GREENYGREY’S RAMBLES

Hello, this is the Grand Council, with more news and rules.  Firstly, we have been seeing disturbing images and sounds of people seeming to enjoy themselves at festivals over the summer.  This is obviously against the demands of the Grand Council, and must stop at once: listening to music amongst nature is the work of the anti-GC and looks like some sort of unGCly paganism.

Witch-Finder General Resurrected for the Grand Council Talibanury Festival 

As we are all seeing and knowing, we have scoured the world of the past and present for the best leaders and ideas, and so have resurrected the Witch-Finder General lead author of the Malleus Maleficarum, Heinrich Kramer, which was responsible for thousands of people, mostly women, being tortured and burnt in northern Europe back in the good old days.

We have decided to give Heinrich a 21st century makeover, and so he will be known from now on as Heinrich the Heavenly.

And in honour of the noble Taliban, who love a bit of torturing and killing of people of all ages in the name of their GC, we have decided to name our festival: Talibanury.  Unlike the unGCly festivals of this year, there will be:

• no music
• no touching 
• no alcohol
• no women showing skin or disobeying men

 We chose Heinrich to be the committee leader after reading this fantastic recommendation:

“I’ve been writing my own book recently on Historical Witchcraft. No research could be complete without reading and studying the Malleus Maleficarum. I read this book, along with others on the same subject, and although you may need a dictionary handy while reading this book - it is 100% quality! I recommend this book to EVERYONE Catholic all the way to Pagan. Why would a Witch recommend this book to a Christian and/or Catholic to read you may ask? Because it’s important for them to understand the history of their religion as well and the crimes committed in the name of Jesus Christ. The Malleus Maleficarum was created as a ‘handbook’ for finding, torturing and ridding Europe of Witches and Pagans and other Non-Christians. Basically this entire era in history was evolved from a need for land, a need for power and the persecution of those women who were given credibility for their abilities as healers, midwives, etc. Now, this is not to say that males were not persecuited - however, the persecution of women was done because it was unfathomable that women could have the knowledge of ‘educated’ men as it pertained to medicine and the good that they had done for healing could not be attributed to them when the Christians felt that this could only be attributed to GOD.”

from buzzilions review.

Hello, it’s Wolfgang von Greenygrey again.  Hopefully, it’s a nice surprise, as you might have been expecting the Grand Council, but we don’t take it in turns here you know.  It is a battle of wills of the most momentous kind.  Anyway, I just popped on to bring you another of Grey’s blogs from Western Australia, and some good news.  It seems as if the grey one has escaped from Latham with the help of the Animals and Eagles, and has got out of the place on a long road.

Here are its first blogs from Latham, West Australia:

Latham is Weird Off the Rails

I made good progress on the way to Latham, but never really felt like I was getting nearer: like some things you just can’t reach. I also passed some signs to Perth on the way. It was a bit of a roundabout way to get to Perth, but Latham did sound rather interesting, as Lassie’d suggested.

Reaching and Walking All Over Latham

I shapeshifted into an emu for the last part of the journey and made good progress after that. I didn’t know I’d arrived when I got there, because the Welcome sign said MAHTAL rather than LATHAM, like there was expected to be some kind of mirror effect or something. I thought it seemed kind of weird, so I quickly changed into a human.

But it seemed really nice when I got inside, with lots of people happily playing sports and doing fun things in forested parks and pristine lakes.

However, then I crossed the tracks and it didn’t seem nice at all, with lots of people surviving in the sewers and slaving in sweat shops; and this not surprisingly led to a rather depressing and hostile atmosphere. I felt more at home on this side of the tracks funnily enough. I think Green would have preferred the other.

Meeting Twentieth Century British People Used as Forced Labour

A ball fell into my path, and I kicked it back to its owners. They asked where I was from, and I said I’d just been sent over from Britain. They said that was funny, because the same had happened to them as child migrants fifty years before.

Moreover, as I hadn’t been allowed contact with Green, they never heard from their families. They had also been used as forced labour, so at least I was a little better off, being free.

They said life had improved now, and bought me lunch in a pub where we continued our chat. It was a nice atmosphere in the pub, and although I only intended to drink a schooner or two, once I had the taste I found it difficult to leave.

I awoke the next day on the edge of town.

The Wisdom of Ants is Pants when Hungover

Sorry I haven’t blogged for a while, but things have gone all weird in Latham, and I seem to have lost track of space and time, as well as self.  I was going to get up after my day on the ale in Latham, but then I felt groggy and my head hurt so I lay back down. Then I heard something saying: ‘You think you’re big you do, don’t you.’I looked up and could see nothing around. I thought I must be hearing voices in my confused state.But then I heard it again: ‘You think you’re big you do, don’t you.’ And this time it was followed by: ‘Oi, you big bundle of grey fluff, you think you’re big don’t you, you can’t even see me down here.’ So I looked down and saw an ant, carrying a massive weight on its back, and working hard farming aphids. I felt quite guilty, sleeping off a hangover, while that wee chap was working so hard. Then it said: ‘Well, when you get a chance, read Marc Latham’s ant theory article on Existential, because it might make you look on ants, humanity, life, the universe and the Great Scheme of Things in a completely different way…or maybe a little anyway, and you might even notice how similar us ants are to you werewolves.’ I was just about to respond, but it had disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. I went back to sleep, and dreamt of antstronauts exploring the universe. 

Hello, it’s Wolfgang von Greenygrey here.  I was feeling down recently, with things not going well in the Greenygrey world, but then I read Marc Latham’s ant theory article on Existential, and it gave me renewed hope that the Grand Council can be controlled, because it made me believe that they may not be the architects of reality after all.

On Sunday there was a big TV clash with the film, 300, on one side, and a rockumentary called Imagine about the Rolling Stones making Exile on Main Street on the other.  The newly reissued version of Exile on Main Street has just gone straight to the top of the UK album charts.

Rolling Stones and Spartan Life Compared

Being in a bit of a narcissistic mood, as I often am when home alone, I was thinking how the Spartan life and Rolling Stones life are on bipolar ends of the spectrum.  The Spartan life was extremely disciplined and focused on war, while the seventies Stones life was one of decadence and the promotion of peace.

Although I tried to escape discipline as much as possible in life there’s a part of me that wishes I was born into a warrior people and trained that way from an early age.  Of course it is a fantasy, and surviving on cold mountains as a child looks more appealing from the comfort of your warm house.

Choosing Your Path in Life

It’s easier to follow your fantasy into decadence and music, even if you’re tone deaf like me and just part of a crowd and fan club.

But sport can provide the inspiration for discipline in your life; and like Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler, Axl Rose and many other wild rock stars, later life can see you escape the ultimately destructive nature of polar decadence with disciplined fitness bringing you back into the centre. 

The Deceivingly Seductive Lure of Heroic Death

The Stones of course lost Brian Jones, and many rock stars don’t escape from their extreme; falling off the edge like the 300 Spartans fell off the other polar end.

Wherever you are on the polars, the four horsemen never seem far away.

There was a blog about the meditating and yogaing Yogi on BNT, and I added this comment:

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I saw that story and also came across a couple of related quotes/thoughts this week.

Firstly, on his new Discovery series looking at the universe, Stephen Hawking said that alien life forms might be beyond our comprehension and understanding, such as learning to live on things unknown on this planet, like the yogi might be doing.

Then I had a webzine newsletter with the following JFK quote:

‘The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.’

We know a lot more than our ancestors, but our descendents will know much more…

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So although Paper is the Planet’s Gold may seem a strange slogan at first, these are strange days…

WWF and Tetrapak have joined up for an exciting new initiative where you can enter a slogan to help promote renewability.  Tetrapak have pledged to donate £1 for every idea entered, and 10 pence for every vote to WWF’s forest saving work.

Paper is the Planet’s Gold

I entered my great idea yesterday, and please feel free to vote for it if you want.  Or make your own up, or vote for something else.

My slogan was: Paper is the Planet’s Gold and the explanation is that it would hopefully help people:

Compare the value of gold in global financial markets to trees for Planet Earth’s life. This will hopefully emphasise the value of paper and other products derived from living sources, and the need to use them sparingly and recycle as much as possible.

Win a Panda, Tiger or Dolphin

You can’t win a wolf unfortunately, but by voting you can win a WWF ‘Adopt Animal’ gift, such as adopting a panda, tiger or dolphin.

So, if you arrived too late to vote in the general election, or wished there was a greenygrey candidate, please vote now for Paper is the Planet’s Gold, or vote for something else and submit your own.

Cheers.

I just updated some of my Brave New Traveler articles with comments containing relevant recent news stories:

Ant Theory of Humanity

Just came across Indra’s Net, which is a buddhist idea similar to the one in this article, and of course precedes it by quite some time!:

http://www.heartspace.org/misc/IndraNet.html

First alerted to it in an article on metaphor by Bridget Holding in Writing Magazine, April 2010.

 God and Natural Disasters

An Iranian cleric has recently blamed promiscuous women for earthquakes:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8631775.stm

 Space Exploration Compared with History

NASA is celebrating the twenieth anniversary of Hubble this week:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/Hubble20/

After the Lukla-Gokyo video quickly became my most viewed YouTube video, I have rush-released the prequel, covering the Jiri to Lukla part of the Everest Nepal Himalayas trek, along with some photos from Kathmandu.  It’s viewable from the above link.

Vertical and Horizontal Sky

There was vertical straight edge grey cloud in the morning yesterday, and horizontal in the evening, reminding me of the Some Clouds Have a Silver Lining Folding Mirror poem.

Is God Always Going to be Just Beyond Us?

I was also thinking how when people thought the world was flat they probably thought that God had made it that way so we would always be limited in where we could go, and that God would always be beyond us.

Now that we’ve circumnavigated the world, and know it is circular, some people think God may be beyond us in the universe.  In another five hundred years, when we may have mapped out the solar system and worked out the universe, will God still be beyond us somewhere?

Thoughts on Che Guevara from an old revolutionary:

Che was a revolutionary with the right ideals: someone following their conscience to unnecessarily sacrifice themself to try and balance the great inequalities they saw in society. 

In that way he can be compared to the biblical Jesus Christ, and if he’d died trying to depose Somosa that comparison would have been all the stronger.

But as he lived through his victorious revolution he had to try and adapt to new roles that he wasn’t suited for, and his weaknesses became apparent.

I think the real Che is somewhere between the very positive and very negative myths…

After I rambled on about the solar system last week, this week’s Wonders of the Solar System had loads of relevance to this blog and the Folding Mirror poetry site.  For a start it had the Greenygrey proving that it can look beautiful when its angry, as Prof. Brian Cox searched for a tornado in the Mid-West of the USA.

Chaos, Tornado, Saturn and the Solar System

Then the title of the second part of the series was Order out of Chaos, and remember how this blog was fascinated by the Secret Life of Chaos doc last month, and I wrote a poem describing how the science works on the fmpoetry site.

I wrote a poem about a tornado, and the only planet I’ve featured is Saturn, and those were the two things Prof. Cox used to show how the solar system evolved into the circular order we know.

Apparently Saturn and its moons are like a mini version of the solar system, and the tornado’s physics on Earth work along the same lines, with chaotic clouds being pulled and formed into spherical structures over time.

So, maybe my poetry has gone that way too: from the chaotic early poems to the structured Folding Mirrors of late.  

Sorry for rambling…