Mongrel Diaries

2010-04-29T23:50:00.000-07:00

Birthday notes: 2010
the rough sketch of it.
my friends
I’m
reconsidering birthdays..
in tales of jungle wars and bamboo spears
and sometimes when the mood is right,
of quieter times and lesser fears.
when west coast rains
a secluded dampening grey
over log strewn beach and crumbling mansions,
the world that I surveyed
**
..in dinners with sultans, generals and princes,
in smoky circles with drums and stone age hunters,
when close to the mud, and close to the sky..
**
Considering:
When hunted in the tiger's lair
and all past and future
hung on the whim
of some nameless sniper's eye.

Or:

When tales of healing and madness,
measured courage in the halls of asylums
where life disappears down long dark hallways,
in shadows of frustrated angels in whispering white.

When jungle fears
suspend in paper chains and Cartesian reality.
walk trails of razor’s edge,
to come away from the edge of madness
knowing the value of choices,
the strengths of even indecision
when caution goes to the wind.

to be

cast before the mercy of a river
too great to describe
let alone understand.

Although
seeming mad,
a seeming foolishness,
we've lasted you and I,
to come out of walkabouts
a wealth no one can steal,
and few can understand.
to expand knowing,
with no sense of purpose
but to taste the adventure of life:
to seek out that far scattered brotherhood,
to know the life that is the earth
from tiger's lair
to the frozen land of Great Snowy Owl
and Great White Bear.
**
Life is death in bamboo thickets
death on sandy beaches
and curling waves
when the porpoise joins with a nod
and a flip of his tail.

Life:

when
great hammerhead shark surfaces,
yawns beneath the boat and disappears..
or cobra hovers,
head three feet in the air
and makes his way past..
a killer whale nudging the boat
desert scorpions beneath the groundsheet..
a razorback charging out of the trees..
and
floating in crystal blue over tropical reefs,
mysterious kaleidoscope in flesh finned feathers
questioning presence..
or
hanging in blue sky
suspended by white silk,
one with clouds,
one with the dominion of birds
in weightless mist..
these diversions
at the edge of the void.

sometimes

a walk to the edge of the universe,
to stare into the void,
turning

returning to Earth
with fellow dream seekers,
and shared dream walkers

where in some realms
where no Medicine is allowed for the illusion of madness,
even madmen are held accountable for their actions.
***

Suits and Ties

2010-01-28T16:50:00.000-08:00

(cartoon on the wall)

"Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a rule of thumb:

Don't trust any predictions from people who wear ties.

He notes that bankers and financial economists almost universally wear ties to work."

(quote on computer screen)

from
THE STONESPEAKER LETTERS
March, 1995

The Grandfather Dreamwalker who visits in the night voices cautions about those who wear white shirts and ties.

"..do not trust those with scissors at their throat and a noose around their neck..."
The scissors, the points of the white collar point at the centre of their being and cuts off the flow from their heart. The noose around the neck shows they are controlled by forces they do not understand, can not see or are unwilling to acknowledge.

****

Suit and Tie:.

Camouflage for political listening posts in corporate jungle.

Uniform of The Empire:

- symbols of dominating force.
- bearing gifts with promises of prosperity and peace.

- empty promises and the sting of new weapons.
- yet to demonstrate integrity.
- eliminates old ways. imposes new ones.

gathers riches for short term reasons.

absorbing conquering force.

alters and drafts others into armies of social progress.

original tongues disappeared.

tribal "heathen" religions absorbed,

eliminates other points of view as heresy or witchcraft

favours state approved world views

and common language.

riding roughshod over the tribes

to build global village

bereft of heart.

founded on the drug addiction of power.

*
talk without those nooses around necks and scissors pointing at heart centres.

*
****
From 'The Stonespeaker Letters' : MARCH 95

***
January-2010

"...industrial society..three phases: the age of scarcity industrialism, the age of salvage societies, and ...the ecotechnic age, when new societies ...will rise on the ruins of our own unsustainable time."
http://www.theoildrum.com/ : Posted by Leanan on September 11, 2008
***
"Pattern Analysis" of unfolding dream.

Growing, mutating, expanding common reality.

What’s up?

Bio-degradable computer genome in multidimensional head-games.

with

Population bombs

losing 1.5 million kids a year.
within

environmental crises.

Arrogant butts on the line.

The planet will revive.

Mucking up genetic potential.

Next?

Serious breeches of responsibility.

Jeremiahs

in lively debate.
Ship of state off course.

Bridge, engine room and deck crews keenly aware

awaiting decisions

on the verge of mutiny

no consensus. no game-plans.

The "Gods" have thrown us a curve.

Passengers not alerted to crisis.

Command staff flummoxed.

No Safety drills, no danger alerts, full steam ahead.

Universal testing ground for space cadets

toughened up for space travel.
***

in momentary withdrawal consider :

*
Caves
A personal addiction to the Philosopher Monks of Life
leads to a Cave in the City.
Where Considering this Rubik's Cube in the interstellar mass.
We sometimes relaxed in the luxuries of empires,
And sometimes walked to the sound of a Bell in the Streets.
After the moving
From Mountain top to Mountain top,
Soaring on the Winds of Change.
Close to the Ground,
Feet in the Blood of the Earth,
Breathing the Air of the Mother.
Some Seed of the Mind,
Stirs to the Light
of a returning Sun.

In
Caves, sacred to the bones of Ancestors,
In Caves where the Bear speaks to the Stones,
Where the Stone teaches the Songs,
And the Songs become lullabies,
soothing the Brow of
A Monk... in a Cave
...In the City.
***
From "Old Stones-Old Souls" copyright Ronald D. Bunston, 1994

catching breath

planning gardens:

reprogram mongrel puppies.
global brain internet attention deficit disorder
a simple dream of gardening

the empire collapsing

who will grow the food?

at odds with paradigm

profit risks the future

the simply defined garden seeks
slow money

unravelling personal questions

stay sane and rational,
in unfolding world,
redesigning wagon trains
*

numb and speechless

shock and awe
dereliction of duty

in lush farmland

memory of what was

measures the forensics of slaughter

a removed passionate perspective.

experientially challenged

professional class

in dissonance with planet

at odds with simple tasks

husbanding the species

with gifted genetic genius pool.
**

*
seeming gods

What discipline in these seeming gods
an arrogance,
no second thought
of conscious effort
in creative awareness,
a curious seeking
of superstition, a memory,
about Gods and Men
and earthly slaves
with fears of death.
a virus in seeming gods
perhaps extraterrestrial
perhaps intentional
or accidental threat
to liberated slaves
in physical and mental desert
who require
safe and healthy garden.
which even for gods seems a worthy objective
equal to solar horizons,
for universal explorers requiring home

***

(Mongrel Diaries: True confessions from the realms of the dysfunctional: 2001)

travel safely. stick to the high ground.

rdb

Storms Unfolding

2009-11-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

November, 2009

Hadrian’s Wall

There IS Some Thing
Called Camelot
if only in Our Dreams.
These Things we Speak
as Camelot
are More than What
They Seem!
When
Merlins Dream
of Camelot
And Arthurs Seek
the Crown,
When Pagan Armies
Storm the Wall
What Empire's Falling Down?
What Knights defy
The Table Round?
What Knights have crossed
the Sea?
What Legions Guard
the Village Gate
If only you and me?
***
(rdb-mar-2001 )

***
November 11th

dates like bells,

sounding memories

footsteps through a jungle valley

to ceremony

for memories of wars,

when alms with souls

becomes absolution for sins

while truths no one hears

speak of the innocent

who live with this every day

***
The difficult days for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will be ahead, when they like us bearing memories from the pathology of VietNam will face questions about loss of purpose, the perversion of honour and the piracy of those who waste the lives of our best and brightest in a game they play close to their chests.
***

Walking the Razor's Edge

In Bear Sweat,

The Blooded Warrior Lodge,

the Elder speaks...

" In ancient times the Blooded Warriors whose souls had been marked by battle would travel to the Lands of the Blue Eyed Peace Queens, where they sat on the ground and drank the healing waters so that their souls might be healed..."

***
We're planning a sweatlodge-kiva down by the stream.

***

Gardening Planets

2009-06-12T23:17:00.000-07:00

June 12, 2009

Unfolding artifact of memory.

***

a soul walks in gardens,

stroking and hugging horses before goodbyes to earth.

surrendering, sinking into time,

fading, unsettled, struggling with departure.

sweet and sour bi-polar roller coaster

welcome back to one and goodbye to another.

***

when truths from "medicine",

from body and soul herbalists of

earthwalkers,

these People of the Horse

from before the Comet Strikes

and the great waters

whose young warriors

drafted to earthly empires

away from the purposes of Grandmothers

now hovering in time

between the dreams of grandmothers

and the seven generations

when our hopes and dreams

centred in the soul of woman

gathered some glimpse of three dimensional earthtime reality.

More food for thought than measured in sugar and flour..

***
this

half moon rising,

somewhere someone's sun is setting.

tomorrow's planned,

time written in the four stones

Time, Fire, Air and Life

the fifth stone,

fire of uncertainty,

"firestone" brings surprise.

flexibility is strength.

draw on the water of life.
***

Dream Stones
August Moment
***
When

summer’s heat retreats

to a relief of rain

some long hoped for rains

a well placed soul

withdraws to consider

within these aged walls

the reaching gardens overrun,

in a waterfall of windswept rain.

seeking some moments conviction

as unfolding garden dreams

are quenched with rain.

A dream perhaps of eagles lair

and mountain crag,

a Spirit standing in some tallest pine,

of storms that rumble there

on horizons brow.

And how this wind hints to wary eyes

when quiet shrug of spreading wings

to float but momentarily

and lifted up

above these rolling storming clouds

awaiting calms return

to garden’s dream.

While floating there,

considering,

some place of memories

of visions hue

and dancing with like Spirits there

in air above the rumbling storms below

while fluted dreams or softer dreams

before and after passages such as these.

In this time and wearied world

some land awaits the quenching rain

and awaited rain beneath the storm

seeks perhaps a fire’s blessing,

a higher blessing that only eagles see.

Some Spirits perennially,

return to a garden’s dream

and through the storm washed gardens walk

perhaps on those stones there,

a path where vines and waterfalls

hold fast to visions

and speak of Earthly garden

visits in gentler times

and seen again

while floating there above the storms.

******
May your canoe find quiet waters.

After the Silence of Spring Labour

2009-06-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

moved venue to a rural setting.

a decade in the struggle to do such a simple thing.

a home for the Whimsical Garden,

a place for shields and eagle feathers,

to sit in the edge of the woods

and talk to the grandmothers who were our window into this dimension.

home after 53 years.
left to live with a foster family in a large city.

1956.

Much has happened here in the decades that I wandered the earth.
tutored in many sweat lodges,

many "jobs", many lands

the Stonespeaker" and DreamsStonesMoving .

two Mongrel Puppies,

to garden, a place for seniors.

to be of use in our retirement

until the Mother Ship hauls us out of here.

suspended moments, a war

a political education.

Vietnam in 1965-66.

the original play

"We were Soldier's Once"

Carlos Castaneda

Yaqui Don Juan,

("A Yaqui Way of Knowledge")

two points.
The first "Seek a path with heart."
The second "find place"

where unchallenged, invincible, comfortable, strong.

temporal dislocation occurs in war,

or traumatic experience,

some searchers

some lost.

The searcher restlessly walking razor’s edge

until that spot, that path, that purpose.

a generation of searchers.

the answers we seek are for the planet, for tribe,

for a generation of earthlings at peril.
***
Commuter estates collapsing investment reality:

debenture financial structures unstable,
equity systems alternative venue for asset

while currency of the new empires sort it out.
***
"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…"
—Winston Churchill, November 1936
***

many dysfunctional and disenfranchised senior citizens
many elders of the European and Haudenaushaunee stripe

elitist and arrogant mongrel confusions.
rusty, scarred, tired and retired Knights of the realm,

in liege to pharoahs,

duty bound to a disparate tribe.
***
called upon to rise above distracting physical discomfort

and growing distaste for the insensitive pathologies

of political and corporate bullies.
We are duty bound to remain humble,

give honest opinion with conscience,

gently but firmly with empathy

for the defenseless hordes

who bear the brunt of the agony

inflicted by the irresponsible,

indiscriminate and senseless behaviour

of political and corporate realms
***
unpredictable tropical depressions

and socio-economic hurricanes

predictably paralleled with seasonal political depressions.

the mad scramble,

flocks of flighty investors

flitting about financial realms

dithering as to the safest place to land.
***
citizens, of disparate, dysfunctional but hopeful democracy

bear the privilege and the imperative of embarrassment

for having tolerated, supported and even elected this .

The "11thHour" indeed.

simple but hard truths of the moment, the self evident facts

***
"..the first generation in the history of civilization to bear the responsibility of saving Mankind from himself." Albert Camus, 1946(?)
***
A silver bullet: a self evident truth shines ,

slices through the Disney-esque fantasies of "economic growth"
***
Apocalyptic events,

evolutionary tsunamis unfold

politics dreams through mainstream media

carbon energy based "sustainable" consumer capitalism

"growth" in resource based economies

destroying the environment which enabled these brief dreams.
***
we face a challenge and large unknowns of evolutionary proportions.
***
A growing nervousness underlies the cautious questioning ,

the murmurs and polite protest,

politics and the corporate ethic continues as usual

has cause to be ashamed.
***
Perhaps this is an archetypal purgatory,

the payment for sins committed in another dimension.
led by the self indulgent and culturally introverted

arrogant bastard Sons of God and Daughters of Men

rapturously captured by the Sirens of physical gratification.

events unfolding a self induced apocalypse to rid the planet of an attitude.
***
Inner sanctum decisions

purple haze of glitter

fancy contrived beauty,

tempered handmaidens,

eunuchs and sychophants.

"rich man/poor man"

corporate and political chatter,

the planet is ours,

the mass of organic life,

including human beings,

is stuff to play with.
***
hypnotized and dysfunctional.

"virus" in the biodegradable computer genome.
***
The Omega seeds, the StarSeeds,

T'Salagi grandmother suggests: Hang on.
May your canoe find quiet waters.
Mongrel Puppy.
June 11-2009

Bridge of Chaos

2009-03-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

Friends, Bridge, and Horse, Niagara Falls, about 1905

Scott Family archive: Photo: George C. Scott of Dromore, Ulster (Belfast)

***

The briefing files can be read in any order . The "files" are extracted from notes on the potential for the evolution of city states made primarily between 1982-1988. They represent the stream of consciousness spun in the web of our genetic and culturally specific programming from a single mongrel point of view. This may not be how it is, but it is how I have experienced it, understand it and can imperfectly represent it. Questions are welcome, but be patient I may be in the garden.

***

Ruminations on the Bridge of Chaos
Briefing Files
background - overview: observation
brf.006
*
just beginning to grasp Einstein
"..a culturally neutral, unbiased metaphysics could unify the world."
"Critical Path:" Buckminster Fuller:
"The Omega Factor" Dr. Ring
‘Abduction:" Dr. John Mack
"Paradigm Wars:" Dr. Mark Woodhouse,
"Global Mind Change:" Dr. Willis Harman,.
*
our growing understanding,
science, evolution, multi-dimensional physics
holographic metaphysics
leads current crises.
absolutist physics and philosophy,
fundamentalism self destructive.
wars within shifting paradigm
restructuring the urban dynamic.
industrial age paradigm dissolving
global villages growing
a culturally unbiased metaphysics
building symbiotic civilization
wilderness recovers
colonies on the Moon
the trip to Mars.
The EarthTrek will make the StarTrek possible.
*
Omega, may your canoe find quiet waters.
*

Ruminations on the Bridge of Chaos
The Briefing Files
brf.007
*
some project a "perfect storm"
a wake up call: alarms buzzing for 40 years
while leadership is pushing the snooze button:
surrounded by ecclesiastic speculations
on the breakdown of components
the moment to moment is impossible to project
and political positioning guarantees a crisis
producing destructive, suicidal pathologies
denying ‘silver bullets’
*
alone rangers offer silver bullets
ideas form: third stage of power unfolds
words become weapons of mass destruction
to wealth, to illusion of currency
the hallucinogen, the house of cards
the sub-routines collapsing
*
‘silver lining’
silicone-electron neuron global brain
ideas-minds interlinked
unfolding potential
self sufficient cities determining construct
the Critical Path to
"The Magic of Findhorne,
the ecovillage network
can rebuild suburbs
with Todd’s ‘living water systems’
and Anna Edey’s dynamic greenhouse:
a self sufficient community can form in 6 months
city, desert, arctic.
The problem is conceptual, social, political not technical.
*
"Dark Age" burnout can stabilize, restructure before next leap
the seeds are inherent in the species

***

Ruminations on seeming gods
*
What discipline in seeming Gods
an arrogance,
no second thought
of conscious effort
in creative awareness,
a curious seeking
of superstition, a memory,
about Gods and Men
and earthly slaves
with fears of death.
a virus in seeming gods
perhaps extraterrestrial
perhaps intentional
or accidental threat
to liberated slaves
in physical and mental desert
who require
safe and healthy garden.
which even for gods seems a worthy objective
equal to solar horizons,
for universal explorers requiring home
***

Ruminations on the Bridge of Chaos
Briefing Files
summary:‘meta’ physics
brf.008
*
"True Confessions" from
realms of the dysfunctional,
with the imbued mythology of multiple personality disorders
and subsequent genetic streams of human consciousness:
evidence would suggest that purpose
of human body, a biodegradable carbon based life form
a computer host
a three dimensional harbour
for multi-dimensional being:
to "download" information
on multidimensional objectives
*
the alien takeover..
is fear of a larger force than ourselves
determining goals we do not understand
and against which we struggle..
***
some dynamic suggests that "resistance is futile"
but alliance with a balance of these Forces is possible.
that would be "faith in things unseen".
*
hence the seeking within the metaphysics, the religions, of the species.
we can speculate on the possibility
that differences of opinions may prevail as to objective,
even within a multidimensional community outside our time domain.
Hence the mythological "wars among the gods".
Are we choosing sides?
Are we divided by intent?
***

Bridge of Chaos Ruminations

2009-03-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

An abandoned Farm in Southern Ontario where we'd like to retire and garden.

March 25, 2009

These briefing notes evolved in the early to mid 1980's, a synthesis, a distillation, a translation of the chaos common to us all.

********

Ruminations on the Bridge of Chaos
The Briefing Files
brf.003
***

a Bridge of Chaos
the ruling paradigm in government-business-empire building
demonstrates a corporate-political feinted concern
led by the introverted, comfort-wealth-power addicted.
Our mutual concern
that we face climate, population, food and resource crises
of apocalyptic proportions.
While corporate globalization debates free trade on golf courses
our extemporary subdivisions are numbed to potential disaster,
isolated from realities.
We ignore, dismiss the caution-advice
of Galbraith, Fuller,
"Club of Rome" reports, "Limits to Growth", (Meadows)
"Mankind at the Turning Point" (Capra)
"The Coming Dark Age" ( Vacca)
"The Promise of the Coming Dark Age" (Stavrianos),
"Dark Age Ahead" (Jacobs) " Extinction" (Erhlich ) and "Collapse" (Diamond)
and the evolving passionate and cautionary information
from a global scientific community.
Urban addictions are the driving paradigm.
In the midst of weed killer debates and anti-smoking legislation
we barter the right to pollute.
We ignore gathering storms, creating an untenable status quo for our children.
We are an evolved industrial dysfunction in an electronic
globally defined systems age.
International development is spawning insurgency,
and an unresolvable chaos.
In the background 40 year threads in the Omega factor,
the 100 Monkeys consider
instinctively seek archetypal shutdown- reboot
a potential ‘dark age’, to ‘shock the monkey’
*
Ruminations on the Bridge of Chaos
The Briefing Files
brf.004
*
The Un-Comfortable Church of Wholly Unconvinced
considering
the Tribes of Abraham, the I-Brahmin
and the apocalyptic visions
an archetypal memory of ‘punishment’
a dysfunctional cultural PTSD
a bi-polar culture preparing for the inevitable
in violation of temporal directives
*
a collapsing ethic, a war with the planet
devouring the "primitive"
subduing the symbiotic
creating collapsing environment:
*
Circumstance poses the question:
is this virus within in our common human genome
a worm, a sleeper program in biodegradable computer brain
from genes, the intermarriage of "gods" and men
producing the unexpected, irreverent child
overcoming the adolescent proto-human?
*
The common evolved stream of arrogance within all of us
feeds the evolved Global influence
of the argumentative, the dysfunctional,
the self destructive.
*
A new mythology unfolds:
Hadrian's wall.
***

Ruminations on the Bridge of Chaos

*
Hadrian’s Wall
There IS Some Thing
Called Camelot
if only in Our Dreams.
These Things we Speak
as Camelot
are More than What
They Seem!
When
Merlins Dream
of Camelot
And Arthurs Seek
the Crown,
When Pagan Armies
Storm the Wall
What Empire's Falling Down?
What Knights defy
The Table Round?
What Knights have crossed
the Sea?
What Legions Guard
the Village Gate
If only you and me?

***
rdb-mar-2001

Ruminations on the Bridge of Chaos
The Briefing Files
brf.005
*

guardian angels,
(multidimensional forces in the form of your choice)
guide our boat to quieter waters
in the new world.
*
we enter the passions of the "changetime"
we unfold new dream

we close war’sunfinished business.
a new empire evolves
out of WW IV.
*

the religio- politico construct
evolves or perishes
a thundering herd of changing minds

in the disparate threadsof the I-brahim
*

Church of the Wholly Unconvinced in the art, music, science
evolving out of the Einstinian age,
unfold the miracles
of a probing consciousness
in three dimensional matter

we become an evolutionary tsunami of unfolding dynamics
*
crises reshape the Tribes of Abraham
the Omega Seeds an allegory for a stream of consciousness,
a philosopher’s paradigm emerges
intervention in the addictions of the industrial age.
we labour for a dream

***

Farm Timeshares?

2009-03-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

Farms as "Timeshare condos"..?

We're now entering the final month of setup on a small farm project that has been a long time in the planning and practice stages. One of the principles we expect to work the best for us is that of "equity investment partnerships.

Wandering the real estate web and looking at current farm settings we came across this little item and it gelled a lot of confused thinking. We'd like to share it. Maybe you could use it.

" $18,900.00 MLS®# H3009291
Gorgeous 1 bdrm annual 1 week timeshare at magnificent Grandview Vacation Villege resort in Las Vagas. Unit inc fully appointed kitch,LR-DR,lrg bedroom,4 pc bath,2 TV's,linens maid service,all appl.Access to pool/spas. Enjoy gltiz&glamour of Vegas. Over 3700 vacation resorts for poss trade opt.Current selling for $23000US on site

And we thought..now what if a small group, a family where to pool resources and buy this:

(...that is to say , instead of a week in a Vegas Hotel, how about every weekend in your own Victorian nicety for considerably less..fresh vegetables ..free range eggs.. fresh baking. )

There's a larger reason than holiday escapes in all this.

Capital markets are confused. Real estate and farming are unstable. This is a good time for small circles, family and friends to pool resources, to invest in a family farm "condo" or "timeshare" with an agricultural objective.

This year would be advisable...in time for the spring planting of vegetable gardens. Just a suggestion of course.
Farms are presently a bargain hunters paradise. I doubt this will last long. If the oil based economies, climate change, population, resource factors are not resolved, currency markets collapse and the currency of the ruling systems become irrelevant. Only that wealth that has converted the illusion of currency into food growing land and supporting communities before that happens will sustain us. I suggest this as a margin against that probability.

So...
We've taken recently to farm browsing and country drives on the computer. We're scoping the agricultural real estate landscape of southern Ontario.

This week, a Victorian Gothic 1870's fantasy mansion on 25 acres, oodles of barns, a large pond, can be found for the same price as an average house in Oakville or Burlington. A 100 acre country retreat with a large collection of restorable buildings can be had for the same price as a bungalow on Hamilton Mountain.

We've found ours. A tiny farm setting perfect for working out the engineering of simple objectives at a family scale.
These affordably priced dreams are practical and possible for those with social balance beyond the ordinary. These of course are skills which we must sharpen in our on the job training unfolding this year. We know it requires the ability to work with diverse personalities common to families and collections of mongrel earthlings.

The bottom line is that it requires an empathy for gardening, a rational perspective on food as currency. It requires an understanding of land and buildings as potentially "real" and perennial family estates.

The family farm can be and should be a "hedge bet" against the cyclic nature of economies and empires. The fact that so few recognize that fact does not bode well for the civilization.

If you are however a practical thinker and feel you can muster the time sharing investment resources from family and friends, look for a place that has substantial salvageable outbuildings, a large, character main house and at least 15 acres perhaps as much as 100 acres with ponds, streams and some bush. You do not want an "agribusiness" profile.

I would suggest in a senior's moment that you take someone with you that has construction and farming know how. Be modest.

Don’t be afraid to admit that your professional experience may experientially challenged when it comes to farms. The Master’s in Education, Psychology, Systems Programming or Mechanical Engineering is an abstract when faced with assessing soil tilth and the viability of 150 year old hand-adzed trunnel jointed frames with rough sawn timber planking.

Gardening is an ancient science evolved over the evolution of our common tribes. Much of that science is visceral, genetic and folklore based in earthwalking experience. Don't be intimidated by it..it is part of your soul. It kind of grows on you and within you.

Gardening is a healing art.
The garden requires our attention., needs our touch.
The garden heals the land, feeds us and our souls.
We dream the garden and
perhaps the garden dreams us.

dormant farm buildings: a motley collection of historical but sad looking relics..restorable to my eye but slated for destruction.

Where do you start?

This is personal theory, but I believe a good place to start.

Once you grasp the importance, the nut and kernel of the concept a financing platform begins with partners. You need to bind the idea of land and buildings into a financial community first.

For example, find a half dozen founding directors with the skills required by your community family farm, capable and willing to invest $10,000 each towards a down payment on the project. (You can refer to more detailed outlines of directorship skills, project outlines, share structure suggestions etc. in the garden club notes on this "blog")

The cash investment is the act of faith, the job only begins there. For each investor you seek must also be willing to sit down with the the others , form a board of directors and build that creative critical path to secure the long term.

Growing that critical path is as important as the gardens which are the objective.

Typically, the multi-tasking family Don, a Tribal Chief, a Corporate CEO is the model envisioned and shall I say "Trumped" as the most important factor. Not many of us are wired that way and we can't wait for the Messiah in business suit to make that community stability we require or to anchor that family farm for us. So partner with other earthlings and merge to become that "multitasking" family farm managment unit.

A typical situation could start with two or three working residents willing to "lease" working and/or living spaces and to pay rents towards the building investment "trust fund". The overhead, maintenance and long term objectives included in the first stages of planning must all be considered.

The main consideration of course is that some one has to know how to seed, tend, harvest and preserve food. That may not be the same person who fixes the barn or cooks meals.
The objective requires at least one director with an understanding of critical path mapping and detailed planning of large building and business projects. This may not be the same person with the field management skills to keep the front lines organized.

The third level of skills are the hands on trades, soil management, organic gardening and naturopathic animal husbandry sense.

The largest component is readily available enthusiastic earthlings with practical hands on skills or a desire to learn and be useful. A large part of that energy can be hired and paid for with "food" and perhaps even "shelter" credits issued by the farm in return for work ..pay an honest living wage to yourselves. Measure your product by the real time market around you.

The farm site should have large libraries, study areas, high speed computer links to the outside world to protect it against the pathologies of cultural autism and social introversion. A fact which I determined from watching ecovillage communities over the last 20 years and comparisons with similar farm community struggles during the 1930's. Keep the setting "metaphysically neutral" and simple: one blood, one spirit. Things will hold together and thrive for much longer.

Further startup capital could be raised by selling "food credits" in 100.00 to 1,000.00 units redeemable in the season for which they are issued. The crop planning obviously has to exceed the amount of credits issued.. Thousand dollar units could be extended over two years.

The "club" or investing group would control the main house in this scenario. The conversion of an outbuilding into a 6-800 sq foot 2 bedroom "cottage" for an office, library and private space for site caretakers would be advisable. Each setting will have variations determined by the footprint of existing buildings.

The long term mapping wants to include passive energy greenhouses, living water systems, composting toilets, off the grid engineering, masonry stoves for heating/baking and a host of other small details easily determined from networking, the web, and events like the University of Guelph’s Organic Growers conferences.

Outbuildings can be restored and upgraded for workshops, craft shops, food preparation and packing, dormitories, and guest houses for working visitors, camp outs and holidaying family folks using their credits towards recreational facilities and "bed and breakfast".

The main house can serve as the "club house" offices, community library and community kitchen. A separate seniors residence with facilities for one or two seniors should also be considered.

Personally, I would insist on a 100% equity financing objective. Farming can’t think clearly with the proverbial "Sword of Damocles" of a mortgage hanging over the family farm...particularly when all currency is under such severe stress. A simple manoeuvre during a currency collapse and you may be working for a bank again.

I would suggest a minimum startup with a half dozen $10,000.00 investors, i.e. no more seeding investors than bedrooms. $60,000.00 is sufficient for the average down payment and closing fees. Attracting sufficient capital to convert the asset to 100% equity should be everyone’s modest and realizable first year objective. How you do that is the fine tuning relative to your group. Just that it is sound thinking to make it top priority.

Each founding investor in this scenario buys a right to live in one of the bedrooms and use of the main house, or can use investment credits to pre-book a space for visitors in a family private bed and breakfast arrangement. You may have to cook your own breakfast. The investment can also be construed as a back hedge bet, a reserve base of operations for an extended family.

A family farm, whether it be friends, co-workers or family is a wiser investment than gold. At minimum you can grow your own food and sleep in a passive solar greenhouse under the moon.

Flamborough greenhouse, from our "homeless period" ..with backup wood stove, a cot for those long winter frost watch nights. Sometimes the full moon floating overhead.

**********

The Bridge of Chaos: Briefing Files 1 and 2

2009-03-10T18:10:00.000-07:00

Spring Riding Stock Roundup.

Scott Spread: Michichi near Drumheller, Alberta: 1922

******

Mongrel Diaries:

Ruminations on the Bridge of Chaos

The Briefing Files
background -overview
brf.001
ƒ
consider
encoded patterns in language and actions
the synchronicity of events
symbols in moments
of war, terror, upheaval, challenge, tsunami.
the change time
Thunderbird in the Gateway.
fire, evolution’s spiral, helix,
Consciousness, Spirit, Soul, stretching,
stress to point of breaking
reorganization of mind in matter
purifying elements of fire and water,
the clarifying of mind and soul.
ƒ
three dimensional beings in a vortex, a whirlwind
bending the curve of time.
spirits, time travellers, intelligence operatives,
in communication with invisible forces
ƒ
In three dimensional language, the multi-dimensional reality
becomes translation of action.
the symbioses direct the moment.
converts talent-asset into path of action
anchoring the momentary reality.
In the "work force" the synchronistic event is a clue.
ƒ
The trial by fire generation, yields to the salvage re-building generation.
download the genetic memory of "firewalk".
seek the Third Stage of the Warrior’s Power
enfold the children of the moment.
ƒ

A greenhouse, part of 100K SQFT abandoned complex in urban setting, awaiting demolition;

a potential urban "4 season" farm

Ruminations on the Bridge of Chaos
The Briefing Files

background -overview=perspective
brf.002
ƒ
Corporate ownership
imbues management philosophies in regional issues.
International objectives of corporate entities
will supercede the regional political authority.
The dominant political parties
reflect commercial structure.
"Successful" systems affect the political machinery.
Therefore corporate management philosophies reflect political views
*
Rigidly autocratic organizations
evolved in the industrial empire
and determine political and social frameworks.
the tool through which the community objective is realized,
not the objective in and of itself.
the "two paths" that concerned Tyandanagea
****
A self evident truth:
"community"
is pooled capital resource
is combined purchasing power
is a "company"
is common shares divided and ruled
can be therefore a corporate shareholders objective.
What is our critical path?
Is a community management by objectives?
What is our "corporate intelligence"
telling us about the corporate shareholder community
*
so what is the objective?
****

2009-03-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

The Briefing Files
summary; profile; purpose; opinions
brf.000
***
Evolution,
is mongrel earthlings
with multiple-personality complexities,
an allegory,
a thread in the weaving of a global metaphysical blanket.

Religion evolves from stone age psychologies,
metaphysical constructs, multidimensional realities,
three dimensional applications of hyperspatial consciousness
intentional neuro-linguistic programming and in some cases,
viruses or pathologies in the human bio-degradable computer genome.
***
Reality
demonstrates a virus in the human operating system
a dominating dysfunctional program.
( in all of us. )
A "worm" is altering the specie’s "BIOS" chip, changing the program.
Something is shutting down outdated systems .
We cross a bridge.
Spiritual, religious exploration in the unfolding paradigm
seeks a translation, a practical language.
The evolutionary objectives of that paradigm
is the "culturally unbiased metaphysics"
suggested by Buckminster Fuller in "Critical Path".

With a careful hand.
The revolution is waking.
Perhaps a tickle.
Perhaps a kick in the pants.

***

2009-03-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

poem from the farm cabin and quiter times...

Dream Stones:

August Moment
***
Summer’s heat retreats

to a relief of rain

some long hoped for rains.

A well placed soul
withdraws to consider
within these aged walls
the reaching gardens overrun,
in a waterfall of windswept rain.

Seeking some moment's conviction

as unfolding garden dreams

are quenched with rain
a memory surfaces

of eagles lair

and mountain crag,

a Spirit standing in some tallest pine,

and of storms that rumble there on horizons brow.

And wind
that hints to wary eyes

a quiet shrug of spreading wings

lift to float but momentarilyand lifted up

above the roiling storming clouds
awaiting calms return
to garden’s dream.

While floating there considering,
some place of memoriesof visions hue

and dancing with like Spirits there

in air above the rumbling storms below

in fluted dreams, in softer dreams

before and after passages such as these.

In this time, a wearied world

some land awaits the quenching rain.

And awaiting rain beneath the storm

seeks also a fire’s blessing,

a higher blessing that only eagles see.

Some Spirits perennially return

to a garden’s dream

and through the storm washed gardens walk

perhaps on those stones there,

a path where vines and waterfalls

hold fast to visions
and speak of Earthly garden
visits in gentler times

and seen again
while floating there above the storms.

***

rdb - August 2000

Summary of purpose and format

2009-03-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Summary
Transitional Systems. Wartime economy.
Basic training, unfolding campaigns.
****
Community: a fundamental truth.

Population, environmental and resource issues, the immediate issue of security press the moment for sustainable community platforms. The accumulated post traumatic stress disorders of millennia has accelerated the course of history.
The Arthurian work unfolds of building a sustainable civilization as unstable and fragile societies reform.
The minimum requirement for any of us, for all individual physical or mental exploration is a stable community that doesn’t have the requirement of slave labour level upkeep to hold it together.
From communities, a home base, the individual explores the sciences and arts, the mysteries which surround our outpost in the larger yet to be defined infinite dimensions of space.
If communities are not sustainable then neither is the larger context of nation states and hence the global civilization.
Therefore regional micro-communities are necessary for long range objectives and globalization.
The evidence is clear. With existing technologies we can dome entire communities and redesign the suburban mall. We underwrite the stability of the urban base with self-sufficiency if we are so inclined. We need only make the decision to do so.
Global Population environment and resource factors pointing to inevitable realities are:
- Oil Supply crises and the evolving "post carbon economy"

- The Peak Money crisis in the equity and credit markets
- Global climate shifts: Wood’s Hole and IACC projections
- Food supply issues: unstable industrial era farming; evolution of regional market "foodshed" management.
- The inevitable reorganization and the seeding of "urban agriculture" programs within the suburbs building urban green-belt and eco-tourism requirements
- Hidden debates in the Pesticide-Herbicide chemical warfare of the last 50 years.
- The struggling evolution of urban waste resource recycling industries
- The privatization of energy supplies and community developed energy programs
- The retired skills reinvestment within communities
-Vertical zoning in urban centres.
-Globalization and Free Trade issues.
-And such diverse things as the symbolisms of Space Stations, the impact of the Internet and Terrorist-madness Issues: The lunatic fringe brought out in us

Format

Notes, journals, and "Brf. Notes" or information files in summaries. Perspectives of changing and unfolding empires, gathered in the last 40 years and drawn in personal and group archetypes that I define as follows:
Walking the Fire: Warriors, male or female, building strengths and pathologies.
Bridge of Chaos: the political, corporate, social construct in its present evolution, the issues, the temper of the times within which these warriors walk
Revolutions Without Bloodshed: Ideas shaping mental constructs and the survival paradigm; evolution of the third stage of the Warrior’s power
Wilderness Garden Club: seeking and building new paradigm within perennial truths.
4Stones, Saga, Dream Stones: personal mytho-poetic moods, archaic memories seeking counsel

The purpose is brief as possible with "stream of consciousness" briefing notes meant to be scanned, referenced, considered in little bits at a time. Who has the time to be reading long dissertations in a multitasking world?
This is an experiment with "precis dialogue", cutting to the quick of the matter so that the multitasking, short attention span engendered civilization in which we all find ourselves might find a minute or two at random to consider the larger perspective.
This material is not in a linear pattern. Browsing is not only welcome but probably a good idea.
As the principle architect I admittedly have difficulty with linear objectives. I rest my argument on the fact that Mr. Einstein’s theories are now a century old and I must acknowledge the multi-dimensional nature of the information collected and processed.
It’s all point of view. The mind is construct. A universal paradigm constantly in flux.
An unsettled gut instinct may be the result of working with two dimensional Newtonian tools in a multi-dimensional Einsteinian universe of limitless mysteries.
This exploration seeks a simpler personal translation of a larger thing. And from time to time to return to fundamental pastoral moments to dream and to garden...

Rb..dysfunctional mongrel puppy of the empire
March, 2005

2009-03-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

The Garden Perusal

*************
"Real"- Estates

weighing of axial moments in common evolution

Exploring idle rural real estate, dormant farms, weighing idle skills and the dormant asset
held in "potential development" paradigm.

the principle defining issues:
1. the difference between investment speculation in land and the building of "real" estates.
( One is short to mid term profit for individuals and the other is the building of long term partnerships, family and multi-generational asset. )
and
2. the difference between equity and debenture financing in real estate.
"equity" investment is "venture capital", shares in a capital corporate structure with land and buildings as managed asset.
"debenture financing" is borrowed to capitalize the long term objective with a fixed rate of return in a mortgage or bond.

Over the past 50 years, I've been an investment manager, a money traffic clerk, parking lot attendant for the sizeable fortunes of others.
I've been a mortgage servicing officer at a national level , a systems analyst weighing global factors in Third World housing issues for 35 governments, a master tradesman, a construction superintendant on large international oil patch and defence contracts. And as frequently unemployed or distracted with due cause for long periods: limited asset but substantial and measurable skills.
Personal assignments: blend analytical construction management skills with long term needs for community stability. Build a garden.

the unfolding "economic tsunami" will refocus our minds on regional needs ; food energy and shelter. The well defined, low key, small scale opportunity.
dozens of dormant rural properties, once the breadbasket of Ontario waiting for "economic recovery". Some of these abandoned, derelict and dormant rural properties currently caught in the development slump have substantial recoverable asset in buildings and land. In the shifting mood of current and projected real estate markets these could and should be redefined for their immediate and short term potential.
The appropriate setting can be revived with asset, attitude and a long term perspective. A managed construction, trades and gardening skills program with labour, cash and "rents" as equity investment partnership in a focussed effort could build a country club market garden farm while waiting for 'the economy to recover'.

Sample of "A" objective; restorable vacant property, rural, small acreage "SpinFarm" potential, listed as "country estate" potential where the buyer would demolish and build his mansion next to a golf course. In the unfolding paradigm, the property has the potential to feed the golf course.

Sample property of "B" objective:
farm, 100 acres; between Brantford and Ancaster: hand adzed heritage construction frames,
farm buildings vacant, derelict but restorable; dormantland in perimeter of buildings
investment holding by oil money out of Calgary held for long term development. We're suggesting period restoration of the property and building an agriculturally productive "country club" for the investors in lieu of dormant capital.

**************************

The two dozen local settings we've looked at closely are a small representation of the dormant asset of a once thriving regional agricultural breadbasket. Many have salvageable houses and buildings, site clutter of substantial and measurable asset with resting and therefore healthy land with natural or organic tilth.

Sample "B" objective:
20 years Dormant; 150 Acre; rolling hills; 37 acres bush, sandy loam (excellent fruit, vegetables and berry soil), private business holding, with 14,000 sq.ft main "dycore slab" engineered building; $100,000 of idle but good equipment; a 1,000 mixed apple trees in two orchards, 80% salveagable trees; artesian springs and acre sized spring fed ponds with naturally regenerated fish stock: family disagreements over investment and development objectives keep the property idle and no one farms.

***************
options:

-- equity format partnership

-- long term agreements for small scale market gardens and greenhouse.

-- modest pension income; master carpenter trades skills; survey instrument skills; light to heavy industrial and commercial background in design.

-- background in systems analysis, critical path and project management.

-- restoration experience from barns to mansions.

-- salvage moxy.

-- strong farming and gardening backgrounds.

-- workshop tools and equipment profiles.

-- libraries, research skills and a sizeable office setup with several up to date computer systems.

We're ready to cook and looking for the meat:

The Objective: a family farm in transition or investment land seeking options during the transitional economy.

***************
Objectives in a nutshell:
rent/lease within equity defined debenture free setting :
The equity profile is crucial to surviving the unfolding currency and banking crisis.

Over a 5-10 year plan to include:
Gardens:

Natural/Organic: "raised bed", "companion planting" , "permaculture", "SPIN Farming", "4 Season farming", "forest gardens"
Greenhouse:

1-2000 sq ft.site nursery, cash cropping, passive energy component of residence and workshops AND:
Poultry: for farm "members" and friends only.
Buildings: Passive and active energy; staged restoration and "thermal-shell" upgrade .
Off the grid"systems , baking and heating "s-hearth" masonry stoves.

"Living Water" and composting systems.
Community kitchen.

***************

The prime determining factors are space and a restorable footprint; soil we can build. Give "handyman special" a broad margin. We can rebuild anything with a shell. We prefer older, heritage settings.

unfolding questions

2009-03-09T15:37:00.000-07:00

We found tools, horse harness bits, musket parts within the floors when we stripped this building of its three layers of 16"-22" wide roughsawn planking pegged to post and beam frames with square cut nails. We restored the frames and replaced the board and batten planking.

1855: originally a blacksmith shop, then a cottage during the Great Depression, a garage by the 1940's, a woodworkshop in the 1980's, a cottage in the 1990's to 2003; now abandoned

Mongrel Diaries is a 1962 - 2008 journals.

It will slowly unfold in bits as the farming tasks allow.

And bear with me..

I'm a senior on a major learning curve here. Rusty dendrites, need to reboot RAM, defrag programs and memory files.

?
what are these
bad attitudes
feeding absolutist philosophies,
self destructive fundamentalism,
creating wars within a shifting paradigm,
while the awakening
restructure urban dynamics
in a dissolving industrial age paradigm
..are global villages growing
culturally unbiased metaphysics
to seed symbiotic civilization
?

Introduction

Seeking that wilderness garden we stopped to reconsider options in 1999. Uprooted by circumstances, homeless by definition we retreated to a pastoral southern Ontario backwater, to be farmhands, caretakers in a small wood heated shed, a relic of the 1850's gardening under a large plastic greenhouse dome.
The wood stove kept it alive. Some nights the full moon floated across the ceiling shining on the thick jungle of recycled abandoned houseplants found in the excess of urban wastelands. The greenhouse, a gift, created a circumstantial state of grace within a dream seeking alternate reality or conceptual ‘stargate’; an escape from a seeming dysfunction, our social, economic dyslexia, the city and fires in the hearts of men.

We considered our circumstance through the long winter wood stove night watch, on occasion by kerosene lamp sitting in groves of flowering jade, jasmine and geraniums, in a whimsical garden.
It was quiet, room to air thoughts at the old blacksmith shed by the swamp on the other side of those hills. We cut firewood under the storm clouds and unfolding tensions within the Tribes of Abraham watching a remote reality.
Laying out clean straw for the ducks we mulled the post-traumatic stress syndromes of the generation. What was unravelling a driving paradigm? The personal dysfunction, our internalized "ptsd" seemed mild measured in the context of the larger chaos. We became a microbic reflection of the common virus.
We gardened, dreamed and worked looking for a gentler vision.
After 4 years we lost that little pastoral backwater due to arrogance, ineptitude, a social clumsiness, perhaps a synchronicity, a telling need to move on and to redefine our misfortunes as fortuitous events.
We’re beginning to understand. We missed many of the salient points on the chaos in the empire, carbon loading, wars on terrorism, crises in the subdivisions, dark age melodrama, collapse of reason. We were caught up in personal disasters unique and sufficient to distraction while waiting for the mother ship.
We’re struggling with promise in an unfolding dark age, an opportunity for optimism at its best.
If the empire is collapsing perhaps the moment is a challenge to recycle wealth and refocus on alternative dreams. "Freedom 55" may well be a gardening opportunity.

Disclosure

2009-03-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

Mongrel Diaries
are
notes within shifting paradigm,
of questions
a seeming chaos of questions
from voluntarily and as frequently involuntarily
disenfranchised mongrels
crossing "bridges of chaos"
in frequently maligned Unfolding Dark Age
and may these queries be valid, though they be from
multiple-handicapped, dysfunctional,
pathologically driven,
alien abducted, modified
and hypnotized mongrel slave of Empires.
***

these include
introverted musings on
The Church of the Wholly Unconvinced
and the
The Sceptical Omega Brotherhood of the Apocalypse
who labour with einstinian tools in newtonian realms
and whose texts, rambling scribbles and prognostications
contaminate these briefing notes
wherein we consider
Quixotic and Arthurian goals, noble and passionate earthlings,
revolutions without bloodshed and wilderness gardens.
***
with a special thank you to alone Rangers.
.. in caves... smelting ideas...
seeking silver bullets
forging words to dissolve
weapons of mass destruction.
***