Keep Asheville Weird

I am here in beautiful Black Mountain  near Asheville NC. for this Memorial Day Weekend,  and saw this phrase on a bumper sticker yesterday "Keep Asheville Weird".  This struck a cord in me. I don't think Asheville is particularly wierd. Its beautiful. Its full of art museums, local art and crafts, organic food stores and restaurants, a college, Biltmore House and has a reputation for being New Agey so lots of conferences and retreats happen here on that wavelength. It is surrounded by Pisgah National Forest, a mecca for nature lovers and sports enthusiasts, aka, bicyclists. People meditate and there are yoga studios here. There are Cherokee Indian roots here, which have not been completely obliterated. Is that wierd?  If this is weird, to have signs of individuality and healthy living still evident then more power to those Ashevillians.
I think weirdness is a desirable trait for our towns and cites which means ourselves ultimately.. Someday I hope to see bumper stickers reading, Keep California Weird, or Keep America Weird. and Keep the World Weird.. The opposite of this is malls and Walmarts which have replicated like a virus across this great nation of individualists and entrepreneurs. The opposite of this is huge factory farms which have replaced family farms. The opposite of this is the huge superhighways cutting thru neighborhoods and annihilating communities which promote a feeling of roots, safety and heritage.  Its ugly and a clear sign that the huge elite owned corporations are stamping out the American dream of  individualism, private ownership, and home grown wealth. In effect all that is near and dear to us. I live in  Alexandria VA outside of Washington DC, and I can see and feel  the difference between Asheville (weird) and DC (not weird on one level yet Oz-like thru and thru.). After a while these kinds of places which promote group-think, seem normal for their lack of promoting or desiring in the populace any form of individuality. Other places  would be military bases, and corporate capitals all across the world.  And since I live in DC I can tell you that is in itself weird in a bad way, a very bad way.
After a while the homogenization of the populace, by dumbing down  the emotions and the intellect, the homogenization of our environment,  be it the countryside (given over to the Elites "Nature Conservancy's" and "National Parks") or our living spaces with the sprawling suburbs of cookie cutter houses,, work places,which are in effect boxes within boxes, shopping places all huge chains now- dulls our sense of adventure, fun and basic enjoyement of life. A world without color, harmony or grace. A world of conformity sameness, shades of gray and concrete. We become afraid to question, to explore, to desire deeper richer textures in our inner life. According to the pundits, that is the direction we are heading.  The way I see it we are being engineered to accept sameness and conformity as the norm and individuality as weird therefore dangerous.
Yesterday I listened to an Alex Jones radio program.   I OD'd on info on the "march of the New World Order".  I personally find it pretty depressing on a daily basis, but every so often (like when there is a lot of down time as on a vacation) we listen to this man and his guests talk about the way things are going.As controversial as he is, he offers  rare gutsy controversial "weird"(aka real)  news. So I learned that Rand Paul (Ron Pauls son) who is running for president in 2012 was demonized by the press wrongly which shot his ratings up. George Soros (NWO evildoer), has  a polling which said his ratings dropped, which is a lie told to us unthinking sheep ( that's the way 'they' think of us- not my thoughts) to steer the populace away from a "loser". Of course there are other polls which reported the opposite. I learned that there are still 1000's of POW's from WWII and Vietnam out there in Russia and N. Korea, because our country made a deal with these two countries in lieu of paying ransom. The man who wrote on this (Paul Craig Roberts) is not a conspiracy theorist, but the one who invented Reaganomics, meaning he has been around in the bureaucracy for a very long time and can be called a credible source.  I learned I need to reread George Orwell's 1984 and Alduos Huxley's Brave New World. The quote.. "they will learn to love their servitude" comes from this book.
So that brings me back to Asheville as a paragon of virtue due to its weirdness. I seem to only enjoy 'weird' and vibe with 'weird' because if it  is what I think it means its not weird. per se. It's being able to think for oneself, in order to get out of the paradigms which are sick and dying and not worth saving. Like the current plutocracy's idea that we need to be controlled, and told what and how to think, etc.
The only safe, intelligent, sane  place to go now seems to be out on a limb. If ever there was a time in history that needs weirdness it is now.  Get in touch with your own brand of "weird". Be a goof ball, a child; (make the grown ups angry).......go run on the beach in the middle of the night naked.(Go against mindless social mores)..... Make up your own songs, paint a mural, write poetry. In effect get out of that box. (Trust your  innate creativity).... Talk to strangers (Find out how gentle and loving the human race is. This will help you realize how  programming has taught us that we need to fear each other). In other words, rediscover the lost jewels of , self empowerment, community, peace, trust- and be happy. They exist outside the paradigm; the boxes we live in. They exist in the natural  world which we collectively shut out like an ugly view from our window.  Turn off the TV and get away from mindless activities and people, who parrot what they learn from these spin masters. Experience your own emotions and your own thoughts, your own inner truth.  No one needs to agree with you, or approve.   You being in touch with this sense of individuality wrongly labeled weirdness which is being in touch with your true self,  will save you in the end. It will save us all.

Roses

I wish I could share with the smell of these roses. Along with the smell of the honeysuckle along the trail. I wish I could share with you the feel of the wind and the speed experienced on a bike. The path sometimes paved sometimes dirt and gravel. The sound of the cardinals, the woodpeckers etc. But here are some pictures of roses, to the left to the right front and behind. All over. I thought of the balance of nature and humankind. How one is not as happy without the other. The people and their minds always working caught in there own little world almost like holding their breath lest the world inside just crumbles into nothingness. And why shouldn't it crumble?
When one experiences this outer world, the gift of nature, one sees the folly of ones thoughts which ultimately are there only to entertain us  with a sense of ego. When nature is in your life, you are not your thoughts; you are part of nature itself. Its almost like coming home and exhaling. Exhaling all that pent up tension of trying to hold it all together.  This wonder of living organisms which do not ask for anything other than to experience them thru the senses keeps me sane. For this reason alone I know that my senses are my friends not to be overcome like some unbearable inheritance for having been born in a body. Ones body is meant to have these experiences.

For what is common sense- besides having all the senses be in accord and at peace and harmony with each other? 

How else are we to know right from wrong?  Its a body thing. The mind merely registers the feelings of this thing called commonsense. Imagine a world devoid of the outer police men the institutions put in place to keep us humans in our place?  Nature and our acknowledgment of our place in it, not above not below, just at one in harmony and in unison. Go out in nature Lose yourself in it. And in the process, find yourself. Your peace, your God, your mother, your best friend.

Spirit and Nature (Love and Beauty)

Good Sunday Morning in May. These are pictures taken this week along the Capital Crescent trail from Georgetown in DC to Bethesda MD. It is along the Potomac River/ Canal Path,  a mere 30 mile round trip bike ride from my house in Alexandria. The smells of the flowers in the trees  and the sounds of the cardinals calls and the feel of the cool breeze I cannot give you but the sights I can.The sky was a rare deep blue.  The overall impression is caught in a poem written by me long ago.Click the pictures twice to enlarge.  

love light

  When darkness sets in

and despair makes a home in your heart,
it is because the lamp of love
has become unplugged from your heart.
 

When sensitivity occupies your mind
like a sentry on a parapet looking for trouble 

 but sees nothing but lightening in the distance
 and mistakens it for incoming artillery,
 It is because the lens
on the telescope of love has become clouded.
Love  brings the distant unreal fears of destruction
into focus and reduces them to nothing more
than the impersonal workings of nature. 


When rage obliterates your capacity to reason,

When excess of sensory stimuli dulls
your capacity to live in simplicity and purity,
When laziness has metamorphosed 
you into a numbed mass of cells, 

It is because you have allowed the power of Love to dull. 

 Love is the razor sharp sword cutting through 
the physical/ mental /emotional/ spiritual debris called ego. 

  It chisels us into the shape and form 

of our soul nature. Love is our soul nature.

Love fights to free love
from its bondage. 


by michelle, circa 2006-ish