fires in California

The redwoods and sequoia were ravaged in recent fires in California. Is the world of human beings being ravaged by fires as well? Yes, but the burning is slow, and being part of it makes knowing the whole not so easy …

Up through most of the mid-1800’s, medicines were prepared individually, by traditional recipes. At the same time biology was more and more seeing the human being as a “mechanism” – all matter, no spirit. The source of life, sought and found, was in the cell parts, aka: DNA, soul and spirit being myths.

The plant as well had no “spirit”, no virtue. It was just a complex of chemicals, and from the former idea of the virtue of willow bark being pain relief, the industrial chemists found profit in taking that “part” of the plant which seemed to have the same effect, concentrated it and synthesized it, leaving its “nature” aside and began to market “aspirin” for pain relief.

In the modern era, what had first been know as a medicine, the syrup of the poppy, was synthesized and concentrated into oxycodone, leaving a trail of addicts and death in its rush for profit.

The Hemp plants too have many virtues, but money had other ideas, so one of humanity’s multipurpose wonders was left to rot in the growing fields of cultivated ignorance.

Newton wrote more about the ancient mysteries of the emerald tablet and the philosopher’s stone, then he did about physics. Sir Arthur Eddington, at the beginning of the 20th Century said that we are – via specialization – knowing more and more about less and less.

Weston Price discovered that that the people of the world with the best teeth, tended to rounded bodies, and followed a diet of a lot of animal fat. He was a dentist and traveled the world. Meanwhile, industrial chemistry was separating and concentrating sweet plants into the chemical sugar, bleaching it for regularity of color, and throwing out the related virtues common to the whole plant.

When it was clear there were dangers from too much “straight” sugar, the industry went on a publicity campaign to make “fats” the problem with weight gain and other illnesses.

The needs of the industrial revolution required the concentration of workers, and such required housing near work. Village folk leave the life near the land, and its regular rhythms, to 12 hour workdays, seven day work weeks, serving companies that employ young children doing dangerous work. Everyone so gathered was blessed with coal for heat, making coal even more valuable, whatever the costs to our lungs.

Science marched on. Commerce marched on. Wars helped the evolution of industry by their demand for better and better ways to kill people in large numbers.

Folk, whose ancestors farmed, become workers and consumers and cannon fodder for the unrestrained appetite for wealth and power.

Lives seem to last longer, but not without cost. The virtues of living near nature disappeared, … breathing that air, and eating the fresh food, and enjoying that fresh well water. Having time to reflect.

Better Living through Chemistry sang the professional public relations folk, in ads for Dupont, Dow Chemical, and their kin.

The human organism has needs both material and spiritual. The physical body needs a more healthy environment, and if we are honest, cities are not the best place to live, although they are also amazing gardens of culture and beauty. Is it possible we are right where we need to be?

People used to believe in a flat earth. Some still do. People use to believe the starry heavens were an abode of the gods. Some still do. The point is not so much the nature of the belief, but rather the psychological (soul and spiritual) dominance of the belief.

Reality is effectively the narrative, given our consent to live that narrative …. whether or not the narrative is true in some abstract sense. We guide our lives by the stories we tell, and as was noted recently in The Maradonian: the power is not in the darksaber itself, but in the story that goes with who has it, and how they got it. The Tale has the Power.

Right now Big Pharma no longer has the darksaber … their empire having no interest in “the little people”, they ignored the evolving rebellious culture – the darksaber possessed. Our arts give us myths, and we are making new myths right now. Will a story of a mad king’s hoax of his loyal subjects be a part? In the Lord of the Rings one king is made mad by the whisper in his ear of a man claiming wisdom, an enchantment requiring magic to set aside. Another king wants to burn his living son, as the cause of the death of his dead sun.

Then there are the warrior queens, Ripley, Princess Lea, and Sarah Conner.

The wisest act a man can make today is to surrender to the emerging forces of women. Still, a world owned by soulless corporations needs to be ended, … my Lady said the other day, that the five worst covid nations were run by men, and the five best covid nations were managed by women.

What story is in your wallet? Where’s the beef? What goes around, comes around.