Changing Places

1702

Shit.

06/12/05 AP: Eight from 48th Brigade injured in mortar attack
A mortar attack injured eight from Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Sunday morning at a forward operating base near the city of Mahmudiyah, brigade officials said.
06/12/05 AP: In other violence
In other violence, a mortar barrage intended for an Iraqi army barrack in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar missed its target and slammed into a house, killing a 6-year-old child and wounding five other people, police Capt. Amjad Hashim said.
06/12/05 AP: Insurgents Fire Mortar Rounds at Funeral
The mortar attack, which killed two people and wounded 11, took place Sunday evening in Baghdad’s northern Hurriyah district during a funeral for the mother of Maj. Gen. Rashid Flaiyeh, who commands the Interior Ministry’s elite police units.
06/12/05 AP: Who Keeps Tabs on Contractors in Iraq
There is no centralized procedure for monitoring scores of contracting firms rebuilding Iraq with U.S. funds, according to the military. The controls that do exist have been criticized for failing to keep track of millions.
06/12/05 FTimes: Iraqis unmoved by call to withdraw food and oil subsidies
Two years ago, when the pumps ran dry at Iraq’s petrol filling stations, angry motorists muttered that Americans were stealing the fuel to drive their tanks…
06/12/05 Reuters: At scene of Iraq air strikes, casualties unclear
Iraqis inspecting the damage of U.S. air strikes in western Iraq on Sunday challenged American assertions that the raids had killed 40 insurgents, saying there were no guerrillas in the area.
06/12/05 AP: Four U.S. soldiers killed in bomb attacks west of Baghdad
Two soldiers were killed Saturday when a bomb exploded near their vehicle outside Amiriyah, some 25 miles west of Baghdad. Two other soldiers also died Saturday when their vehicle struck a bomb near Taqaddum, 45 miles west of Baghdad.
06/12/05 AP: British troops arrest Iraqi insurgents
British troops on Sunday arrested a group of Iraqi insurgents suspected of carrying out separate roadside bombings that killed two British soldiers, the Ministry of Defense said.
06/12/05 KUNA: Insurgents’ financier turns himself in to Iraqi authorities
An insurgent responsible for financing insurgent groups in Mosul turned himself in to the Iraqi security authorities on Wednesday, said an Iraqi Government press release on Sunday.
06/12/05 Xinhuanet: Iraqi Kurds elect first regional president
The Kurdish parliament approved Sunday that Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) was elected the first president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
06/12/05 AP: Iraq Struggles To Draft New Constitution
Iraqi efforts to draft a new constitution are weakened by the lack of political experience within the minority Sunni Arab community, the prime minister’s spokesman said Sunday.
06/12/05 Reuters: Iraqis find 20 bodies bound and shot in head
The bodies of 20 people, bound and shot in the head, have been found on a military firing range in the eastern suburbs of Baghdad, police said today.
06/12/05 AP: Car Bomb Injures 4 near Slovak Embassy in Baghdad
One suicide car bomb went off in front of the Slovak Embassy in Baghdad, injuring four people, as Interior Minister Bayan Jabr was wrapping up a news conference across town to tout the successes of the crackdown, Operation Lightning.
06/12/05 AP: Army investigated as criminal the deaths of two guardsmen in Iraq
The deaths of two New York National Guard officers killed in a series of explosions in their Iraqi army camp as they slept are reportedly being investigated as criminal.
06/12/05 AP: U.K. Memo Said to Question Postwar Plan
A staff paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair eight months before the invasion of Iraq concluded that U.S. military officials were not planning adequately for a postwar occupation, The Washington Post reported.
06/12/05 AFP: Kidnapped French reporter freed in Iraq
rench journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter Hussein Hanun have been freed following five months held hostage in Iraq, French officials said.
06/12/05 Reuters: Air strikes in Iraq leave 40 insurgents dead
United States air strikes killed an estimated 40 insurgents in western Iraq on Saturday, the military said, but in Baghdad a suicide bomber attacked the headquarters of an elite police unit, killing three.

Homer’s view of a flat Earth in 900BC

Do you know
Where you are
On your journey?

Tao’s movement has been compared to the flow of rivers. Its vastness has been compared to that of oceans. Some people are content to float here and there with the tide, but for others, such passivity is impossible. We have to navigate.

Like early explorers on the high seas, we know where we want to go. That’s when studying precedence is important. The wisdom of those who went before us is like a map. The truths regarding Tao are like the stars. We determine our goals, and we set out according to what we know and what we learn. The future is always uncertain; that is why it is important to objectively evaluate where we are on our spiritual path.

If you are confronted with a pivotal decision and cannot think of any other way to act, write down all the good things and all the bad things about a given situation. Also include how much more you want to do. See if staying your course will give you what you want. If not, change, no matter how deeply that will disrupt your routines. Some people never know where they are in life, and that is one of the biggest reasons that they are unhappy.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

I’m content to float most of the time, but I am always ready to navigate and steer when need be. I used to try too hard to fight the currents that run through my life, and wore myself out trying to paddle upstream. I had to learn to sail instead of rowing, which was way too much work. So now, I go with the wind and current for the most part, and have learned how to tack when needed.

Hey, at least I know the earth isn’t flat.

The Bush GOP is a Wal-Mart of five-and-dime ethics, self-enriching corporate sponsored war, imitation morality made in China, and a fresh baker’s dozen of half-truths for every occasion. America on sale: to the right folks in the right place at the right time for the right price. Going once, going twice …

Bible-thumping-bunko artists shove the hand of God into your pants pocket for thirty pieces of silver to buy membership lists from the likes of David Dukes and the KKK, because we all know, Heaven is white with just a touch of beige. And if you question that, James Dobson will take his Bible belt and show you the lashing love of Jesus.

We’ve long since passed murder at 1600 and now head to 1700 dead soldiers in Bush’s war on Iraq. And while Condi visits the troops, with a smile that could slit your throat from ear to ear, nobody asks what the plan is for this sandbox game of death.

The Downing Street Memo is all the talk to avoid. There are some people who want the American media to cover the contents of the memo that show Bush and Blair conspired to wage war despite their promises otherwise. But the media won’t cover the memo any more than they covered Bush’s words in the second presidential debate of 2000 when he said: “…. The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart or it’s unraveling, let’s put it that way. The sanctions are being violated. We don’t know whether he’s developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be or there’s going to be a consequence should I be the president.”

So what is the topic that grabs the news and the Democratic leadership’s attention?

Howard Dean said something mean. Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Bush lied and people died. Nope – not news. Ohio Republicans involved in financial and voting scandal. Nope – not news. Republicans jam Democratic phone lines during 2004 election to stop the vote. Republicans hack into Democratic computers. No news there. Tom Delay has repeated ethical lapses and takes money from lobbyists like Jack Abramoff. Nope – not news. The White House edits critical environmental reports to refute scientific fact. Nope – no news there. Wait a minute – this just in:

Howard Dean said something mean.

Oh my God! Stop the presses! Did you hear? Dean has gone mean, pass it on. Get Candy Crowley at CNN and Chris Matthews at MSNBC. Don’t forget Scarborough. This is a week’s worth of programming! Get Holy Joe Lieberman to speak for the good Democrats. Get Jive-Joe Biden, he’ll be good for a sensible quote to contrast with the madness of Howard “Beal” Dean.

Quick, do you know why Republicans are against federal money for stem cell research? They’re afraid the Democrats will use it to grow a spine. (ba-da-boom)

…

There are three levels of truth:
Experience, reasoning, and knowing.
All others assertions should be rejected.

The first type of truth is experience. Once you have experienced something, you know it. No person can persuade you otherwise.

The second type is truth gained by reasoning. In this case, the truth cannot be immediately verified because the subject is too small (like atomic particles) or too large (like the movement of planets through time) or too abstract (like ideas). Something may be true, but its truth is borne out by analysis rather than physical testing.

Either of these two types of truths has a range of validity. They are relative. Therefore, through truths are superior to falsehood, opinions, beliefs and superstition, they each have limits. There is a third type of truth that is different from these two.

This is a way of direct spiritual knowing. Wholly internal, this mode is the direct experiencing of truth through the opening of higher faculties. Meditation gives one perception of absolute certainty. There is no doubt or need of other investigations; this knowledge is beyond words, descriptions, and rationalizations. In fact, one must be careful not to let the fruits of one’s meditations pass into the realm of rationalization. This will subject you to the relativity of external truths and ruin your confidence. To avoid doubts and conflicting opinions, followers of Tao keep their revelations secret. Then what is known directly is absolutely yours.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgement of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, as must, if it be honest, also come an understanding of its inadequacy.
– Carl Jung

It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth.’ and so it goes away. Puzzling. — Robert M. Pirsig

Truth springs from argument amongst friends. — David Hume

The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself. –Anais Nin

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. — Andre Gide

Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.
Knowledge is not intelligence.
In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected.
Change alone is unchanging.
The same road goes both up and down.
The beginning of a circle is also its end.
Not I, but the world says it: all is one.
And yet everything comes in season.
– Heraklietos of Ephesos

Yes, I have things I know directly. And no, I can’t explain what those things are. If you’ve experienced and known similar things, you know they can’t really be explained anyway. They are simply things you know.

Truth really is always knocking on the door, and you just have to let it come in sometimes. You can still tell it to go away after you visit for a while, if you want. Truth doesn’t really care. It can always come back again later. Sometimes truth likes to sit down with you for a cup of tea.

I know many truths from arguing with friends. By the way, you always lose the argument, even if you think you’ve won. Even if you tell your friend to go away, like you did truth. A real friend will always come back later, and the others, well, they don’t matter so much anyway. Truth will hunt them down later for a cup of tea and a long chat…

Superstition | Comet of the Moon(Hale-Bopp) above the American desert,
photographed by William R. Dellings

The voices of ghosts are so familiar,
They whisper to me every day.
You, so young and rich,
Make assumptions with absolute assurance.

I vacillate between superstition and tradition.
You don’t need to question.

Tradition is the oral delivery of rites and customs from generation to generation. Superstition is belief inconsistent with what society general considers true and rational. When tradition and superstition become bound together, it is a sign of trouble. For example, a woman was once taught not to wash her hair on anybody’s birthday. Whenever she protested this, the answer was “Don’t question!” Years later, she leaned that in the old country, letting one’s hair down was a sign of mourning and thus inauspicious on a birthday. What was etiquette in one generation became superstition in another.

Those raised with traditions and superstitions are often torn between the extremes of biculturalism. Their inbred beliefs conflict with current knowledge and quickly changing culture, creating doubt and uncertainty.

There has to be informed revision to all tradition if it is not to degenerate into superstition. The true substance of any tradition will take new form without compromising its inherent character. If not, it will just become the outmoded beliefs of old people, and it will fade into ghostly whispers.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

In all religions, there are people who tend to search for an easy route to salvation or enlightenment, which does not involve changing themselves in the process. They will cling to superficial ritual and form, believing that these rites would do for them what they refuse to do for themselves. They try to create the illusion that they could get the article without paying the price for it. It is a terrible superstition causing stagnation and suffering.

You and you alone can salvage your life.
You and you alone can walk the path.
No one else can do it for you.

Many Christians, for example, wrongly believe that if they have faith in Christ as a kind of miraculous icon, they would find salvation for their souls without following Christ’s actual path. Christ has pointed at the path they should take, but they have confused his finger with the path. Christ is not a comfortable shortcut. He has given us a perfect example of a way to salvation, a way that can only be followed by the very bravest, for it involves sacrificing the self even to the point of crucifixion. It is living in the spirit of Christ that gives Christianity vitality, not ritual pretense of sacrifice, or prostrating oneself before some icon.

In the same way, many Buddhists would perform what would be symbolic rituals to build up merit. Rituals are no shortcuts to spiritual development. Symbolic acts isolated from real life do not move your spirit forward. Chanting other people’s words of wisdom without application is like pretending to move forward on the path while you are in fact waiting for someone else to take you there. The spiritual essence of the Buddha gives Buddhism vitality and energy, not ritual imitations of virtue.
…

One thing is clear. There is no way to escape the inexorable law of karma. The law of cause and effect operates as relentlessly in the world of the spirit as it does in the physical realm. You shall reap what you have sown. Your deeds will come back to haunt you. Even a Buddha does not escape the relentless fairness of causality.

Only a real change in your mind, thoughts, speech and action will change your karma, for karma is nothing but your own action: it is in fact you. Only when you are not serving an ego will you live without creating more sorrow and suffering for yourself and for others.

— Jos Slabbert, Overcoming Ignorance

Superstition —
[From supersisto, "to stand in terror of the deity" (Cicero, "De Nat. deorum", I, 42, 117); or from superstes, "surviving": "Qui totos dies precabantur et immolabant, ut sibi sui liberi superstites essent, superstitiosi sunt appellati", i.e. "Those who for whole days prayed and offered sacrifice that their children might survive them, were called superstitious" (Cicero, ibid., II, 28, 72). Cicero also drew the distinction: "Superstitio est in qua timor inanis deorum, religio quæ deorum cultu pio continetur", i.e. "Superstition is the baseless fear of the gods, religion the pious worship." According to Isidore of Seville (Etymolog., l. 8, c. iii, sent.), the word comes from superstatuo or superinstituo: "Superstitio est superflua observantia in cultu super statuta seu instituta superiorum", i.e. "observances added on to prescribed or established worship"] is defined by St. Thomas (II-II:92:1) as “a vice opposed to religion by way of excess; not because in the worship of God it does more than true religion, but because it offers Divine worship to beings other than God or offers worship to God in an improper manner”. Superstition sins by excess of religion, and this differs from the vice of irreligion, which sins by defect. The theological virtue of religion stands midway between the two. — Catholic Encyclopedia

So superstitions come from an excessive fear of God, an excess of religion. They come from mistaking the form of worship for the path one is intended to follow. But the reaility is, you can’t be a Christian without walking Jesus’ path, and you can’t be a Buddhist without walking Buddha’s path. All the church services and the chanting won’t bring you to salvation, only walking the path will do that.

And you can’t be a Taoist without walking your own path.

I suppose religious superstition became relevant to my life when I asked a Catholic boyfriend why he was eating fish on Friday during Lent, and he didn’t know, so I told him why and he got mad at me. Other than that, I can’t recall it affecting my life all that much.

As to everday kinds of superstition, I have always followed the ones that made sense, like not walking under ladders, since things could be dropped on your head by someone working above you or you could bump the ladder and make it fall on you. I have no fear of the number thirteen, but the number four bothers me, like it does the Japanese. I think it was that Dick Van Dyke show episode when I was a kid where Rob dreamed everyone lost their thumbs and became aliens.

About the photo: I grew up near the Superstition Mountains in Arizona, and often went there for hikes or picnics. Nothing weird ever happened while I was there, but it’s a very nice area. Comet Hale-Bopp holds fond memories for me of comet watching with a dear friend who won’t talk to me anymore. Maybe he’s afraid I’ll steal his thumbs…

From DailyTao.org:

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

If you have a Mac and use dashboard, you can install a dashboard widget to get a quote every day from DailyTao.org.

If you are best in the morning,
Cultivate Tao in the morning.
If you are best in the evening,
Cultivate Tao in the evening.

Whatever the optimal time of day is for you, you should devote it to the cultivation of Tao. For example, dawn, when it is quiet, the world is fresh, and the mind is untainted by the day’s events, is an ideal time to devote yourself to study. Morning, the time of birth, should not be wasted on a quick breakfast, a hastily read newspaper, and a manic rush to work. It is far better to awake from peaceful sleep, wash yourself, drink clear water, and immerse yourself in the rising energy of the day.

If your optimal time is evening, there are two propitious intervals: twilight, when day and night come into balance, and midnight, when the first breath of the coming day arises. In the night, worldly cares are put aside, rest and relaxation are paramount, and the entire world withdraws into nocturne. Night is the time of regeneration, and it should not be wasted on wanton entertainment, indulgent sexuality, and too much sleep. It is far better to retire from the cares of the day, bathe, and immerse yourself in the gestating power of the dark.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

All things, material and spiritual, originate from one source and are related as if they were one family. The past, present, and future are all contained in the life force. The universe emerged and developed from one source, and we evolved through the optimal process of unification and harmonization.
– Morihei Ueshiba

Sorry, but I’ll take indulgent sexuality or wanton entertainment any day, so my best time to cultivate Tao must not be evening! I can do without the quick breakfast and manic rush to work though, since I gave that up, so I guess my optimal time for Tao is the morning. Dawn, well, I’m sleeping then, thanks anyway. I like to have my cup of green tea, peruse my blogroll, and do a little Tao meditation in the morning. It seems to work for me. I usually feel pretty low in energy in the mornings, so it’s nice to relax and do my contemplation of the world then. I catch up on the news and see what’s happening in the world, forward along any interesting tidbits to my political list or my other email lists, and ease into the day.

Over the Hedge

Me, painting a cat

Sleek sky of cobalt blue;
Water like nectar satisfies deeply,
Air sweeter than the best perfume;
Sunlight warms a grateful cat.

It is hard to believe life is all for naught. Can’t we take happiness when it comes?

There is admittedly a great deal of suffering and horror in this world. But if we are to accept life’s sad parts, we must also embrace its good parts. As long as we are in this world, we must accept it all. If what comes our way is occasionally wonderful, no one should deny our enjoyment. We all know that every rise is followed by a fall. Why dwell only on dread of the future? As long as we have behaved responsibly, there is nothing wrong with enjoying the best of what life has to offer.

Look at a cat as she stretches out contentedly in the sun. There is no thought of the next moment, only the sheer enjoyment of the present. Rest assured that she will still be able to clean herself, still be able to catch mice, and still be able to do all the things that a cat must do. But she is without anxieties, and so she is purely and totally who she should be. She acts as if she were nature’s favorite. And who is to say otherwise?

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

“Enjoyment and the contemplation of our inner activities are incompatible. You cannot hope and also think about hoping at the same moment. Of course, the two activities can and do alternate with great rapidity, but they are distinct and incompatible. . . The surest way of spoiling a pleasure is to start examining your satisfaction. . . Nearly everything that was going on a moment before is stopped by the very act of our turning to look at it.” — C.S. Lewis

Well, San Diego is gorgeous in sunshine this afternoon. My poor kittyWillis has not had an enjoyable week, with the trip to kitty hospital for his urinary blockage. But he certainly is grateful – he’s been nuzzling up to us for head scritchies like mad in spite of his pain. But not allowed out to enjoy the sunshine as yet. My girl cat has just been hissing at him since he got home, so she’s not all that happy either, but she’s currently out and about in the garden.

We could all do with some sunshine to lie about and enjoy!

calicokath: Stop! Look! Listen! That’s not enough any more!

How on earth did we get to the point in this country where there are hordes of pundits who can espouse what is wrong with this country without many of them taking the time to even outline how to fix the economy, the Electoral College, yank control of our congress from the lobbyists?

I am not talking about any of my friends who blog. Yes, quite true, they have their opinions. If you read them regularly, you learn that they have solutions to problems, too.

I would be interested hearing what you think about this. The bloggers linked above are very bright and immensely opinionated people. And, yet the most important thing is that they are courageous. They do not cower in the corner whispering their opinions. They publish them and take a lot of heat from the nay sayers.

And, the silent majority sits by and allows this to continue. YOU NEED TO SPEAK UP.

I am writing this because I noticed something while gathering information about commenters on blogs: most of the ones who blow the hottest vile air, don’t have a blog at all. If a site requires them to register for a journal or diary, they do that, but do not give their e mail addresses, write blogs on that site, nor do they blog anywhere else. They hide in their anonymity. They can be bold enough to nay say and tear apart someone else’s opinion, but they don’t have the courage to publish their opinions. They are bullies. Wonder if they have glass jaws?

I think this bullying spills over into our daily lives. When we hear something controversial and watch the author or speaker get smeared, most of us sit by and do nothing. We don’t want to get involved. I think this attitude has reached a crisis point. When nearly everyone sits by and doesn’t want to get involved with any issue, that only fuels the bullies to do it again.

When is the last time you wrote a letter to the editor, told anyone that they are full of hot air?

We used to be a nation of people who spoke their minds to improve situations. Now, I think only a few of us do that and the rest of us sit by and do nothing. That is why they call us the silent majority.

If you want anything to improve in our country, it is time for you to find your voice. The next time the good guys are smeared, do something: make a comment, don’t let the bullies win the day.

Think of it this way. What would happen if all of you who heard something misleading said on a newscast wrote a letter to the editor AND stopped buying the products made by the company whose ads finance the broadcast.

I think if this started to happen on a regular basis, we could change the role of the audience and get unbiased news.

My amusement lately is watching the Union-Tribune desperately seek readers while we walk past their solicitors and loudly tell them, “No, I’m not buying your BIASED paper!” Meanwhile I support other local papers that give me the real news, rare as they are. I support my blogging friends who report the truth to us. I support the politicians, like Barbara Boxer, who are brave enough to say what needs to be said today. I talk to the PBS solicitors and let them know I won’t support them tell the winger nut now in charge of PBS is gone.

I won’t set foot in a WalMart. I support local growers, especially organic growers. I write letters, I sign petitions, I make phone calls. Is it enough to change anything? Well, it’s a start. If enough other people do it too, we can change things. No today, not tomorrow, but soon. The tide will turn, the pendulum will swing. But we gotta do our bit, folks.

Get loud, get proud – get your opinions out there. They need to be heard, people!

And to my brother who thinks I’m too political – hey, you’re the one who voted for McGovern back when they wanted to draft your butt. I’ve got two teen-age boys to think about, here! ;^)

The Cyborg Name Generator: POOKIEHEAD
P.O.O.K.I.E.H.E.A.D.: Person Optimized for Online Killing and Infiltration/Electronic Humanoid Engineered for Assassination and Destruction

ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS / Diet for a sustainable planet / The challenge: Eat locally for a month (You can start practicing now)

Sustainable vs organic

Organic — which used to mean largely local, small and family-owned operations — can now mean food grown half the country away, or abroad, and by large, corporate-owned farms that use highly mechanized methods and distribute through centralized, large transportation systems.

It is now possible to buy organic food from Argentina and Chile, but “I’m sorry, that’s not sustainable,” says Dave Henson, director of the Occidental Art and Ecology Center in Sonoma County.

“We have to consider the whole food stream, from genetic inputs to seed, to the quality of labor, to harvest and shipping and packaging and the waste stream,” says Henson. “Food miles is another indicator.”

“Food miles” are foremost in Jessica Prentice’s thoughts as she prepares for the August challenge of eating within the foodshed that she and the Locavores have drawn. We spent an afternoon with Prentice as she shopped and cooked dinner. Between now and August, she and the other Locavores are going through their pantries, researching and refining the boundaries of their personal foodsheds.

…

Choosing organic vs. local

You may find yourself confronted with the choice of organic or local. How do the two fit in each other? Here are the Locavores’ guidelines:

– Whenever possible, buy, eat and cook local — i.e. within the foodshed.

– If not locally produced, then organic. This choice generally protects the environment and your body from chemicals and hormones.

– If not organic, then family farm. If it comes down to Kraft versus Cabot (a dairy co-op in Vermont), choose Cabot.

– If not family farm, then local business. Coffee and wheat products may be difficult. At least support a local coffee-roasting house and local bakery.

– If not a local business, then go for terroir. Purchase foods that express the region they are grown in and support the local agriculture. If you’re buying Brie, by it from Brie, France; if Parmesan cheese, from Parma, Italy.

– O.W.
Foodshed sources and alternatives

If you want to practice foodshed eating, but some of the staples of your diet just don’t fit, what can you do?

First, research an ingredient to find out where it comes from, then research a local source.

After that, the choices basically boil down to three — give up the ingredient; ignore the foodshed philosophy for this food and keep eating it; or seek some middle ground using creative strategies such as the following:

Coffee: Buy beans that are roasted locally and/or by fair trade producers.

Tea: Drink herbal teas from homegrown or locally grown fresh herbs, such as lemon verbena, peppermint, lemongrass

Wheat breads and pastries: Buy only locally baked breads and pastries, or bake your own with locally milled flour.

Pasta: Buy from small local producers, or use pasta made from locally grown grains.

Chocolate: Buy chocolate that’s made locally by environmentally conscious producers.

Ketchup (and soy sauce, fish sauce and other condiments): Buy products from local manufacturers.

Salt: There is local salt, but you may not like its taste, or find it as pollutant-free as you’d like, so choose salt that is as free of additives as possible.

Black pepper (and other exotic spices): Substitute chile pepper or California red peppercorns.

Sugar: Use locally harvested honey instead.

Vanilla: Substitute other aromatics in baking, such as lavender or rose petals.

Sleep is like a swift train
Plunging into long black tunnels,
Slicing day with red and black light.
No worry about the skeleton engineer.
Head to pillow is like head to track,
Listening to the rumble of destiny,
Knowing that the opening will come.
In sleep, as in the tunnels,
The sound seems ever closer.

When you sleep, some insist that the world as you know it ceases to exist. The world exists because something inside of you asserts that it is so. When awake, are you then no longer dreaming? Or are you just dreaming another dream?

Going to sleep takes letting go. As any insomniac will tell you, it can’t be forced. But we so identify control with waking, is it possible that the uncontrolled aspect of sleep is an equal reality?

Sleep seems so real, and then we awake. Waking life seems so real, and yet we need to let go of it everyday. This strange contrast is one that those who follow Tao contemplate continually. If life is mere shifting from one dream to another, they constantly ask: What is truly real?

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

It’s at night, when perhaps we should be dreaming, that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull. I don’t know if anyone has ever pointed out that great attraction of insomnia before, but it is so; the night seems to release a little more of our vast backward inheritance of instincts and feelings; as with the dawn, a little honey is allowed to ooze between the lips of the sandwich, a little of the stuff of dreams to drip into the waking mind. I wish I believed, as J. B. Priestley did, that consciousness continues after disembodiment or death, not forever, but for a long while. Three score years and ten is such a stingy ration of time, when there is so much time around. Perhaps that’s why some of us are insomniacs; night is so precious that it would be pusillanimous to sleep all through it! A “bad night” is not always a bad thing. — Brian W. Aldiss

“Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Circadiana is a wonderful blog on sleeping with all kinds of scientific facts and studies on sleep – it has some really interesting stuff.

I think Americans are probably the most sleep-deprived people on the planet, which is a big part of what makes our society so crazy. There is so much going on all the time, we never have enough time to get to all the things we “need” to do, and we end up depriving ourselves of the sleep that we really need. We send our kids to school too early so we can scurry off to work for the day, with many of us not even being really awake until noon or so. By two or three o’clock, we’re exhausted, but the society won’t let us nap like we should, so we bumble through the afternoon til it’s time to go home, and then collapse in front of out TVs for the evening before stumbling off to bed, not realy resting well because of all the day’s events and caffeine. Why this rush for everyone to be at work at the same time, to go home at the same time, to do everything to some made-up imposed time schedule? It’s all just so crazy making.

I enjoy the relative luxury in our society of actually getting enough sleep. When I don’t, I get very cranky. When I really haven’t slept, I’ve gone crazy, quite literally. People with an underlying bipolar disorder tend to do that. So I know how important sleep is. For me sleep is a crucial thing. And yes, my dreams can seem very real to me when I’m having them. But I find the waking reality to be far more real to me – except when I went mad for a few days….

When you’re crazy, it’s rather like being asleep while you’re awake – your mind starts making the same kind of connections you do while you’re dreaming, where things make sense even though when you think about them when you wake up they are totally ridiculous. That’s why crazy people say crazy things – their minds are making those strange connections and the connections actually feel “true” to the person experiencing them. It’s rather fascinating, really. It’s led me to study a lot more about how the mind and consciousness works – right now I’m reading Antonio Damasio’s
“The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness” . My own suspicion is that if you looked at how the neurons are firing in a bipolar disorder episode, they would look very much like most people’s do when they are dreaming. I think bipolar disorder is about brain chemistry gone wrong and causing misfiring in the brain, probably often due to lack of real, restful sleep.

It was a unique experience, for me, thank goodness, but I finally got to understand the reality of my sister’s and nephew’s everyday life, and know how difficult things really are for them. The waking dream experience is not an unpleasant one, but I doubt most people would really be able to handle experiencing it. Perhaps that’s why the fear of drugs is so prevalent in our society. We fear not being in control of events – and yet, how much control do we really have, if we let our lives be dictated by clocks and schedules and what we think we “should” have in our lives? Perhaps those who follow the Tao understand more that true control of your own life is so tremendously more valuable than having more stuff, or a shinier car or bigger house. When Americans become sane someday, if ever, they might come to better understand this.