In The Year Of The Wind

 

Those of us who survive live in a deep fissure in the stone of this planet. The surface cities are dead, unlivable. It is a storm year. The wind has taken them all. Our years last many lifetimes. 

We make do with the remaining water at the very bottom of our last refuge. On the cliff-like edges of our remaining shelter, we maintain small outcroppings supporting the plants we eat.

I was the youngest here. A female.

Terrible winds strip the surface. There is only the wind and the sand shifting as it blows long and hot. If I attend to the sound of it, it is like the howling of some immeasurable animal. But we don’t attend to it, for the sake of sanity.

And yet, something lives on the surface. For a time, I have sensed that someone is there. I sense that there is breath and that something is terribly wrong. I could not stop knowing it. I could not sleep because of the urgency of knowing.

So, at last I prepared myself to go to the surface. I changed my form; it is a skill we have. I became something like a low-profile arachnid. The sandy storm would mostly blow over my back hopefully causing little damage. Under my carapace I held a bladder of water and a bladder of berries. One of my 12 legs was dedicated to holding these things.

I had given myself eyes all around the outside of my flat shell. Tough little blue eyes.

Thus prepared I took the old path up out of our fissure. I moved slowly, but at last I came up into the open. The sunlight was dim and tawny in color. The everlasting wind blew as strongly as ever. I had prepared myself well though, it did not roll me over.

At some distance I could see a light. Just one. It appeared to flash on and off and be part of some kind of structure. This had to be the source of the knowing I felt.

Slowly, I moved over the sand toward this thing. I did not fear it. I felt the urgency to preserve life if I could.

As I neared, I could see that it was a vehicle of some kind. It had to have come from the sky. There was no other way for it to be there. It seemed intact. The light continued to flash on and off like a beacon.

There were small transparent discs along the sides of the vehicle. I couldn’t see into it. Too dark.

I transformed through the stuff of it to come inside. The air was breathable. Fortunately. It was dark except for a bank of instrument lights.

Then I saw that there was a living one lying on the floor. I saw that he was beautiful to look upon. My heart changed within me.

I saw that he slept. As he slept, I entered his mind and looked upon his memories. I saw that he was alone in all the worlds and I wept for him in my heart for his heart was very sweet and strong.

I saw that he considered beauty much. I saw paintings and statues and women that he had looked upon and I changed my form again, laying aside the water and the berries. I became as a woman who came out of the sea on a mighty shell. Blond and tender I became. I gave myself a simple blue gown like the sky on his home planet. I learned his language as he slept.

I waited, sitting on a piece of tumbled equipment of some sort.

I sent some of my strength to him. I stirred him. I watched to see if he would wake.

Finally, he sat up. He rubbed his eyes, looking at his instruments and all around the enclosed area. He stood up and then he saw me. I saw disbelief in his face.

“Who are you,” he said slowly and quietly as in a dream.

“I am only one who came to preserve life if I could. How do you come to be here on the surface in the wind?”

“I was curious, lady. I saw that perhaps there were cities here, down in that canyon. Then the wind tumbled my ship as I landed. It seems like it must have knocked me out cold.

“I fear that some part of this ship is damaged.”

“I brought water and food,” I said. “Are you thirsty, do you have hunger?”

“Well, yes, lady. Now that you mention it.”

I showed him how to drink from our water bags. Water is water, no matter where it is. So, it suited him. I opened the bag of our berries too. He ate them also. He said they were somewhat like blueberries at home.

“I have food on this little ship, lady, but something fresh is a gift.” He seemed to be getting accustomed to my presence.

“Do you know what is wrong with your ship?”

“It can’t be much. The air is working, and the lights are on. My instruments are alive. Let me check something.”

I sent out correction according to its design to all its parts with all my might. It is a skill we have.

From his seat in front of his instruments he said, “I think it’s alright. I guess the tumble hurt nothing but the captain.” He laughed at himself.

“I can go home then it looks like,” he said, looking at me. His eyes became sad. He was beautiful indeed to me.

I wept.

“Will you leave me here,” I asked him through my tears.

“Will you come with me lady? Can you live where I live? Do you know?”

“I can live wherever your presence is,” I hastened to say. “I will come with you.

“Let us say words together human man. If I am to leave my home.”

I began, “I bless the woman who bore you.”

He said as in a dream, “blessed is she who is your mother.”

“I bless he who sired you,” I followed.

“I call upon God to comfort and bless your father,” he said.

“I pray blessing on the world that formed you,” I said to him.

“I thank God for you, lady,” he said then.

I laid my head on his shoulder, he put his arms around me, I heard his heart beating.

I loved him with all of my being.

Down River Camp

 

    He went to her.

    As he climbed up the bank, she still did not run or cry out. At last, he faced her. He had never seen anyone like her.

***

    She had never seen anyone like him. He had come out of the river to her. She felt that in some sense he must be hers. Or else, why would he come to her that way? She began to think about bringing him to her mother.
    He was small, tight, and sinewy. He had darker skin than her people and dark brown straight hair. He had curious brown eyes, staring at every detail of her person.
    She had never seen an uncovered man before. She laughed. He was naked like a baby boy. He wasn’t very old. She could see that easily.
    He reached out and touched her dress, running his fingers down through the soft grey fur. He quietly touched her lighter hair and even the skin of her cheeks. He laughed at her too. He had never seen anyone covered in fur like that, which was not part of her body.
    At his camp his grandmother, the Old One, went nearly nude except for a little apron made of deerskin. Except for one brother, she was all he knew of family. He didn’t remember his father or his mother. His brother was older and was a better hunter than he was. They both hunted by throwing rocks. It took a lot of skill, and only brought down small game.
    His hunger made him bolder than he might have been otherwise coming upon a person he had never seen before. Always before, when he had seen in the distance some person not of his camp, he had hidden silently, just letting them pass him as if he didn’t exist. He feared others.
    But That One, this girl, was different. He had no fear of her. Her smile was warm and encouraging in a way that he was not accustomed to. In fact, no one was in the habit of smiling at him. He was often in trouble. He had a habit of curiosity.
    In a gesture as old as mankind, she took his hand and drew him further up the bank and onto flat land. He followed her. There was a trail between the trees and among the tall grass. They walked along together for some distance. Coming over a little rise, he saw where she was leading him.
    This camp was very different from his. It was out in the open. There was a simple building of sorts, made of small timbers lashed together and covered with the skins of large animals. Then he saw the people. Fear tugged at his mind then, for he had never seen so many others. It was just her family. There was an adult man, much taller than himself, dressed in furs. There was a woman, also in furs and two small boys. She also had the strange braided light hair. Her eyes were sharp and blue also.
    He had a brief urge to run, but then he noticed that there was a fire and there was meat cooking near it. This caught his attention.
    Still holding his hand, she led him over to the woman who was seated near the fire. This woman looked up curiously and she also laughed.
    The girl spoke.
    “Look. A man came out of the river to me. He was on a tree, but it stopped near me, and he got off of it. I think he is mine. The river gave him to me.
    “I think he is hungry. Look how thin he is.”
    The woman looked him over, then said, “does he speak?”
    “I don’t know,” said the girl.
    The tall man walked over to look. His eyebrows went up, but he didn’t laugh. He just watched.
    The mother took a black stone blade and began slicing off some thin pieces of the meat and laying them on a flat stone she had nearby. She gestured to the boy and then to the meat. He squatted down and picked up a slice.
    It was better than anything he was used to. It came from a deer, not a rabbit or a fish or a bird, and it was salted. Also, there were herbs. He ate it joyfully for it was very good. He waited for more, and she sliced more for him.
    The girl looked proudly at her family.
    Her father said, “he will need to wear something. He’s not a baby.”
    Everyone also ate as the mother kept slicing. The little boys examined him curiously. Then they ran off to play some more at their hunting game.
    When night came, they brought him into their shelter and let him stay.

One Sunny Day Long Ago

 

     It was a sleepy hot day on the riverbank. One of those days when the heat lay on the land heavy and drowsy. Even the birds were sleeping. 

    This One was being punished again. The Old One had sent him out alone. She was angry again.
    There was nothing to eat but what he could pick or catch raw, and it was just about too much trouble to bother with. He was done chewing grass seeds for now.
    This One was naked. He sat in the shade of one of those smallish deciduous trees that likes to grow on riverbanks, down in a bit of a depression in the landscape. We might call it a birch tree. He wasn’t sleepy. He was feeling rejected and maybe somewhat petulant.
    He was 13 years old. Nearly a man. He was a bit over five feet tall and weighed maybe 115 pounds.
    He watched various objects slowly float down the surface of the smooth little river. A stick floated downstream as he watched. A curled leaf sailed downstream. A pair of ducks followed after, swimming but going with the flow.
    This One jumped to his feet, looking around for a handy thing to throw at the ducks, a kill of any kind would make him more popular back with the Others. Ah, there was a nice handy dry branch. He threw it as hard as he could right at the ducks, who escaped unharmed, though flustered.
    However, his stick joined the other floating objects. It didn’t sink. It just wafted along downstream with the current.
    Now, while he was watching, he conceived of a question, just an errant thought, since he was doing nothing else and was stuck out here. He looked around himself for something larger to throw into the water. He rejected several candidates as too small to be interesting.
    He decided to look further. Walking along the river he found a tree trunk with most of its branches broken off. Some of its length was already in the water of the river. It wouldn’t be hard to shove it the rest of the way in, he thought. He began to imagine something which he had never considered before, nor heard about either.
    With all the power in his hard-bitten little body he shoved on the dead tree. It moved! He shoved again. It moved further. At last, it was just about free and starting to float free of the bank.
    This One jumped from the mud of the riverbank onto dead tree, giving it a couple of final shoves by kicking away from the muddy bank. Now, this tree trunk did not roll over because it was stabilized in the water by its remaining branches. It moved out into the center of the stream where the current was stronger and with its strange cargo aboard sailed grandly downstream.
    No one has ever been more pleased with himself than This One. He was filled with thoughts of easy travel. No endless walking and walking and walking just to move camp! Oh, then he thought of the Others briefly before he floated quite a long way away.
    Being a young fellow he didn’t mind at all. He just went with it. For a couple of hours his tree sailed along unhindered.
    At some point the river took a sharp bend and he encountered some mild rapids. His tree was finally caught on the gravel bottom. It came to rest. He climbed off and stood on the bank again. His mind was still full of the marvelousness of his trip downriver. But now he was getting truly hungry. Fasting was not unknown to him, but he didn’t enjoy it.
    Looking down at him from further up the embankment was a girl. That One stood among the tall grass and flowers. She did not run or cry out. She was like him, almost grown, but equally slight in stature. She was adorned with a sort of basic gown made of rabbit skins sewn together. Her brown hair was braided into two long plaits. Her eyes were light blue. 

    He went to her.

Dogface Boy Caught A Train Out West

 

Petijean State Park, AR.  

In the daylight he was forced to run on all fours, so the people would think he was just a large dog in case anyone thought they saw him. It offended him to do so. Even so, the local farmers had begun to suspect that this was not a normal canine. Too many calves and lambs went missing during the nights. Scent markings were found six feet up on walls! Housewives worried and kept a sharp eye out when digging a potato or hanging out the wash. 

Things began to get hot for him in the villages and in the fields. Farmers were going about their work armed with shotguns. Merchants and shoppers in towns whispered about an arcane howling beast frequenting their streets at night. Children were admonished by reference to his probable dining preferences. At last, his sheltering place was found in the basement of an abandoned farmhouse. The house was burnt down by the townspeople and the farmers. A priest sprinkled the ground there with special water and a farmer strewed rock salt where the building had stood. They left him nothing to come back to.

Therefore, the Dogface Boy decided to leave his natal home in the hollers of the Ozark mountains. He wanted to go where a beast could be free and un-noticed to predate at will. Let’s give him a name, shall we, for convenience’s sake? I believe I shall call him Louis.

Now, Louis understood trains as a way to get out of the area and he had a pretty good notion of the cardinal directions. He decided to travel westward, riding the rails as it were. Louis leapt on freight cars to ride unseen during the dark hours, yellow eyes burning out into the fields and towns while the wind blew his shaggy dark fur back, as he grinned his vulpine grin. Then he hopped off to do a bit of hunting and find a place to sleep during the light hours. He had luck with him, for no one saw the shaggy dark form sleeping in this or that deep shadow.

First, he rode the trains to Arizona. It glowed. It was hot. He couldn’t settle there. No amount of panting made it any more endurable.

He had to keep moving. Louis knew that the north was cooler, so he hopped on a freight car heading north. He worked his way up through Utah, Idaho, the corner of Oregon and at last he came to the cool green lands of the upper left-hand corner of the country. Louis could breathe here. No one watched him vanish into the deep stands of Douglas Firs, Alders, and Maples. Louis had no trouble finding food there. He could grab a robin out of the air if he couldn’t catch something bigger, like someone’s calf or sheep perhaps.

Sooner or later, he made his wandering way to the Baker National Forest. It had been raining there since October, when it wasn’t snowing, not that Louis knew it, but it was now April. He had never seen anything like it.

It was dim. It was gloomy. Heavy fog filled the distant tree tops. There was not a hint of sunshine. Water dripped on his head from the branches of those two hundred foot tall firs out there. It smelled funny. Fungi and rotten wood were all around him. He sensed alien buglife.

Louis was pissed.

He raised his muzzle to the sky and howled. It was a howl such as had never been heard in Ralph’s domain before. It was chilling. It was piercing! It was protracted.

Ramona heard it. Twigg heard it. He wanted to go see who was making so much noise. Twigg was not allowed to leave the cave. GOTO, children were admonished by reference to his probable dining preferences.

All at the same time Ralph heard this dismal yawping howl and Louis burst into the clearing where Ralph’s special log lay invitingly. Right behind Louis came Ralph. (Ralph makes three of Louis in size. In case you wonder.)

Louis leapt up on the log, airing his grievance to the upper forest and sky with a hell of a howl. The scene was Wagnerian!

“Say Buddy,” began Ralph, “um, what’s up?” Ralph loomed out of the gloom over Louis.

“Ya’all talk?” Louis was astounded by the sight of Ralph.

“Yeah, Bud, but don’t tell anybody. How about you hop down and sit on the log?”

Louis climbed down and sat, all shaggy and dark and glowering.

Ralph sat beside him. He radiated calm. His breathing was deep and regular. Ralph had a kind of zone around himself. He just sat there for a long while. At last, he said, “if you’re feeling better, how about we smoke a cigar and take it easy?”

“OK,” said Louis. “No one has ever offered me a cigar before.” He looked a little sorry for himself.

“The life of an English-speaking Cryptid is an odd one Buddy,” said Ralph, from a cloud of expensive smelling smoke. “See, we exist as a sort of interface between the Hairless and the Unspeaking. You have to learn to swing with it. Especially if you want to stay here.”

“You feel like a beer, Buddy,” offered Ralph. Ralph fished out from under his log a couple of bottles of Shaggy Dog Dunkel Brau and opened them, handing one to Louis.

They talked for a couple of hours. Neither one asked the other’s name. But guys are like that, even forest guys.

Louis agreed to come back in a couple of days to meet the family, after he had found a cave for himself.

Ralph said, “anytime Buddy. Take it easy!”

The Hidden Kingdom Within

 

Guts Get No Respect!

But they ought to. There is a lot going on down there. Our guts deserve respect. We have a whole internal eco-system inside. And, as it turns out, that wild assortment of tiny beings has a profound effect on a person’s health and state of mind.

At this point I would like to recommend a book.

Gut, by Giulia Enders. It has become a very famous book, and she speaks in many videos. Here is a good Ted talk by Dr. Enders, just to whet your appetite. 

So, the video is fun, but the book packs a wallop of information. We have it here. I have not read the whole thing, but it is vastly detailed.

What we are finally dealing with is our internal microbiome. As we already know, the microbiome is that eco-system within our gut.

Each person has an entirely unique network of microbiota that is originally determined by one’s DNA. A person is first exposed to microorganisms as an infant, during delivery in the birth canal and through the mother’s breast milk. [1] Exactly which microorganisms the infant is exposed to depends solely on the species found in the mother. Later on, environmental exposures and diet can change one’s microbiome to be either beneficial to health or place one at greater risk for disease.

What it comes down to really is that you get more of the type of micro-organisms that you feed. Proper food, with nutrients intact, not covered in spray or raised on chemical fertilizers feeds the kind of bacteria that you want. It’s almost like that story where the wolf who survives is the one you fed.

The idea that a person can be well on factory food, raised on impoverished soil, processed to death, and prepared to be shelf-stable, is an advertiser’s lie. It feeds bacteria that contribute to the breakdown of health, both physical and mental. These foods contribute to inflammation and leaky gut.

This video by Dr. Zach Bush details some of the ways this feeding of our microbiome has gone wrong, and why it has been so devastating in recent years. According to Dr. Bush it even has bearing on our modern loss of our sense of self and purpose! Pretty scary stuff! 

I really hope you all take the time to watch it. 

And they should farm organically!

Pros and Cons. The practicalities. 

Pros:

💓Fermented foods. Sends in reinforcements. Suppresses bad bacteria. If it’s pasteurized it’s dead.

💓Fresh plant foods. Obviously. Good bacteria love them and their fiber.

💓Unprocessed fats. Butter, meat fats, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil.

💓Unprocessed protein. Lack of salt or preservatives augments good bacteria.

💓Clean water. Now we know that boiling the water disables those plastic particles in tap water. Boil, then chill. Or drink hot, or in tea or coffee.

💓If you tolerate grain foods, it’s best to make your own. Factory bread is factory food.

     💓Eat fish! 

     💓Eat Chocolate everyday! Good for the gut!

    💓Etc. We know this stuff, right?

Cons: 

     💥Lots of sugar, or artificial sweeteners. 

       The gut doesn't know what to do with fake sugar.  

💥Sweet drinks are their own category! Even a lot of fruit juice!

💥Is there such a thing as too much coffee? Maybe!

💥Lots of flour products. Won’t kill you, most likely, but it feeds the kind of bacteria that augment weight gain, etc. Plus, some people really can’t tolerate gluten, though we get tired of hearing about it.

💥Preserved meat products.

💥Seed oils, canola, soy, corn, those types. Hardened oils in margarine or shortening. These cause inflammation and also contribute to diabetes. Dr. Bush up there says that inflammation is the root of most disease.

💥Too much alcohol.

💥All that stuff that is called junk food. I call it toy food. Crispies, crunchies, human rat food.

💥Fluoride. Treated water in general is questionable.

💥Anti-biotics unless you must have them to save life.

We love you!  Please be healthy! These are crazy days!

 

Started in the 70's if I remember correctly.

Time Change Chains

⫷ ✻ ⫸

There is no such thing as time, but there is such a thing as clocks, which our limited senses require and desire in order to keep everything from happening at once.... Because the dark forces need slaves to the past and hostages for the future.... That's how that works.... Besides how many walking this plane, save a few who understand that unbounded life is now and forever being spontaneously self-renewed, could handle being born and dying simultaneously?

Be that as it may, today is the day we steal an hour from the dawn and give it to the evening and call it saving daylight. Spring forward! Yay!

Speak to us of time if you wish.... Have a wonderful day!

⫷ ✻ ⫸

Time is, for man, nothing but a relation between events.

—Gustave Le Bon, The Evolution of Forces

The past, present and future are only illusions, even if stubborn ones. 

—Albert Einstein

Time past and time future

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

—T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets (Burnt Norton, I)

Then of what is to be, and of what is done,

Why queriest thou?

The past and the time to be are one,

And both are now!

—John Greenleaf Whittier, My Soul And I

The revelation of Jesus concerning the ascension of the soul:

The soul answered and said, What binds me has been slain, and what turns me about has been overcome, and my desire has been ended, and ignorance has died. In a aeon I was released from a world, and in a type from a type, and from the fetter of oblivion which is transient. 

—Gospel of Mary

⫷ ✻ ⫸

✯

Time Turtles?

 

They aren’t really turtles you know. 

It’s like this; a Time Turtle is the physical embodiment of a fallacy!

Say, for the sake of a party game or something like a baby shower game, that we imagine the Multi-verse as something like an endless mass of suds. Bubbles in a word. Each bubble is near the next, but separate. Of course, each bubble is very “large.” But each is not large in the same way. Some are large in way that would look very small to us here in this one. Some would seem so woefully huge that it might cause bleeding to try to conceptualize their size. You can see that it would require some fancy physicswork in traveling from bubble to bubble. I mean, if you could!

As it happens, in this party game, truth-tellers can sometimes hop from bubble to bubble. This is very special. It must be done correctly!

To work this correctly some clever fellows from MIT or somewhere, made what could be called Timelocks. These are a contained sort of transition zone, for making adjustments in size and time scale for just a perfect, special moment between two bubbles.

It requires some mental tuning. First the traveler must enter an intangible state and contemplate terribly small, then terribly huge, back and forth until small and huge become one. Then he may enter the Timelock.

Many times, the Timelock is used for mere time travel. The traveler pops into a nearby bubble just long enough to turn around and come back, at some other time. My mind boggles at how they know where and when they are going.

They say that a high enough level of technical wizardry would look like magic. I have to admit that this is true. For this Timelock and all looks a lot like hocus-pocus.

Anyhow, back to time turtles. Sometimes there has been a problem with the translation. Say someone like Ramona, as an example, and a fine example she is, was preparing her mind for the Timelock. She’s had a lot of practice, and it doesn’t take her long. Suppose that in her hurry she doesn’t notice the mouse on her shoulder. Now, this mouse is not prepared to make the hop to the next bubble. His presence in the Timelock will create a size/time anomaly!

Let me see if I can explain this in a way that makes some kind of sense in our native bubble.

OK. A remedy was devised for just this sort of thing. It’s only a partial remedy though. We still need a hero. More on that in a moment.

The mouse will harden into a kind of lozenge of time/space/size potentiality. This will spare any disruption between bubbles, but as a so-called Time Turtle it will block the Timelock open, perhaps like elevator doors with a suitcase lodged in the opening. This is not good. Someone needs to come and get this turtle and take it back where it came from before these two bubbles merge!

Often, Ralph has to do this chore, because it’s his wife who gets into the Timelock without checking for hitchhikers about her person. I mean, as an example…in this party game.

When he comes back with this little turtle thing, he just lays it out on the grass where the sunlight can hit it. Gradually the lozenge disintegrates, frees the mouse, or whatever, who is usually just fine, if dazed.

Then he goes home, well nearly home, to his pondering log. He finds that taking the time to have a quiet cigar keeps him from mentioning any of this to Ramona.