Elysium

Elysium, the  place where gods and heros went after dying, is not a fiction. Rather, it is right in front of you, especially if you live in a valley city like Glasgow. This is because the valley creates hills and hills with their elevation, their visions, and their corresponding wisdom, create Elysium. It is no coincidence that the sanskrit word for elevated region, paradesha, is where we get our word paradise from. And if you want to get to Elysium, not just physically but spiritually, you need to die. This means getting rid of the gatecrashing world (and the 'age of man') and inviting the Earth back in. When you are dead to the world and all is karma then and only then will you begin the waking dream. And it is this waking dream (born of one's ego-death) that allows Elysium in.

Leafblowers Blowing Nothing: Noise as a form of Assault

This was what started my 'radical rants' several years ago and caused me to start penning my 'pet hates' (none of my hatred is petty btw): leafblowers and their demented users. I have already laid out the retardation inherent within a leafblower nevermind the actual practice of using one as compared let's say to using hand tools and your own steam. If there is one enduring symbol of man's decline (from the harmonious aborigine) I would say that it could well be the leafblower for its violence, its mind-destroying noise, and its general ineptitude as compared with a brush. It is an enduring symbol because that is the trajectory upon which your whole economic (dare I say it 'existential') outlook is based: overtaking the human by forcing power tools (that destroy the Earth and the bodymind powerfully) and not convivial tools (that do not force or pollute or destroy but enable, conjoin, and confer) upon you. This is the reality of a system of 'Progress' that seeks to improve the unimproveable, that seeks to measure the immeasurable, that seeks to value the invaluable: regression. Noise is a form of assault esp. if its is forced upon you without you seeing it coming. It is one of the principle contributory factors in mental illness, the noise that surrounds and penetrates us on a daily basis, legally. But noise, like rape, should not be legal. And so, this young man, dressed in his oompa loompa jumpsuit, with his ear protectors on, oblivious to the violence he is causing to others via this hellish noise, blowing nothing (and knowing that he is blowing nothing and that they are people who actually have to leave the platform because of the distress the noise is causing), is nothing more than another of society's legalized violators, who violate the Earth with their power (violent) tools and rape the  minds of others because clearly they have a problem with brushes and with peace.

Oyster-catcher in Elizabeth Street

Five pm on the dot, and an oystercatcher flies up my street whistling at the top of its voice. He's certainly not after oysters that's for sure. I had heard this little guy earlier in the day as I cycled past the river. I suppose being so near to the river means that other birds, normally seabirds, occasionally venture into the city. What luck then to live so near to the river. I sometimes think, what with the gulf stream, the swaying cabbage palm beneath my almost city centre window, and the visiting seabirds, and my proximity to the hills and the countryside (due to my expert local knowledge and my skills with a bicycle), that living in Glasgow ain't that bad. I don't imagine you can say that for many other large cities.

The Beautiful Root

Everyone should have a beautiful root. Indeed, everyone has, but it has been so concreted over that this root struggles to break through. By 'root' I of course mean also 'route'. This is what a root is: a route of locomotive energy, and a delivery system into the body. This delivery system (when naturally clean) delivers your Self to you. This is what the beautiful root does: it allows you to gather yourself. And become whole (and healthy). If not holy. But people have allowed this root to be compromised by being carried and transported (deported from their Self). Man is the only animal that does this. Which might explain why his world is in a constant state of conflict. Because he has not gathered his Self. Because he is not together. Because he has gassed his beautiful root to the point of complete retardation and dementedness. Which explains why man's car (gas chamber) invariably looks better than his body (or indeed mind).

Surf's Up

Surfing the braes can be done without the aid of a surf board. This is because we're dealing with the wave on a different temporal setting. It sure looks like a hill: solid, stony, unmoving, but it's not. It's actually a wave. Everything is. 

This stony wave however moves incredibly slowly compared with the wave of the wet variety. Yet, it still moves, and no matter how slowly it moves, observed over a few aeons, and sped up, it behaves the same as a wave of the sea.

This makes the wild cyclist, biking and hiking over the hills, not just a surfer of the sea, perish the thought, but something of a surfer of eternity, since the waves the wild cyclist surfs take aeons to break.

The slow-flow surfer with surf board...

The Perfect Get-up

David Byrne (born in Dumbarton) once said that you should wear the same clothes day after day so that people will recognize you. Perish the thought that the wild cyclist should be recognized, yet he does subscribe to that thought if only because he is a frugal creature and cannot be bothered decorating his nakedness. The uni-form (as the same clothes every day) thus becomes a necessity for the wild cyclist as the one form that he inhabits. Sure, there are other forms that lurk underneath this manifestation but this is the one form and thus requires a single uniform. This is the perfect get-up: nakedness, your original uni-form that binds you together with all other uni-forms so that the One form becomes recognizable. I think this is what David Byrne meant to say.

Off-Peak

Irony is the operating system of the universally aligned mind. And so it comes as no surprise to learn that by off-peak I mean on-peak and ascending into that elevated region (do you remember the Sanskrit word?) where opposites do not oppose but collide. Off-peak is your original condition. All the animals (except perhaps those under the control of men) are off-peak creatures. And in being off-peak one peaks Being itself by ascending it.