The Learning Curve - Are You On It?

As I was perusing the blogs I normally check on in the A.M. while drinking my coffee, I noticed something that pops up often. The idea, or opinion, or meme perhaps, that people who identify themselves as pagan - non-christian - are all Gaia-worshipping veggie collectivists bent on forcing AGW policy upon everyone. And they smell like patchouli, too!
What is the matter with you folks?
How would you feel if I lumped all christians into the same bucket as Jim Jones, or Jimmy Swaggart? Would you take issue with that? Oh, and don't forget the guy who murdered the abortion doc, right? He was on a mission from your god - so he thought.
"Politics makes strange bedfellows." Don't it just? Why do some conservatives believe that only people who follow the Path of the carpenter from Nazarene, understand and appreciate what the Constitution means?
Let me give you a little background on me. A conservative pagan.
The son of an engineer/Airborne Ranger/blackjack player. Not a college grad, but a student, while in college, of physical sciences and math; several fields of geology being my favorites, with study of physics - quantum mechanics, especially - being one of my ongoing passions. I love understanding how things work, and the pursuit of knowledge.
Being the inquisitive sort, I was not content to remain silent in the church of my parents, instead choosing to ask questions. That never went off very well. Eventually I settled on a non-christian Path - having been introduced to it as a teenager.I didn't fall right in, hook, line and sinker; As I said, I am an asker of questions, and I choose not to be blind. I've read various authors of philosophy, both left-wingers and right-wingers. My take on things in general, at least regarding people and the things they believe, is that there are always three sides to the story.
Yes, I love the planet. My home.
I try to live in a way that reduces my impact: I recycle the oil from my Jeep, the wife's car, and my bike instead of pouring it on the dirt or down the storm drain. I recycle metal, paper, plastics and glass. I don't take my yard waste or used appliances off the road to dump - I take the yard waste to a landfill and the used appliances go to Goodwill. When I trim my trees I till the small stuff back into the yard and use the larger stuff for my patio pot bellied chimney or campfires.
I love to hunt. . For meat, antlers, and skin, where and when I can. I eat what I kill, and I avoid wasting anything that can be used. I know how to find my way in the wilderness. I know how to live in the wilderness. I also see the wilderness as a Cathedral unmatched by anything humans have ever made. I perceive my God and Goddess in all of nature.
Do I hug trees? I've been known to lean against them, to quiet my spirit and consider/feel the long, slow life of them. I've also been known to use them for firewood, which I still do. Does that mean I don't care about them? Hardly. Why would that be? I'm a desert rat. I've lived in the northern part of the Sonoran Desert most of my life, and my adventures have taken me into the Mohave, and the Painted Desert as well.
I'll tell you why: live in a place where trees are fewer and farther between, and you gain an appreciation for a forest, whether it be redwoods in northern Cal, oaks in southeast Missouri or the pine forests on the Mogollon Rim. Hearing the wind whispering in them at night, watching them dance in an afternoon storm... sweet.
Yeah, I love trees. Look over the aftermath of a forest fire and see if you don't feel grief of sorts for what you likely won't see again for many decades, if at all.
Is it possible for you to relate to me yet?
Unlike some, I do not separate humankind from the earth. I know that everything we do can have local effects; refer back to the oil recycling I do. I think of myself as a responsible steward, in my own small way, of what the earth offers me. I want my three sons and their children to be able to see some of what I've seen, go the places I've gone and more - and not find them overrun and trashed, like the Buenos Aires Wildlife Conservation Area down by Arivaca, AZ. The effects of illegal immigration at its finest. You don't hear too many of the self-professed Gaians raising hell about that, do ya?
So back, in a roundabout way, to where this began: the perception, on the part of many, that if you declare yourself a pagan, you must be a tree-hugging patchouli-wearing anti-meat-eating AGW-believing... dear me. There are a lot of us who are, simply put, common-sense oriented. That means we tend to lean towards policies and practices that you usually don't see put forward by some wild-eyed fanatic - no matter what kind of fanatic they might be.
I cherish what the Founders put forward, what they began so many years ago. I value the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as they are written. I do NOT consider them 'living documents', the meaning of which can be re-interpreted every other decade according to the whims of the Congress or the Supreme Court. I despise what our current congress is trying to do to us - but what I despise equally is the apathy many of my fellow citizens have shown in not participating in their future, and indeed the future of this nation. Because, ladies & gents, nothing else has brought us to this place. We've allowed the servants to try to be the rulers. It is time to change that.
But it'll be damned hard to do if you try to define us by our spiritual Paths. If you believe that only christians are conservatives, you're no better off than the folks on the left side of things who spew their hatred of people who don't share their ideologies. Narrow-minded losers.
Expand your mind a little and embrace the idea that I, and people like me, are very much like you in many ways. If you alienate us because of our beliefs, what do you gain?

I knew a pretty lady, a long time ago, who wore patchouli. Any time I get a whiff of it I think of her and smile. She smelled good... I've loved that smell ever since.

Does that make me less of a Patriot in your eyes?

Gotta Do More Than Sputter

Actions speak louder than words.
I'm grateful to all those who spend so much of their time keeping track of all the happy horseshit being perped by those who would remake our country into Euro-lite, or worse. Without blogs like Maggie's Farm, Cold Fury, and too many others to name, where would the information we need come from? How would we know the names, or how to make our voices heard?
Which leads me to the subject of this post.
If, after reading the words or watching the videos, all I do is spit and steam - nothing is accomplished. My energy is wasted. On the other hand, if I pick up the phone, type an e-mail, or type a snail-mail, then I am doing something that, I hope, validates, at least in a small way, the efforts of those who have brought the issues to light. Doing this web thingy takes time. If you're a blue shirt like me, this is something I can only do after I come home from the job - should I not get caught up in something else, like bein a lazy dog, for instance. So I'm grateful.
I learned something years ago, that you all can see happening before your very eyes today - people around the country are raising hell about the crappy path the current admin and congress have shoved down our collective throats. Pols are gettin' really nervous, and so they should! They have been changing their tune plenty fast - some of 'em at least - in the face of an increasingly vocal constituency. And there's the key. An increasingly vocal, visible group of people that aren't waiting around for a form-letter response from their so-called "representative" that ain't representin' them too well anymore. Not content with "We know better than you what you need, and how you should live", they are getting out and getting in DC's face. It's working.
But don't get all happy yet.
As I've pointed out elsewhere, these people are not stupid, and the joke is on anybody who thinks otherwise. Some of them are likely giving lip service to the angry masses, and counting on those angry masses to cool down, to forget or be distracted into allowing business-as-usual to re-commence a little later after it all blows over.
We must not allow that to happen. We must continue to keep the heat on, to make the change we desire by cowing them, or better still, by retiring them once and for all.
Have you noticed I haven't specified a party yet?
If you think our problem children are all in the democrat wing, you've gone from naive all the way into the land of delusion.
Check on the voting records, get involved, raise your voices, show your faces.

If we don't participate in our future, someone else will determine it for us.

It Went Thataway! Plus,The Roadtrip.

December already.
Almost six months since I last plugged in.
I won't be sorry to see '09 go away.
Too many events along the Path this last 12 months causing too much pain and grief. The passing of so many people I care about; the passing of my membership in an outfit that I always thought I'd be a part of; my powerlessness over any and all of it... I can't do anything about most of it, except continue staggering on down the Path, and 'be there' for those who need/want me(and I'm grateful that I can!), so while the tone of this latest screed is a little blue right now, read on.
I took a ride in August with one of my best Bros, Brett. We set out to do some healing, as we both are former members of that aforementioned outfit, and it wasn't too much past the beginning of Spring that I began to plot it out. There were people I needed to see, and with the added benefit of my face in the breeze for a few thousand miles, well that ain't so hard to figure out. I would have liked to get it going way before August, but, back to that powerlessness thing, my bike was still in pieces at the shop. Technical difficulties and circumstances BMC. I had been visiting the shop several times weekly so that the folks knew ALL about my impending ride, and that the only thing in the way now was... a still unassembled bike. Long story short - before the week of the ride, T (the shop owner and a good friend) told E (his shop tech) that if my bike wasn't ready, I'd be riding his brothers bike. Ha! (Not that I would have; I wanted MY bike. Her Darkness has been the 'other woman' in my life for nine years now, and by the Gods that's the bike I ride on road trips, period - as long as she ain't broke down, knock on wood.) Such as it was, I got her back two days before the trip.
We rode out on a rainy Thursday morn. The only unpleasantry was my rain gear: I was sweating pretty well by the time I got to Brett's place, so I wasn't sure if I'd be better off just being wet from the rain! Anyhoo, after a few minor details we set out.
Normally, the second week in August is fairly furnace-like: 113 degrees or so(likely higher), the humidity from the wet season - what we deluded desert rats refer to as the"Monsoon" - may or may not have abated, but in the Rim country, where we were going, afternoon T-storms are the daily special. This day, the rain was falling gently - that alone a little strange, as it is usually going sideways, accompanied by lightning - but it wasn't hot, to me, anyway. (BTW, "hot" to me is 114 degrees or higher. Deal with it, I live in the northern edge of the Great Sonoran Desert.)
The rain stayed with us, on and off, right on up to Flagstaff. But not before a quick stop in Cordes Junction to check the gear strapped on the bike. All being well, we continued. Brett is a damned capable rider, and this makes riding with him a real pleasure. Not only that but he and I have ridden together plenty already. We each have a pretty good idea of how the other is going to act, or react, in most situations.
I was originally going to go on this trip by myself, but when I talked with him about it a few weeks earlier, he wanted to go along. Oh HELL yeah.(My reaction.) We'd already been up to Idaho earlier in the year for, unfortunately, the funeral of a dear friend of ours; over the years he and I have done some travellin', indeed. His company on the road trip? See the reaction above. So on we go... Flagstaff for lunch, then on we go. Our plan was to get up to Kanab, UT to stop for the night. We crossed over the Colorado River at Marble Canyon, rather than go into Page. Brett noticed the view, not only of the canyon, but also the western sky:
He said something to the effect of "Boy that looks bad over there" to which I replied "It's only the sun going down behind the clouds!" at which I got a "Yeah, sure!" look, LOL! Intrepid explorers we are, we kept going... right into a nasty thunderstorm on the south end of the Vermillion Cliffs, as we were headed to Jacob Lake.
Lightning is supposed to strike the highest object in the area, you'd think; Pariah Plateau and the Cliffs on our right as we were going. Where do you suppose the damned lightning was? In the lower lands, directly in front of us. I began to wonder, as we were blasting through the lashing rain, if the hair on the back of my neck would stand up before or after I got hit. You know it's close when the bolts look like they're an inch thick and the thunder follows instantly. As bad as it was, we noticed that there was what looked like a tunnel through the worst of it as we pointed west toward the hills - the rain was falling in sheets so thick it looked like clouds on either side of us, while only lightly thrashing us as we rode on. Yeesh. It ended literally right at the foot of the hills as we got into the switchbacks that would lead us to Jacob Lake. After that, it was only cold. We stopped at JL to thaw a little:
F**kin' hard case Brett decides he don't need no steenking cold gear while standing about. Phooey. This occured once or twice more during the trip - but I remember at least once we stopped and he put his jacket back on... The only spooky moment(after the lightning!) as we were riding off the hills towards Fredonia and Kanab came when a doe looked like she was going to dash out in front of Brett, who was ahead of me. I think my heart stopped for a split second.. and then she turned aside. Woof.
We arrived in Kanab without further trauma, and landed for the night at a place with neon lights! The Sun n Sand Motel! The manager was a friendly enough fellow; he let us know that we could
get a discount at the restaurant across the street by mentioning we were staying at the Sun N Sand. Being the cheapskate that I am, whattaya think we did for dinner that evening?!?
We spent 11 days traipsing about in Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Northern Cal; as days go by, I'll be posting more about
it. To try that now would be a bit much, and I committed to cleaning up the train wreck that my desk has become. More later...

Happy Birthday, Pa

He always liked the idea that he was born on Bunker Hill Day.
I'm grateful that I got to spend so much quality time with him in the last 9 3/4 years of his life, and that he and I shared a clarity of mind that wasn't there for us in earlier years. I'm especially glad he hooked up with Mom again, even though it was so painful for her to let him go for good when he moved on.
For him, I thank Dr. Bob and Bill W; for me , thanks Jimmy K. Without your loving efforts Dad and I could never have gotten so much more out of our lives, and each other.
I miss you, Pa. But it's damn nice to remember why.

Re-thinking A Position.

I was in a mood.
The one I sometimes get into when I'm on the other side of something bad, and I've come through it with most of me intact.
I've gotten two "Get Out Of Massive Head Injuries Free" cards - once in 2001 when I smashed one side of my face into the asphalt,(which, incidentally happened to be my own-ass fault) and didn't get more than, well, a half-smashed face - and this last wreck, caused by a cage driver who thought there was time to pull out in front of me.
There wasn't.
There was time to choose - barely. Choose between hitting the car, and hitting the pavement.
I hit the brakes, then I hit the pavement. As I was going down, I flashed on the last time it went this way. March 2001...
The way everything exploded white, then went gray for a few years/seconds when I hit the deck in a one-point landing, head-to-tar...
The way, as my head cleared a little, I could feel the blood running off my face...
The thought in my head: "Ohh, my family doesn't need this -" (Incidentally, for those of you who maybe thought I didn't have it in me - then I thought, "Ohh, my f'in' bike!")
However, while the part about the bike didn't flash through my head, the rest did.
As far as I knew, it was time for a repeat performance, likely much worse. I was wincing while I was still in the air.
Have you ever been involved in a wreck of any kind where your body has been thrown, and bumped hard, and you're actually still conscious - maybe in pain, but conscious? If it was just you, or you knew everybody else was okay, did you take a little mental inventory of how everything was feeling? Were you ever surprised?
I was.
I knew my arm was broken. How bad, nope. I knew the right side of my chest felt like maybe Lars or Neil or Ginger had just done a drum solo on it. I knew my feet weren't real happy either - bruises to go around! But...
My head. I hadn't hit it. Not even a grazing blow. My headrag wasn't even dirty.
I can't explain it. I was bouncing on that damned pavement like a piece of lumber that fell off of the back of a truck, lengthwise. I remember three very hard impacts - the first, when my arm broke, and two more. WHAM!, WHAM, whamthumpitythumpthump, and fetchin' up next to the offending car. Ow...
The EMTs didn't believe it. The X-ray/CT techs didn't believe it. I was in a wreck with NO HELMET, I must have hit my head, We're Gonna Look In The Coconut Tonight, Boy. And don't figure on goin' straight home with that bruised lung, either!
I found myself in a wheelchair in the Admitting area of the nearby hospital, trying not to smile. Trying not to smile, because there was so much misery around me. Sick folks, hurt folks, sad folks. Another Friday night in a metropolitan Phoenix hospital.
Realizing what an incredibly lucky cat I truly was. (Only 3 or 4 lives left, though.)
Seeing the faces of my brothers & sisters, and of my wife and Mom-in-law, as they came through the doors and saw me sitting there, grinning like a fool just because I was getting to see them all. Basking in the love like a lizard on a sunny rock.
There were other emotions at work, too. The fear that I could see had been in Li'lBit's heart. The relief in everyone's eyes.
I got swept up in my joy at being alive, rightly so.
But when I wrote the previous post, I had gotten cocky. I beat the odds, right?
A couple of weeks later a fella I've known, and ridden with, didn't.
It set me to thinkin'.
I've skated twice. Will there be a third time, if I can't avoid somebody again?
I've looked in the faces of the many people I know and love, some of whom even love me(!), and also in the little faces of some people who are just getting to know me.
I've spent quite a bit of time figuring out when to be stubborn, and when to compromise. I just never gave much thought to it. It's always been my choice. I've made another, now...
I'm going to buy, and wear(at least in our beloved city), a full-face helmet.
After all, it isn't a horse I'm ridin', so I won't look silly.