heathervescent

Burning the Unicorns

Tonight they burn. You are invited the the 3rd Fire in the Hole competition, with the burning of the unicorns as the finale.

The spirit listens only when the speaker speaks in gestures. And gestures do not mean signs or body movements, but acts of true abandon, acts of largesse, of humor. As a gesture for the spirit, warriors bring out the best of themselves and silently offer it to the abstract.
- CC

Time will show, what will rise from the unicorn flames. This is my Offret.

Gas, Water, Food, Shelter

It comes down to the basics. We don't always remember that when the basics are taken care of.

Several years ago, I went on a solo motorcycle trip from Berkeley to LA to Joshua Tree to Mono Lake and back to Berkeley. It took me 5 days. It was my first taste of the desert and traveling alone. I got my bike stuck in the desert pea gravel and somehow managed to get it back on pavement with all my gear still packed on it.

The day I remember was when I awoke in Joshua Tree after a sleepless night. Dreaming of shamans while coyotes ran though my camp. I drove through Amboy, I drank in the desert heat. It was over 120 most of the day. I ran out of gas outside of Barstow on my way to the 395. I was almost blown down as I skimmed the pavement east of the Sierras. The only things on my mind: gas for my horse, water for my body, food for energy and shelter against the elements.

I arrived at Yosemite at dusk. Determined to push on, I started to enter the pack and was greeted with black sleets of rain soaking through my desert gear and slick pavement peppered with fallen rocks. I was exhausted from 12 hours of desert riding. I spied a light on the road and pulled into Tioga Pass Lodge. It was packed. I looked like a drowned rat. I prepared to beg to sleep on the store floor, but there was still a room.

When I went back to my corporate job after that trip, certain things just didn't seem important. Compared to what I had just experienced, I couldn't get worked up over due dates and product features. My worldview was reset.

It's exactly this reset I go to get in the desert. Most of the time, I visit my desert - the empty, barren mojave. I don't go with huge groups of people. I prefer to go alone or with one companion. You see more things that way.

In the desert, you can't remember you name, cause there ain't no worldview to give you no pain.

Reminder: Community Buildrs Mtg tomorrow

Just a quick reminder about the Community Builders Mtg tomorrow. Details:

When:
Thursday August 30th, 2007

Where:
Rich Media Institute
525 Venezia Avenue
Venice, California 90291
Map & Contact Info

Agenda:
6:30 - 7:00 Arrive, Greet, Chat
7:00 - 8:30 Meeting on topics TBD
8:30 - 9:00 Individual Discussions

I'm really looking forward to this meeting and building on the momentum as a group from the first one! I've got some thoughts on discussion topics for this meeting. Here they are:

1)  What is the single most effective means of building participation that each of us has found so far?
2)  How much damage (if any) do monetization efforts cause the spirit of a community?
3)  Can we as a group produce a "Quick Start Guide to Community Building" to share with others?

I will not be able to make it because I have been on the playa for about a week now, but you should go and post the recap in the comments. Thanks to Kirk for hosting/organizing.

Favored Poem

Yesterday I was inspired by telling you about my bookshelf, so I'm going to quote to you my favorite poem - mantra - for many years - edited the way I think about it! I hope you like T.S. Eliot. ;)

V. What the Thunder said
by T.S. Eliot, edited by heathervescent

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying

Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
... with a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water

If there were water
And no rock

If there were rock
And also water
A spring
A pool among the rock
or the sound of water only
the sound of water over a rock

---

Who is the third who walk always beside you?
When I count, ther are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you

---

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust

Bringing Rain

Paradigm Shift

There are things we believe today - things that science has taught us are true - that are not actually true at all. Big things. Things that make us believe the world is the way it is - but it is not. Things that will change the way we see the world.

When I was in grammar school I remembered learning about the solar system. How the sun is the center of our system - but the crazy thing is - it was not always believed to be this way. Before science discovered that it is really the sun that is the center, people believed the earth was the center of the universe. People also believed that the earth was flat and not a sphere.

It wasn't that science had failed those early humans that obsessed me - it was how the new knowledge changed their worldview. The Shift. What was life like when they thought the world was flat, what about after? Did they even know they believed the wrong thing?

And then, in a horror of horrors, it dawned on me, that there are most likely huge beliefs that I believe (and everyone else living along with me) believe as well - in some far far future time, will be shown to be false and incorrect. I could not bear the burden of believing a falsity - being unable to seek out the truth - my 7 year old brain could not bear it. But there was nothing to be done about it, so I went outside and played in the hot humid Iowa air.

But still this idea haunts me. I know that big idea is out there. That big paradigm shift is nearby. The one that will rip the fabric and when the light bleeds out we won't be able to ignore it anymore.

My Favorite Bookshelf

When I was reorganizing my bookshelves I used a new method. Instead of organizing by genre or style, I organized by how I categorized them. Thus my unread books went on my unread bookshelf, my favorite books went on my favorite bookshelf, my portuguese, chinese, latin and strunk and white went on my language shelf. I love to create stories with the books on my book shelves. Before parties I always spend some time organizing my books to make funny jokes (to me) with the titles. This shelf isn't particularly funny. (Two books in the bedroom right next to each other are; How to Be, and How to be Good.) I particularly like that pairing.

Anyway, here's a virtual glimpse of my favorite books bookshelf.

• Last Call by Tim Powers
• Who's Afraid of Schroedinger's Cat
• The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
• Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
• Das Energie by Paul Williams
• Goblin Market by Rosselli
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
• Cosmicomics by Italio Calvino
• A poetry anthology by T.S. Eliot
• Selected Works - E.A. Poe
• The Sorcerer's Crossing - Taisha Abelar
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll
• Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
• The Fire from Within by Carlos Castaneda
• Trouble on Triton by Samuel Delaney
• Vellum by Hal Duncan
• The Vertical Oracle by Antero Alli
• More than Human by Mez (Ramez Naan)
• Envision Information by Tufte
• Pronoia by Rob Brezsney

Some of these are more favorites than others. (I love love love More than Human, Last Call, Dune, Ficciones and Goblin Market.) While others are bibles (Art of the Start, Fire from Within). But you can probably get a pretty good idea my styles run science fiction, technology and esoterrorism.

Actually recently I've been reading a lot of war books. I've probably just finished one about Los Alamos and the Atomic Bomb project. And I'm about to get a bunch of Pressfields books (under the guise of getting them for my dad) but yeah - war books are interesting!

So, based on these books, do you have any suggestions for me?

ps. good reads anyone?

On God

I am not an atheist. But I don't believe in a god that has been defined by any religion. From before I can remember, I've believed in this force, energy, that moves and is part of everything in the universe. I'm part of it - or rather it makes up part of me. I am a tool of the divine. Just as nature is and this computer as well. Everything we interact with - came from this earth - from a RAW form.

I've always felt this connection. I'm a tool. I've been used by it. And others have been used to show me something, communicate with me.

There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Shakespeare

I don't want to know everything in the world - I mean, I do, but I want to discover it. Be delighted by it. And enjoy the surprise. I will not live a bored life.

Spare some change?

If your practice is good, you may become proud of it. What you do is good, but something more is added to it. Pride is extra. Right effort is to get rid of something extra.
  - Shunryu Suzuki

It's also about impeccability.

A warrior know that he cannot change, and yet he makes it his business to try to change, nevertheless. The warrior is never disappointed when he fails to change. that the only advantage a warrior has over the average man.
- CC

Well, that means I still have a long way on the warrior's path. I still get mad when I don't change, when I don't know what going to happen before it happens, when I'm not superhuman limited to this body. The good news in this, is that I still have a lot of time to work on myself.

A Unicorn with no name

I left LA yesterday, and with a song stuck in my head. My friend Jane wrote it to me and the tune is one of my favorite America songs. Sing along with me. (And yes, none of my unicorns had names - all 4 of them). I am sure they will get named on playa - before I feed them to the flames.

On the first part of the journey
I was packing up my shit
I had scrimped and saved
And still was broke
But was going in spite of it
I went for a drive up the 395
In a car that would barely start
Went to Bishop and Reno and Gerlach
And then Black Rock City and all the art

You see I've been to the desert on a unicorn with no name
It felt good to be out of L.A.
On the playa you can't remember your name
So you make one up for to give you no shame
La la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la

After three days the unicorn ran free
'Cause there was so much else to see
There were naked guys on bikes and girls
Without shirts riding Critically
There were art cars and dirty Santas and raves
Way out to the orange MOOP fence
Dr. Megavolt, hippies, explosions, massage
and the rangers to protest against

You see I've been to the desert on a unicorn with no name
It felt good to be out of L.A.
On the playa you can't remember your name
So you make one up for to give you no shame
La la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la

The Phantom Heather posts

Just because I will be away from my computer for over a week - with no hook-up that I'll leave you hanging. It's my longest disconnect from electric juice in at least 2 years. Instead, for every day I am gone, I'll leave a poem, a quote, an introspection or revelation. I'll leave you a reminder of geek events I won't attend. And I'll warn you about parties I'm throwing.

I leave this morning, driving up the 395, gazing on the ragged Sierras and bringing with me The Purple Tornado. Some, I will see you there. For others, I will see you soon.