globally until a majority of people come to some life altering point in their lives where life cannot proceed without that change. Unfortunately… such an event will most likely be cataclysmic in nature, with the survivors having no other choice but to embrace a microcosmic environment over the macrocosm we live in now. The Majority of people are simply too self-centered at the moment to see any other way but what is most convenient to their desires. It will not be until the only way to survive becomes the most convenient to one’s needs, rather than desires, that real changes will occur.

In the meantime, people like us can only brainstorm (as we have been and will continue to do) and gather information and skills that have been lost or set aside in the face of industrial convenience. When there are no more medically trained doctors, there will still be herbalists. When there are no more skyscrapers, there will still be carpenters and blacksmiths. When there are no more supermarkets, there will (hopefully) still be farmers. When there are no more cars, there will still be horses.

IMO, the “best” civilization framework to hang our future on would be based on the loosely allied pre-Romanized Greek city-states with their emphasis on intelligence, personal excellence, and self-accountability. The Romans started the ruin of everything with their devouring imperialism. They cannibalized every civilization they came into contact with and erased anything they didn’t consider compatible with their own goals and beliefs. Many of the difficulties we face today have their basis in the early Roman mind-set of domination and subjugation. The only thing I respect the Romans for is not paying their politicians and Julian the Blessed, the last Pagan emperor who attempted to reconcile all the religions in his empire by putting forth the idea of equality and right action over dogma.

When it comes to wealth, I think those currently in power will come to find out too late that knowledge, not money, is the only treasure worth having. We, as students and teachers, can only hope to share what we know with others who will receive us as equals. Those with power only gain it through the will of the men and women under them. That’s something our current crop of politicians have lost sight of. Without us, they have no power. So if we choose to put our power in the hands of someone other than the “elected” officials, they will cease to be our leaders.

I have great hope for the future, but I’m also a realist. If things continue as they are, and the Majority chooses to remain blind to the direction in which they are dragging the world, things can only end badly. Unfortunately, I don’t see any way to open their eyes short of letting them royally mess things up for everyone. They have to want to see the truth before the truth will present itself.

But telling them truth doesn’t mean they’ll accept it. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. The more we try to make them see the error in their actions, the more they will resist. And the more we insist, the more they will label us as dissenters and UnAmerican.

Appearing unAmerican is a real problem. Freedom of speech is in the intensive care unit and the administration is threatening to pull the plug. The media is a lapdog, while the internet is a bird. They have the media trapped under their heel and the internet in their hand. And they keep threatening to crush both. Fortunately while the media is content to roll over and lick the foot that oppresses them, the internet is more likely to peck the hand that seeks to hold it and take a crap in their eyes as it flies free.

How can we organize and educate those who are ready for change? The obvious answer is the Internet. It’s the only free and potentially international resource left. While some people online may be biased, all opinions, positive and negative, are available to anyone who’s willing to seek them out. There is hope through the proliferation of ideas and techniques, groups and forums. Though I have always disliked the term “networking” as a shallow substitute term for socializing, I think online networking is exactly what we must do.

There’s no denying that we are spread out all over the country and world. There’s is little possibility of casually meeting some e-friends because they live too far away. But through the internet, we are all connected. We can exchange ideas and build communities. Because there is a degree of anonymity, those who use a pseudonym can say what they need to say without being labeled unAmerican for voicing dissenting opinions. And the people who need to find us, will find us.

I know that not everyone who needs us is online. As little as I like the idea of wasting paper, the only thing I can suggest is that someone starts printing up an anonymous zine of discussions like this one and leaves them in public places where they will be found. People are naturally curious. If they see some paper with printing on it, they’ll pick it up and read at least a few lines. Those who are already curious about such things will continue to read and pass it on to others or leave the zine where it will be found again.

I had a confusing dream last night. The point of view kept shifting back and forth between a living character and a ghost. So at first I was in a huge mansion where I was to clean the second floor before the building was sold by its owner. I was on a gorgeous wooden staircase that went on and on forever, or at least went up far past a level I would have considered the second floor! lol In fact, between the first floor and the next floor, there was at least enough room for another floor. So I followed this guy up the stairs and listened while he told me what I had to do, which consisted mostly of cleaning the beautiful wood and slate floors. However, once he left me on my own, I started to find rooms which seemed to have been recently inhabited… dirty clothes, closets full of clothes, bric-a-brac, and boxes, unmade beds, etc. And weird things like bits of string and lightswitches, molding, carpet fuzz… And I’d noticed some rooms missing these things.

I realized I’d have to clean up the rooms before I could get down to actual cleaning, so I gatherd up the dirty clothes and walked across a hall to another room which turned out to be a classroom. I asked what they normally did with dirty clothes. The class had not yet begun, and was only half filled, but the teacher looked annoyed as if I had interrupted her. She pointed to a laundry basket under a student desk pushed against the wall. I put the clothes in the basket and quickly left.

Then the dream switched tracks and I followed this ghost around the mansion. He seemed to be one of those stereotypical twitchy comedy-show “homeless” black guys. If I had just seen him in real life, I never would have know he was a ghost, but in the dream, I knew he was some kind of poltergeist. However, as I followed him around I seemed to be the ghost. He was completely unaware of my presence, and I didn’t seem to have any form. At one point, I even seemed to inhabit his body. He was the one collecting the weird odds n ends I’d found in the closet. He pulled the molding off a door and took the string off a pull-light, all the while muttering, “She no’ married yet, she sho’ don’ need ‘dis!”

It was a very strange dream. heh

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Got some news articles for you all here….

If I owned my own land, this is the kind of house I’d want… What a Load of Rubbish 

Two new books of interest too. I haven’t read them yet, but the reviews look good… Trash Test Dummies

Think the current administration cares about the environment or our future? Think again… The Godly Must be Crazy

My car just passed it’s inspection and emissions test, but I’m hoping to get a Greener car when I can. I guess if I can’t get an actual Green car or a hybrid, I can get a Honda… Honda gets activists’ ‘greenest’ award

And the final article… While I deplore the annual murder of countless trees during the season of Yule, this is a step in the right direction… Trafalgar tree is a true ever-green

So I leave you with this food for thought until the next time I have something to share. heh

The following was inspired by Dosmangoes’ blog. I suggest you read his (if you have not already) before you read mine.

I have often thought that the only way to achieve peace, a lasting peace, is to show in no uncertain terms that you want peace. The terrorists seem to think that to achieve peace, they must frighten everyone into submission. The governments have the same idea… laying stocks of world destroying bombs and biological weapons to frighten their competition…

And we can protest until we’re blue in the face, but they can’t hear and we go home, and they don’t see us any more.  We buy the products that fund the war… gas and oil, medications that are based on oil, and things we don’t even know of which have connections to the war. We fund the war even when we don’t know we do.

People who desire peace need to demonstrate in a way that cannot be ignored. If one person went to Washington and sat on the steps, without eating and without leaving, refusing to give in until s/he’s desire for peace was met, they might get a mention in a newspaper or on tv as a crackpot. If a whole group of people descended upon Washington, and stayed without eating or leaving, until peace was declared, they might be considered a homegrown movement… a mention in a national newspaper or on tv. If groups all over the world went to their countries’ governing centers, they might be considered a phenomena, and politicians might sit up and take notice, especially if they were mixed groups of many ethnic and religious constituents. They would make international news.

If peace were still not met… something more extreme than fasting and obstruction of daily affairs would be needed… perhaps everyone, men and women, could shave off their hair. And though it sounds very extreme and even mentally unstable to say this… if still they would not give us peace, maybe a mass suicide in front of every governing center would make them sit up and notice. It’s not that I advocate suicide, but if my death served to help make the world a better place, it would be worth it to me. And unlike terrorists, I wouldn’t be taking anyone’s life but my own. Honestly, I am not afraid of death, having lived and died before… living scares me more if things continue as they are.

And so many lives, given for peace rather than taken, might serve to change the way humanity acts for generations to come. Certainly so many giving their lives (1000s dying at once), sacrificing themselves for the idea of peace rather than war, could only supply positive energy for a change the old-school politicians (aka greedy, self-serving self-hating xenophobes  ) have been fighting in our race for the past 100 or so years.

We are more than what our leaders tell us. Our lives are the currency upon which their regime is based. How our lives are spent also dictates the future of our race. Without our support, our leaders become paupers, but if we do not choose to oppose them, and instead give them free reign through our silence, they still control our future. Spend your life in service to the future of our race, not the present wellbeing of our politicians.

We are all human…
we are all living creatures…
the boundaries our ancestors put in place…
the borders of each country…
will only remain boundaries as long as we recognize them.

Celebrate your cultural and religious diversity, but don’t let it form a barrier between you and others.

I am a citizen of the world. I do not recognize justice in war.

Last night I had a dream reminiscent of something Vincent Price might have acted in. I was the head of the staff in this huge mansion. The owners of the mansion were a married couple. The man’s best friend also lived there. The best friend and the wife were having an affair and conspired to kill the master of the house by poisoning him. However he found out about it and shot them at dinner. Then he died of the poison.

Then all the servants rejoiced because we hated all three of them. lol Since I was head of the staff, they all came to me to ask what we should do. I told them to get rid of the bodies, and we’d get what was coming to us for the all the years of service we’d put in. We sat down and had a great dinner (sans wine!).

We were just clearing up the dishes when the dead master’s lawyer came in, looking for his boss. I took him aside and told him that the master of the house had left on an extended and private vacation with his wife to try to patch up their marriage. He was a little disappointed because they were kind of friends and he hadn’t been told, but said he knew that they’d been having trouble and would keep everything hush hush. He also gave me a box, saying that it was a birthday present from the master’s grandfather (who had died), but that it had gotten lost in the mail until now. Then he left.

I opened the box and there was a treasure map inside, so I called all the servants together and said, “Change of plans!” And we all went on a treasure hunt, which was less illegal than living in the mansion of our former dead employers and spending all their money. heh

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated…

No worries everyone I am still alive and kicking. Aside from family trials and tribulations, it is that time of year when the hungry zombies descend upon the unfortunate, tearing apart the scenery and looking for a brain. I refer of course, to the holidays, a swear word in the mouthes of retail workers everywhere. The time of year when we make the same barely above minimum wage for three times the amount of work… the time of year when you go out of your way to find the ten-twelve items a person was looking for to complete their holiday shopping list and after an hour of work, they walk off without even a thank you. Be kind to anyone in retail who helps you do your shopping this year folks… the number of witchy Pagans is growing by leaps and bounds and you don’t want an accidental hexing. (I assure you, it’s not as rare as you might think… the old “Evil Eye” was more often an accidental thing, than not, according to folklore.)

Aside from that, nothing new really to report so far as my family goes. My mother’s BF is eating now, though he still doesn’t sleep well. That is mostly because he’s not drinking any more and he’s also given up smoking pot. Yay and hurray! Some good things have come out of this mess. Now if they would both just give up cigarettes. They stink up the house so bad people think I smoke by the way my clothes smell.

My mother is trying to get my brother professionally diagnosed with Aspberger’s so he can collect social security. Personally, I think he’s just an selfish, unfeeling little sociopath, but I understand absence of normal emotion is a part of Aspbergers syndrome. On the other hand, my brother can act completely normal when it suits him. I wonder if a lot of serial killers and mass murderers could be diagnosed with Aspbergers. I really think my brother has the potential to be one. I’m sure that’s unfair to people who have been diagnosed with it, but I think it’s a valid question. What if people who kill others have this psychological condition, and no one’s made the connection yet? They always describe the killers as “betraying no human emotion.” Ahhh, I predict they probably will within a few years or months.

At any rate, GoddessFourWinds, I’m alive and well… just overworked and underpaid… ah, living the American dream… or at least the making the dreams of the wealthy possible through my back-breaking labors.

Kaosneverdied… you need never worry about insulting me unless you go out of your way to insult me… if you get my meaning. So long as you don’t resort to name calling (which given your intelligence I doubt you ever would), I’m not going to be offended by a difference of opinion. You have the right to believe whatever you like, and so do I, and so long as you do not infringe upon my right to have an opinion, neither will I begrudge you yours. I respect you even if I don’t always agree with you… and what a boring world it would be if everyone agreed on every point.