LED Sheep ballet

There's not a lot on the net that makes me clap my hands and laugh, but when the canons went off, I laffed and laffed.

Tomorrow

Three days that I dread to see arrive,

Three days, that I hate to be alive,

Three -ee days, filled with tears and sorrow,

Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Well, I had to write that, or sing it t  So, to, tomorrow.  Have to get 'over' today, or through it.  Not that it looks to be presenting any terrible ordeals. (But it ain't over yet).  Indeed it's only just begun.  . . . no. stop

As you can see, this is an academic exercise . . . which reminds me . . .  I'm doing a distance education course on Organisational Communications.  Which up until December last year was called (don't laugh)  Public Relations.  I actually like the name change, it suits me much better.  I'd rather organise communications behind the scenes than relate to the public.  Oh, woe.  If my ambitions were to be a spin doctor I'm probably somewhere to being on track. 

As I fantasise about being an eccentric academic living somewhere rural, with animals -- (Germaine is a bit of a beacon in this regard), (although I could certainly live without the notoriety or infamy) I imagine myself as an Anti-spin, spin-doctor, cutting through the shitloads of pure crappola the world generates and beating it about the head with the truth of the our situation. Even if nobody was taking the slightest bit of notice, it would be handy to be paid for it.

If the GFC gave us any indication of what we generally have, (or had) considered  sane, sound, rational, or sustainable (any one would do) financial institutions, the tremor that shook their foundations-quite a bit, disabused us of any such delusions and what we have done, we can see now, is given control for what we vainly consider to be one of life's essentials--money, to, wait for it, you guessed it, (the world as tragi-comedy of errors), greedy, villainous, thugs.

Bravo.  And we think we are so savvy and smart.

As Gurdjieff would say, a man's attitude towards his money is a good indication of the state of his soul.

As followers of Tibetan Buddhism might say:

"Cease all clinging and the essence will emerge." - The Essence of Mahumadra Bliss.

But down here on planet earth, this ain't goin' to happen.   We must make do with what we've got. 

There are planets for instance, the cosmos is large, you can trust the universe, and for soever you're down here,  there are birds, and sunshine, pussy cats and horses.

At the end of the day,  I 'cling' to the idea of the Sun coming up again.

Today

(Which is now tomorrow.)  I got up. Was I first up?  No, I don't recall.  I think it was a fairly simultaneous arising.  That's right.  I remember now.  I went out and sat in the cold sun and read the Upanishads.  I listened to the birds and noticed that there are one or two other species besides currawong to be heard. I thought about meditating, but realised as I sat there eyes closed, maybe slowly warming up in the sun, despite the low temperature, that I would have to have announced I was going to meditate, to thwart the Murphy's law of being disturbed while you are meditating, which can be ... truly distrubing.  Especially, when the disturbee once was your mother and you had already told her you were meditating, but still she insisted on coming in to talk to you . . . or try.  Matraicide was almost committed.  So much for meditation.

I saw a story on TM the other night.  Marvellous, I'm so glad I only paid two hundred bucks however many years . . .  ago.  25 I think.  I have not been a conscientious practitioner of TM, but I have used it and found it useful.  I would like, having been reminded of it's benefits, to practise it again for a week or two or three or four. But living with another means I will have to make some arrangements.  Living with another has involved a whole lot of 'other' arrangements.

I no longer walk at least 2 ks a day (and when Luke was alive, 6).  It is not a 1.5 k walk down to the rubbish bin, but a mere handful of yards.  My body is in rebellion at the sudden abandoning of it's uses . . . Well some of them, others are getting a whole new lease of life. But I must take action.

I am not very good at walking for the sake of it, although I do like to go for walks.  Walking with some purpose, which in the past has involved an animal, usually a horse, is a delightful piece of piss and a joy to do. Walking for the sake of 'getting' exercise is an insular and sort of selfishly stupid thing to do.  Well maybe that's a bit of an exagerration--I suppose.  It all depends on your headspace. Walking for the benefit of some other being is a far less ponderous affair than walking for oneself.  I did do some yoga the other morning and it did feel good.  God knows, I am being presented with loads of opportunities to 'Work' on myself.  It's gggreat. Addictions. (Chocolate mousse and so forth), there's a big area of 'Work' . . in progress.  Discipline's another.  I can't complain of a lack of negative entropy in my life, potentialities far outweigh actualitites.  Sublimating my ego is another arena where I am being presented with oodles of opportunities to shut-the-fuck-up. Relationships are so growthful! I knew that.

Still it's all new to me and fairly wonderous.

I did the Myers Briggs test thingo again the other night.  I found I was still an INFP. It was encouraging.  It's been 20 years or so since I last did this quiz and I was glad not to have changed my essense self.  I like my essence,.  It's my fucking stupid personality and a myriad of neurotic and destructive behaviours I take issue with. 

But I must not complain.  And one of us isn't.

Yesterday

I must console myself with the idea that on cold winter mornings, it is very difficult to get out of the pyjamas and ugh boots, away from the fire, and out onto the cold street for a brisk walk up to the centre of the universe where I can buy stuff, like coffee and chocolate to make a mousse (or two or three).

It was already the afternoon yesterday, before I was out the door and into the Pug for a run down to the Kanimbla to see Schleppie.  I saw too, btw, a wedgetail on the ground, probably eating something.  The two aplacas who live in a paddock on a bend in the road by the tearooms, could be seen intently gazing in the direction of something in the bush and as I followed their gaze I met the eyes of an eagle who was about fifteen feet above me, standing on a ledge under some mountain ash. I didn't stop the car, but 15 metres away, decided to back up and have another look.  I was in time to see this huge bird, slowly taking off, with a magpie hassling it away.

It is truly a gorgeous drive down into the Kanimbla, watching out for Lyrebirds on the roadway (but that usually happens in the early morning), passing alongside an avenue of old man treeferns and giant monolithic rocks, it's all very Jurassic . . . bunyip country.  

I got to the grid and there was a girl leading a horse with a dog--a labrapoodle apparently.  I could see she was quite concerned about the dog, and it reminded me of going for rides with Bede the dalmation/kelpie x.  Jeez. Bede was such an airhead and so fast and emotional, he was impossible to control, I'd manouvre Luke into the middle of the road in order to make a point that the driver should slow the fuck down.  They would definitely see the horse which took all their attention while I would direct them to look out for the loony dog.  Jill seemed to be doing something similar.  She was a nice woman with great eyes, about my age, who had only had her mare for a couple of years and had ridden up to Mount Blackheath, where later I could see her hoofprints in the road.

Schleppie was found in fine form and mooched over to me.  I walked him over to the yards, took his rug off and lunged him, but not for very long.  He was very happy with the attention and very sweet and er . . . pliable.  We lunged in the paddock next to the yards and attracted the company of six or so other horses, who cantered over and one of whom insisted on getting caught up in the whole lungeing process.  Schlepp surprised me with his intelligence by making a curve in the arc to go on the inside of this dumb horse so as not to snare him in the lungeing lead.  But it was a bit hopeless really. The days are still cool, though the sun is a bit hotter and I didn't really, when I felt his skin, want him to get too hot.  It was more of an exercise in having a pleasant experience, checking him out, and taking him out of his paddock for a bit of a look-see. He enjoyed it and when I took the cow halter off him at the gate he didn't really want to wander off back to his two padock mates, who are a bit stand-offish.

I will take some pictures, next time. . . .

Yesterday I also mailed off some photographs for an exhibition I am a part of, back in Murrundi. Hmm.  They are quite 'nice'.  Hmm

The 'Work' meaning of sacrifice.

Well, getting over myself would be a good idea huh?  Sacrifice your suffering Ms Link and be done with it, There's nowt you can do about many things, and spending energy on woe is in the long run a waste of energy.  As Joni Mitchell would concur "I sacrificed my blues . . . "

People they ain't no good.

Far from the misty, cold, mountains and out on the sunny central plains, it's time for a rethink about my life.  What I am doing with it exactly, and living with the consequences of decisions I have rightly or wrongly taken.  First it seems, I must mourn for my dear, little soul-mate Oedipus, who normally accompanied me to this place. Here, where he was always with me,  I miss him so very much.

Luke's passing was easier to come to terms with, shocking at the time, though it was. He died of natural causes, when he was ready to go.  Oedipus, stopped eating.  A week went by with me giving him Nutrigel--forcibly. Over the years I had become expert at keeping him alive.  I wanted him to go, to go when he was ready, but staying alive and the struggle for survival had become a way of life. Drinks from the tap, moving him about into more comfortable, sunnier, shadier or more sheltered spots as the weather dictated was an hour by hour activity for me.  For the last 18 months of his life he was a frail, vulnerable and much coddled cat.

I went and saw the vet who said with great compassion, that Oedipos would simply starve to death if we let 'nature take its course', that this might take some time and that 'we' should step in and prevent this from happening.  I agreed.  I'm glad I agreed. But.  His passing haunts me, because ultimately after twenty years of loving him and caring for him, I was responsble for hastening his death, for cheating him out of even a few days for the sake of my own comfort.  It just doesn't feel right and it never will.  This is a fact, and all the well intentioned and kind-hearted humouring in the world won't change it.  

I buried him in the grave I had dug the night before, a deep, neat, cat-size grave.  I showed him to Puss Kat when I brought his body home, then wrapped it up in calico and interred it. Puss Kat sat on the back step, near the spot where Oedipus' body lay and for the first time ever was withdrawn and unresponsive. Immediately however, I had much to do and started to pack the car and since that time, moving, setting up a new domestic sphere and re-learning how to share it with another, I realise I haven't spent much time mourning for the passing of my dearest little friend. Or I can only suppose this is the case as I find myself now some eight or nine weeks later in floods of tears. 

Loving animals comes very easily to me, loving people is far, far more difficult. For the most part I fail to see  they are truly worthy of it. I know only too well the evil that poisons the heart of 'man',  as it so clearly does in me. If I had no experiential understanding of this I would not be able to see it in another. It's a shame on me that I see such things long before I see the good.

On this a fairly dreary grey kinda day, the end of which I hope to be more enjoyable than the beginning.  Two four things in the the online news sites cheered my weary soul greatly. One was an extraordinary effort by a woman academic to come up with the brilliant idea of providing some natural shelter for lambing ewes. Therefore.(vapors Ann O'd) preventing such awful, early demises as perishing in the cold from exposure and starvation because you are too busy shivering to be able to keep a hold of mum's teat.  Now, we have some brignt spark who has managed to make an academic study founded on the basic common sense of giving lambing ewes the opportunity to provide their lambs with adequate shelter when the little innocents are born --wet on the ground in below zero temperatures in a stiff sou'wester.  "Oh.... she'll be right.  Hmm. you reckon do you?  Human ingenuity is a marvellous phenomena. No?  Whatever will they think of next?   But! now this has been academically 'proven' by a scientist, even though she's only a woman and not a real farmer. Farmers everywhere can now transform their farming practises (maybe--sometime,) along some lines of basic common sense. You'd be astonished how many farmers have foregone this approach..   

Yee har.

Chill wind gives lambs a warm wattle ward 

Actually, they could really do without the 'chill wind'. Dipshit. Oh well,

next.  . . . 

And, in another world first breakthrough for 'humanity' everywere. . . . 

[link]

Yeehar (one more time)

Plus elswhere --

 FREE BIKES (almost)  

and of course coming soon (yeah right)

Flying cars

The Spiritual demise of a future PM (happened ages ago), but it probably doesn't matter much to anyone but she.

In the new domestic sitation in which I find myself, far, far, from the maddening cows, who I actually miss a bit, I've been using the LOML's computer which is connected to the television or through which the television can be viewed.  The whole she-bang, is operating on Windows and there's a certain amount of control-alt-delete rigamaroling one has to do to get the thing to bump and grind into life. The LOML has built the bloody thing which is simultaneously impressive and a bit of a yawn. It's very hard to get enthusiastic about things of which I have little interest and no real understanding. I just want it to work. As a Mac snob, I am both forgiving and prepared to be long suffering about it.  I'm grateful of course, just in case you thought me otherwise. My Mac still works fine, but is or has gone the way of the ark and will soon have to be replaced (I suppose).  It still works fine for what I want to do with it, which is not much, other than play music and fiddle around on photoshop.  This here contraption has a remote mouse and keyboard. The screen is a respectable distance away for a television but at such a distance it makes for some difficulty in reading and writing, Not that I'm complaining, I'm quite pleased that it all comes through the one box, and I'm also er.. . enjoying watching the odd bit of teev every now and then and falling asleep in front of it.

But this has nothing to do with the post I wanted to write about our newest PM, Ms Gillard. Having a television to watch means I will perhaps on occasion be able to see Julia and Tone going head to head in question time. And I think an early election is very wise of her and means we will be saved from months and months of electioneering.  Not that I plan to indulge in a lot of QT viewing--small doses every now and then.

I don't have an opinion of Julia Gillard one way or another. I think she will be a better PM than her predecessor, to whom we are all eternally grateful for being the only person on the planet at the time who could rid us of Rattus Maximus. However I do remember hearing her in Question Time some months or perhaps years ago and coming to the shocking realisation that the poor woman was quite literally committing spiritual suicide. Her tone of voice (which seems never good) and the low level she was engaging in and expanding on, so as to demolish her opponent was nothing short of a hell on earth of her own creation.  It soon became unbearable to listen to and I wondered if it was necessary to actually be spiritually dead or at least spiritually deadened to be an Australian parliamentarian.

The real tragedy for Ms Gillard in this, quite apart from the fact that she believes herself to be an atheist is that she will be a politician for such a miniscule amount of time relative to the very very very long time she will find herself 'dead' and I don't doubt that should she ever develop any spiritual awareness she will come to regret the time on earth she so blithely assailed, molested and denigrated the only part within herself that is connected to etermal, universal, truths and wisdom.