Moving Right Along

If the Forum is the place to share news and information, then the Blog is the place to leave a record of the people behind the scenes. As for opinions, some are best left unsaid. Others are meant to be shared, for this forms the basis of discourse. And still others must be shared, because this forms the basis of freedom. The best discourse between intelligent people is unfettered, perhaps partly carried on in private but brought to fruition in the public forum. A blog is a place for personal musings. People can read it or not as they see fit, and they will miss nothing of importance in the news. If the forum belongs to the agora, the blog belongs to the domus. It’s the privately-issued journal that anyone can read or set down, according to their whim or their resonance or dissonance with the writer.

I’m in real grief over recent events at Portal City. A man was taken from Main Street in broad daylight. There were a few cries of relief or outrage, but on the surface at least, business is already more or less back to normal. The action was taken by the builders of Portal City and it was their right to do so, we’re told. And knowing the same could happen to us if we step out of line, we’ll police ourselves more. No more spitting in public or cursing on Sunday. And no more calling the sheriff names, either. Because the streets are safe again.

I think Riversong’s error, for those who choose to call it that, was in his honest urge to call a man to account for his inconsistencies. He chose the wrong guy. I’m in grief because a good man went down. I’ll get over it. It happens all the time. I considered moving outside the city limits, but I wasn’t cut out to be a hermit or a sadhi. I’m an honest craftsman, albeit with a wild side. I like to go walking far from anyone, where the honest earth is filled with life and love. In town, I find that the earth still speaks to me from underneath the streets and malls and factories. And I see my town clearly as it is, not as it sees itself. I am mixing metaphors, for I am speaking of both the physical city where I dwell, and the virtual one where I am also a citizen.

It’s only the first step to be able to see the forest for the trees (or vice versa). Real awareness comes when we know and honor not just each individual tree and herb but every glen and stream, the creatures that live among them, and the forest itself – and beyond that the god of forests. So here am I, the guy who walks among the trees and listens to the stones. Out here, I am the leprechaun, the Leper King. I know secrets. That’s not who I am when I get in my car and return to town. Then I step back into my legend. I become the mild-mannered vitamin salesman who secretly paints and writes. People whose reality is broader than that which is authorized are dangerous and bear watching, according to some. So we become transparent, which is another word for invisible. There’s no secret to how it’s done: it’s a combination of purity and cloaking. This can only be pulled off by one who is at home outside normal parameters. It’s this outlaw spirit that so alarms the powers that be. No crime is committed except transparency, and yet both in our 3D world and in our more rarified virtual one, someone is always watching for that moment of opacity and the shadow that it casts.

As we move into the shift, our online world will not be more conflict-free than the physical one, nor will it be more durable. It will evaporate as our infrastructure fails. The relationships we forge online will not survive a loss of electricity. What we learn and share, however, will. It will carry forward into the kinds of communities that coalesce following the loss of our illusions. In the “real” world I have no doubt that most of us will personally witness things that for now remain unthinkable. Then we will rebuild, and a new age will begin – has already begun although we are still on the downhill slide of the curve of Peak Civilization.

If I am to remain viable as a human being, hopefully better than I am now despite what I understand is going to be a time of terrible worldwide suffering, then I must transfer all this talk of Higher Awareness, of New Paradigms, into practical application in every layer of my daily life. I have to expand my awareness, listen carefully to every voice, question my assumptions and above all, set aside my ego, to deal with the changes and calamities that are just beginning. This means a better way to rear the next generation. It means a new way of dealing with conflicts. It also means stocking up on food, first aid supplies, and the means to purify water and dispose of waste. It may mean learning to run and hide. I am sure it will mean learning to work together in ways we might scoff at today. We can’t afford to be effete: we will see vomit and blood and shit and worse, in time.

I can’t speak for anyone else but I became a citizen of Portal City hoping to learn and share resources on many levels. I never came expecting to like everyone here, and I find that I don’t. I never came expecting to be universally liked, and I find that I am not. I do find that I have unqualified love for every person here as well as otherwhere. And I find that that love and grace and knowledge have been fostered and focused by being here, and the road that led here. For that I’m grateful, and I hope to be able to return value to the community. Some of what I came hoping for was based on assumptions, and for that I am chastened. This ain’t heaven, its life.

It sure ain’t hell.

I wonder if it’s just coincidence that I spent much of my childhood in a town called Portales. Here in Portal City, I don’t have a legend to step into as I enter the city limits. I made a choice not to have one here, so this is just who I am. One reason for my present grief is that I realize it was a mere assumption on my part – and I knew better, from a life of experiences – that everyone else here had made the same choice. I perceive the majority of Portal City’s people to be pretty authentic, and for that reason I choose to keep a place right downtown, near the agora. Authenticity is a little like being at a nude beach: at first it’s a little shocking, but then it’s nothing. No one has any distinguishing badges, except those who keep their skivvies on. That’s true transparency. It isn’t nudity, it’s nakedness.

Whoa, is that it? I come back to town seeking naked people? Not exactly. I’ve found folks who are like the world outside our 3D boundaries, who see the person and not the clothes and who simply ignore the silly ways we adorn ourselves, or feel free enough not to.

I’ll miss Riversong’s voice. I’ll miss his big booming insults flying around the marketplace and I’ll miss his fumbling attempts to honestly avoid giving offense at the same time. He’s truly more at home out in the woods, and there are plenty of like-minded folks where he lives, more than where I’m at. In a way I envy him. His wisdom is deep even if his delivery is rustic. He isn’t always right but who is? I can see why some people would honestly dislike him. I can see why some people honestly dislike me, too. He’s been banished to the forest for uncivilized behavior, which means excessive honesty and poor social skills. I’m sure I’ll go visit him. But I miss having him here, too.

When I was a kid back in Portales, New Mexico, the sheriff lived right next door. He was a grandfatherly guy who kept a pistol within reach and a cow in his back yard. There were no fences, anyway just a few. I had a secret crush on his granddaughter who sometimes spent the weekend. He’d grown old with his wife, who baked cookies for neighborhood children, and an ancient black-and-white spaniel that had gone blind and lame and would snap at children. He cried when he buried it at age 25 beneath the weeping willow behind the house. I suppose Sheriff Baker was a small-town politician, in addition to the kindly old neighbor I knew. I was too young to know about that. Here in Portal City, I also live not too far from the sheriff. I don’t think he likes my kind much. For one thing, I haven’t paid any taxes. I’m still deciding how much I should send, that’s all. I’m not happy about paying for a private militia. I think we should all be the militia. And I think words should be the only weapons allowed. No more public hangings.

And considering the many wonderful things that can be accomplished with words, I prefer to see them put to other uses. Division is harmful, but diversity is not. Especially when it’s just words.

Now, are opportunities present in the new, chilly atmosphere? Of course. Will they thrive? No doubt. ‘Nuff said, at least from this old grump.

8-D