While I’m not Catholic as in a member of the Church, the practice: “to be catholic — and here the lowercase is intentional — is to be open, tolerant, and universal in one’s interests and sympathies,” appeals, so I have had this title, Where Are We Now, Mother Superior, in mind for years. It is a poem and also a puzzle for my mind to capture the whole world in words so I can pull it apart again.
Well, this AM I am blessed with LOTS TO THINK ABOUT.
A dear friend, Dennis Duncanwood (find him on FB and he’s A Bookman on Deadwood) sent an article about 10 recovered poems from Pablo Neruda, a favorite poet. Herein is my response:
Marvelous. One of those (many) things in which you concurred with my Mom. She once sent me Neruda’s slim book of poems, Fully Empowered, and I still have it somewhere. Her wish for me; my wish for … everybody?
Felt empowered at last night’s Farmers Bill of Rights discussion at Lydia’s Sunflower Center (the 10th CA State Grange meeting around the state). Sounded like we in that high vibration room were reinventing the world. Then this am, read a bit more of Who Will Own the World, Jaron Lanier, a new good solid book on where my son’s generation is taking us, and he’s talking about Silicon Valley first influenced by est, then the Forum, then Gurdjieff (I was in a Gurdjieff group that met at the Unitarian Church, SF), who said:
“When I realized that [ancient wisdom] … had been handed down … from generation to generation for thousands of years, and yet had reached our day almost unchanged …. I … regretted having begun too late to give the legends of antiquity the immense significance that I now understand that they really have.” – George Gurdjieff
Really liked a lot of Gurdjieff, but now, says Lanier, Silicon Valley has a new “North Star” – the Singularity (idea that computers will surpass humans and overtake us quite possibly. ) Ray Kurzweil — inventor of things like machines that turn text into speech — has popularized the idea that we are rapidly approaching “the singularity,” the point at which machines not only think for themselves but develop intellectually faster than we.
Glad to note if last night’s discussion of Farmers Bill of Rights is any indication, we’ve come upon a pocket of wild brilliant people who know and cherish the earth in our Grange groups. Nearest to you is North Fork Grange – #763Junction City, CA Phone: (916) 454-5805. You can locate a Grange at the California State Grange site, of course. If you do check in with them, you, too, may find a room full of people you want to do stuff with. You decide what you do.
Godo write up of our Grange in the Chron, SFGate and then pages starting Food & Wine section in last weeks’ Sunday Chronicle: www.sfgate.com/food/article/Young-farmers-harvest-camaraderie-at-Granges-and-5551369.php?cmpid=email-mobile
In Sonoma County (as in the State), our Granges are working on legislation to prevent GMOs/Monsanto from ruining our crops and bodies, legalizing hemp, banning fracking. That and learning more about growing organically/sustainably/biodynamically. Quite a healthy direction! While learning to grow the soil and its mysteries.
Ever checked into Occidental Arts and Ecology? Brock Dolman, founder/director, OAE, was at our Farmers Bill of Rights meeting – he’s a Sebastopol Granger and quite poetic when he speaks about anything and he always does. From OEC site: (and believe I’ll ask Brock to come speak to us):
Courses (on the land at OAE, Occidental)
We believe that a resilient future depends on regional self-sufficiency. That’s why we support change agents in learning new (but often ancient) skills and bringing them home to their communities. Come learn and grow at the Center, where we have been putting ecological design and sustainable thinking to the test for over 20 years.
(me, again) And to round all that up, if you can follow my trail, seems our world, and the millenials including Jonathan Francis (after St. Francis of Assisi) Madden, look now to the time when computers will possibly outsmart us (The Singularity) and the password is: “Aim for their sensors; it’s their most fragile part.” Seriously, must rewrite my play, Trash Planet and the Search for Home, so I can imagine HOW computers could become good Buddhists and just be kind. – C