Myself as Imagined

At 126 years old I am very tiny. Once I rounded 111, I started to drop a few inches every year. I currently stand about 2 feet tall, but am somehow stronger than ever… and, thankfully, I remain lucid and productive. My life has become as simple as I am diminutive – I need only a meager portion of food, and a little nook of a home. Long ago I asked to meet the Gnomes, instead I have become one.

My wife (125) insists that I continue to live clean-shaven, but at 99 my spectral aura started to be plainly visible, curiously it glows brightest around the chin. I suppose non-corporeal facial hair is better than none at all.

I’ve made a record every year since I was 22, number 102 just came out on wax cylinder and collective consciousness brain stream. When The Veil began thinning I started to collaborate a little with Robbie Basho, and Harry Nilsson, somehow they’ve become even better whistlers since they stopped breathing. Our new vibrational reality has really been a boon for the creative class – there’s a lot less urgency to produce when death is no longer an obstacle… but that also might be why I’m still working on my 2^nd novel.

The Singularity came and went with a real Y2K shoulder shrug. Oh some people Borged up obviously, but I decided to remain organic sapien, choosing to put my faith in a long life through an ever-curious mind; and true to my path, I’ve never known a moment’s boredom.

Necromancy & Fossil Fuels

Long have I dwelt on the cosmic irony of our Fossil Fuel Culture. Our plant ancestors once lay at peace in their immeasurably old burial grounds, the most sacred grounds of our greatest grandparents; the ancient sustainers of the atmosphere, prodigium of consciousness.

We drag them up, wake them from their long deserved rest, and drive them like an endless zombie army. Enslave the plants of old, drink greedily of their untold power, and make them do great and menial things for our “advancement”.

We borrow from the dead, awaken our fossil family, but in our arrogance and drive, we did not take the time to learn the art of Necromancy. We disturb the spirits, but do not speak to them, and cannot listen either. It seems they may have offered some warning, perhaps a few choice words to throw our hubris into relief. The old mystics knew that you cannot live with the dead, and go on living; eventually the world of the dead becomes your world.

You were not honored Plant People, Great Ancestors, and this hard-handed lesson, is no less than we deserve. But I do ask for forgiveness, so that the Council of Beings might not all pay for our single species foolishness, and so we might have a chance to open a new age of reverence and love beyond “progress”.

"Ghost Culture" by Pete Huff

I am currently hovering Lakitu style in non-citizen space above the current nonsense of Australian climate change politics and find myself understanding the grievous loss that occurs when inspirational acts become codified into profession. I'm not so dull to believe that this is anything but the natural progression of most human minds given the hoarding tendencies predisposed by the prominent economic/social structure currently popular with Earth's current dominant species.

It has been demonstrated time and time again that the movement from the spiritual to the secular is hallmarked by the centralized and exclusionary movement into the golden temple, from which authenticity is banished for fear of the light revealing the deep fissures hidden in the darkness. When existence is defined by competition inspired by fear of loss rather than inspired by cooperation inspired by faith in communal security, the natural tendency is to develop the professional niches that feed like remoras on the detritus of authenticity left over by the systematic sharks.

Leadership, in my mind, started out as a natural occurrence of (relatively) altruistic and (relatively) selfless behavior for the greater good of ones own people. Call it a modified version of survival of the fittest or whatnot - altruistic leadership was a service performed beyond the realm of personal gain.

However, we exist in an age where the competition-based systems for human existence have picked up considerable speed on the tracks and the once noble pre-mass-civilization act of leadership is now a survival/accumulation mechanism that utilizes the mires of democracy to ensure job security.

We have fully accepted the human-production model so fully that altruistic acts have become akin to the once numerous American bison. Professional politicians no longer represent the good of the tribe and this is so readily accepted that it is admitted openly without public shock. Something intended to be a mechanism of inclusiveness has become bastardized to the point that the inspiration source is indistinguishable and, if stumbled upon it is often shot or disemboweled by the media/social blades that be.

It seems to me that the systems so vulnerable to destruction by their origin authenticity are often the best at convincing those it interacts with that they must pass through its systems to reach such authenticity – our own country, with its revolutionary Constitution and politico-media soma-induced social comas, serves as an excellent example. I take great interest in the events of Egypt and Libya as they dismantle the democracy-via-garbage-disposal systems in place of self-determination. Let’s hope that revolution-back-to-the-source cannot be trademarked and marketed by Coke.

So what of it all? It isn’t just politicians. Our mother culture is so connected that the loss of the spiritual in the secular is common, with efforts to shake up the system (art, music, environmental activism, etc) are quickly co-opted by competitive structures that they ironically turned into Borg without awareness. And in that transition, the flame burns lower and recognition of the authentic is more difficult. We have become a ghost culture that has eaten its soul to fill its belly. The taboos have been destroyed, the rituals have been marginalized, and the peace has become packaged.

But I believe the recognition of the authentic and the ancestral is undeniable. This story of existence is just that – a veil that holds no power beyond its ability to obscure and sow doubt. The power of an individual expressing authentically without hope for gain beyond personal fulfillment is bewildering to the system. The response comes in the form of ignoring the act in hope that its walls will withstand any losses. This quickly moves to the acquirement-model that attempts to trade such an individual shiny things for the power of their expression. If no ground is gained, social ostracism or annihilation assumes priority, as the survival of the system is paramount in light of penetrating authenticity.

It is the realization of what has been all along: a hollow dream induced by those who are so inextricably dependent upon a consumptive system. Power lies in the realization of the individual and the expression of the pure without hope for hoarder gain. Those shaking off the mantle and rejecting the need to pass through the system to reach the enlightenment, a fundamentally pure act, are mocked by those within the system. Such is the case with all that live outside of a system in which mockery and ostracism are the best ways for any individual in the system to avoid the pangs of introspection that come when an alternative sheds light on ones own choices. It is a lofty goal to slough-off and I hope that one day I can touch its edges.

(written & submitted by Pete Huff, 28/II/2011)

Economic Future (what to do with your change)

This is Native American armor from the Pacific Northwest made of Chinese coins (presumably traded). I have a feeling that this utilitarianization of currency is the fine future of the global economy.

(images from the New York Natural History Museum)