House-sitting

Pehuén!

Consider

The consonance between the words "spectator" and "spectre" is intriguing. The range of words beginning with "spec" have all to do with the gaze, with looking, with the eye, or the light that makes seeing possible, or, in the case of "spec" itself, not seeing possible.

But consider how spectre fits into that range - the notion that the defining principle of a ghost or wraith, if we are to run with this line of thought, is one who looks, or one who only looks: a perpetual spectator. The pure spectator is a spectre. It sounds like spectator truncated.

And then start thinking about how much in our culture is set towards being the spectator in some form, and how because of it, we are becoming less able to interact with each other in a real tangible way because we are becoming like ghosts to one another.

Old school method of making char:





You can go to youtube to watch all the parts of the process. I just glanced over most of it. What I found really funny was all the enlightened commenters getting into a big snobbish outrage because the man is making charcoal the old school way as opposed to using a retort kiln, which is clean burning and overall a much simpler process. They're the kind of people who think the salvation of the world depends on the knowledge they received from watching TedTalks. Perhaps they have never heard of volcanoes erupting and naturally occurring forest fires? And a good deal of that smoke pumping out is actually steam, which makes it look very voluminous. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for choosing the cleaner and more efficient (and simpler) method, but making a bunch of smoke in your backyard? What about campfires? It's not a sin. Unfortunately things are going back to paganism, only worse than before. In terms of general assent (which is formed in the absence of moral consensus) a good portion of the population believes it is alright to kill a baby in the womb or in the birth canal or outside the womb and that it's alright to give Grandpa and Grandma their happy sleepy pills from which they will never wake again to their suffering; but may you be stricken a thousand times by lightning if you neglect to compost your veggie scraps or if you make charcoal through low temp burning methods or if you throw a live lobster into a pot of boiling water.

I like that man's method, by the way. It's really cool. Anyhow, that's all for today. Chow chow for now and happy earth day!

Time-stamped

The orange moon and the cedars.

The fire on the altar

leaps to the new candle.

The smoke on the spring wind.

The night's horizon of singing frogs.

All time belongs to Him.