The ‘Pinball Wizard’ of queen spotting strikes again! Excellent little clip for bee lovers! ~KH
Log Colony Queen mating flight — Berks County PA Honey Bee Removal 19601
Breathe in Beauty
Nature is not perfect, nor perfectible. But whether in chaos or order there can always be found magnificent beauty that heals, energizes and inspires.
I don’t like to see folks high on false Hopium when they face troubled times. I don’t like political slogans or wistful mantras about Hate or Love.
I wish all mankind could feel what I feel, see what I see, touch what I touch, so that the wholesome Hopium of pure life filled them each day with all the sense of wonder and potential, or challenge and purpose, they try forever in vain to find in others’ words and buying things.
And they would know to micromanage Life is antithetical to our raison d’etre, not to mention a hard lesson in futility.
Co-creating beauty and abundance, participating directly in our daily sustenance, living reciprocally between the heavens and the soil is a marvelous feast of the mind, heart and soul.
Nature does not long to be worshipped, or revered, or admired from afar, or just replicated in images. It is us, it is ours to be truly seen and felt, up close and very personal, not as masters or servants, but as partners, in divinity.
To work with nature, really work WITH it and IN it, is to spend your days suspended in magic.
Try one minute of bee zen. Can you hear their successful model of a happy colony? Contrary to popular lore, the worker bees control the queen, not the other way around. Can you sense their contentedness in maintaining their colony as instinctually as every Superorganism does?
Just like the human body, if left to its own devices, it knows just what to do.
Mind-Body-Spirit
Last post I criticized the New Age movement but ended with the intention of offering the attributes of it in my opinion this next post.
Let me begin with just a bit of context—why do I care at all about the New Age movement (aka Positive Psychology, New Thought), and why do I think it should matter to a lot more folks?
In a nutshell, I’m interested in everything about culture creation, but especially those forces driving culture in a certain direction, whatever that direction may be.
That is Globalism currently—the One World Government and Religion as being pushed (or in rare cases, pushed back against) by every major institution around the world today.
Spirituality is the new global religion and for an assessment of what this religion is espousing and who are its leaders, here’s a good start.
Watkins’ Spiritual 100 List for 2021 – Watkins MIND BODY SPIRIT Magazine
1 Pope Francis
2 Dalai Lama
3 Black Lives Matter NEW
4 Eckhart Tolle
5 Desmond Tutu
6 Oprah Winfrey
7 Sadhguru
8 Alice Walker
9 Deepak Chopra
10 David Attenboroug
Love, Forgiveness, Positivity are the Father, Son, Holy Ghost of this religion. (Interesting note: Black Lives Matter just replaced Greta Thunburg from last year at position #3).
I heard a succinct sound bite that describes this religious movement: “The worship of the creation (Gaia) rather than the creator (God).”
Of course, all of these labels and angles are generalizations. It’s a very large, global movement with many working factions.
It is meant as a cohesive force, purportedly, based on a desired global peace. Whether or not this is the true purpose or will be the actual result is a matter of opinion, and I’d love to hear them for anyone who cares to share.
My opinion is: The single thing of real value that this religion has to offer is in its opposition to the philosophy of materialism, that is, that consciousness is an illusion and thought is an epiphenomenon of the brain. In other words—there is an ‘extended consciousness realm’ worthy of exploration that is being largely ignored, and often maligned, by modern Scientism.
The irony is, the famous New Agers on that list would probably not identify with the word ‘opposition’. However, the majority of them would identify with the reality that serious research being done in NDEs (near-death experience), reincarnation, ESP, the mind/body connection, etc. is being suppressed by mainstream science.
This is just a little blog that matters little to anyone. I am no scholar, just a very curious middle aged woman who questions Authority and resents attempts at being corralled by insidious (and often tyrannical) social (economical, political, educational, scientific, religious, etc.) forces.
I wonder why experiences and research concerning the possibility of the non-locality of thought is shoved into the fringe realms where, unfortunately, one also encounters a sky-high wall of phonies and fraudsters (quite a number of them I’d say are on that top 100 list!).
Perhaps it is time the Positive Psychology people started cleaning their own house? Or perhaps the first step is to recognize how dirty it really is?
If you are also a curious wanderer and wonder where much of this controversial science is explored, Skeptiko is at the top of my list.
Hope to hear some thoughts, or suggestions, or even criticisms of my wandering trails.
The Folly of Forgiveness
The single most destructive virtue of Christianity is forgiveness.
In fact, it’s not a virtue at all, it’s a vice. It’s a ready-made excuse for laziness, cowardice, avoidance and self-aggrandizement.
Which is more challenging? Which is more beneficial to society?
A. Forgive those who trespass upon you.
B. Hold them accountable for their actions, or their lack of them.
The New Age movement, the modern outgrowth of our Christian heritage melded with aspects of Eastern religion/philosophy, shares this fundamental folly. You quite literally cannot read a spiritual or New Age text that does not claim something like this:
“Ultimately, make it your goal to move on to forgiveness of yourself and those involved in causing you pain in the past. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that what happened to you was acceptable. It simply means that you are no longer willing to allow a past injury to keep you from living fully and healthfully in the present.” Dr. Christiane Northrup, The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical & Emotional Health During the Change
Nonsense. Forgiveness most certainly DOES mean that you’ve found the offense acceptable—you’ve given them “a pardoning” — look it up!
Forgiveness: “To pardon; to remit, as an offense or debt, to overlook an offense, and treat the offender as not guilty.” Webster’s Dictionary 1905
When a school of philosophy/religion/spirituality (Or individuals!) must change the meaning of words in order to fulfill their mission of manipulation it becomes propaganda and begs the question, “Who benefits?”
It’s not simply forgiving past injury that’s keeping anyone from living healthfully in the present, true peace of mind comes when justice is served. We witness the lack of justice and accountability all around us today, and we have centuries of brainwashing in this particular vice-cum-virtue to thank for that.
Burying the hatchet is rarely a guarantee it stays buried. Life is not a sitcom and taking the easy way out is testament to a lack of virtue, not a grounding in it. “Kiss and make up” solves little. “Turn the other cheek” is a blanket invitation to abusers.
To forgive someone who has not asked for it, nor shows remorse, nor penance, nor changed his ways is not healthy—not for the individual, not for the culture—in the long run.
It might keep you from getting cancer next year, or so the New Age self-helpers keep insisting, but you’ve only kicked the can down the road and made it worse for the perpetrators’ next victims. Good for the guru’s pocketbook and status, not so good for future generations.
The Christian myth that claims those who live in proverbial glass houses should not throw stones is a recipe for granting pardon to serial criminals while demonizing petty theft and other personal, minor infractions.
Everyone might very well be a sinner, but not all sins are created equal.
Holding others’ accountable for their actions is far more difficult than giving them a pardon. It’s exhausting to have standards of behavior and stick to them. It’s miserable to feel the loneliness that comes with not accepting abuse in one’s relationships and surroundings. It sucks to stand up for yourself against the group and especially against loved ones. But battered partners who don’t leave, Stockholm syndrome, normalized corruption, addiction, insanity and suicide are the direct result of a culture obsessed with forgiveness.
Unearned forgiveness is:
*A green light to bad behavior
*Victim-blaming for those who don’t want to, or choose not to, forgive
*Spiritual bypassing
*Ensuring history repeats
*Lowering the morality bar
*Killing the messenger
*Requiring scapegoats (represented by our most celebrated scapegoat, Jesus)
*Requiring lies, whitewashing, spinning of narratives to maintain illusions
*Forcing individuals to fit the will of the power structure rather than forcing the power structure to fit the will of the people
The personal and political spheres overlap—what we tolerate in our own house, we tolerate in the White House. What results is repeat offenders who are eternally tolerated.
The New Age movement has managed to create the worst of two worlds: The magical child thinking and materialism of the West combined with the spiritual hierarchies, self-hypnosis and toxic mysticism of the East.
Next post: What I think the New Agers have gotten right.
Whaaa . . . .?!
Doug Casey on Why People Outsource Their Thinking to “The Experts” — MCViewPoint
The people who run the State have control of the money supply, the economy, the education system, and the media. They’ve gotten control of the medical system. They’re replacing traditional religion, as well, with what amounts to new secular religions; that’s an interesting twist. Christianity is on its way out. It’s already a dead duck […]
Doug Casey on Why People Outsource Their Thinking to “The Experts” — MCViewPoint
WEATHER WARFARE: Heat Waves & HAARP – By Joseph P. Farrell Ph.D — RIELPOLITIK
Source – gizadeathstar.com “…How might this tie in to HAARP? – Very easily: HAARP is an ionospheric heater. That is to say, its phased antennae arrays are designed so load energy into the ionosphere, and can do so quite literally with pinpoint accuracy….note that the Gakona-HAARP Notice to Airmen was issued on June 17th, and […]
WEATHER WARFARE: Heat Waves & HAARP – By Joseph P. Farrell Ph.D — RIELPOLITIK
Snob Appeal
Not Nietzsche nor Dostoevsky
Not even Shakespeare
Only free to shopping spree
Their lack of care over clear
Lowering minds one ad at a time
Glamorized, Desensitized
Label crazed and Icon dazed
Smacking mystified
Programmed and hypnotized
Calvin Klein is so divine
Madonna in Prada sheer refine
Stumbling through Babylon
Bumbling Humpty Dumpties
Substanceless fed by stress
Material girls
Boys with toys
Lulled by pharma
Dulled by drama
Diverting precious resources
Ignoring karmic forces
Manufacturing (New Normal) “Reality” — Consent Factory, Inc.
The ultimate goal of every totalitarian system is to establish complete control over society and every individual within it in order to achieve ideological uniformity and eliminate any and all deviation from it. This goal can never be achieved, of course, but it is the raison d’être of all totalitarian systems, regardless of what forms […]
Manufacturing (New Normal) “Reality” — Consent Factory, Inc.
”This will happen in both the public and personal spheres. Not just governments, the media, and corporations, but your colleagues, friends, and family will do this. Strangers in shops and restaurants will do this. Most of them will not do it consciously. They will do it because your non-conformity represents an existential threat to them … a negation of their new “reality” and a reminder of the reality they surrendered in order to remain a “normal” person and avoid the punishments described above.”
Romancing the Goat: An Ode to the Redneck
Something is wrong! What have I done?!
The friend who traded us for Summer, our first milking goat, patiently tried to coach me, not nearly as concerned as I was.
“Are you massaging her udder with a warm wash cloth before you milk her?”
Yes I am!
“Are you feeding her her favorite treat before and after milking?”
Yes, again!
Though I did try on the first day to transition her from her animal cracker addiction to fresh cucumbers straight from the garden, thinking of her long term health.
Summer would have none of it.
After 3 days of barely being able to coax a cup from her I thought for sure I’d created some awful affliction, maybe worse than mastitis, yet to be listed in any book, from my sheer incompetence, or maybe that she just didn’t like me, at all.
Her udder was full to the point of bursting, but I was failing miserably at filling my pail. At that point if my friend had advised me to bring scented candles, perhaps some champagne too, to our milking sessions I’d have asked, “Which scent does she prefer?”
But as chance would have it, on the 4th day we had visitors. Friends of this friend wanted one of our young boars for future breeding. These were true farm folk, born and raised. I wasted no time whining about my failure as a blossoming milkmaid.
I played coy for the necessary split second before taking them up on their offer to take a peak at her.
When they saw her udder they had concerns. The dreaded ‘mastitis’ term crossed their lips and I felt even more deflated.
“Oh, no, how do I fix that?” I lamented.
Summer hopped right up on the milk stand for her animal crackers. At least we got that part down. They both examined her udder more closely and concurred it wasn’t particularly hot, so probably not mastitis, followed by my great sigh of relief.
The large man, with a deep country drawl, stepped behind her then and proceeded to pound at her swollen bag with an upward motion and milk burst out both her teets.
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with this goat!” he confirmed. Then he gave a couple of tugs and strong, steady milk streams came pouring forth.
“How did you do that?” Was my relieved exclamation.
He proceeded to show me how it was all my bad, I was not being nearly rough enough.
“You gotta get way up in there hard and pull that milk down. Give her some good shots with your fist, like this. As long as your not bruising her or using a 2 x 4, she’s fine.”
Summer was completely calm and unfazed by this approach. Apparently I was tickling her more than milking her. We’re already up to a quart with my refined method.
I envy the rednecks and all their learnin’. So little seems to phase them, whereas I still get squeamish around blood and death and dis-ease after a decade of the most typical farm foibles.
Perhaps reading my mind and wishing to make me feel better, the large man shared a story as we stood at the gate before their departure.
“Now, I apologize in advance,” he began, “we just met, but let me tell you . . .”
And he proceeded to tell the story, flush with explicatives, about his recent long haul (he’s a truck driver in addition to a farmer, few make it these days as ‘just’ farmers) when his Bigrig broke down.
“Well I had to get one of them Ubers to take me into town and I ain’t ever been so scared in my life!” He’s a veteran, served overseas in the Middle East, grew up on a farm, been a truck driver for decades, but that Uber driver had him clinging with both hands for dear life, begging to Jesus and swearing to never get in a car with one of them crazy drivers for anything money can buy.
I inquired if he’d gone online to give the driver a poor rating.
“A poor rating?” he questioned. “They don’t go that low!”
He’s probably too nice of a guy to give that driver an ear-full while he had the chance. But I bet I would’ve!
I tried to find an appropriate fun song about goats to finish this post, but the best one was about a Billy.
Milking Mamas, Busy as Bees
Big days on the wee homestead! The cucumbers are coming in by the bushel full, the lambs are dropping like rabbits, the mushrooms are growing like mad and the bees sound exceptionally pleased. I can’t keep up!
Luckily, Handy Hubby is here now every day, thanks to his ‘early retirement’ (that is his layoff six months ago) thanks to The Great Scamdemic. With his steady efforts and attention our place is shaping up beautifully and my stress levels have been reduced by half, even as chaos still reigns. For these are not the only new milking mamas, I’m now officially a milkmaid in training myself!
Learning to milk in humid and buggy 95 degrees F is every bit as pleasant as it sounds. 😏
Handy Hubby crafted me a nice milk stand from plans posted by Fias Co Farms, a very good resource for goat newbies.
The chanterelles will surely give up very soon in this heat, so I forced myself to brave the mosquitoes and ticks once more to gather one last big basket full. I came across a new variety while hunting that’s not in any of my books, so I contacted Texas Foraging expert Mark ‘Merriwether’ Vorderbruggen, who identified it and directed me to this excellent site:
https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/hexagonal-pored-polypore
Since our temps went from April-like to August-like overnight, I got stuck in a bit of a bind with the bees. Because I’m trying to work between 3 different hive types (very stupid, do not entertain this folly I would advise) I’m trying to get them to move of their own accord. It is working, but it is quite a slow process. I will eventually have 3 colonies from this one very full nuc without too much destruction or fuss, or at least that’s my plan.
To end I offer a true garden success. I’ve been experimenting a lot with companion planting, sometimes with advice from permaculture books, but sometimes just by my own observations. This year I planted sunflowers very early, before it was warm enough for the cucumbers and melons. My thought was to attract the bees to the garden like a lure down to the still small cucumbers. It’s worked like a charm and the trellises are bursting with activity.
I’m also trying some new tricks with the tomatoes, letting the cherry types go wild, but highly managing the large varieties and interspersing them with various herbs, lots of comfrey, turmeric and ginger. The results are not yet in on those efforts, but I’ll keep y’all posted.
