Ambition and Gardening

Ambition
I have it locally in the yard - don't seem to have a burning desire to get a new job, since receiving paychecks and benefits to July 1 there seemed little necessity. Going through the motions, and it’s hard work. I’ve neglected landscaping our yard for years, because it’s also hard work and when I worked I wanted to have fun in my spare time. Fun as in windsurfing, bicycling, roller-blading, reading and watching films.

I didn't find time to work on the yard in the past other than trim or uproot the most egregious of plants, the wild roses and ragweeds. This year I had the time and decided that I'd rather be hurting my back at home than working somewhere doing something I don't care for. The difference is that I can see the improvement here - it looks great so far.

Due to the huge amount of landscaping I've done in the past months I've developed carpal tunnel on both sides. This comes and goes depending on how much I'm willing to cut back outdoor activity in our yard. And that depends on the weather. If it's windy enough but not too windy (10-18 mph, and not too gusty) I will be windsurfing which uses different muscle groups. If it's calm I'll probably be outside in the yard and, depending on which side of the house the sun is on, in the front or back yard.

Removed a huge amount of poison ivy - digging, pulling up roots and falling over backwards when they let go is not much fun. I can see why I didn't do hardly any landscaping for more than a decade. The poison ivy was growing in the straw we bought a few years ago and also in the neighbor's pine bark mulch. It obviously doesn't die when composted.

The wild roses - the thorns are very hard to remove when you get stuck. Even leather gloves don't prevent them piercing your fingertips. When I think of the song that my elders sang around the piano while I was growing up - My Wild Irish Rose, it's my opinion that Chancellor Olcott who wrote the song in 1899 had never struggled with any wild rose that took over his yard in Buffalo, New York. Being a songwriter who sang in minstrel shows from his early years, he probably didn't do a lot of gardening. Possibly he romanticized that Emerald Isle which I also do, having never been there.

Like my wishful desire to believe in god and an ultimate Reason for everything, I would love to believe in elves and fairies, as my imagination runs with them through primeval forest in a land of dreams - that Emerald Isle of the mind. I would romanticize pagan religion if I weren’t so much of a cynic and realist in true life. I’d rather believe in fairy tales than the real world, which seems rather drab and run by and inhabited by so many screwballs, who do so many stupid things, myself included. However, reading Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist sent an atavistic thrill through me that elves might truly exist. Suspension of disbelief - a reasonable explanation for our inability to prove they exist! The rational area of my mind says no, it's that area of the brain that throughout history manufactures fantasies and interprets them as religious experience.

Respectable studies found people with temporal lobe epilepsy may experience a variety of symptoms including obsessive preoccupation with religion rather than real life, and the intensified, narrowed emotional responses characteristic of mystical experience. Through further research, scientists established that some circuits in the temporal lobe are involved in religious experience. We’re hard wired for religion so it’s no surprise so many people are so mired in it. It’s a convenient fantasy to believe there is a purpose in our lives and we all want to be special in some way. If we’re god’s chosen, that satisfies that. If our loved ones go to heaven after death, it’s not so awful that they died. We will never know it is not true so why not believe it is?

The psychology of belief is a realm in itself. Since I haven't read a whole lot on this subject, it's clear that I am selecting information that supports what I want to believe. Like religious people who select the information from their Book that supports them and ignore that which they don't want to look at (for example, the willingness and blind faith of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to the god, and the killing of the first born innocent sons in Egypt in Ezekiel by the angels as being reasonable behavior from a just and loving god).

Other religions are just as if not more bloodthirsty - humans sees gods in their own images depending on their consciousness, and it's a process of evolution over time. I believe that a jealous god is an inferior god - less consciously evolved, as is one that rewards blind obedience. At least be more evolved than the mass of humanity god! This has been going on for millennia. Humans have been evolving from being psychotically insecure, peevish children that really did descend from apes. The more some people deny their animal origins, the easier it is to see - they doth 'protest too much'. Humanity is hugely, if not fatally flawed as they continue to kill their thinkers and religion-deniers, their creative people, burn down libraries and ban books. Some even kill cartoonists! It’s very hard for human beings to think critically and bypass those tricks we use to further our own agenda at the expense of reality. Which "revealed testaments" do you use to guide your prejudices?

For many of us in the modern world, those testaments were selected to be put in the final Bible at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.- years after the birth of Christ. Their impetus and result was the desire to concentrate power in the hands of a few men. Like we trust Insurance companies and Big Pharma to do what's best for us now, humans at the time possibly knew it was not a just system, but they had not much choice but to allow it. In 325 AD their lives would have been forfeit if they publically disagreed. Their descendants accepted the revealed Truth, possibly reluctantly but knew the penalties if they did not. The men who choose these testaments were men with prejudices, egos and unconscious axes to grind. They saw nothing wrong with what they were doing - they justified controlling others in the name of religion as being best for everyone. Control freaks, they didn't know what a control freak was and possibly never examined their own motives. Evolved consciousness? They didn't even have a word for the concept! Petty, tyrannical, childishly immature and willing to kill you if you didn't do what they wanted. These 'pious' and self-righteous individuals made the decision to select some and ignore other texts written by men claiming divine inspiration who were probably temporal lobe epileptics at best, and madmen with with corrupt agendas hoping to cement power for themselves. They were able to push the god button then just like they do now.

If you are interested in knowing more than what you are told by your ‘superiors’ such as priests, pastors, talk show entertainers, patent medicine salesman, and Fox News type talking heads (obviously you think they're superior or you wouldn't use them to justify your thinking the way you do!) you study histories of religions and peoples. You learn that virgin birth, miracles, rising from the dead three days later, communion (eating the godhead), and the afterlife, among other things were not new to Christian religion. I won’t even get started talking about how Islam and others are similarly flawed.

A few madmen invent new religions that catch on among the ignorant who later burn down libraries because after all they can't read and haven't the understanding of critical thinking. For example, we still teach our children even in these supposedly enlightened times to think sloppily. Child asks you where did God come from. Do you say He always was and always will be? If you believe that, you are the victim of madmen from the past and your children are learning how to think critically from those madmen.

Humans have been abdicating responsibility for independent and critical thought because they've been taught to do so. As children we're given silly answers to serious questions that stifle real thinking. We teach our children to think sloppily, and then are surprised when they grow up and get stuck in strange cults or sick relationships where they willingly believe any sufficiently convincing madmen or con artist. Even now we'd apparently rather listen to the talk show hosts on TV and radio ramp up our adrenalin and outrage us with unfounded claptrap than do real research on our own. The killings of non-believers, liberals (and even killing of an abortion doctor in AMERICA land of the FREE of all places, and in his CHURCH? it's almost a metaphor!) the hundreds of thousands if not millions of hate crimes worldwide where people are willing to kill or maim those who don't believe what they do, who dehumanize others, and their rationale why: they chose to listen and act on words from those they thought were more intelligent or enlightened than they are - they must know on some unconscious level that they have lost the capacity of critical thinking since if you don't use it you lose it. They act on the words of priests, ministers, mullahs, talk show entertainers, mainstream newsmen, lobbyists and other madmen.

America was founded on ideals that are so progressive and LIBERAL. That all men are created equal. That we all have the rights. Some right-wingers have been saying that liberals and/or atheists don't deserve to have equal rights as other Americans, and some say that they shouldn’t even have the right to live. Believers risk being tools in the hands of these inferior people that know how easy it is to manipulate by pushing the god button and will do so. Believers don't even know it's being pushed because they no longer can think critically - the muscle is flaccid and can barely be coaxed into twitching. And perhaps the manipulators even do this for what they believe are righteous reasons. The end justifies the means!

From the Dictionary on my Mac:
liberal |ˈlib(ə)rəl|
adjective
1 open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values: they have more liberal views toward marriage and divorce than some people.
• favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms: liberal citizenship laws.
• (in a political context) favoring maximum individual liberty in political and social reform: a liberal democratic state.
• ( Liberal) of or characteristic of Liberals or a Liberal Party.
• ( Liberal) (in the UK) of or relating to the Liberal Democrat Party : the Liberal leader.
• Theology regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change.
2 [ attrib. ] (of education) concerned mainly with broadening a person's general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.

My small knowledge and experience is also biased in its own ways. I am ignorant also but at least I realize I am ignorant! I have to be vigilant that I'm not seeing what I want to see. I'm aware that there are other ways of looking at it. If you read this far you are confronting your own biases along with mine. I welcome comments!

Back to the wild roses. They smell rather noxious, look rather non-descript, and their stickers grab you as you walk past. They strangle whatever grows besides them - they can be seen as the greedy psychopaths in their world who consume too much of earth resources and starve out all others. The wild Irish rose could be a nicer plant on the Emerald Isle if it exists.

The gorgeous wild beach rose that survives within 1/4 mile of here has no thorns. It smells sweet and is a beautiful shade of dark pink. Its fruits can be made into a vitamin C rich tea that probably contains all kinds of healthy polyphenols and anthrocyanins. I read that rose hips and seeds contain vitamins C, E, B, and K, tannin, pectin, carotene, malic and citric acid, flavonoids, fatty and volatile oils, and proteins. There are as many as 300 chemical constituents in rose oil, though only about one-third of these have been identified. That's quite an interesting plant!

Our vegetable garden has been washed out several times due to the downpours. Less than 20 miles away a town had to release water from a dam when over 5 inches fell in one evening. Basements needed pumping and cars were flooded in parking lots. It was unexpected and over in a few hours.

When 20% chance of rain is predicted, we’ve seen downpours. I've planted seeds several times that were washed out the following evening by such "possible showers". It's amazing to me that anything at all is growing. There are tomatoes, pak choy, cilantro, melons, beans, onions, lettuce and cabbage that are doing well. Grubs were a problem for a while until we found Sluggo which helped greatly until it rained again. Since we gave the remainder of the container away and the local distributor is only open until 6, we had them again for a while. I'm still waiting for a day it doesn't rain to put the granules down again - it's predicted every evening this week.

We are lucky to have neighbors from Laos – a rather heroic couple who came over in the 1960s after almost drowning in a 7-year flood in their city with their children on their backs. They have helped me with identifying what is a weed as opposed to a vegetable or an herb. They've shared seeds with me - some, due to the language problem I've identified as A Smooth Melon and A Wrinkled Melon, A Spicy Green for Soup, etc. We went with them to a service in the local Buddhist temple - a profound experience for me. I felt extremely awake and aware there and almost religious. Like the Friends Meetinghouse in British Columbia back in the 1980s and Pendle Hill in Wallingford, PA, moments of clarity activating that temporal lobe can be a great inspiration for believing in the numinous. The Friends have a huge number of worldwide outreach programs, retreats, actions and publications – if I were religious I’d probably want to be a Friend. That way you can believe whatever you want and not get locked into “just one, please and this one only” idea of god, goodness and morality. I think the Unitarians may be the same but I don’t know.

Religions can help humankind’s lot when they bring together people for a common and beneficent purpose. Whether there is anything beyond the shared purpose matters not, at least to me – not really. It's the standing together and love for all. As long as they're not excluding others - gays, unbelievers, and other sects - they do more to help than harm. The aims of the millionaire talk-show hosts like Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity and O’Reilly - self-serving bullying buffoons that lie well with a smile to a naïve audience – are to blame and remove any responsibility they or their ilk have for the ills of the nation and world. The aims of the truly religious will be not to chastise and blame but to understand the reasons why and then attempt to help or change what is.

Listened to the CDs from the library: Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth about a year ago. This is something I resisted for a long time - years. Three people known personally to me told me that he was worth reading, and I had read elsewhere that The Secret was all about success and was greatly unwilling to read such garbage. Like Tony Robert type stuff, I am really Not Interested and in fact I'm hugely prejudiced against reading that kind of thing. It was a struggle for me finally to say to myself, "what can these intelligent people see in that charlatan? I need to read him so I can tear his twisted philosophy apart to them!" and I listened to A New Earth. It radically changed my view of Tolle, and also opened my eyes to valuable perceptions. WHat an insightful individual! Hubby and I listened to his CDs and received so much that was useful and overwhelmingly worthwhile that we bought a couple sets to hear again. A New Earth was well worth the $20!

There's a place in there where he talks about what Sin really meant when it was originally used in the days of the Bible. He says that the word and concept of Sin was originally translated as "missing the mark". It was not something you punished someone for doing, but, rather this was an area that you tried to avoid like incorrect thinking, which prevented higher consciousness and a happy life, which is as far as I can tell inseparable from loving your neighbor as yourself. As well as you do to others, you will do for yourself. Hurt others and you really just hurt yourself. It was an ideal to avoid Sin like we avoid transfats. No one would die for violating it, at least not by being killed or punished by other human beings. It took very little time for human beings to distort it totally and since so few could read, the message was not only wrong but a travesty, a joke. If there were an omnipotent god he would know that humans would screw it up so absolutely abysmally and he would have remained silent rather than be misconstrued so very, very far afield.

I don't know how learned Tolle is, but I'm willing to believe practically everything on A New Earth. It doesn't require belief in an Imaginary Being, which is probably why a fundamentalist co-worker told me it was "against her religion". The kinds of things she brought in for her bookshelf at work included "Godless" by Ann Coulter. Like a lot of these millionaire writers who push the god button, she is probably a scoundrel of the first water. It's obvious that you don't need to be talented to make money by writing. You just need to be perceptive enough to know what the public wants to hear. Feed their sick or healthy hunger? I can't believe anyone would believe this kind of thing but even my own two siblings are such naive nitwits. I love them dearly and huge thanks to them for being such kind and compassionate individuals. They were powerful forces of loving kindness throughout my life, and thanks to them shaping forces. Perhaps because of my sister and brother arguing with me I learned to think critically, as a child sees through the core of truth imprisoned in religious constrictions, I was lucky to escape following those examples. I'm thinking they wouldn't agree that mine is a more enlightened viewpoint. Why is this: they are products of their upbringing, which did not include people like themselves! I was/am the critically favored child who was given much to think about due to David and Patricia. Thank you so much! I know that I'm spilling over with it here, and whether you agree or not, at least you have seen a different view from those you have already been exposed to.

For my husband's birthday in May we went bicycling in Canton toward Farmington Connecticut with son Spencer. It was about 29 miles roundtrip if I can trust my odometer. I can see how people get hurt mountain biking - there was an area with an embankment going down to the river. The helmet wouldn't have helped much as I took my attention off the trail for just a moment and almost fell over. We started from a suburb of Canton, CT called Collinsville and cycled east along the Farmington River. Crossed a half dozen roads, half dozen driveways (there were stop signs for the bicyclists to alert them!) and saw chipmunks, flowers, dogs, people walking and bicycling and some scenic falls. I think it must be a converted railway as we were over 100 feet above the river, crossing it at one point. We stopped maybe four times but for less than a minute or two.

The next day I dug up dandelions which was a waste of time since the abandoned home across the street is inundated with them. I'd have to dig up theirs also! Dug up 18 feet x 3 feet x 6 inches with a maddox the morning before the rain forced me indoors. Threw away about a hundred white grubs so they won't eat the vegetables once they are planted. The area I dug had about 20 grape hyacinth bulbs that I transplanted about 30 feet away, and a tulip bulb. Otherwise it's only grass and weeds. My Laotian neighbor says just plow the grass and weeds underneath but I separated 90% of them from their dirt and threw them in the compost.

While I was digging Bil took Jack and Stumpy to the vet's. Jack is the cat nobody wanted who had been in a car accident and was scheduled to be put 'to sleep' who bit me a few years ago, which I soaked many times in epsom salts and healed perfectly well. His front thumbnail was almost an inch long and coiled into two coils 1/8" in diameter apiece... Rachel the little neighbor girl noticed it and brought it to our attention. His paw pad was pink but not punctured - it's a miracle it didn't get ingrown. The children like to play with our cats and occasionally adopt one.

Stumpy had an infected wound on her neck that wouldn't heal - got antibiotic and a special wash. She had a stroke two summers ago after insisting on sitting in the sun for the hot part of the day. Would not come in the nice air-conditioned room. It was a weekend and a holiday so we didn't take her to the vet. She got better and is actually totally healthy and even spry and feisty now. She doesn't take sh-t from anybody, and when I say anybody I mean the younger cats who try but fail to boss her around.

I'm trying hard to go completely organic with this garden. The organic mix we used to start the seeds however was a huge mistake. It was a total waste of money and time. I tried a soil-less mix and it worked much better. We don't want to contaminate the soil or vegetation with herbicides. Everything goes into a compost pile (admittedly, it's HUGE) which we could conceivably use for soil some day to grow vegetables etc...

We're doing terracing on our hillside. Filled two huge garbage cans of soil and a half a can of stones for just the top layer that we excavated last week. That too is a project. I thought we would create terraces like Machu Picchu on a miniscule scale. I got the book out Machu Pichu a Civil Engineering Marvel by Wright and Zegarra which took about 2 weeks from interlibrary loan from Woodbridge, CT which told me how to go about it. They did have granite there, however and a different climate. I was hoping to make the terraces self-watering, as there are tall oaks and maples shading it.

The roots on that wild rose were over an inch wide. I pulled up four feet before it broke - it's way, way, way too long to get the whole thing. Every year I just have to keep after it. I hate it! Someone once said you're closer to god in a garden. If so it's a love/hate relationship. I can get reasonably murderous about that damn thing when it grabs me while I'm carrying it to the kill area which is the huge pile of brush, far from the ground where it cannot root again. My back is in a bit of pain since I’m overdoing the gardening. Alternating times of furious gardening with achy cold fingers, tingling and numb fingers. Read a half hour this morning, then said, I'll dig up a few weeds. Four hours later I'm still digging them up everywhere and I say, might as well dig up more of that awful wild rose which I've cut it back every year I've been here and there is a huge root that seems to come from the center of the earth.

I've been rather on edge lately - I may be going through pre-menopause but have been bleeding for almost a month now. It has really gotten old... I bemoan leaving a life-long happy but underappreciated era of clean white underpants, clean white sheets, and clean white towels. While my husband labors in hot summer sunshine to finish re-wiring the 2-wheel trailer that we’ll use to transport the sewing machine we bought from a textile mill in Massachusetts on Craig list I’m washing off maggots that I spilled on me. I decided to water the plastic flytrap and instead it spilled and broke on my ankle. An odoriferous, rank aroma and disgust so terrible, an intense search for the end of the hose to turn it on, then a shower and relief!

Bil painted his two-wheeled trailer in preparation for putting in the new wiring, which the local kids picked off it somehow when we weren’t looking. He’s put in a lot of time and effort to re-wiring it and replacing the parts that were destroyed as well.

I read about bald eagles overwhelming other native birds and was upset that the horrible predatory birds are devouring the poor cormorants and other chicks of species that are peaceful. What a terrible bird to have as an American totem! I feel like that cormorant – the little predators in the area are growing up with no consideration that this is not their property to devour and destroy.

A friend sent me an article about some "pro-life" activists. She said they shouldn't call themselves that. They should call themselves what they are: anti- choice. The righteous think they have the right to define what's right and that the fetus is a life. After all you could say conceived again rather than born again because the people who wrote when the Bible was written didn’t know the difference. Written by ignorant people, it is being used by ignorant people. No matter what you think of the author of this article, and I do disagree with some of what he says, he makes a good point on http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2404 when he discusses: That Abortion Rights are Pro-Life (by Leonard Peikoff January 23, 2003). Any cell in the body can be considered viable for independent life. Does that mean we must not destroy blood in a blood test? If you go far enough, you can see what is extrapolated.

If there be a god (and I believe I know there isn't a benevolent one) and if god wants you to follow certain rules, how do you assume that this “god” is a benevolent being rather than a child molester? How do you know “He” is ruling in your best interests? What if he wants to drink your soul when you die and says you must suffer so it tastes better? Ask where this god came from. The answer is "he always was and always will be". It's a mantra of the ignorant that is over 1000 years old and rather than teaching children to think, they can be satisfied with learning sloppy thinking like this.

There's an incredible lack of awareness about celiac disease due to it not being sufficiently profitable for the drug companies to fund it. Since med schools' financing comes mostly from pharmaceutical companies in this country, many doctors know next to nothing about it while countries with single payer health care are more aware of it. I used to make pasta with chickpea and artichoke flour but it was mixed with regular flour. Buckwheat is not related to wheat but we can't find it here. We can find rice flour. Corn is okay but it's nutritionally not that great nor glycemically and many are allergic to it. Oats - there is some dissension whether they're okay. Millet is fine and there are other flours not so well known probably. Soy may be okay but there are other problems with soy in any but small quantities. I ate and cooked mostly soy products like tofu, ogari, soyburgers, and soybeans for much of my adult years until I found out that my thyroid had become underactive and went on thyroid meds. As the years pass, I believe that gluten intolerance will be found to be the root of many of our major diseases, since it prevents nutrients from being absorbed and people with malnutrition are likely to become ill. Bil may be celiac positive as he supposedly had it as a child and you don't outgrow it. He was forced to eat only bananas and he remembers it. We are in the dark ages medically – like with religion, we’re ignorant and don’t know it yet.

When we learn to address reality rather than what seems to make sense in the name of profit we'll be able to cure people of real disease. When we learn to think critically we'll see that our nation is no longer representative. We'll find out it's being run by whoever financed the elections. Lobbyists for insurance companies spend MILLIONS of dollars a day to prevent Americans from attaining reasonable health insurance. THe arguments we hear today are the same ones we heard in 1992 and 1993. The same lies. It makes no sense to educate our people - they might see that they're being lied to.

If we want an economic stimulus that will help Americans, we need to give people a free education! Get us educated to think! Every one will reach his own conclusions but at least offer a chance to think independently. Let's have a populace that neither wants nor needs advice from talk show entertainers! Take those entertainers and retire them! Give money to small businesses here so they can hire educated and creative people! When I think of the waste of minds in our country and how we don't have enough educated Americans but have to import them from other countries, it almost makes me cry.

That's it for today. I said my piece and there's more but this is enough.