Methodology

Being a Mad Person, yesterday I undertook to help Warren load an entire chopped-up Pearl Acacia and an entire chopped-up Bougainvillea onto the bakkie and take it to the composting centre near Roodepoort. 'Flu bug and all.*

In recognition of the fact that I was not 100 percent well - still shaky, nauseous and sore - I took frequent sitting-down breaks in the lapa.It was on one such interlude that I noticed a plant growing down near my feet.

I've had a small amount of experience with plant communication by now, since the Coltsfoot opened the dialogue a couple of years ago, so I went ahead and asked the plant what it was we call it.

Plantain came the clear reply.

Now, the leaves of this plant are deeply veined but have a somehow comforting look about them, as if you would not hesitate to apply them to wounds, stings and grazes. And it is indeed possible that I have read about Plantain, stored that information in the brain, and accessed it when my gaze fell upon a specimen.

This is the standard scientific answer to why I identified a plant which I had had no ready knowledge of, up to that point.(For yes, on consulting the books, this was indeed plantain I was looking at).
Except, of course, that we don't really know how memory gets stored, or where it gets stored, or exactly how an arcane piece of it becomes retrieved and reactivated, accessible to the top of the mind following a sensory cue.There are theories,and models, and we have seen memory recall in action in live brains, but we don't know precisely how this works, because we lack a fundamental, all-encompassing explanation of how the brain does stuff like this. So we make shit up, basically, and call it neuro science.

The paradigm I tend increasingly to go with is laughably woo to neuroscientists, but it goes like this:

The plant lives, and by dint of this, has a consciousness about it. It may not look like human consciousness, but why should it? I, as another consciousness-bearing life form, may receive communication from it, which may be triggered by sight, smell, sound or touch, or indeed by another method entirely for which we don't have a word as yet. In other words, the plant identifies itself to me upon questioning- much as another human might offer hir name to me in response to a raised eyebrow, or other interrogative modality.

Since I began weaning myself off of the sometimes glib and usually unsatisfying answers that science purports to give us some time ago, of course I'm going to prefer my own interpretation of what happened in those seconds under the lapa.

The plant spoke to me, and told me its name.

I don't have any more of a road map to explain the method of this communication than science has to explain the method of data retrieval - but I'm infinitely more at ease with it.

*=Have you noticed how decomposing vegatation has a scent which is very nearly pleasant, under some circumstances? A kind of fizzy green aroma which I, at least, find acceptable (but then, I'm a Mad Person, as I believe I've just mentioned). There was another, underlying smell at the composting plant however-instantly identifiable as rotting animal matter, which I guess I'm not alone in finding far more distressing. Warren and I marinated in these assorted odours for some time, unloading the garden refuse, and then proceded to walk into the auto-spares shop, which was full of customers, and stand in line to buy brake discs.Smiley face icon goes here.

Snarl

One of the reasons I love Frank Herbert's Dune Series (the original, not the rubbish his son and Kevin Anderson flooded the market with):

A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the human's way of life changes. Old values change, become linked to the landscape with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. It requires a measure of respect for the inertial power within such natural systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called "being primitive." The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive can become sophisticated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage.
-The Leto Commentary
After Harq al-Ada

I've read each of the 6 original Dune books more or less constantly since I was about 13. That is, I've always had a copy of them in my library, and they are the books I tend to reach for when in need of an old friend.
You'd have thought that by now I'd know the contents by heart - but, being old friends, I might read them in a preconceived manner, and often gems like the above get skipped over.Yesterday, it leapt out at me, and I wondered why I hadn't paid this particular quote more attention....

...I'm still in a sort of twilight consciousness which has been my lot since falling ill on Friday afternoon: one minute I was sweating, the next chilled to the bone. Then came the nausea and the pain. My body was so wracked with aches I didn't know how to deal with lying still. Every joint is inflamed and difficult to move, and my fingers look like sausages - along with that distressing greasy feel to the stretched skin.

In fact, this bug feels so much like the early stages of alcohol poisoning that I've managed to scare myself silly. Obviously, it's not alcohol poisoning, as I haven't touched alcohol for over ten years now, but the similarity is enough to put the wind up me.

Equally obviously, the mall was not the perfect place for me to be this morning, as my immune system roared like a panther(thank you, Hecate, for that analogy) and dealing with the invading virus made a temporary bad-tempered zombie out of me.

But household stocks were running low, so off we went to Northgate, where I snapped and snarled at all the other brains-eating shamblers.

I've just wished my son Shevek a happy birthday on his Facebook page. 25 years, imagine that.I can only hope that he doesn't set himself up for as difficult a second 25 years as I did. But no-he's not half as selfish, arrogant and emotionally messed up as I was at that age.I think.

I reckon the only way I'm going to survive this bug without lopping someone's head off is to take to bed again, read, and doze in and out of the liminal spaces which so resemble the Other Worlds as we see them from this plane. Without the nausea, that is.

See you all on the other side.

Wet Lammas

Outdoor Lughnasadh was washed out when the heavens opened once again in Joburg yesterday.









I looked at my soggy altar and decided to move the whole ritual indoors.










After which, and continuing this morning, we're reading Children of Dune for the twenty-millionth time.

End:Civ

A good piece illustrating Jensen's Premise 1:

"Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization."



From End:Civ, by way of Guerilla News

..In the Service of Life

As some of you may be aware, I occasionally like to blabber on about Panspermia on this blog, having an irrational urge to support Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinge's progeny.

Fred Hoyle passed some years ago, but Professor Wickramasinge has recently published his findings that seem to fully support the gentlemen's ideas.

As we already know - if we're paying attention - large parts of the galaxy contain dust clouds carrying organic molecules.
The twist, however, follows:

In his paper, he says recent interpretation of spectra readings from the organic molecules found in interstellar clouds has indicated that they are in fact the remains of bacteria which has been broken down, rather than being built up.

So, from death unto life, eh? Not a new paradigm, but one given poignancy by its grand scale.

As Wickramasinge puts it:

"Interstellar clouds appear to be the graveyard of life not its cradle,"

And we go 'round again...

Pic: Here