"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of wind, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes."
This wind here, blows beneath pecan and winding pine. My own skin knows
its soft pulsing, and if so,
indicates a mystery even here
on this patch of earth.
Born of wind, I am
spirit also, and if these trees can whistle His Name, then
i too must whistle in wind!
Jesus was teaching Nicodemus of the spirit; and saying even the natural things point beyond themselves into mystery; similarly, there is birth and growth in the spirit. To be born yes of water, of the natural of earthiness, but also there is a birthing from above. We picture sky itself, as if we could incapsulate its essence. But here is another moment, and instant of the natural that points to a grandeur. The Father wants us to enter and know His Kingdom. This earth and all that is, points towards, and partcipates in this teaching, this revelationing of The Father. The Son, the most incarnate representation--Himself a teaching of who The Father is, preached on, speaking of Himself, he gave the often repeated mantra of mankind--For God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son...Often I forget that Jesus Himself said this verse. He was teaching of the teaching that He Himself is!
When wind comes we want to represent its dimensions, but
by its nature it trails into beyondness. This is His proof to the teacher
that God is spirit, and those who worship Him worship Him in spirit.
I silence myself to catch a glimpse of the tracing of the wind today.
I gather myself below, to perceive what is above, and included in this
wind song, I go on--poem without end.
I had a dream about 5 months ago in which people were putting trash covered with ants into their cars to make them run. It was seriously exactly like that scene at the end of Back to the Future. "Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads!" The very next day Whitney was telling me about a friend of hers who uses vegetable oil to run cars. I had never heard about this before, but I'm getting more and more interested.
Just found this site: www.vegenergy.com... they offer biodiesel classes in Atlanta and will convert your car to accept vegetable oil. Now if only I lived in Atlanta!
In the same dream, I was looking at all these power sources, and watched as a pair of hands reeled up power lines into a tight coil and then handed them to me. On the reel it said, "the history of power". As I read this history, I realized that the 'alternative resource' community was about to come into maturity.
The oil companies in America are getting grippy. The three biggest reported at least 68% percent increases in their third quarter, making them among the highest quarterly profits ever made by any company. Obviously a large part of this was their profiting off of the hurricane scares and perceived potential oil shortages. We can expect more of this to come, and I am not one of those who thinks the oil companies are a part of a grand conspiracy, but I do think that as these discrepancies make it into the public consciousness there will be greater demand for alternatives.
At least in this country, the environmental movement and sustainable research is still considered in the mainstream as fringe thinking. Part of this is because the DNA of the movement is still imbued with a bit of worst-case-scenario idealism. As a result, I think things have developed a lot slower than they could have, and not just because big corporate money is clouding the picture. We are going to be given fresh inventors with fresh hope. As well, some of the best thinking has come from outside America, especially in places that are outside of the "roman grid" so to speak, both naturally and spiritually. Norway for example, will probably be the most advanced nation in terms of sustainable resources, simply because it has not had the historical dependency on mainland technology. It is still largely agrarian, with a lot of land and a lot of room to grow into.
However, we just can't avoid the changes that are going to come. Austin, where I live, has the most comprehensive green energy program in the u.s. that includes both solar and wind powering options. I pay about 10 extra dollars a month for the city to buy and sustain windmills in west texas. This basically gives back into the power grid and provides more energy for others. For about $15,000 you can outfit your property with solar energy, and the city puts you on a 15 year rebate plan which almost entirely pays off the costs of installation. That's the cost of a new car, and then the city pays off your car for you. And then you basically get free energy. Needless to say, I'm plotting how we can do this!
Gmail was finally again offering free email accounts. Maybe they were doing this for awhile and I didn't notice, but there was a point when it seemed gmail people were in some inside clique and the rest of us couldn't get in. But there was some window where I magically was able to sign up for a free account. Now I've gone back to discover that if you want to open a gmail account you have to be invited by someone else who has gmail. So we're back to the clique, but now I'm IN. Heh. Well, I've gotten spammed to death in hotmail (and especially after you don't check your email for 3 months, they charge you to re-open!), now I'm getting victoria-secreted to death in yahoo, so I am thinking of going for gmail now. All you have to deal with is small text ads at the top.
This is my first year trying to take care of a lawn. I have no idea what I'm doing, other than reading a lot of stuff on the internet. I'm trying to put down ryegrass seed, a type of grass that grows in winter, so things don't look so dreary and colorless. Our backyard is a big dirt field anyway, it looked that way all summer, especially the hotter and hotter it got, the more baked and pale and dusty everything was. I'm not battling sun anymore, but it does feel kind of strange planting something in December, even though it's not unheard of. I am going out every day looking at the seed on the ground and begging it, 'please go into the ground, don't just sit there!' it looks sad and forlorn laying on top of our dusty texas dirt. I water it down saying, 'please go germinate.' I have to battle our cute whiny border collies who love to trample around in mud and want to herd the sprinkler, so I must let them, hoping they are not really mucking things up... or else I face the choice of leaving the sprinkler off and then having to fend off the the constant congregating of doves and grackles who have decided I am the neighborhood food source and are happily picking up my forlorn seed off the ground.
but something about doing this has kind of tapped into some deep farmer part of my soul. My grandfather was a farmer, had a big midwestern farm with just fields and forests and ponds around it, his father was a farmer who had a bee/honey farm, goats, cattle, pigs, dogs, cats and every assortment of life. I step out in my yard and I feel like the urban child disappears and something of the no-nonsense midwestern farmer's daughter steps in. I have no idea what I'm doing but I really liked raking leaves this year. I wanted to rake all day, and preferably in the cold. I am from Michigan after all. I close my eyes and look out and feel my land growing and growing, I have acres and acres of land, some of it just to look at... and then I come back to myself and see I am still in the city but i have this little plot of land to try out my ancient self on.
Dear yahoo.com,
I am writing to register a complaint on the use of Victoria's Secret fashion show ads today on my yahoo mail account. In general, I would prefer to not have any Victoria's Secret ads at all, but the ads for this fashion show--whether they are paid for by Victoria's Secret or by CBS--are pornographic and unacceptable.
I am asking that you please remove these ads immediately. I know that advertising is a part of the free email service, but it would be nice if mail users could pick what sorts of ads appear. I also know this ad appeared in all yahoo mails regardless of gender, as my husband received them, too. We disapprove of the use of pornographic marketing, even if it is the "soft" face of Victoria's secret, and no matter who it is solicited by.
Since my email is also used as a family email, I do not think these are family-friendly ads. I enjoy yahoo's service and am grateful that you provide spam-filtering, etc. It would also be nice to provide protection against advertising that is offensive.
Thank you,
Amy Chapman