the desert speaks I

the desert speaks &
the heat swallows you

there are mountains surrounding
to the northeast the rocks are black: "tucson"
as if balloons were inflated and popped
in a pool of molten lava
at the confluence of two dry rivers

we camp on the surface in billowing white tents
the ground crackles and pops
we spit watermellon seeds
cicadas lost in the pads of a prickly pear

"love and rely on the desert"

we camp amid the stranded fortresses of blasted, bygone greatness
mine tailings
mixed with broken
clay tablets, pueblos

a shared hallucination:
sun cuts through sparse leaves
many thin things, split apart
a few scattered hermitages and
six emaciated deer in a dry stream
too tired to run away
ghost paths over empty ground
waiting for the monsoon

it is hard to swallow here
the wind and
El sol y sombra,
Sonora

I woke at 4 am

I woke at 4am today after dreaming about the design of the hanging mobiles hanging outside my door. They are wine bottles spiral-wrapped in wire, hanging above an adobe wall. The cactus all around are Sonoran, but working with mud (adobe) I can finally make snowmen like Calvin and Hobbes. I made use of the cedar sawdust composting toilet and fed the bitch-chickens, who just want me to chase them so they can squwak. Imagine how much estrogen you'd need to lay an egg every single day. These are not happy birds. Luckily I am an enlightened creature, with 7 chakras and the names of 12 zodiac constellations tucked under my belt. Saw the sun rise and went for a jog with my spear -- no game today, limped back to the casita and downed a liter of coconut juice. Dehydration's a killer that stalks by night. Then I went to inspect the latest bathtub full of clay mud. Earthy bentonite, straw, and (if in Afro-India a hefty dab of manure) combines to make a swell concrete. I'd like to try digging a nice badger-burrow like all the other animals in the desert, but don't know how they keep the floods out. I'd like to try planting a bamboo forest and coming back 5 years later to weave a giant basket/yurt/tepee house, replete with multicolored hammocks and a dozen kites or hot air balloons to mark the spot when I'm out on forages. More and more feral every day. Wearing a bear-tooth necklass. ...Then i got on my motorcycle and rode up over the mountains to my neuroscience job, where frankenstein-esque shit goes down. Brain surgery, computer-brain interfaces, weird stutter-start blown fuse littered benchtop CYBORGS, and the latinas all mutter under their breath "!dios mio!". Escape is only 6 hours and a couple months away. Then I'm taking the high road right up the backbone of the continent to get a brrreath of fresh air. Crazy. Colorado. Cool? Shout the ancestors, speak the many tongued forks in your road, swirl with the gastrointestinal juices that wash the fruit of four continents in your local deli. Raw milk is heavenly. I feel Kalahari. And having way to much fun with this. Got to go cut up some insects.

How to Build with Cob (Adobe)

First, sift some dirt. High clay content and low organic matter is best; Tucson dirt is just about right.

Then add lots of water and straw and knead it like dough. With your feet.

In a bathtub.

You will get very dirty.

Lather it on a framework such as straw bales or reed mats.

What's your favorite country?

More info.

Ron Paul for President in '08

I think the key issue for 2008 is reducing the power of the executive. As some have pointed out, as the US increasingly centralizes power in one branch of government, our checks and balances are overturned in a way reminiscent of fascist coups. It doesn't matter who is president in 2008 or 2012, what matters is the fundamental process of democracy.

"With the gutting of traditional checks and balances, we are no less endangered by a President Hillary than by a President Giuliani - because any executive will be tempted to enforce his or her will through edict rather than the arduous, uncertain process of democratic negotiation and compromise."

Ron Paul is a republican who seems to actually believe in Less Government. As such, I support his presidential bid. I am a one-issue voter, because that's the way the system is. And my one issue is less government.

EF Schumacher on "Progress"

"He called his talk 'The Insufficiency of Liberalism' and it was an exposition of what he termed the “three stages of development”. The first great leap, he said, was made when man moved from stage one of primitive religion to stage two of scientific realism. This was the stage modern man tended to be at. A few move to the third stage in which one can find in the lapses and deficiencies in science and realism, and that there is something beyond fact and science. He called this stage three. The problem, he explained, was that stage one and stage three appear to be exactly the same to people stuck in stage two. Consequently, those in stage three are seen as having had some sort of a relapse into childish nonsense. Only those in stage three, can understand the differences between stage one and stage three."

find a Permaculture-Social-Environmental-Justice grassroots movement near you

The Orion Society is the nexus.

Diagram of Cloud Mechanisms

Letter of the Week: 1872 Mining Law

Dear Senator,

The 1872 Mining Law needs to be changed. It consistently favors the interests of large, often foreign companies over the interests of local Arizona landowners. It subsidizes the give-away of over $1 billion in publicly-owned minerals every year.

My family and I are directly affected by dust blowing off the numerous open-pit mines in Pima county, and what really irks me is the thought that my tax dollars are funding this irresponsible exploitation of our God-given natural heritage.

This land is held in trust by our government so that everyone can use it, but when these companies come in with their mines they just use it up. Although we often hear that these mines are creating jobs in our local communities, the reality is that these corporations will leave us high and dry when the minerals run out.

We need an updated mining law that considers the valid interests of local landowners as well as the interests of economic development. I plan to watch your action on this issue as a kind of litmus test for who you really support; is it the local landowners trying to make a living in Arizona or is it the big corporate interests at their government-sponsored pig trough?

Homeopathy

"The underpinning of the editorial content of the Lancet as it relates to homeopathy relies on a quaint old idea from the nineteenth century that the ONLY way that the property of water can be affected or changed is by incorporating foreign molecules. This is the Avogadro-limit high-school level chemistry argument. To a materials scientist this notion is absurd, since the fundamental paradigm of materials-science is that the structure-property relationship is the basic determinant of everything. It is a fact that the structure of water and therefore the informational content of water can be altered in infinite ways".

Dr. Rustum Roy