SPIT UPON SELF

bark and light



Isn't this about time for the summer solstice, the longest day, the shortest night. Just a few days away. It's a big thing astrologically like winter solstice is its own big thing. There was a time I read a few books about astrology to get the hang of it and check it out. I found there is something to it. But as for learning it, I don't have the drive to memorize all the details of squares and trines. There are websites now that make it easy so you don't have to understand all the details. It takes needing to. The people I've known who understand astrology want to really bad, like learning a banjo. You gotta want it. I don't want it that much. Sometimes when odd things are happening I'll get in touch with my friend Bette, who lives in Colorado and has studied astrology a long time. She'll tell me something about Pluto retrograde or Jupiter conjunct Sun. It all has particular meanings. Look your own up at some free astrology site for a brief view. If you're superstitious, stay clear. It will spook you.



I don't know what solstice and equinox mean except the dynamics of earth rotation around sun and why they're the longest and shortest days. But all I know about solstice is that I think it has some importance for goddess energy, women around bonfires. There was a time I was curious about things like that, because I knew nothing about them, wanted to at least be familiar to have some understanding of what it is. I've read much and forgotten much. What it has come to for me is everyday life the playing field of spiritual practice. It's where I gain my understanding. It's where we play a kind of ping-pong of the spirit with others, subject to the natural law that everything comes back. I learned the law of karma in kindergarten and didn't even know it.

I'm rubber
You're glue
Everything you say
Bounces off me
And sticks on you.



There it is, a living nursery rhyme that kids use for its meaning. It was something like a Zen koan for me. I didn't understand it for a long time. I quit using it about the time I quit using those other PeeWee Herman sayings, "I know you are, but what am I?" And quit thinking about it as a universal truth. We have an awful lot of old old sayings that have come down through the centuries that illustrate certain meanings and we're not even aware of them. They're automatic. Don't cry over spilled milk. Reminders. There's always a faster gun in the West. Tom Pruitt had a good one I liked especially. "Be wary of a man that shows ye his teeth, cause he'll bite ye." That was his justification for not liking Democrat Jimmy Carter.



This island Earth is under assault as of now in 20Billion dollars worth of embarrassment for BP. As we measure in dollars and death toll, 20B is a lot. It's all too far out there for me to think about it. I trust Obamaman is doing his part in this major mess that has the potential to wipe out the marshes of the Gulf coast east of Louisiana. Texas was spared. This time. Accounts I read of what is happening and MSNBC news videos tell me this disaster is worse than horrible. And what's next? Certainly something. And next? The Age of Enlightenment. All of civilization using the ocean for a dump has come to this and much more we don't know about. Chevron created a major ecological disaster in Ecuador. No problem. Poor people. With global warming coming on, Greenland might be a good place to start summering. Fishing villages dot the southern coastal regions. Old villages. Makes me wonder what the old-time fiddling tradition is like there. Surely Smithsonian must have recordings of Greenland fiddlers. Nova Scotia has its own styles of old-time fiddling.



Civilization has come to the place that it's a matter of learn the earth's rhythms and live by them or stink up the whole mess until the atmosphere is poison gas and nothing can live. Our Indian brothers and sisters in concentration camps called reservations have been telling us that what we're doing, we being Western Civ, is self-destructive. You spit on the earth, you spit on yourself. It looks like today Western Civ is getting something to the tune of 20Billion. This oil spill is a major spit upon self. Like driving down the highway a beginner chewin backer. Spit one out the window and a quick gust whips it right back in your face. Splot. A Beavis & Butthead moment. Don't you know the Indians of our land (theirs actually) are mourning in sorrow on the one hand and laughing their asses off on the other. The rest of us see the news and say, aint it awful. Then a commercial for Gilette smooth glide. Next: Should a 16 year old girl be allowed to circumnavigate the globe solo? Don't try this at home.