Hitchabout Nice – Antibes – Aix-en-Provence – Arles | back to Montpellier

I think it was the fastest I’ve ever gotten rides in my entire hitchhiking experience. Residing in Montpellier, France, I had decided to hitch to Nice, the day before. I had anticipated it, knowing that my sister and her British husband go there regularly to escape the York, England chill. It was these two who had visited Montpellier several years earlier on a regular basis. That put this town on the map for me. I liked the sound of it. When I’d googled the town back when I suddenly had the proposition to go to the East coast from Taos, New Mexico, I learned that it’s the fastest growing city in France, of which 25% are students that emerge during the academic year. I sort of made the decision to go there in particular, and base myself . I was actually still deliberating on whether Portugal might be a less expensive and lively place to live while I was purchasing the bus ticket from Paris for Montpellier. At some point I decided I wanted to be closer to other countries in Europe and also where I have a semblance of knowledge of the language.

Mont Saint-Victoire notoriously painted by Paul Cézanne among others

Nice, didn’t appear to have any available couches to surf on. The weather which has been continually warm and sunny, dropped about 10 degrees with predicted rain. I decided to go anyway. My bicycle had just been stolen 4 days earlier in the middle of the day around the corner from the cafe I was working in. After the initial discovery, I decided it was a gift for whoever took it. They not only got bad karma, but also a bike that didn’t work. It was hurting my knees because the gears basically didn’t move and I had to get off frequently, to walk up hills. Montpellier is full of them. Many at gradients of 55ª angles.

When I’d arrived in Montpellier the first day I asked a woman sitting on the tram near me “where is the mont”? She discussed it with her friend and decided that she didn’t know. My guess is that the whole town is so hilly that they decided to call it Montpellier, which means mountain. So, the missing bike precluded transport into town outside of the tram TAM, so it was as good a time as any to check out some other places along the Mediterranean. Nice, France is really close to Italy and Switzerland. By the time I finally left the house after consulting google maps to know what destinations to write on a sign, it was going on 2pm. The drive is a little over 3 and a half hours.

I strolled to the end of these outdoor tables with people seated there where I spotted a large white clean piece of cardboard tossed on the ground beyond the tables. I was already steering myself towards this cafe to ask for cardboard. Nice start, I had markers. The entrance to the highway was basically right there. This area was a short walk from where I’d currently been living, conveniently on the edge of town. I noticed several cheap bus lines departing from there, Sabine. I incidentally had been told two days previously that I needed to move out by the end of the month, a day after the bike theft. I had two weeks to decide my next moves. That was another reason to make this trip, a few pairs of ears to discuss my options. I was now less convinced that I wanted to stay in Montpellier. The housing situations had been a challenge.

I watched traffic stopping and starting at a traffic light, and was standing right before an indentation in the road for busses, perfect for cars to pull over. I had written Nice on one side of the sign and was starting to write Aix-en Provence on the other, flipping it up for cars to read both sides, when the first small truck pulled over after only a few lights. I hadn’t been there more than 10 minutes. He’d been working in Montpellier for the day and was on his way to Aix. He’s an Albanian man from Kosovo, his name packed with consonants, Xhemil Iveseldaj.  He’s been living in Aix-en Provence among other members of his family, for 40 years. He was returning from his work week in Montpellier where he stays in a hotel. His boss pays for that, along with his tolls and I guess all travel expenses. He works in such a specialized field, that he’s been accustomed to these long commutes for years, sometimes sweeping countrywide. He’d previously commuted to Paris from Aix, and before that by plane to another town. I learned a fair amount about his life and his two sons. He is one of 7 siblings, five brothers and two sisters. He said in Albania the families tend to be even larger. He said he doesn’t believe in a ‘God’ but in nature. We agreed about that, ‘Nature’ is our ‘god’. I asked if he believes in climate change. We discussed it for quite a while along with other topics.

He had missed his turnoff and I was wondering if I was going to be dropped off in the middle of the highway at an inconvenient place, but he then went back through toll booths, and tracked back to the highway where we were now still heading towards Aix-en-Provence en route to Nice. He’d seen the Aix on my sign. Works every time to have a sign. Xhemil always seemed a bit impatient when coming to any toll, as if seconds shaved off his time were going to critically screw up his day. I guess he was simply in a big hurry to get back home at the end of his workweek. He brought me to a good place where all traffic was heading in the direction of Nice.

I was happy to find a bathroom next to an odd parking garage area where on one side there were buses, ironically, one on its way to Nice. I had covered half the distance already and didn’t bother to approach the bus to ask the driver, preferring to hitch. Someone saw my signs and was yelling out to me from the top story of this large round parking garage building. I ignored him/them. It took about 6 minutes, maybe less, for a car to stop. I heard the responses from above as I was getting into the vehicle. The driver was Olivier, a local who lived in a little town with a great view of this mountain outcropping Saint Vincent from one side. He was on his way to Cannes for the evening. Olivier is an engineer, specifically works on plane engines. He lived in Paris for a stint, said he learned a lot working for Air Bus. He still works for them, and was relieved to move back to his home ground.

Olivier says this landmark outcropping of rock Mont Sainte-Victoire, changes color frequently and has been a feature of many painters.

He and I had a nice rapport. We talked the entire time and really had a lot of similar points of view about the quality of simple things in life that give it value. He dropped me off at a very convenient location at the entrance to highways from Cannes. I was sorry to see him go.

My next ride was with a professional chauffeur, John Christopher. He had made sort of a precarious stop to pick me up. I guess as a local he knows what he can get away with. He was going to pick up his clients on this late afternoon to take them to a fundraiser gala event, hosted for wealthy families who were donating money to hurricane victims in Saint Martin, a French island in the Caribbean. He has worked for this same family exclusively for 15 years. He said that this event was perhaps at a hidden location. He knew that football stars, actors and actresses were going to be there among the very wealthy patrons. He described what these evenings could be like, and how he had to always be available for and and all things that might occur. He might have to make the commute over the bridge to pick up one item left behind, or drop off kids at different places. I enjoyed this little scope into the lives of the upper crust there, from the chauffeur’s point of view. A very gentle guy, he left me off before taking his route to the home of his employer. We left with smiles lingering.

A bridge separated me between where I stood where everyone seemed to be racing to their next destination. I’m guessing I was at St.-Laurent du Var by this bridge. I wondered how long this ride would take, since now I was extraordinarily ‘out of place’. A hitchhiker with a backpack among demonstratively expensive cars and high income drivers. Surprisingly, a car stopped. It was Raphael a medical student in Nice, where he also was raised. He looked distinctively Spanish or Italian. He did me the courtesy of using his phone to dial my contact number and drop me off after crossing into Nice to a very familiar cement way lined with Palm trees before the beach. The Promenade des Anglais is where a demented man drove a truck moving down pedestrians on Bastille Day on the evening of 14 July 2016. The Nice attack killed 86 people and injured 458. Sound familiar? The whole area has since been reinforced to block vehicular traffic, involving bringing in full-grown palm trees with cranes.

I wound up spending several days in Nice, endowed with lovely weather. Took various local rides ferried to different parts on cool excursions with family into the hills looking back down over the city. I had particularly wanted to see Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

Nice, France inlaid stones

When it came time to leave, I finally noticed a text message on my cheap French phone, an invitation from a friend I’d met years earlier, who had actually invited me to stay at her and her boyfriend’s place. I texted her back explaining I’d missed seeing her text. In a little while I made my way to make a start, found some cardboard and what appeared to be the entrance to highways. I stood there a short time up in the hills. I saw a dread-headed girl across the street who when she crossed, approached to tell me she’s hitched a lot, and if I’m going to Aix-en-Provence, I’d have better luck down standing down by the water – once again before the Promenade des Anglais. I thanked her and walked down the hill. When I turned the corner I saw a group of people waiting for a bus a hundred yards away. I thought to myself, they’re probably wondering about what I was doing. Within several minutes, my first ride stopped. A smartly dressed man in a nice car on his way to Aix-en-Provence. I laughed to myself at how easy I made it look for the people standing there waiting for a bus. He made a phone call to his wife indicating he was on his way. I mentioned that I’d come from Montpellier to Nice and still was trying to figure out where to land. He mentioned that for using English, Aix-en-Provence would have better opportunities than Montpellier due to its larger influx of British because of the nearby seaport. He convinced me in fact. He said forget Montpellier, it’s mostly a college town, whereas Aix has an English speaking presence and a sophisticated flair.

mazza

 

Manu

The text was from a woman whom I’d met with her boyfriend 5 years earlier in Krakow, Poland. I was now getting out of the car upon receiving the text, only half an hour or so from Nice and 100’s of km before where I thought I was going. That was a great timed text, minutes before the Antibes exit. I had a splendid visit with these friends and their wonderful feline creatures. It was the therapy I needed, the playful cats along with friendly and inspiring conversation and inclusion.

Edwige and Bernards in Antibes

 

Edwige in Antibes

Edwige and Carol Antibe

I departed from my friends and the kitties in Antibes who I was already missing. Once again I got fantastic rides, two rides from Antibes. A young baker, boulanger, who told me stories of his life and his wife and 2 kids. At the moment that I noticed a sign for a rest stop I asked him whether there was another like it prior to where he was going. He wound up immediately pulling over, because he in fact was getting off soon, where the town was so small he explained I’d probably have very fewer ride possibilities than here at this highway stop. I parted farewell from this sweet guy and was walking into the rest-stop restaurant and showed my signs to the people as I was walking by them. They were a couple, and happened to be driving to Montpellier. I said that that’s where I live, but am going to Aix-en-Provence. They said they could take me there, it’s on the way. I hung with them a bit at the outdoor tables after I returned. We had a few interesting exchanges before getting in the car. A huge lovely white dog accompanied by a man entered the picture. I said, ‘elle est belle’, and the girl laughed, saying she has exactly the same type of dog, whose name is Belle. It’s unusual for a couple to offer a ride, very rare. They have to be really confident with one another, and these two were. Thomas and Gwendoline were very animated. At one point I mentioned out of the blue that I’d like to go to Istanbul, and they laughed, saying they’re going there next Thursday. They each engaged in conversation the entire time. We really connected. He owns 2 businesses in (IT), one which he originally started doing web design and the other advising companies on how to work more efficiently. She isn’t currently working. We talked the whole time, They were on their way to Montpellier to visit his father, and in fact he drove me into the center of Aix-en-Provence which he loves, and Gwendoline had never been.

Eight weeks earlier I wouldn’t have been able to understand but a quarter of what they were saying, now 8/10th percent. She spoke some English cuz she lived a year in New Zealand doing a WWOOF with baby sheep! She visited Australia too. She joked that she’s probably more conservative politically than he. He described that he believed the French president Macron would have more possibility to take a center stage in the global political arena. As we were driving into Aix from the highway, I commented that I believe trees may be more conscious than we are. To my surprise, Thomas the computer guy, heartily agreed, saying that he despises that people believe that they’re at the top of the pyramid of life, when in fact all life forms have intelligence. Thomas so much admires the town, that I decided after walking around a bit that for my saturday night, I’ll stay in Aix-en-Provence, regardless of where I may or may not sleep.

On this late summer Saturday afternoon in the street of Aix-en-Provence  I came upon a group of woman doing a spontaneous dance exercise; an an all female dance troupe. They were doing an improvisation exercise in their practice. I sort of guessed that this is what they were doing. Later when they were less involved in any presentations, I asked a few. One woman with eye that met mine with a sparkle in her eyes and large smile approached me and handed me a flyer.

She was in fact the director who organized this theatrical dance art group. http://cie-mariehelenedesmaris.com

I had decided to stay there regardless of not having looked for couchsurfers. It was a Saturday evening, it’ll be fun. I asked the right couple on my walk, who described several different options, pointing to areas on a map I had of specific areas to find things going on.

I went to a cafe to catch up on writing and organizing my pictures, and wound up hanging there into the late hours, with co-workers and guests. As the evening progressed, I was invited not only to stay that evening, but for an extended length of time, if I was demonstrating that I was doing the work I needed to do. I could now stay at this apartment there in Aix-en-Provence with these two brothers. However that vanquished at the point that the one breached my trust, and caused me to launch myself out back into the streets of Aix with the approaching dawn. It seemed like it might have been the semblance of a good thing, if not for the immediate security violation. One of the brothers was already in bed, it appeared. I was ushered into a room, fine, ah, but wait, no lock on the door. I waited before getting into bed with my pully and pack on by the door. listening for a few moments, when suddenly the door swung open, with me standing right there. I’m sure it surprised him as much as it did me; bursting into the room allegedly having misplaced his cell phone. Not only did this maneuver make me feel quite uncomfortable with the thought of sleeping there, but it also immediately dissolved that opportunity. So, I was heading out from Aix that morning, and still not sure what would define my future. This town hadn’t particularly welcomed me; no couch surfers, no housing possibilities and no tolerance for an opening in a bachelor den that was the epitome of neglect.

 

I hitched to Arles from Aix-en-Provence that morning. Maybe I’d go to Nimes (Roman ruins in both towns) on the same day.  The two cities located in the Occitanie region of southern France, were an important outpost of the Roman Empire. Nimes is known for its well-preserved monuments such as the Arena of Nîmes, a double-tiered circa-70 A.D. amphitheater still in use for concerts and bullfights. Its Maison Carrée white limestone Roman temple and Pont du Gard tri-level aqueduct are around 2,000 years old. I wound up staying in Arles instead.

Shortly after arriving at a good departure point in Aix, a woman stopped in her sleek car. I assumed the boy of about 11 sitting in the passenger seat was her son. She was an attractive, well dressed, middle aged woman who appeared professional, everything intact.  She was on her way to Nimes. The song that was playing on the alternative rock station was fairly pop, and each of the songs became progressively more hard-edged. The music didn’t seem to go with her appearance at all. The volume was so high that it impeded the ability to talk. When I asked, she staccato answered that she lives in Aix. That was my first and last question in an attempt to engage them in conversation. Her son and she didn’t say a word to one another the entire time.  She drove very fast and agilely on the highway on her way to Nimes, maneuvering efficiently. I was surprised she picked me up at all.  I pictured that she was dropping her son off at a midway point in an agreement with her ex, as they trade time with the child since divorcing. I decided that she was annoyed to have to drive him there, the hour and a half, now wait, 3 hour journey altogether to drop him off in Nimes and return; an invasion on any other activities she might have wanted to do on that Sunday. I didn’t ask. I let them ‘not talk’ to one another or me. I felt sorry for the kid. The music was quite loud. The silence was fierce.

Michael Jackson T-shirt
Always Be Yourself

I’m sitting in a cafe putting these pages together, sitting near the bathroom entrance. Many people flow by. One guy was waiting in line, a tall Arab guy, I saw in between the edges of his jacket a skeleton, and I said pointing, “is that Michael Jackson”? He said, yes and opened his jacket. I said, trying as I could in French, after multiple plastic surgeries that destroyed his cartilage, he’s now a skeleton. He said, exactly. He and I were both laughing pretty hard at this point as he was now walking into the bathroom, since it wasn’t supposed to be that obvious. I asked him when he came out to get a shot of the shirt, which is even more hilarious, saying below the image ‘Always Be Yourself‘.

In Arles I met a man whose eyes met mine from where he was perched on a balcony of this cloister.  I was like, what, are you WORKing there or what? Later we met on the stairs where he offered me an extra ticket to the last day of the photo exhibit there. He’s local. So, he’d waited until the last day of the exhibit to finally go see it. I had the impression that in this town that flowed regularly for most months of the year with tourists, that it was well stocked with woman accessories.  I wondered whether he took advantage of this, and lead a sort of double life. I was sort of expecting that we’d hang out together more, but he had other plans, probably a dinner gathering, or going home to dinner with his family. He bade his farewell and disappeared into the dusk, cutting through this building. Perhaps I seemed too risky, an American woman who happened into the town and didn’t know where she was going to sleep that night.  It was a nice exhibit. I wound up wandering away from the middle aged man who vanished to walk up a hill to find myself watching bats fluttering about and looking out over the valley, and instead talking to some young North African teenagers.

I had wandered around the periphery of the olympic Roman stadium and along streets in the town looking at the sites. I had gone into a lovely church where I learned some history. It was later, much later that my bed found me.  I was walking around a building and saw this little sort of fenced in courtyard that was merely following the contours of the rounded building. There was a low decorative iron fence around a small curved plot of soil, encasing a few bushes and a tree or two. I spotted large pieces of cardboard neatly wrapped up and tied together stacked vertically on the outside of this area. I learned years ago from a French (North African) truck driver that cardboard can be used to insulate from the cold. (Who I wound up driving with through Italy to Germany where during Ramadan, he’d chain smoke and start drinking his coffee before the sun came up or went down, and had packed a delightful gourmet assortment of foods home-made by his wife who packed them for his holiday fasting). I picked up the cardboard, pulled the pieces out, saw that they weren’t soiled and laid them out to form a platform to lay on. I had no sleeping bag. It wasn’t cold. I felt quite safe there and happy to not have to carry my backpack any more.  A pretty ‘sleepy’ town, I didn’t sense that anyone was going to look for me there. I didn’t sleep, but was comfortable. The night before in Aix-en-Provence I hadn’t slept at all.

I had already decided to stay in Arles that night. It was still pretty warm, September 25th, 2017. Later that evening, my resting place found me.

Arles rockin an auberge cardboard style at the hidden concave of a building

It was the last ride, Phillippe Lu, (great grandparents or grandmother came from China to Cambodia, where his parents were from. It was the intelligent conversation I had with him and his power of persuasion, which now convinced me after all that I should in fact plant myself in Montpellier; offering English courses with all the university separate buildings spreading over the north of town. He said I could make €15 to 20 per lesson. He texted his son to get the coordinates of an umbrella organization for all the universities called CROUS. He helped to give me some wording for a sign to put up. I since had looked up C.R.O.U.S. and gone there several times to get as much information as I could from what I’d written down while riding with him. They had info about housing, the university of lettres (languages) and basically I followed through and later wandered the labyrinthe of different buildings that a part of the university, that spreads across the north part of town that had been 50 years ago, fields. When I’d returned to Montpellier I was now homeless and searching through many different sources, mostly online, for housing. It was on the eve of the beginning of the month that one friend pointed out a site I’d already disregarded, judging that it was too expensive. I told him I’d already looked at that one, and it tends towards more expensive listings. I noticed that my friend had fr.fr in the beginning of the web address and mine us.fr, because I had first viewed it from the United States (I started viewing housing listings from the moment I booked an inexpensive flight). Turns out the subtle difference in the website made a huge difference in what was offered. The local listings offered a category unto themselves, anglophone families looking for English native speakers to live with them for reduced rent in exchange for some prerequisite time and activities. I’ve since found the most remarkably perfect situation, a win-win.

my signs for the return trip

Montpellier Zoo Jardin des Plantes and street pics

It started, or rather was continuing a year ago in another desert, in the high desert of New Mexico, bordering Colorado. Luna was Bill Light’s dog, who built his home in the canyon 5,000 feet above Santa Fe, New Mexico en route to the ski area. His wife had died a few years earlier. I stayed for several months in a cabin adjacent to his home which he built for his daughter. I lived there in the autumn of 2016.

I quickly became a fan of going on walks with his dog Luna. She was a fan of walks as well, and would actually come over to the cabin and tap on the door with her foot. Wow! She absolutely loved the excursion off the property and a long a path cutting through a narrow valley to the National Forest land. In the late summer twice with Luna, I was exposed to bears. It was because Luna discovered them, and barked them into submission.

 

Luna my friend at Bill Light’s cabin in Santa Fe New Mexico 2015

I lived in the cabin next to Bill Light’s home in my first months above Santa Fe, New Mexico where my nice landings began. Luna and I would cut through trails up to the National Forest land and then either move further into the canyon’s or launch up to the ridge. These became my sketching/water color excursions. Luna launched and climbed the hill with ease and I followed.

Bill who had an earlier bought with cancer which had gone into recess, got it again, and died from pneumonia since I had moved out. It’s a strange thing that he was there and actively doing all sorts of things, and now gone. I don’t know what happened with Luna, certainly she was completely at home in the mountains. I hope a neighbor took her in. Besides seeing lots of deer in the late summer and the few incidences with Luna barking a bear and her cubs up a tree, I would mt. bike into town from there, regularly. I cycled 7 miles up 5,000 feet to get to the property. I never used any bike lights or reflectors, despite the fact that there were no street lamps. My eyes would adjust whether it was a new or full moon. i figured it was a good way to balance out staring into a computer screen. I find a bike wherever I go and also animals that I love. Now there are stray cats where I am, and I’ve just landed, with muscle and sweat and help with several bike mechanics, a bike that I am delighted to ride.

Now there’s no dog present like in Santa Fe and the ones I affectionately grew acquainted with and loved immediately in Taos, New Mexico the following spring. There are a bunch of stray cats however here in Montpellier. It occurred to me to look for a used bike at this place I’d become a member of months earlier. Le Vieux Biclou. After asking a guy in the street when I knew I was in the vicinity of the bike shop if he knew of where it’s located, it turned out he was on his way there. There I spotted the mt. bike I wanted, and the following day during opening hours learned of its one major obstacle; a seat post jammed all the way down that wouldn’t budge. Several technicians, pounding and myself instructed to scrape off the rust of the now ejected post, and a day later going to another bike shop to get a lock appropriate for the rampant bike thievery in this town, I purchased bolts to replace the quick release wheels and seat, and was assisted in mounting the lock to the frame. After riding it the second time i realized that this bike runs flawlessly, enabling me to climb any steep slope with ease. Stoked!

I’ve since made my signs and printed them and edited my contact cards. I wanted to get this blog out, put up the signs in various excursions, and begin today on a singular path to complete my book between my father and mother’s birthdays. That’s pretty immediate. The difference, no noose around my neck to pay a rent that squelches my time and psyche.

And as is typical, I ask for donations. Thanks!   Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

blogger in Nice

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Climate Change for Skeptics or Believers | Sam Harris Interviews Climate Expert Joseph Romm

 

Two hours of attentive listening. Make the Time. It is so well worth it!

This two hour podcast is extremely informative. Sam Harris directs the questions in a very intelligible manner. His guest, Joseph Romm, an author, blogger, physicist and climate expert, is fantastically eloquent and articulate. Each word he uses, each sentence is jam-packed with information; displaying his knowledge about the subject of science, human behavior, economics and the politics of power and persuasion.

Sam Harris podcast audio interview with Climate Expert Joseph Romm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is especially for people who don’t believe that Climate Change is caused through the actions of human beings. Yet is even more persuasive and full of facts for those of you who are already convinced that man’s actions are inextricably linked to Climate Destruction. His guest who wrote the book “What you Need to Know about Climate Change”

LISTEN to inform yourself, regardless of what your opinion is.

 

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz, blogger, currently completing by first eBook, musician and composer, has no income, zero. I spend time communicating these things, reading, researching, writing, conversing, because I am passionately interested in the subjects of in particular, saving the environment and habitats of animals from human greed and destruction. I have the time to ponder and consider these things, because my world is not centralized around an immediate family; I am single, and ready to engage in any task employing my language and communication skills, anywhere presently.

carol keiter squinting in the Montpellier, France sun

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DiSmayed | Who Knew ? What FeelTheBern Could Imply

I was not aware of any of this. Dismayed is the word that popped into my head.

THE TRUTH ABOUT BERNIE, OR WAKE UP BEFORE YOU #FEELTHEBERN (OFFICIAL RECORD) NOVEMBER 13, 20152NDVTREPUBLIC

After a mega list which reveals a well, horrific record, I see that…there’s a continuation of the same long list.

“Here is just a small sampling of Bernie’s bending over to please the Owners. Even as he turns on the “populist” rhetoric he votes for the establishment. Examples of this abound if you take the time to look beyond his empty and hypocritical rhetoric.”

…many of his deeds are not at all what he has communicated with his words…

Dismayed The word that popped into my head after reading this article.

“So what is to be done? First and foremost, withdraw your consent from the corrupt and collapsing U.S. of Empire’s broken two-party political system. Second, work to further all things local in your community – finance, fuel, food, education, the arts. Third, turn off the damn Tee Vee. And finally, instead of #FeelingTheBern, feel the turn – of a 21st century world in which the local will matter more than ever.”

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Simpson’s 2000 Episode Trump Buying the US Presidential Election

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/watch-the-simpsons-clowns-donald-trump-in-new-short-20150708

Simpsons episode Trump Homer paid to vote from Rolling Stones article

So, I’ve had some kind of magical things happen with me, as well as hitting walls, or fear of hitting walls, of bureaucracy. Fear typically is of something one anticipates, even before hit happens, no? I’ve been warned as far as housing goes, about all of the things that one has to submit and prove; income source, bank accounts…

I decided that some things have happened in an uncanny way that have enabled me to do certain things, and I’m going to keep going with the serendipity.

The other day I went to look at a room in a group house, and because the addresses are not just even/odd on either side of the street, but the numbers don’t coincide directly. So I first was looking for this number and I thought, is this a joke, a cemetery? And then I found what I thought was the address, as this gate for automobile traffic was closing. I quickly slipped in. This place had several different numbered buildings. My directions were to go to building 3. Turns out, after not finding the name and getting some residents to make a phone call for me, and then waiting outside of the building, that someone else came out (probably who was watching me standing there) to tell me that this was not the address. Turns out that ‘bis 42’ meant, until 42, but not that specific number.

So I eventually go down the street and find this correct address.

It was later that day that I randomly wandered around different streets looking for a company with the logo of the phone I use to get assistance. I finally found a phone store, which pointed me around the corner to another place with computers to rent and phone stuff. Turns out that the phone had indeed already been registered by the Asian woman in the shop in Paris where I bought it. It was ‘false information’ from a man in a small mom & pop shop days earlier who gave me whatever information he felt like, just to dismiss me, and have some kind of answer, saying it wasn’t possible to charge this phone. ? It was because weeks earlier I had purchased an espresso in this tiny shop in my old neighborhood that this 12 or 13 year old kid remembered me who happened to be in this computer shop. I had been kind to him and I’m sure different from their usual clientele (sort of an Arab enclave). He was in this shop because his dad is a friend of the owner. He suddenly indulged in using the computers there (with the ok of the guy behind the desk) to help me; looked up on the computer the info, then walked with me to a shop that sells the credit for the phone (which was literally closing at that moment), then punched in the number…he did all of this stuff which would have taken me with the language barrier quite a lot longer, so that now I had a functioning phone. Monsif is his name. A very smart and precocious kid that volunteered his time, simply because he remembered me from this other neighborhood.

So, today I’m leaving the doctor’s office where i had my stitches taken out. I’m delighted that he mentioned that the med student who did this had done a good job, and all looked well. I had been bicycling on random streets and decided to walk back to enter into this courtyard where I saw a building that said something about green technology. I walked away, but was still standing in this arched entrance when a man walked towards the street from the courtyard. I asked him about this business, and he said, “c’est en fait une longue histoire.. well, it’s a long story.

He spoke in French. 20, 25 minutes later, this Arab man from North Africa first talked about how these companies are not given subsidies, not very supported by the government. And that this is due to corruption. He said it’s the same all over Europe as in the United States. The profit motive has tentacles reaching into the media, which control everything. And that people are like marionettes, completely distracted, thinking about their phones, sports, material things and simply not really thinking for themselves. He was talking about how this corruption all started with the Illuminati around 1784, (sometime in the 18th century) and that only a few people control most of the wealth of the world. That wars and destruction are all part of the same modus operandi. Frankly, except for the religious views he espoused (I always have a problem with these stark devisions describing God and Satan) and don’t quite believe in a final judgement day…However I fully embrace what he was saying about having transparence, of being consciously aware and making choices between good and bad, right and wrong and that each person is capable of this. That the more a person lies and compromises, the less peace they will have between their heart and mind.

So it was this dude that said that back in the year 2000 there’s an episode on the Simpson’s about Trump. This article from the Guardian “the episode of The Simpsons that in 2000 foresaw such a laughable outcome has begun looking unnervingly prescient”.

Simpsons writer says President Trump episode was ‘warning to US’

So, I just looked up 2000 Simpsons and Trump popped up. Holy F S, I hadn’t known about it. 16 years ago, https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/17/simpsons-president-trump-prediction-was-meant-as-warning-to-us

I presently can’t access the original “Bart to the Future” episode here in France, which first aired on 19 March 2000

Simpsons 2000 episode President Trump warning the Guardian

After leaving him, walking into a general engineering school and presenting myself as someone who can use language skills. It was lunch time and one of the secretaries called the language director, a British woman, who came out to inform me that she’s filled her positions, but will keep my CV on file if I send it to her. The secretary was like ‘Radar’, in that she had already proactively written her email down too as she asked her to do it. And so I returned to home, and put together a cover letter, edited a few things on my resume (somehow I forgot to tell her when she asked if I have teaching experience, that I endured a year as a substitute teacher at the Santa Fe Public School system) which is in itself, rather epic, in that it’s a huge psychological test, each new day, with students that tell you, we already did that, as they opened up their phones or read Animé magazines, depending on the age level.

Anyway, I put together my cover letter and sent a resume link as well as one within the text of my email, and sent it. Now I’ve come back to this cafe with WiFi that I like, and hadn’t realized that it’s adjacent to this Jardin des Plantes of Montpellier, which I never had located, but had walked by numerous times, not having come from the angle where I saw the sign.

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Carol Keiter the blogger on return hitch from Taos to Santa Fe, New Mexico

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Dalai Lama on War | War is Criminal, Abominable $ Despicable $ Legalized Terrorism through Brainwashing

Dalai Lama War is Monstrous

Not only is war monstrous and criminal, but nations bring in the ‘nationality’ element, to make it appear honorable. Yes, true, it was through investigation for defense, by military, that the internet was even developed. However, the fleets of planes, jets, ships worldwide use up soooooooooo much fuel, and contribute so much to CO2 in the atmosphere, and well, look at what your potential brothers or sisters are going through in places that have continual attacks. It destroys peoples lives, destroys fabulous feats of humanity in the various constructions that are destroyed, contributes to the dissemination of species, habitat loss, and certainly the people who used to grow their own food and so forth, have no arable land. It is disgusting. And yet, completely taken as ‘this is the way it is’. I don’t know the stats, but for a long time it appeared that more young American men who served in the military, died from suicide because of their physical and emotional disfigurement and trauma, than in combat itself. And listening to how China hates the Dalai Lama in this interview with John Oliver which is light and humorous, it appears that any super power wishes that people who enlighten and educate their population and cause them to be free from the dictates of the system’s mechanisms (communism, consumer driven capitalism) make the people who wish to maintain their power, edgy.

IT IS TIME TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS. THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES TO OIL. THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES TO WAR AND THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX THAT IS CHOOSING WHAT INFORMATION WE RECEIVE AND WHAT GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS ARE ELECTED.

I thank all of the environmental, social, ecological groups who serve as watch dogs and educate the rest of us, but somehow, i think something much more brilliant has to take place to begin lighting up the whole world to working together. If we are the people – in a Democracy – choosing our leaders, then we should have the military industrial complex working with us, not in militarized suits, against us. Naturally, this last sentence, makes no sense, as people meeting together one-on-one, and working together in pleasant conditions side-by-side, will be smiling, not firing, at one another.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter the blogger on return hitch from Taos to Santa Fe, New Mexico

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WHAT CAN WE DO? | LET’S DO SOMETHING! | How can we Organize the Human Community?

Democracy is Dying and it’s Startling How Few are Worried Paul Mason

I have been in France just under a month. I found out not even two hours ago through a conversation on skype with my sister who lives in England and France, that during the time we were back in the United States of Apathy, that ICE (i hadn’t know what this was, i thought ICE was simply In Case of Emergency) However I learned from my sister today about the other version. (ICE) Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

I hadn’t known what ICE meant, I had to google it. http://www.newsweek.com/immigration-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-ice-donald-trump-628896

ICE had come into the town of Lebanon, PA into a catholic church on a Sunday, and rounded up dozens of people, probably mostly men, of darker skin, and packed them into a van to take to another town to sit in jail, awaiting trial, perhaps a 1 or 2 year wait.

Newsweek ICE raid Who Is At Risk Deportation.

While visiting the USA just a month ago, my sister befriended a guy from El Salvador who stayed in the motel room next to her. He’s been in the USA for 25 years, has a green card and has several kids and a wife in Virginia. Presently he’s been in central Pennsylvania working in construction to support his family. He was one of the people rounded up and loaded into this van. My sister attempted to stay with him, holding his hand, went into the van, and the police officer warned her with a tone of reproach that she better get the hell out of there if she knows what’s good for her.

The El Salvadoran gave my sister his phone and the number of his wife to call in VA. My sister said that his wife was screaming when she heard the news. Her life support money-earner for herself and her kids, disposed of.

War Zone Desperate and Dead Mondediplio

I knew nothing of this. I was just reading headlines last night about 500 people in Turkey under questioning or worse, for attempting to overthrow a dictator. I know nothing of this Turkey official and hadn’t read the story yet.

Nearly 500 in court Turkey Coup Attempt 2016 CNN

Yet I thought to myself, can not the world step in and change this situation? That was before I knew what was happening in the neighboring town while I was sleeping on a Sunday morning. WTF.

 

 

What can we do? Sit back, crack open a beer and hang out with friends, watch a TV show, get ready to arrange the schedule of picking up the kids from their practice…..when before our eyes a military dictatorship fascist embarrassment of a President is enforcing this sweep of people across the country who have been living and working here, taking jobs that Americans haven’t wanted, and who were brought here to do the dirty jobs that help our system to run efficiently, are suddenly afraid to leave their homes to go to the grocery store?

Stop Swooning over Justin Trudeau Climate Disaster Bill McKibben

McKibben writes for the Guardian, “Yes, 173bn barrels is indeed the estimate for recoverable oil in the tar sands. So let’s do some math. If Canada digs up that oil and sells it to people to burn, it will produce, according to the math whizzes at Oil Change International, 30% of the carbon necessary to take us past the 1.5C target that Canada helped set in Paris.

That is to say, Canada, which represents one half of 1% of the planet’s population, is claiming the right to sell the oil that will use up a third of the earth’s remaining carbon budget. Trump is a creep and a danger and unpleasant to look at, but at least he’s not a stunning hypocrite.”

Out of the Wreckage A New Politics for an Age of Crisis George Monbiot

Monbiot writes, “A toxic ideology rules the world – of extreme competition and individualism. It misrepresents human nature, destroying hope and common purpose. Only a positive vision can replace it, a new story that re-engages people in politics and lights a path to a better world.”

What are we going to do?

Immigrants from Syria and other parts of the world, war/climate immigrants are escaping deplorable situations to come to the West, which has been living amply, to be treated with hostility and turned away with barbwire. Black market money to stuff people on rickety over-loaded boats, taking peoples’ life savings, to flee situations, only to find that the rest of the world is not helping to organize their safe transport.

This is very, very wrong. We can use the money from the enormous profits from banks, international corporations who make millions and billions in profit, to set up communities, and renewable energy enterprises to re-esatablish safe havens.

This is not right. We can’t read news and do nothing like it isn’t our problem. In some countries people are having 12 to 16 babies. A large part of the problem of GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHANGE IS due to over-population. We are sucking up the soil, destroying habitats of other animals who have a right to life.

Humans need to be accountable.

We need to be accountable for what is happening ALL OVER THE WORLD.

We Are Humanity Film Jarawa documentary

We need to intercept. I’m sorry, but we need to educate and infiltrate, not remain passive, saying it’s not my problem. Not my problem if some people are cruel to other humans or animals or their actions are knowingly or unknowingly destroying the habitat and polluting some creatures’ environment.

I don’t think any living being can just sit back and let all this happen without having a conscience and wanting to help.

I don’t know where to begin, except for expressing this. I think the world needs leaders who will actually step in and shut Trump and other dictators down. People can divest – take their money out of banks and institutions that support dirty energy and dirty politics. There are numerous ways that people working together could SHUT DOWN OPERATIONS AS THEY ARE through organized actions like; those working in public transportation or truck drivers to not work for a day, or three…We can all work together, educate one another, demand new structures and create them together, IMMEDIATELY.

There are plenty of people with the wisdom and insights and contacts to know how to lead and guide a worldwide REVOLUTION. Not a violent one, a movement with people stepping out of their routines and giving a little time and effort and action to make their voice heard. We can’t let more dictators destroy peoples lives. We can’t let peoples religious beliefs just allow people to pop out 13 babies and pretend that it’s okay. We live in one world, one with limited resources. I refuse to just take on business as usual, and pretend that it’s okay for Mr. Orangehead Chump to push his grey suits around and whimsical notions of what he thinks needs to happen. It’s time for the fucking world intelligence, artists, teachers, scientists and leaders to step in. I still have to read about what’s happening in Turkey, or Venezuela, because I can’t keep up with all of it, but it just IS NOT OKAY ANYMORE, to think that “It’s not here next to me in my community, so it’s not my problem.” IT IS ALL OF OUR PROBLEM. WE NEED LEADERS WHO CAN STEP IN AND INTERCEPT, AGENCIES TO EDUCATE, GUIDE.

I thank all of the environmental, social, ecological groups who serve as watch dogs and educate the rest of us, but somehow, i think something much more brilliant has to take place to begin lighting up the whole world to working together. If we are the people – in a Democracy – choosing our leaders, then we should have the military industrial complex working with us, not in militarized suits, against us.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter the blogger on return hitch from Taos to Santa Fe, New Mexico

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George Monbiot’s Fantastic Writing>Politics & Economics vs. Environment | Game of Chicken

His blog Game of Chicken is

brilliantly articulated as usual, George Monbiot‘s works Need to Be Spread like Wildfire.

I think Monbiot should be translated into 17 languages…What I just thought of in response: if we could just do “One less”: eat one less chicken, one less burger, one less shower, one less international flight, one less purchase of an article of clothing, one less car, have one less child… His blogs are relevant to both the United States and England and are a mirror of the Western Occidental World as it has come to be.

environmental impact of poultry industry

Environmental Impact of the Poultry Industry

“To people of Mr Cram’s mindset, rainforests and ancient woodlands, coral reefs and wild rivers, local markets and lively communities, civic life and public space are nothing but unrealised opportunities for development. Where we see the presence of beauty, tranquillity and wonder, they see the absence of palm oil plantations and soybean deserts, container ports and mega dams, shopping malls and 12-lane highways. For them, there is no point of arrival, just an endless escalation of transit.

Nowhere is a place in its own right: everywhere is a resource waiting to be exploited. No one is a person in their own right; everyone is a worker, consumer or debtor whose potential for profit generation has yet to be realised. Satiety, well-being, peace: these are antithetical to globalised growth, which demands constant erasure and replacement. If you are happy, you are an impediment to trade. Your self-possession must be extinguished.”

Nicholas Kristof, writing for the New York Times, wrote this article, Arsenic in our Chicken

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Carol Keiter Berlin on Bike – writer, blogger, musician, composer

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Emotionally Stunning video ‘Canuck & I’ Explores the Bond Between A Crow and His Human

I found this video through one of the Facebook groups which I hold sacred ‘The More Beautiful World’.

Canuck and I Bond between Crow and Human Audubon

‘Canuck & I’ Explores the Bond Between A Crow and His Human

Now I know why I chose to make another espresso and stay ‘home’ to watch this, prior to going out with my laptop to visit some places, print new cards, sit in a cafe to work on my book and new music.

It’s because I mentioned on Facebook when posting this that I already had tears in my eyes before knowing anything about it, and well, I had tears flowing down my face the entire 20 minutes.

My mother would easily tear up expressing emotion. I simply love animals so much. There is such a vast universe, well, in this case, planet filled with fish and mammals in the seas and animals and birds from tropical forests to deserts.

Humans can be so much more. Our lives can be enriched so, so much more by opening them moment to moment and valuing all of the creatures that we share this planet with, ALIVE.

Hopefully sharing this video will bring warmth, loving feelings, compassion and a desire to protect the habitats of the magnificent species with whom we share this planet.

Walk more, bicycle more, have less children, aim for education to share empowering stories more and buy and consume less. Living healthier and happier lives by living more simply and feeling gratitude and authentic joy from doing things that empower ourselves and one another, will reduce the dependence on needing more money, pharmaceutical companies, insurance and automobile manufacturers, psychiatrists, and help to alleviate addictions… 🙂

Carol Keiter le_blogger, writer & illustrator, musician & composer

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Crack between the Worlds | Le Viaduc des Arts Paris | Feu D’Artifice le 14 Juillet Tour Eiffel 2017

Feu dArtifice le 14 Juillet Tour Eiffel 2017 copy

I’ve intentionally come to Le Point Ephémère today at 200 Quai de Valmy, 75010 Paris. I wished to come last evening and somehow thought it was considerably farther north from where I started, so each time i asked someone and mentioned Quai de Valmy and people responded that it was behind me, I said, no, no no, you’re wrong.

Well I was wrong 🙂 However, as I walked and proceeded to get deeper into what seemed a predominantly Arab neighborhood, I found this place that echoes one at the edge of the East Village in New York City. This Indian/Pakistani vegetarian place with super cheap and healthy dishes that you can choose and mix on the plate, together with Basmati rice, altogether with a fish deep fried something or other, it was like 5 euro. Delicious. I also found the best dark chocolate I’ve ever tasted. Oh man, glad I still have the wrapper! Guess what, EVERY dark chocolate bar I’ve purchased so far in France has been DeLiCious!

flickr link to pics from New Mexico dogs to Paris

In my first days in Paris, I managed to grab 12 or 13 hours of sleep, in the first 5 days! Not kidding. I slid into one or another place to sleep with shelter, twice, and the other nights walked all night with my baggage once, and without it, now that I found a luggage locker at Gare du Lyon. Wow, was that nice.

Oh wow, I also found another artifice that echoes nYc’s Highline. I had walked not far from the Gare du Lyon, looked up, saw green, thought of New York city’s highline park constructed on a no longer working above ground train line http://www.thehighline.org/visit, climbed the stairs, and was delighted to find the same type of park, also created on an old above ground train line.

le Viaduc des Arts Paris

oraculo project international

Actually, what I loved was all of the accompanying music there at the fire works on the national day – Bastille Day – in Paris 2017.

Paris Tour Eiffel Feu D’Artifice Fire Works 2017 with actual sound

Bastille Day is the common name given in English-speaking countries/lands to the French National Day, which is celebrated on the 14th of July each year. In France, it is formally called la Fête nationale and commonly and legally le 14 juillet.

 

 

And then there’s this version of someone’s capture of the fireworks at la Tour Eiffel with a psychedelic breakbeat overdub.

Here are some more pictures.

This man has a blog about the remarquable trees in Paris.

flickr Paris evening and night pics

chez_moi_ou_chez_toi
my house or yours

Carol Keiter blogger and Maria Antoinette

Carol 14th Juillet Paris

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Relocate rather than Vacate | Trump is the Mere Nefarious figurehead of a Vile Oil Oligarchic System

Pardon the haste and perhaps haphazardness with which I’m posting this blog. I still have packing to do. I am flying tomorrow, Sunday the 9th of July from nYc to Paris. My intention is not to vacate, but to relocate. Not to vacation in Paris, but to plant myself in an inexpensive post in Europe, in order to write articles about a number of different topics that will take me to different countries. I also wish to debut performing my music live as i continue to produce more. I have been considering ways for the past two years to plant myself back in Europe. Yes, It takes mega fossil fuels to get myself there, but I literally bicycled hundreds of miles throughout this past winter to transport myself to dozens of schools throughout the Santa Fe, New Mexico county school district, to teach students K through 12th grade in all different subjects. I was one of the only people bicycling. I saw a couple schools where several teachers bicycled. These were an exception.

I just watched a video of Indigenous people from the Pacific Islands visiting Indigenous people in Canada, to see for themselves the destruction of their territory and to express solidarity. I was in tears. I am sharing this here, because the words of one of the elderly native women in her prayers, echoes what I’ve heard from different people in different places; The change that needs to happen, is not on an intellectual level, but from the perspective of heart, feeling, values. Incentive to make changes will happen when people really care about, feel harmony with and identity with all of life, all entities that sustain life, as one incredible intelligent interconnected system that reveals and produces life

Impact of Tar Sands is felt worldwide presented by 350.org

I am in tears as I watch this. I had gone to the COP21 in Paris. My real learning experience was through engaging during the two week duration of the climate talks with the http://www.placetob.org. I met people who came from the other side of the world to talk about how their communities have already been affected for the last decade by GLOBAL WARMING (the politically incorrect term which puts in your face the face the fact that the CLIMATE IS CHANGING DUE TO HUMAN ACTION AND INACTION)

This woman elder conducting a prayer said. “The indigenous people have a sacred connection to the water and land. They understand that when you take from the land, you must return.

We all have to feel this way in our hearts, to love our water and land and air, and all of the creatures who are part of this earth.

We can’t just sit idle any more and let the billionaires do what they want.

We need to fight for clean air and water and land.

I’m going to warrior up, to do anything i can to protect this water and land.

Kinder Morgen (Kinder Morgan according to wiki is the largest energy infrastructure company in North America), are killing the fish, killing the deer, killing the bear.

If Trudeau (and Trump) won’t take action, people will.”

So, my point, Trump is an easy target to feel disgust and revulsion by his desire to strip away healthcare, rights, protections for national parks….but he is merely a puppet, a figurehead, behind a system that has been bulldozing the environment and peoples’ rights and profiting through racism and targeting blacks, for the last 20 years.

My idea, after having spent last winter completely immersed in work that took all of my time, but through which I learned very much and thoroughly enjoyed in particular teaching skiing on the weekends and several long holidays, because I love physical activity, love the alpine environment, love to ski and love to communicate and teach people who really want to learn.

It was because of a memorial ceremony held for my mother this last Saturday which brought a bunch of extended family together to celebrate her life, that bounced me back to the East coast from Taos, New Mexico, where I was residing the last two months. Because my job seasons’ both ended in Santa Fe, I moved to Taos at the suggestion of a friend, where I lived in a yurt, off the grid, no plumbing or electricity, and then was given the opportunity to use a room in my friend’s home to use for electricity and internet “IF and only if, I used this space to complete my book”. I diligently did this, dove into it, which not only has brought this project to near completion, and fueled my desire and conviction to dive into other writing projects. I’ve been blogging for years, making no income. Now, I will dive into writing articles (have already several lined up), and will through the stages of learning and making mistakes, begin operating in the world of journalism.

India planted 66 Million trees in 12 hours

ANYTHING can be accomplished, when power hungry control & greed don’t get in the way of people working together.

To me, nothing is more important than impressing upon people hope about the future, ways that we can joyfully participate in making our earth a more nourishing place and to spread a sentiment of love and caring for all of the inhabitants of the earth, and the soil, the water and air as living beings, that are an inextricable part of all of us.

We have so much more life to live, experiences to feel and share, if we stretch and extend ourselves to sense deeply how fantastic our world is, and how to really value the most minute experience of “I and thou”. I’m talking, your perception, and a rain drop in a puddle that sends out waves. I’m saying, your perception, of wind moving through trees. I’m saying, your perception, of your breath and how incredibly intelligent and splendid your body is.

Get back into your body. Get back into letting thoughts go and actually listening and tuning into a creature that can fit on your hand. Get back into walking, bicycling and moving your body, and feeling how wonderful it is to be in good shape and connected. Get back into extending a smile to a stranger, and feeling how this ripples. Our earth is magical. The creatures with whom we coexist are splendid. I am sorry to say, that it is not the people, but leaders, particularly in the “United States of Anxiety” who wish to keep things the way they are, who wish to bend over to money. Sadly, even Justin Trudeau of Canada is demonstrating this. The reason I wished to write this in the first place was because of something I relayed to my friend with whom I’ve been staying for the last week out of her graciousness. I was saying that it is easy to be disgusted, embarrassed and absolutely revolted by the personality of our President Trump, because of his mannerisms, statements, actions the greed, narcissism…Yet I learned 3 months ago when I was hitchhiking back from skiing a day in Taos to Santa Fe, from the driver. I had turned down the 1st 3 rides. This man was articulate, well educated and kind. He said he was a climatologist who worked for 10 years for the State of California. To my astonishment, he mentioned that in the early 90’s, like 1991, he was told/dissuaded/warned by the State (the alleged progressive state of California) NOT to use the word ‘climate change’ and probably at that time ‘global warming’ was the term, in ANY of his reports. When in fact, his research pointed directly to climate change as a result of actions of the petroleum industries. So, my point, Trump is an easy target to feel disgust and revulsion by his desire to strip away healthcare, rights, protections for national parks….but he is merely a puppet, a figurehead, behind a system that has been bulldozing the environment and peoples’ rights and profiting through racism and targeting blacks, for the last 20 years. And now the people need to stand up and face the reality, and organize behind those groups who can facilitate change.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter’s contact card feat pic hummingbird feeding in Santa Fe, NM

Hitchabout to a casting call for a political satire TV show filmed in Albuquerque, NM

It was a remarkably successful hitchhiking journey to ABQ and back to Taos, with the generous help of friends, who made my sojourn to Albuquerque to answer a casting call job for a day. I write about it because I learned a lot from talking with each of the drivers. Props for hitchhiking, in which one comes across locals who more than likely are delighted to share information about their own region and its history, as well as stories about their own family. The driver’s were white and various shades of brown; Native American and Spanish, representing each race that live together in this region.

Pueblos of the Southwest

I turned down the first 3 rides, intuitively, and took a fourth to the edge of town, to a better place for people to stop.

While in the process of doing the final research, edits and writing and illustrating of my eBook in the final countdown, I received a phone call. It was from a casting company I had registered with a couple months ago, knowing that both of my sources of employment were going to end with the season: in this case, ski and school. I accepted the job, even though with a slight disappointment, it wasn’t going to take place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a one hour and a half drive, but Albuquerque, NM, adding another hour; a 133 mile drive.

My only choice to get there, hitch. Upon speaking with the representative of the casting company about the potential call time, I realized that I would have to hitch there the day prior, and figure out how to get to the TV shooting site (yet to be announced), by 6am, or earlier.

Turns out that by contacting my friend living there, who was out of town visiting her home town, she responded immediately, gave me the phone number of her husband who then responded and gratuitously and generously gave me his time and the transport and shelter that I needed.

I only wanted to mention the hitches:

It is the second time in my life that I have turned down rides. Both times occurred in New Mexico. Typically, I feel quite comfortable with those who have stopped to offer a ride. I turned down the first 3 rides, trusting my instincts. Another I trusted to give me a lift to a better departing place with more room for a car to pull over. Within a minute of that ride which was welcomed, a man stopped with whom I had a great conversation the entire time. It was my Albuquerque sign in the early afternoon in Taos, that drew his attention, since he was returning to there after coming to Taos to do mold testing on a structure. As I’ve said before, typically the people who do stop for hitchhikers, are as interested in telling their stories as they are in hearing yours. So we chatted about many topics. I learned about his sons, their projects and several fun stories about their characters, among all sorts of things that we discussed.

Turns out the filming of a political satire TV show, Graves went from 5:45am to 10:30pm, lots of waiting time and repeated filming of the same scenes. Regarding takes, I almost felt I could have been a stand-in after several hours, having heard the lines so often. I opted to stay again in ABQ that night and join my host and his son, driving to Santa Fe the following morning to go to Meow Wolf.

drought southwest wikipedia

On the ride back, I had one after another great ride. First, a gentle, soft-spoken Native American man who is a jeweler who presents his crafts among other Native American artists 5 days a week in the Santa Fe playa. He explained that he was born in Northern Arizona, and I assume that he is Navaho. He said that his parents moved from there, because there was no work. Several times he mentioned the fact that there is no water. He said that one makes a presumption about water coming out of a faucet. They didn’t have that luxury. He said he attended 7 different schools between his junior and senior high school years, because his parents kept having to move to find employment; from Arizona to California to New Mexico. Each of them are deserts which have experienced droughts. He emphatically stated when I asked if he was coming from work, “no, I work for himself, making jewelry. He says he lives behind the hill of Pojoaque where he let me off, happily with his Pug.

The next ride was with a man and his 11 year old son. Anglo, mixed ethnic (Mexican mother) son, he mentioned all of the different pueblos in the area.

He was driving an exceptionally beat-up Suburu, still running like a charm. I went with them on a few errands on their way home. I accompanied them to the Pojoaque

Pojoaque Pueblo New Mexico

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pojoaque,_New_Mexico . There, the son enthusiastically bound into the library to pick up the books he ordered, several pounds of these slender Japanese hardcover Manga (漫画? Manga) books, part of a series, whose storyline just keeps going.
Considering the fact that I’m in the final edits of my own eBook geared towards kids and young (and any age adults), it is quite impressive to see this enthusiasm bordering obsession with this genre. Having taught in more than 2 dozen schools this past year in the Santa Fe public school system, I saw middle and high school students both embracing anime books (pronounced an i mae).

Anime charicters with tattoos

As the father smilingly responded, you have to have a story that the kids are interested in reading! He spoke about how miserable he was working at a local Casino, and that he makes far better wages and engages with all sorts of people who are friendly and kind, in the hotel in which he now works in Santa Fe.

The third ride was with a young Spanish man, who is 3rd or 4th generation Taoseño. He described the struggle that his great grandparents had when prior to New Mexico being declared a territory in the early part of this century, that previously in the late 19th century, the United States came in and basically just kicked people off of their land, who had been living there prior to the discovery by Columbus. Perhaps this coincided or was subsequent to Mexico territory becoming that of the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Cession His great grandfather and a group of others pulled their finances together to purchase acres by land they valued very much, by El Salto. This they did not to develop, but to protect it from development, to preserve the wilderness, beauty and the habitat of animals there, for all to enjoy. We talked continuously. I learned that with his carpentry skills, he is widening doors and making his home wheel chair accessible for his step son, who has cerebral palsy. I said, so you must indeed have made the commitment in this relationship. He is happy to do this, loves his son and is proud of his daughter by his first marriage, who will now work as a dentil hygienist for a female dentist entrepreneur who rolled into Taos, an eccentric and imaginative woman, who has resurrected and improved a number of local dental practices by incorporating state-of-the-art technology. The dentist woman rides a harley apparently. The technology they use, rather than exposing patients to potentially harmful x-rays, is audio sound technology, so that one can image the cavities and so forth through sound waves. Pretty interesting. It’s called ultrasound technology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23706922

As I said at the beginning, the neat thing about hitchhiking, is that one comes across locals who more than likely are delighted to share information about their own region and its history, as well as stories about their own family.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz ~ As an avid blogger who is presently picking up where I left off with my eBook to complete it and and beginning again to compose music, I ask you rather unambiguously and unabashedly to please donate, if you are able. !-))

Carol Keiter le_blogger, writer & illustrator, musician & composer

Marketing my own eBook > Thinking it appropriate as an auxiliary learning tool for Charter High Schools

I believe this eBook will build enthusiasm and intrigue for multiple subjects, It is a science reference book, cloaked in a science fantasy adventure; replete with real science and resplendent illustrations; with graphs, charts and links for further investigation.

Entitled,“Adora & Vitali: A Spin on the Matter of Motion”, it is best suited for high school students and accelerated middle schoolers. I believe it will entice kids to learn about a multitude of different subjects, augment the schools academic curriculum.

Here’ s the trailer: https://spinonmatter.carbonmade.com/projects/4800092

Adora & Vitali: A Spin on the Matter of Motion

I just decided to post this letter of introduction which I’m sending to Charter Schools, to each of my blogs, since perhaps someone who’s involved in education, eBook marketing and publishing, with an affiliation with Charter Schools or knows-how in marketing an educational eBook, to provide me with advice or send someone my way!

It’s not finished, but I thought I’d start with the back-end, or front-end, getting it out there.

…I’m looking for the appropriate person/department (academic materials, material acquisition) to market my eBook, which I believe will be of interest to students as an auxiliary learning tool.

This science fantasy adventure involves a spiritual quest (no religious affiliation), full of art and science. The adventure involves the quest of a young woman and the characters she meets in her journey, into an upside-down world. Not really upside down, but a place affected by electromagnetism that has lower gravity levels as one climbs to this place. The people there, where the main character is journeying to, have a correspondingly intrinsic capacity of transparent thought. They are conscious of each others’ thoughts and consequently incapable of telling lies. Yet most of the story takes place as Adora journeys there – as there could be sequels!

Frankly, as of June 1st (almost two weeks since posting this), after editing and moving around information as well as researching and editing bibliography sources, the information below has been updated, and still is no longer current! Nevertheless, you get the gist of the contents! I’ve been working hard within a strict time limit – a really good thing.

Here are the first two pages of the Table of Contents (subject to change) but giving you a gist of the contents.

1st page Table of Contents

2nd page Table of Contents

The approximately 150 page eBook (Completion end of June, 2017), is designed to be read from beginning to end, or to be read in segments. Almost every page introduces a particular subject; including graphs, charts and links to further investigation of that topic. The online Table of Contents and Bibliography allow the reader to choose from various educational subjects, ranging from biology, climatology, and geography to physics, These scientific topics of inquiry are introduced as they arise in the story; with the inference that these hypothetical events in a fantastical environment, could actually transpire.

Here are a few pages of the bibliography, also subject to change. I’m using google docs in order to also alphabetize the bibliography by subject.

Bibliography created in google docs to feature alphabetical listing by subject.

Bibliography created in google docs to feature alphabetical listing by subject.

Adora & Vitali: A Spin on the Matter of Motion has a plethora of art accompanying the science links, providing the reader with the capability to further investigate a topic. It is a colorful and refreshing learning tool for students and adults. The eBook is a stepping stone of intrigue for subsequent exploration into a multitude of scientific topics.

character name meanings and association with elements

I’m an independent contractor who has been writing two blogs since 2009, I’m particularly interested in environmental sustainability, renewable energy, (DIY) do-it-yourself practices to reduce one’s carbon footprint, reinvesting in the community and especially the topics of wildlife and animal habitat preservation. I participated in a 2 week educational forum about the environment in Paris, during the COP21 Climate Talks in Paris, http://www.placetob.org/en/ As a writer, artist, musician and composer, I have no umbrella organization presently supporting me financially. I welcome any suggestions you may have regarding the eBook world of publishing, as I have yet to approach any publishers. I can provide you with additional sections of the book to view its layout and presentation.

carolkeiter@gmail.com
(520) 891 1466
PayPal: carolkeiter@gmail.com

ebook trailer:
https://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/final-metamorphosis-of-the-ebook-trailer-for-adora-vitali-a-spin-on-the-matter-of-motion/

http://spinonmatter.carbonmade.com/projects/4800092#1

blogs:
https://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/
http://digesthis.wordpress.com/

podcast:
https://deliciousmedicinalfood.wordpress.com

art portfolio:
https://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/parcel-of-my-portfolio
https://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/2015/10/23/carols-artwork-discovered-in-sketchbooks-journals/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21261638@N03/albums/72157673189438823
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21261638@N03/albums/72157681167409025

music composition:
https://soundcloud.com/you/collection
http://www.reverbnation.com/nomadbeatz

Carol Keiter Contact card

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition!

Carol Keiter le_blogger, writer & illustrator, musician & composer

Emergence | Gift of Artist’s Atelier | Specifically to Complete my eBook in 6 weeks

Update on Carol Keiter the blogger. I do love to post blogs in two’s. This evening I have. I just posted on my digesthis site: this https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/emergence-inevitability-of-seeking-the-kind-way-love-appreciation-of-all-life/

Recently I shared photos on my Facebook wall of the place I suddenly find myself living in, a yurt, indigenous to nomadic people of the Steppes of Central Asia, Mongolia. Here are some pics of the yurt residence in Taos, New Mexico and the surrounding fields.

yurt residence in Taos, New Mexico

I also recently came across and shared some photos of a neighboring county in Pennsylvania where I was born and raised. Lancaster and Lititz, PA are each arts and crafty towns surrounded by farms.

carol_taking_photo_lancaster_pa

The idea of living in the yurt was introduced by a friend from my hometown in PA, 9 months ago when I was arriving to New Mexico after the stint in Tucson, Arizona left me with little recourse but to leave because of not having had success finding work. He knew that his neighbor could be keen on having some people live there to help out with his trees. Indeed he is happy to have the help. The idea back then August, 2016 was to come live in this yurt in Taos, but then I never made it from Santa fe. Two week after I arrived there, I wound up flying back to Pennsylvania to be by my mother’s side when she died the day after I arrived. I was then not sure of where to go, but headed back to Santa Fe where I was gainfully employed for the next 8 months between substitute teaching for the Santa Fe public schools K through 12 and working on weekends and holidays as a ski instructor at SkiSantafe. The paid income was a nice change of pace, the skiing, a delight. I love skiing and the alpine environment. I was grateful every day I was there. However, my slammed schedule meant that I had little time to write blogs, and didn’t even attempt but twice to get back to the book.

Slim savings brought me to this new situation which is sort of another WWOOF (world wide org. of organic farms); a work-exchange involved in caring for baby trees. Pretty cool actually, digging in rich soil, smelling wonderful scents of plants, seeing cows and horses and now in the spring, calves and colts and birds surrounding the fields, calling out all sorts of neat calls. My biggest challenge, has been the chase for electricity and internet. I have become like one of the local ‘off the grid’ backpackers, seeking out places to plug in.

The crystallizing icing-on-the-cake thing, after feeling lots of frustration because the town shuts down really early – and there just aren’t places to go to plug in and connect to the world. My friend just extended the invitation – for a limited time only – until I head back to PA for a memorial for my mother – an atelier. Basically I reside in the yurt, and have been gifted a room in a home nearby as my creation space; with a desk, stool, electricity to plug my power surge protector and a WiFi connection. He has offered this atelier as an artist space > to use it to complete my eBook. “Adora & Vitali: A Spin on the Matter of Moion.

Adora & Vitali: A Spin on the Matter of Motion

Encouraged to direct my full attention and focus on completing by book; it is my choice if I embrace it and full-on surge into making this happen, or squander the invitation. This is something that I hoped for, and now it is here. I will use it. I was seriously having so much difficulty finding a place to work, that I was starting to become very disconcerted, to put it mildly.

Of course, I’m already side-lined, wanting to quickly post another blog or two, well, that’s okay, it’s to inform people what’s going on and to spread the accountability even further. No excuses. Here’s the platform, the space and time. There are absolutely no distractions in this town for me. Not much of a social happening place, perhaps that may change. No distractions, just lovely nature, tourists, and as in Santa Fe, a fair amount of homeless people here in this dusty, lovely, hippy town with loads of people living off-the-grid who come into town occasionally to fill up; I’ve seen quite a number of very heavily tattooed guys and girls. And as in Santa fe, a large number of pick-up trucks, some that are enormous, and vehicles with windows tinted so dark that you can barely see if someone is in the car. yeah, whatever.

So, step one, open the book and begin look over my google doc regarding marketing, to gather names of Charter Schools to approach them to see if any could be interested in carrying this science-fantasy book. Any hints or suggestions about marketing/publishing an eBook, send them my way. 🙂

Carol Keiter the blogger on return hitch from Taos to Santa Fe, New Mexico

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

hitchabouts abounding – rolling into one another

Several weeks ago I hitched to Taos from Santa Fe several days after the SantafeSki basin closed. Word on that last day by many locals was that Wednesday was going to be a powder day…and the lift tickets for that week only were $20, instead of $90 +. I went, standing there in flurries on this corner holding my skis, poles and boots by my feet. I quickly got a ride the whole way from a man who was doing some business and had done his Trader Joe’s stop etc., heading back to Taos. He and his wife have Taos ski passes. We had plenty to talk about social, political, economic and environmental subjects. My host phoned me to give an update on the meeting point because he was leaving his current location. The call came when the vehicle I was in was within less than a minute from where my host was standing.

The following week I hitched the 90 miles again, to be present for a dinner with my host, a friend from my home town in Pennsylvania whose mother, a friend of my parents, was making her trek across the country to visit several of her kids. I made it just after the cocktail hour and before the Palmyra crew were sitting down at the dinner table. The ride I had that day was with a woman who picked me up at the same corner at the DeVargas Mall. I had just started to dial my host to apologize that perhaps I was not going to make it in time, when this young woman put down the passenger seat window to say she’s driving to Taos. I always have a sign! I would have been on time, if a female police officer hadn’t kept us for 20 minutes after waiting in her car at a speed trap.

I hitched to the peoples climate march, the 1,877 or so miles, and after about 9 rides, leaving 1pm on Wednesday, I made it to the grounds of the event at the Mall in Washington D.C. a bit after the opening speeches had begun. I was among them as we approached the White House to surround it. Although I later learned and saw that the Prez was indeed there, because there was a very long and loud motorcade for the visiting dignitaries…I assumed that this particular weekend he might have chosen to go golfing on a high-rise rooftop in Saudi Arabia with Marine le Pen and Putin. En route, I pretty much barely caught any sleep. The night of the climate march, by the time I’d wandered to the Starbucks at Dupont Circle to plug into electricity and the world, after having taken 300+ photos after the march of all of the signs laid down in a field spelling out words from a mandala, I realized it was too late to phone my friend. Oh yeah, I had to go to Starbucks to look up her number. I thought it was in my phone. I wound up chatting with a guy outside of a bar on this pleasant Friday evening, where all these people flowed out from the club above. They were mostly gay men, of mostly middle eastern decent; Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt…I wandered into a different club to dance, and when that ended, asked a man on the street where I could find a place open to eat dinner. A tall, elegant AfroAmerican, we somehow got onto the topic of the award winning deserts he makes, marketing in other countries. He steered me to a restaurant bar where I could find his dessert which was near. I was still in the Dupont Circle area. Not knowing where I’d sleep that night and figuring that I wouldn’t, I wandered to go splurge on dinner. I say splurge, because by virtue of my lifestyle, I rarely have spare money to go ‘out’ to eat. However, turns out that I was given numerous donations along my hitch to D.C. I believe I left with $13.00 in my wallet. By the time I reached D.C. had about $90, and returned with about the same amount I left with. Seems the money went in multiples of $7, each time I’d buy anything.

So I walk into this restaurant at about 5:00 in the morning. It’s packed. I’m seated next to a bustling table of gay men, mostly the Middle East, like a different country represented by each of the six. Turns out the guy next to my elbow was very communicative. We chatted, chattering and and laughing. I had a nice rapport with the waiter, a gay man from Tunisia. He asked after the gang next to me left and I was finishing up my meal if I had anywhere to sleep. I accompanied him just a few blocks away after his shift ended. He was genteel, made sure that his alarm clock was additionally set for when I had to rally to catch a 5:40 pm flight. He was proactive and is kind and a great sense of humor. He explained how I needed to walk back to the metro and catch the train, in case he didn’t get up. I noticed the clean, sleek black sheets as I was leaving the following afternoon. He also articulated the two possible train routes I could take to the Ronald Reagan Natl Airport, in retrospect very helpful, because the Blue line was not functioning on this particular Sunday. I got to the domestic flight with still half an hour to spare.

driving directions from Taos, New Mexico to Tucson, Arizona

Now I’m hitching tomorrow, Friday morning for Tucson. It’s a quarter of the distance of the last, according to google maps about 9 hours. I was asked if I wanted to be among the cast of female producers for this ‘all female producer’ electronic music producer’s open mic sort of thing. It takes place every month at a bar in Tucson called the Flycatcher. I participated in it twice before. I figured yeah, I’ll go 578 miles to play 20 minutes or so, why not?

Pushing Buttons -Monthly Producer Getdown Sat May 6 at 9pm

I flew back to Albuquerque after the march on sort of a standby. I didn’t know how I’d make it back to Taos by 10am the next morning to meet the person driving me to move my stuff from Santa Fe to Taos, but knew I could wake up early and hitch that distance easily. In fact, after having a bit of a rapport with a man sitting right behind me, I then saw him walking together with the man seated across the isle from me and overheard Santa Fe. I asked them, and they were happy to give me a ride that night, right off the plane. We had a very in depth conversation, carried along by my continued questions about the Ba H’ai faith. They were coming from a conference in which the driver is the Santa Fe representative who is eligible to vote for a National member of their ‘clergy’. I will have to talk about that later. I am still on the learning curve of creating music with these programs, though learning short cuts and continually learning by doing, how to use the programs Ableton Live and Propellerhead Reason. I lost the original material of a chunk of songs when that laptop ceased and I couldn’t transfer the content from one to another Software version. I had heard of this before, hadn’t realized until the man informed me that it originated only about 150 years ago in Persia. Ironically, Persia is also the origin of the particular meditation tradition the South African Pediatrician studied originally (a Sufi tradition). He guides a ‘Heart Rhythm’ meditation presently at the Hershey Penn State Medical Center in Hershey, PA.

Interesting, Ba H’ais except and wish to support and respect all religions, they don’t proselytize, they don’t have a hierarchy of clergy with mega bucks holding sermons in mega churches. There are no ‘leaders’ but an elected group who pass things by majority rule. They believe in love, kindness, acceptance and service. They are very Green.

I got that flight back by virtue of walking along the same sidewalk the day before I booked the flight, and running into a guy I’d known years ago in Taos, when he was a customer at the Cafe Tazza where I was employed. We chatted for a while, catching up there on the corner where a man with a stark white long beard and cowboy hat had just ridden across the crosswalk among the midday car traffic. My friend mentioned that he’d give me a call. He did the following day, and I hopped on my bicycle and he met me to donate funds towards my vision, to get to the peoples climate march. He gave me the money, I found a one-way ticket after lots of searches that was guaranteed to leave the day I wanted to leave, but not revealing the time until after it was booked. I hoped it would give me time to get to the airport from D.C. It did.

I came back to move into a yurt so that I can live the life of a starving artist with a roof over my head. I’m not starving either. Although I worked 7 days a week throughout all but the last month of the school year as a substitute teacher booking often 4 and 5 days a week of work and taking weekends and holidays to commit to working as a ski instructor for the local ski basin in Santa Fe, I have barely any money saved; trying to pay off a credit card debt. The yurt residence is not far from the center of town of Taos, New Mexico.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21261638@N03/albums/72157680301250213

new residence in a yurt

I have to stop writing now and get onto arranging what I’ll be doing. I just started a new song a week ago involving Penguin calls that sound sort of like horns. I still have more composing and sound editing to do.

In the meantime, I have had two landlords rip me off here in New Mexico, land of enchantment. Astoundingly, after verbal promise to reimburse my security deposit and not cash the check for the rent I paid in advance, which was paid by another woman for the same month and same room, and from whom I received a security deposit, David Michael Carman who owns this property in Santa Fe among others in his residential city of Albuquerque, stole over a thousand dollars from me. Just sayn’. The following landlady, where I had to move in on sudden notice, also itemized the deductions from my security deposit to squeeze as much out of it as she could. What happened to honesty?

Here’s the blog I never got to post about the hitchabout to Taos.

The ride down, actually, up, north to Taos, was flawless. The word had been spreading among all of the locals and employees of Santa Fe Ski Basin on its last opening day of the season, Sunday April 2nd, that the coming Wednesday will be a powder day at Taos Ski Valley, not only open for still another week, but lift tickets reduced to $20.00 from over $90. No brainer.

Ride – hitch to Taos $20 – powder day = fantastic ride > direct to Chris at phenomenally the exact time of his call

I phoned my friend living in Taos from the same hometown in Pennsylvania next to Hershey. He hadn’t planned to ski, but wasn’t on a project at the moment. Sure, he’ll join. It had occurred to me the day before that hitching, I can’t feasibly wait until the day after the storm, because I’d have to leave while it’s still dark. Lift lines open at 9am for the 90 mile drive.

The whole point of a powder day is to be there as the lifts open to get freshies – fresh tracks – before the snow gets chopped up by people skiing moving the snow into little digits and channels and mounds. Virgin powder conditions are like floating. Each tiniest weight shift creating a little arc of a turn. “No Friends On A Powder Day” – No Waiting. No Stopping, for anything.

I walked out prepared with my backpack, sign on the back of my ‘SKI’ sign created on a paper bag which I used all season from the tryouts to be an adult ski instructor with the Santa fe ski school to the work days; hitching up to the Santa Fe ski area. ‘TAOS’ was an easy fit on the back side of the sign.

http://350pacific.org/pacific-climate-warriors/

I chose each place where I lived in town specifically for the ease with which I could hitchhike to the ski area, to access the main roads en route to the only road going up the mountain- Hyde Park Road. People trying out for skiing or snow boarding positions are obliged to attend the training clinics, leading up to the opening of the ski area. Those hired were expected to be bodily present during prime times – winter and spring breaks – I scheduled myself to work weekends. When I wasn’t up at the ski area, I was mountain biking on a lent bicycle throughout the entire Santa Fe district from the previous autumn throughout the winter, working as a substitute teacher for all grades. This for the Santa fe public schools, many of which were located on the periphery of the town. When I still lived in the hills on the way to the ski area, my commutes were for example, 22 to 28 miles round-trip. Once I moved, they were reduced to 15 and less, taking biking trails south through the town district. One can schedule jobs online independently. There was only once that I looked at the snow report for the ski area moments after clicked ‘accept’ this job, when I saw that the there were 6” of new powder. I cancelled the job for the following morning. Being a night person who typically starts preparing dinner after 10pm, that was now my curfew.

April 1st was the send-off party, more than the final day, the 2nd of SkiSantaFe. On the 1st, many locals were in costume, there was a treasure hunt, dj’s on the deck of the mid-mountain Totemoff lodge, and just lots of partying. It kept flurrying as the sun was still visible through this veil of clouds. The following last day, were phenomenal conditions. Fresh untracked powder everywhere. The decision to return to ski at Taos, especially when this inexpensive, was full-on. I phoned my friend in Taos who also had worked at Taos Ski Valley previously (I at the Kinderkaefig and Chris on Ski Patrol). Our paths had crossed that time, each having lived in California at different times and each raised in the same town in Pennsylvania, next to Hershey.

I walked quickly to my starting point, with no place for cars to pull over on the main drag heading north to Taos. With skies propped on my shoulders and poles and ski boots next to me, I stood in the flurries of late afternoon. I felt confident I’d get a ride the 90 miles to Taos. Within about 5 minutes, I heard a beep in the parking lot behind me. Someone driving by who couldn’t stop, turned around. He was coming from business meetings and a Trader Joe’s stop. His non-profit work focuses on the health of people in relationship to their environment in specifically rural areas in the rocky mountain area. For example the planning of land, community spaces, looking at resources such as water in particular and thinking not only about the health and attractiveness of the town but also improvising ways to make the town more attractive, to persuade inhabitants to remain there or return; explaining that there’s been a trend of people magnetically moving towards cities.

The Santa fe ski area had closed on Sunday, with fabulous conditions of fresh powder and sunshine in the morning. It was mild and beautiful and there was no work, just skiing and socializing. I was very happy with each of the different new and newly rediscovered ski routes that I discovered and created. I felt super happy, feeling very happy with my turns.

fantastic return trip after turning down 3 of them, each scarier than the prior. Mr. Bill (with 6 daughters) a climatologist and I had very much information to exchange in conversation.

I found out hitchhiking back from Taos, NM with my ski equipment in tow several weeks ago something alarming and astonishing from the Climatologist who gave me a ride. He had worked for years for the State of California. He said that back in the early ’90s, he was warned numerous times by the state of CA – uh, a progressive state in the USofA – NOT to mention the word Climate Change – at this time I’m sure the dirty word was Global Warming. So, Chump is just a reflection of a much larger horrific state of consciousness lead by the corpocrisy, in which science, truth and actions in defense of what is right, and the words of scientists, are dismissed completely, in the name of profit of the oil oligarchy. So this denial and hushing up of facts, the facts that Al Gore revealed 10 years ago then shown in the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, have been hushed, denied, kept silent to the public, while we’re distracted again and again by other ‘news’.

Now I just found an article in the Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-of-denial-20110622

I Believe in the People’s Climate March Washington D.C. On My Way

And since the Climate March, this is current. Here’s a link for you to sign to send a message to Trump about how important it is to be a leader in the movement towards a healthy climate, and to specifically honor the Paris Agreement. http://act.350.org/sign/paris-response “The Paris Agreement is the backbone of international action to tackle climate change. Donald Trump is considering withdrawing, standing with the fossil fuel millionaires and billionaires. Stand with us to show that political momentum for climate action is unstoppable.”

Make America Cool Again

This guy’s tiny, tiny sign said “reduce” LOL

Together with the Sierra Club, WWF, Defenders of Wildlife and all of the other groups and the masses of people who have the will to make the effort to stand up and out (worldwide), I will be marching in Washington D.C. For those who wish to see a dramatic exodus and transformation from the Profit-Over-Everything-Else attitude of our Oil Oligarchy and Corpocrisy run government >

People’s Climate March April 29th, 2017

NRDC National Resource Defense Council says, “It’s time to stop the backsliding on climate change; it’s time to meet the most urgent challenge of our generation.”

On Saturday, 300,000 people came together for the Peoples Climate March in our nation’s capital, and in communities around America and the world.

Here’s a link http://act.350.org/sign/local-action for what we can do to continue local action towards a movement of sustainability rather than oil dominated environmental futility.

Here’s 350.org’s Facebook page of pics. facebook pics of march

Below are the pics I took en route hitchhiking from Santa Fe, New Mexico and many of the signs at the march.

Peoples Climate March Washington D.C._2

I’m in! Peoples Climate March April 29th, Washington D.C. >
Packing up my residence in the next hours to move May 1st (from an apt to a yurt), with help from a friend with a pickup and dentist appt in Santa Fe. I’ve booked a flight one-way from DC to ABQ Albuquerque {not knowing until after paying} when precisely it was going to depart that day. Calculating the earliest DC Metro Rail to the airport only arrives at 6am, I breathed a sigh of relief when seeing that the flight was leaves late afternoon. Ran into a friend yesterday I hadn’t seen for many years, who spontaneously gave me the money today to cover the flight. I only realized two days ago looking at the calendar, that there was another day, the 30th, between the March and my move-out day. Anything’s possible. I merely have to get to DC hitching, leaving uh, mañana?

– 27 h 1,877 miles according to google maps.

google directions Santa fe, NM to Washington D.C.

I just spent the afternoon, boxing, packing, organizing so that I’m ready upon my return to move to a yurt, since working 6 to 7 days a week still hasn’t afforded any kind of saved nest egg.

I then worked on creating my newest song which I just started yesterday. Streamlined and packed with beats.

I’m on my way to the Peoples Climate March April 29th in DC. peoplesclimate.org There’s a whole niche of my music all about animal rights, wildlife protection, creating animal bridges and preserving animal corridors…So I’m passionate about making not just Trump, but the Oil Oligarchy listen.

And I went.

Here are another page of pics I took at the march.

Peoples Climate March Washington D.C.

I’ll be playing at the Flycatcher in Tucson, Arizona, Saturday May 6th for their monthly music producers showcase ‘Pushing Buttons‘. This next month features all women producers.

And releasing much more music as it flows.

Soundcloud Playlists More_NomadbeatZ Eco Echo

The Flycatcher
340 E. 6th St.
Tucson, AZ, 85705
Phone: (520) 207-9251

https://soundcloud.com/you/collection
PayPal: carolkeiter@gmail.com

People’s Climate March April 29th, 2017 WWF

Looks like I’m in!

Race to Save the World Dump Trump and Oil Oligarchy

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter the blogger with a selfie prior to getting the ride on return hitch from skiing in Taos

Perspective from Afar | Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver | Millennium: Winners and Losers In The Coming World Order by Attali

I am basically quoting passages in Barbara Kingsolver’s article, “Small Wonder” and including the link of a review of Jaques Attali’s book which she mentions, “Millennium: Winners And Losers In The Coming World Order”

Barbar Kingsolver Small Wonder

At a time when the modern imagination seems fully engaged in discussion of swords of every length and breadth, there’s little room for other kinds of talk. But I’m emboldened by Medea to speak up on behalf of psychological strategy. It’s not a simpleminded suggestion; her elixir of contentment is exactly as symbolic as Jason’s all-conquering sword, and the latter has by no means translated well into reality. The strategic difference is the capacity to understand this one thing: Some forms of enemy are made more deadly by killing. It would require the deepest possible shift of our hearts to live in this world of fundamental animosity and devote ourselves not to the escalating exertion to kill, but rather, to lulling animosity to sleep. Modern humanity may not be up to the challenge. Modern humanity may not have a choice…. The easiest thing is to think of returning the blows. But there are other things we must think about as well, other dangers we face. A careless way of sauntering across the earth and breaking open its treasures, a terrible dependency on sucking out the world’s best juices for ourselves — these may also be our enemies.

The easiest thing is to think of returning the blows. But there are other things we must think about as well, other dangers we face. A careless way of sauntering across the earth and breaking open its treasures, a terrible dependency on sucking out the world’s best juices for ourselves — these may also be our enemies.

The laws governing international trade render it more difficult each year to inject moral considerations into the marketplace, frustrating the many nations and individuals who still wish to balance economic motives with compassionate ones. Indeed, international trade laws increasingly restrict access to the very information that makes any such concession possible — witness, for example, the endless battle for accurate labeling waged by U.S. consumers who prefer their food organically grown and not genetically modified. The profiteering drive of commerce owns no malice or mercy, is incapable of regret, and takes no prisoners; it is simply an engine with no objective but to feed itself. And it is a Goliath: A decade ago, the combined sales of the world’s ten largest corporations exceeded the gross national product of the world’s hundred smallest countries put together, and the gap is growing.
Inevitably, hungry souls and angry hands rise up against that amoral giant, and ever-higher walls of armaments are required to keep them at bay. These walls create among us a huge class that the French author Jacques Attali has named the “millennial losers,” for whom the fantasy of prosperity promoted by the media is both a continuous allure and an endless slapdown. The siren’s song calls them toward Paris and New York, glittering Emerald Cities walled off by inaccessibility. In his 1991 book, “Millennium: Winners And Losers In The Coming World Order”

Millennium: Winners And Losers In The Coming World Order

Jaques Attali observed with a chilling prescience

that particularly among those in the Middle East who’d suffered repeated humiliations by the West, the fiercely absent presence of worldly affluence tended to inspire fervent cults of frustration and outrage.

We who are alive in this moment didn’t build these walls, nor did we ignite the fury that has smoldered for eons and hurls itself at us now as a burning question. But we have inherited the urgent necessity of answering it. And possibly we will succeed.”

George Monbiot continues to articulate the problem of the environment in terms of constraints created by the global political elite – in the pockets of the corporate oil oligarchy and such, with his recent post “The Problem With Freedom“. “Propaganda works by sanctifying a single value, such as faith, or patriotism. Anyone who questions it puts themselves outside the circle of respectable opinion. The sacred value is used to obscure the intentions of those who champion it… When thinktanks and the billionaire press call for freedom, they are careful not to specify whose freedoms they mean…one person’s freedom is another’s captivity.”

Funny, attended a group circle of mostly ex pastors in a parish in Santa Fe of mostly the over-80 crowd. All agreed without question in human induced climate change, which they mentioned was the new word after ‘global warming’ became politically incorrect. One of them offered this information, that ideology is the major blocking point. As soon as ideologies become the subject, peoples’ comprehension or ability to even see or discuss an issue, goes out the window.

Each of the above are worth reading.

What can we do? Here are 10 things you can do to impact the environment in a positive way, according to Defenders of Wildlife.

Defenders of Wildlife 10 Things yYou Can Do to Help

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter the blogger with a selfie prior to getting the ride on return hitch from skiing in Taos

Just What I Need … for now

I decided to incorporate the comments I recently posted accompanying a message asking people to make their voice heard, opposing the ritual in Norway of whale slaughter and any kind of animal abuse in general.

It is time to stop acting as if all of creation is ours to extract, entertain ourselves with, spoil, pollute, damage, mutilate and take from more than we need; simply because the human population has diverted itself down the path of mutually agreeing that profit and consumption are our purpose on this planet. In the process of severely limiting our experience and full capacity, we are accepting that our description of what is of value, and what we are enslaved to with our time and lives, is actually a diversion from reality and a virtual representation, of what this planet’s true grandiosity is worth in terms of its biodiversity. To live in awe of the world that we are briefly passing through, and to ensure that our children have the same wealth of experience and health to live their own lives, is something that 21st century human beings should have in their conscious awareness. To begin to fully become human, as empathetic beings, ‘who do what they love and love what they’re doing’ with the joy and empowerment to extend love towards all of existence, is what we can all strive for, and mutually help one another in the process. However, overpopulation, greed and misconceptions about what is of value, is what we are presently enslaved to. Those at the top of this hierarchy of tyrannical powers wish nothing more than that we remain content, complacent and unaware of how our consent is feeding the destructive actions of those holding the power. People all over the planet are often acting out of fear, which creates a population even more malleable. Talk to one another more in person, instead of through a screen, and share insights into how we can inform one another and lighten up to love.

Prince Ea’s video message Future Generations ‘Sorry’

Prince Ea has a lot of profound things to say.

When I arrived in Santa Fe in August, I had no key, whatsoever. Okay, I believe I had a mini padlock stashed in my suitcase, with its key. I had no transportation vehicle; no bike or lock for it, no automobile. I left Tucson the day I moved out of the apartment there, hitchhiking with two back packs and a small suitcase on wheels August 1st, 2016.

hitching route from Tucson, AZ to Santa Fe, NM 567 miles

As I looked like I was wearing a boy scout or brownie uniform, the driver who gave me a ride the entire way, 567 miles to Santa Fe, New Mexico, thought I was a teenage boy with my baseball cap obscuring my face. This was via Albuquerque, a bonus stop to visit my friend living there. I could no longer stay in Tucson after paying the rent for several months in a row with a credit card (having found no paid income), and now could no longer afford the minimum cc payments. I had gone to Arizona specifically to do a WWOOF, rather than being homeless in Pennsylvania.

Just a month prior to arriving at the WWOOF ranch in Arizona, I meditated on discerning the most appropriate path, and happened through a series of synchronicities to connect with a former colleague, which lead me to discovering a group he was involved with participating in the climate talks in Paris, on their own contemporary platform, the Place to B.

Place to B It’s Time to Talk Differently about the Climate – art and educational forum took place during COP21 Nov-Dec in Paris Nov-Dec 2015

I knew the Paris Climate Talks COP21 were about to take place and somehow felt an inclination to be there among other activists, journalists…I could never have imagined the fantastic voyage I was about to enter into. And I stumbled into it with synchronicities I couldn’t look away from. Their venue of lectures, events, music and art shared among people from 40 countries was extraordinary, a perfect combination of meetings socially and information shared. I could not have imagined it. I’m sure that the presenters were also captivated with what they had created.

I attempted to book a one-way (in my usual poverty mentality thinking that it would be more cost effective to just figure out my way from there, once I was already on the continent). However, the one-way was blocked, providing me the time allowance to ‘sleep on it’ and divine that the coincidences were too marvelous to ignore. This whole excursion and opportunity appeared only after I connected with a former colleague who happened to be involved with the ‘place to b‘.

It turned out to be a spectacular learning experience; attending two weeks of organized lectures, seminars, demonstrations among activists, artists, writers and entrepreneurs. There were people coming from all over the world to discuss the impact of their community from climate change. This event coincided with the COP21 Climate Talks. It was the most exhilarating mix of people and information to meet and participate in which I never could have imagined. I left knowing that I had created the right path and chosen wisely, and now have a great deal to learn.

Now, weeks later, having returned to the US and moved onto a ‘WorkAway’ on a boat in Brooklyn, New York, as had been planned for a month prior to Christmas, I learned following the Christmas holidays which I shared with family in PA, that the boat wasn’t going to work out. I had to drive back to Brooklyn to move all of my stuff out. I was subsequently informed that i was given two weeks to depart from where I was temporarily staying in Pennsylvania. I now had to explore and come up with some quick alternatives and investigate my options. Most of my investigation is online.

At this point, I was learning to take every one of these turns and obstacles, expulsions and disruptions, with calm. I told myself, “Obviously THIS is not what I’m supposed to be doing right now” and allow myself to be open for what it was that was the better option. Instead of feeling panicked or distressed, I let myself flow along with new directions as they arrived. My research was prolific, my ideas extending in all directions like the tentacled hair of medusa. These actions helped things to evolve.

I knew that I wanted to write and to learn from people actively participating in working harmoniously with the land. The idea of a ‘workaway’ or ‘wwoof’ – the latter which my sister reminded me of, now came alive again. I had been investigating these in France and Italy; Sardinia and southern France were inviting. In the meantime I applied for my dream job, creating it and presenting it to an ecoliteracy group in California. I imagined being a liaison for their work, using my language skills to establish their works in France and Germany. I considered pairing my luggage down to the minimum to enable me to begin traveling, now with no excuses, as now I would investigate ways among other travelers to be nomadic and find ways to engage to exchange for shelter and food.

I investigated ‘workaways’ and WWOOFs in France and Italy. I applied for a job (which I created) with an educational institution I wanted to work with. I considered simply reducing my luggage to what I could hitchhike with, traveling to Central and South America The Zika virus in the news thwarted my plans. Ironically, I thought of going to South America to find and interview the man in Brazil who I had just discovered. In the last decades, he dramatically reforested the land around him with his novel agroforestry projects. I just came upon an article about him in the last days. http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/man-re-planting-forests-lost-to-cattle-ranching-in-brazil/

Antonio Vicente reforested areas for 40 years, deforested from cattle ranching in Brazil

Few stories are as inspirational as this one about Antonio Vicente, a man who has dedicated the past forty years of his life to reforesting the precious natural ecosystems of Brazil.

February was approaching. The only working farm that needed immediate help (as most growing seasons in the country weren’t ready to begin) was a ranch in Arizona which needed help with their recently born baby goats. I isolated only looking at WWOOFs which offered I required internet and food, together with the provision of shelter. I found one and coordinated driving a car that needed to be transported immediately, almost for the price of a tank of gas. I was kicked out of this ranch prematurely, 2 weeks into the 3 month planned stay. I contacted my cousin who I believed was living somewhere in Arizona, and he responded immediately to my email. I landed there and investigated this town for employment, the arts, refugee volunteering, sports. I found the local ultimate frisbee leagues and art centers…and then had to leave, as I had not earned any money for months. I hitched with my two backpacks and now a third small piece of luggage on wheels. The one tremendously long ride with a great vibe that brought me except for the first rides to get to the highway in Tucson, the entire way to my destination.

Driver Garth on the hitch from Tucson to Santa Fe, New Mexico via Albuquerque

ride through storm from Tucson to Santa Fe, New Mexico via Albuquerque

I then rolled into more work than I could have imagined. I’ve run into more obstacles and challenges too. Each step of the way, as I do all that I can do to work out and resolve problems, I am empowered and delighted with what I’ve accomplished and how appreciative I am.

Sitting in a Starbucks here in Santa Fe a number of days ago

interior_light_reflection in Starbucks

– which I hadn’t known existed until a week ago when I suddenly let their logo form an image in my mind’s eye knowing that they typically have internet, I walked in. This is because suddenly my internet connection at chez moi was not working. I came off the mountain Ski Santa fe where I’m a first year ski instructor.

Ski Santa Fe

Most of the instructors were pulled into this busy day of teaching 145 high school band students from Austin, Texas, most of whom had never skied. It was a warm spring like day, on the lower part of the mountain. And now I’ve come to step into the other part of my life, the part that loves to explore, do art, take photographs, learn languages and communicate. Wow, what fortune that suddenly i have no internet connection at home. I just met in this cafe two French speaking woman on vacation who live in Sweden, with whom I discussed differences in ‘car culture’ in the United States. They mentioned that in Sweden, many, many more people bicycle and use public transportation. They commented that in some, or many towns in the United States, they are shocked to not see any people walking around. They mentioned that in a number of cities in Sweden cars are interdit ‘not allowed’ in the center of town. Funny thing, right after these women left with their coffees after chatting, a mother and her two kids whom I recognized from the day before in this cafe, joined this same large table. Turns out that they live in Texas, and this woman is also French. They also pointed out that they don’t see people walking around, promenading in many town in the United States. Same thing my Bolivian boyfriend from years ago mentioned when I brought him to the town where I was raised in Pennsylvania. He exclaimed, “Where are all the people?” I retorted, they’re either driving in their cars, at the mall or home watching television…So both of these Europeans noticed that at least in Santa Fe, because it’s a tourist town, and perhaps the Spanish element of the town, there is a square and there are people walking around.

Simply Enough Just What I Need, for now

Okay, so back to what I wanted to write about. The fact that months ago I had no key, and now I have almost 10. Weird. A case of theft lead me to moving to a place very quickly that has locks all over the place, a safety deposit box key…I’ve managed to acquire a loaned bicycle to get to my substitute teaching jobs and town, and hitch to work at the ski area. I have just the pans and pots lent to me that I need to prepare meals, along with my one glass, one nicely rounded bowl, rounded coffee cup to drink my espresso, and a round soup spoon. I like round surfaces in their design. I purchased one lamp and futon, and have just the furniture that I need, just enough, a desk and chair. In fact, the other day was the first time I made a bed, after sleeping in a sleeping bag on my futon for months. I realized I had two sheets, a pillow case and a comforter and another zipped something or other which I’m using as the encasement of the comforter. It all works. I’ve found items I’ve purchased at a used thrift store appropriately called, “Look What the Cat Dragged In. They donate proceeds to the local animal shelter. There I got my coffee cup, small plate, steak knife, 1 spatula…and recently bought a can opener. We’re talking minimalist. I love it. I don’t need more. I accumulated clothing that have become my ski wear that are wind and cold resistant, and happened to have some gloves and other clothes that I then brought along back here, now graduating from two backpacks to an additional large and small suitcase. Bass guitar is always of value to have wherever I go, and I have my fav piano book so that I can stop in at places with piano to play.

I created the cup in the picture (a utensil container) an art class i participated in, joining my students in their class. Great, all the materials provided: clay & glaze and it was fired in their kiln a few weeks later.

cup made in art class in a school with students in Santa Fe
clay formed, glazed and fired

The cup is a utensil container, because it leaks! I use it to hold my one fork, knife and spoon, 1 wooden spoon…

I made a painting in an art class too, along the theme of my book.

February art class Waterfunnel painting

Carol Keiter the blogger, writer, artist, musician, composer, photographer

Art Light Spring Home TGr Santa Fe, New Mexico

Here are a collection of photos that I’ve taken both with a Canon Power shot and Coolpad Rogue phone. They are of the things I love. Art Light and Shadows, Blossoming trees, the cat I named TGr who came along with the new residence. Spring in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Art Light Spring Santa Fe New Mexico

I have visited numerous art galleries, particularly on their Friday evening openings.

Art Light Spring Santa Fe New Mexico

I’ve taken a lot of pictures, here’s the link

Art Light Spring Santa Fe New Mexico: pics of that which I love and appreciate

Here are a few of the featured artists which I like very much at the Turner Carroll gallery.

Hung Liu artist featured at Turner Carroll gallery on Canyon Rd. in Santa Fe, NM

Igor Melnikov Turner Carroll gallery Santa Fe, NM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thanks for looking

doing art, writing, taking photos, music

The Demoralized Mind essay by John F. Schumaker | The Moral Order by Anthropologist Raoul Naroll

“Western consumer culture is creating a psycho-spiritual crisis that leaves us disoriented and bereft of purpose” states John F Schumaker in his essay in the New Internationalist The Demoralized Mind. How can we treat our sick culture and make ourselves well?

John F Schumaker is a Clinical Psychologist who also has a 25-year career as a university lecturer across nations including the United States, Zambia, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He has researched and published articles on cross-cultural mental health, depression, psychology of religion, eating disorders and human suggestibility.

The Demoralized Mind essay by John F Schumaker in New Internationalist magazine

“By contrast to many traditional cultures that lack depression entirely, or even a word for it, Western consumer culture is certainly depression-prone…In the largest study of its kind, Ramin Mojtabai of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health sampled over 5,600 cases and found that only 38 per cent of them met the criteria for depression.

Contributing to the confusion is the equally insidious epidemic of demoralization that also afflicts modern culture. Since it shares some symptoms with depression, demoralization tends to be mislabelled and treated as if it were depression. A major reason for the poor 28-per-cent success rate of anti-depressant drugs is that a high percentage of ‘depression’ cases are actually demoralization, a condition unresponsive to drugs.

In the past, our understanding of demoralization was limited to specific extreme situations, such as debilitating physical injury, terminal illness, prisoner-of-war camps, or anti-morale military tactics.

But there is also a cultural variety of demoralization that can express itself more subtly and develop behind the scenes of normal everyday life under pathological cultural conditions such as we have today. This culturally generated demoralization is nearly impossible to avoid for the modern ‘consumer’.

Rather than a depressive disorder, demoralization is a type of existential disorder associated with the breakdown of a person’s ‘cognitive map’. It is an overarching psycho-spiritual crisis –
Its driving features – individualism, materialism, hyper-competition, greed, over-complication, overwork, hurriedness and debt – all correlate negatively with psychological health and/or social wellbeing.

The level of intimacy, trust and true friendship in people’s lives has plummeted.

Without an existential compass, the commercialized mind gravitates toward a ‘philosophy of futility’, as Noam Chomsky calls it, in which people feel naked of power and significance beyond their conditioned role as pliant consumers.

Individualistic models of mind have stymied our understanding of many disorders that are primarily of cultural origin.

But recent years have seen a growing interest in the topic of cultural health and ill-health as they impact upon general wellbeing. At the same time, we are moving away from naïve behavioural models and returning to the obvious fact that the human being has a fundamental nature, as well as a distinct set of human needs, that must be addressed by a cultural blueprint.

In his groundbreaking book The Moral Order, anthropologist Raoul Naroll used the term ‘moral net’ to indicate the cultural infrastructure that is required for the mental wellbeing of its members.

Without an existential compass, the commercialized mind gravitates toward a ‘philosophy of futility’, as Noam Chomsky calls it, in which people feel naked of power and significance beyond their conditioned role as pliant consumers. Lacking substance and depth, and adrift from others and themselves, the thin and fragile consumer self is easily fragmented and dispirited.

Individualistic models of mind have stymied our understanding of many disorders that are primarily of cultural origin.

Human culture has mutated into a sociopathic marketing machine dominated by economic priorities and psychological manipulation.

Human culture has mutated into a sociopathic marketing machine dominated by economic priorities and psychological manipulation. Never before has a cultural system inculcated its followers to suppress so much of their humanity. Leading this hostile takeover of the collective psyche are increasingly sophisticated propaganda and misinformation industries that traffic the illusion of consumer happiness by wildly amplifying our expectations of the material world. Today’s consumers are by far the most propagandized people in history. The relentless and repetitive effect is highly hypnotic, diminishing critical faculties, reducing one’s sense of self, and transforming commercial unreality into a surrogate for meaning and purpose.

Cultural deprogramming is essential, along with ‘culture proofing’, disobedience training and character development strategies, all aimed at constructing a worldview that better connects the person to self, others and the natural world.

Erich Fromm sums up this challenge: ‘We can’t make people sane by making them adjust to this society. We need a society that is adjusted to the needs of people.’

Democracy in its present guise is a guardian of cultural insanity.
We are long overdue a cultural revolution that would force a radical revamp of the political process, economics, work, family and environmental policy.

It might seem that credibility, meaning and purposeful action would derive from the multiple threats to our safety and survival posed by the fatal mismatch between consumer culture and the needs of the planet. The fact that it has not highlights the degree of demoralization that infects the consumer age. With its infrastructure firmly entrenched, and minimal signs of collective resistance, all signs suggest that our obsolete system – what some call ‘disaster capitalism’ – will prevail until global catastrophe dictates for us new cultural directions.”

Though I am physically and emotionally fit, I’m financially challenged – affected more recently by dealings with several unscrupulous people in a recent housing situation. I’m happy however, and appreciate any donations towards my blog writing, eBook with science links, illustration, photography and music composition.

Carol Keiter the blogger

Factory Outlet by George Monbiot posted in the Guardian | Expeditionary Learning

Mass conformism through propaganda. George Monbiot’s words continue to pierce me with his insights.

http://www.monbiot.com/2017/02/16/factory-outlet/

Posted in the Guardian 16th of February, 2017

He talks of the educational conformism that drains teacher’s and students of creativity, and speaks of several systems that move away from the old model, that was designed to produce workers in the 19th century industrialist cultures we lived in.

One educational model that stood out to me, the Reggio Emilia approach, is only because I happened to visit there when I hitchhiked from Berlin to southern Germany, destination Rome.

It was just today that I took a picture of this Expeditionary Learning description on the wall of an 8th grade bi-lingual school science class here in Santa fe.

Expeditionary – hands and all senses on – Learning

Reminding me of a blog I wrote, after discovering the concept on a hitchhiking journey in which two teachers coming from a conference picked me up and informed me about it.

Why kids need to move, touch and experience to learn Expeditionary Learning

Carol the blogger among Italians in Reggio Emilia on Italian Hitchabout

Carol Keiter, aka nomadbeatz, welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol the blogger’s contact card while residing here in the southwest for the time being.

Carol Keiter the blogger back in Tucson, Arizona summer ’16

The Great Awakening | EcoSpirituality | Now Is The Time | The Giver

What is it that causes me to keep putting off taking my own work seriously? I have endowed ‘work’ for others all my life as something to value and adhere to? I learned the message from my parent’s, properly socialized into endowing ‘work’ from the outside, a duty, as something more of value than listening to the calls of my own destiny. It is true that I am presently suddenly endowed with heaps of ‘work’, that is helping to pay my credit card bills and rent. I am also working the hardest I ever have physically, to bicycle to get to these jobs; often commuting no less than 15 miles a day by bicycle.

I have however been given circumstances that have tremendously helped me in retrospect. One apartment that I moved into provided me with adequate warm clothing that I have been able to use towards my ski instructor job, for which I had had no adequate clothing with me since coming West a year ago. I have been able to acquire just what I needed to survive and make my little sphere of activity complete – allowing me to have the tools to prepare meals, something that i greatly value for health and aesthetics. I also have a favorite piano book with me which I use to go to a public place with a piano to practice. I have my bass guitar here as well to regularly practice a repertoire of songs that are part of that. I have been leant a bicycle to allow me to get to where I need to go. I am however feeling that I have been selling myself short.

I have had intellectual and spiritual nudges arrive just in the times that I have needed them. A week ago I suddenly became ill with a flu, which allowed me to now have a pause in work and the time to reflect and act in my own path. I have been so busy with working jobs for other organizations, that I’ve allowed my own path of completing my book, writing my blogs and composing music, to just drift to the side.

The path to a new beginning starts within you, with love. people-dont-choose-their-dreams-dreams-choose-them-prince-ea-everydody-dies-but-not-everybody-lives

I’ve been re-awakened again and again by the artist I recently discovered, Prince Ea, regarding not letting your own dreams drift away, and recognizing that to live fully, one must put effort and time behind one’s own dreams. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannon-mcdeez/what-prince-ea-wants-you-to-know_b_5945938.html

I read about this national immigrant walk-out day, after I experienced showing up to a local middle school and having all classes cancelled, and the entire school day disrupted, due to the fact that perhaps a third of the student body hadn’t shown up to school, as they were immigrant children. Santa fe is a sanctuary for immigrants.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-day-without-immigrants-20170216-htmlstory.html

During this day of no classes, I was privy to watching a film held for 8th graders, which suddenly put into very real and understood terms, the ‘analogy’ of this. It was directed by Phillip Noyce, and the book written by the same title by Hannah Arendt.

The Giver,-film-by Phillip Noyce
Book by Lois Lowry

Funny how despite reading a typically critical (easer to critique and find fault than to understand the messages) review, I suddenly had a eureka moment upon seeing this film. Brilliantly done to stage a fantasy, the filmmaker Phillip Noyce reveals in a series of images and story, what the intellectual Noam Chomsky has been saying for decades about the human race in ‘Manufacturing Consent’; proposing that the mass communication media of the U.S. “are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion”, by means of the propaganda model of communication.

I watched the film and realized that the analogy, is actually what is happening. We are mutually ‘enculturated’ through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enculturation what we learn through the media we consume (tv, commercial news, film & video and especially commercials) to learn what to value and believe in.

Sure, there are noble professions in which people strive to educate themselves and learn in order to bring a service or product that is helping humanity, but there is also a tremendous imbalance taking place, in which many people are working to live, and actually believe that they have freedom. As long as we are enslaved into believing that working to acquire a vehicle and to live up to the expectations of our peers in terms of material consumption, we are living a lie.

All those who are ‘studying business’ with the idea of making profit in mind, are even more demonstrating this. As long as we believe that our freedom is in material accumulation, the amount of time we can focus our attention on our electronic devices and not think twice about noticing a creature or sunset, then these corporate powers have accomplished their goal.

People are not free. As I was leaving the film riding home on my bicycle, I realize how this local community are completely isolated from one another in their automobiles; which they hold as their truest value, their acquisition and their demonstration of power. I realized that the corpocrisy is what is in control. And when I though about the huge, huge prominence of pharmaceuticals (both legally and ‘medically sanctioned’ and illegal) I realized that this dumbing down and diffusing of emotions and passion into black and white and grey, through (accepted diagnostic treatment) is indeed a tool of control by the powers which control us. We don’t even see it, because we accept that these are normal adaptations. Commercial advertising dictate what is important, physical beauty and prestige through material possession. I have stepped into the public school system and see that these are institutions designed in the treatment of the students as if they are in a penal system in which the utmost demonstration is not curiosity but obedience to authority.

Just days ago one of these insight gifts tumbled into my awareness, this article by Dahr Jamail, interviewing the ecologist Joanna Macy.

“Learning to See in the Dark Amid Catastrophe: An Interview With Deep Ecologist Joanna Macy”
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout

Learning to See in the Dark Amid Catastrophe: An Interview With Deep Ecologist Joanna Macy
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Interview

In it she speaks of the philosopher and writer Hanna Arendt, who wrote “The Origins of Totalitarianism”

“The inhuman economic machine does not love us back. It makes us into robots. It sucks us into the destruction of all that is. And even if we can’t turn it around now, at least we can wake up, so that in the time that is left we can discover who we are, just looking into each other’s eyes. Just looking into the face of the moon at night, or the trees, or the faces of our children and free ourselves. I think we want that.”

“Now Is The Time” Leonardo DiCaprio’s Moving Speech on Climate Change

Man, animation by Steve Cutts

Interesting that a few weeks ago I got a ride hitching down the Santa fe Ski mountain with a scientist who picked me up. We began talking about Trump and the environment. This man has been working with the National Park Service. He mentioned that within the first two days of Trump’s presidency, when Trump noticed a reference to ‘Climate Change’ among the National Park Service, that he immediately blocked off the entire National Park Service twitter account. Immediately frozen. Yet, that within just hours of this occurring, a brilliant IT person hastily established an ‘alt national park service twitter account’, to which more than a Million scientists joined within the first day. The ‘alt twitter account’ has been embraced by NOAA, NASA and other scientists and agencies just as swiftly. The man said to me with a twinkle in his eye

“Who would have thought that the resistance would be lead by Park Rangers?”

I happened to hear the same theme coming up in my own mind spontaneously and through the words of friends and communication of writer’s and artists simultaneously all around me, is that love does conquer fear. And I happened with delight within a text by Thick Nhat Hanh and reminder of the same concept that I heard associated with the Aboriginees, Indigenous people of Australia, that to truly love something and to have empathy for it, to become it, is the only way that people will wake up to loving every aspect of creation. As long as we are separated and isolated to our true nature by this imposed economic viewpoint that the pursuit of money and material accoutrements is the only goal, we will be perpetually living the lie, that is conveniently continually jammed down our throat. No peace and love and harmony do not arrive through full-throttle blinded identification with money and its pursuit, but by grasping in each moment the miracle of life that surrounds us.

https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/band-of-sisters-universe-story-ecotheology/

Wildlife Conservation Agenda, Defenders of Wildlife

Donations for Carol Keiter’s writing, eBook, music composition and art, gratefully accepted!

Carol Keiter the blogger back in Tucson, Arizona summer ’16

Women’s March Jan. 21st Largest Protest Nationwide | Worldwide Anti-Trump | Wild Earth Guardians

Womens march AGAINST TRUMP today Jan. 21st is largest protest in US History

“1982’s anti-nuclear march in New York City drew an estimated crowd of 1 million. The 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington drew 250,000. 1969 anti-Vietnam war march in Washington was attended by an estimated 500,000-600,000. 1995’s Million Man March was attended by 400,000-1.1 million. In 1993, the LGBT March for equal rights had a crowd of 800,00-1 million.

There has never been anything in US history like the Women’s March. It is nationwide, and proof that the American people are not going accept the agenda of the Trump administration without a serious fight.”

Huffington Post has some highlights of creative signs made for the march in Washington D.C.

Tinkle Tinkle Little Czar Putin put you where you are

An article in the Wall Street Journal states that Hundreds of Thousands Gather i the Nation’s Capital to protest Trump.

Wall Street Journal Hundreds of thousands protest

People protesting Donald Trump swarmed events in cities from New York to Melbourne, in a rebuke to an incoming president unlike any seen in modern times.

Indivisible, is a practical guide for resisting the trump agenda.

Indivisible a practical guide for resisting the trump agenda

Madonna speaking at the women’s march

Women’s Marches Worldwide Jan. 21st 2017 Paris…new-york-times

Madonna said at the Women’s March in Washington D.C. “welcome to the revolution of love…today marks the beginning of our story, the revolution starts here, the fight for the right to be free from tyranny…we are not afraid, we are not alone, we will not back down, there is power in our unity…true solidarity…it is the beginning of change that will require sacrifice people…are you ready?”

Here is a link to Scarlett Johansson’s very powerful Speech At The Women’s March On Washington “Don’t give up your power. Volunteer. Donate to causes.”

Scarlett Johansson’s very powerful Speech At The Women’s March On Washington (Full | HD)

I was obliged to work today at Ski Santa fe and therefore couldn’t attend the local march in Santa fe. However, here are some photos and video footage of the local Santa fe’s turnout for the international women (and men’s) march expressing desire for compassion over hatred and joy over anger…and each of their motivations for being there; social rights, animal rights, reverence for nature and its creatures…

Women’s March in Antarctica Jan. 21st, 2017

The Wild Earth Guardians contributed to local Santa fe actions towards ‘rallying to protect Chaco canyon from Fracking’, ‘ending the US Government’s War on Wildlife’ and more.

Protect Chaco BLM wildearth guardians

oil and water don’t mix, go solar
campaign to end sacrifice zones, confluence collective

Don’t Frack with our Air

My favorite journalist currently, George Monbiot, writes about the environment and necessarily, about politics and monetary greed, since the latter block awareness and action towards taking obvious actions to guard our planet and its creatures. In his most recent article, published in the Guardian on the 19th of January, 2007. “The Pollution Paradox: Dirty industries spend more on politics, keeping us in the fossil age.” He states poignantly,

“Make America Wait Again. That’s what Donald Trump’s energy policy amounts to. Stop all the clocks, put the technological revolution on hold, ensure that the transition from fossil fuels to clean power is delayed for as long as possible.”

Monbiot describes the changes accompanying ‘climate change/global warming’ which will lead to “the end of civilizations and many of the people they support. If this happens, it will amount to the greatest crime ever committed. And members of Trump’s proposed cabinet are among the leading perpetrators.

In their careers so far, they have championed the fossil fuel industry while contesting the measures intended to prevent climate breakdown. They appear to have considered the need of a few exceedingly rich people to protect their foolish investments for a few more years, weighed it against the benign climatic conditions that have allowed humanity to flourish, and decided that the foolish investments are more important.”

Strength in numbers and adding your voice and actions.

Wilderness Watch Stop Massive Tree-cutting in Owyhee Wilderness

Carol the blogger before hitching to San Francisco from Tucson, Arizona

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

ArT WorK and PlaY in Santa fe, New Mexico

It’s sat night and I came back from skiing all day starting with an 8am ski clinic to teach instructors how better to shape their craft. I had worked at an elementary school 5 days last week which I discovered in the online (absence management) substitute teacher coordination and booked it last Sunday. I’m really impressed with a number of their teachers; their skill and devotion. I had a blast, loved the kids, loved learning with them and participating in other activities like PE, music and art classes.

contemporary art and ethnic artifacts art galleries in Santa fe

I just checked the online site where I can coordinate work half an hour ago or so and after days of no new opportunities, there were suddenly 2 multi-day jobs. This is what pays my rent, so i’m delighted. I worked out the bike routes and schedule now, because I’m working at the ski area for the 3 day weekend holiday of Martin Luther King day.

I love skiing. I enjoy teaching. Life is good. 

I went to several gallery openings (every Friday typically at least a couple or 4 galleries have ‘open house’. I saw good art, inspiring stuff, new and old, met some nice people and took pics. 

New Year in Fanta se Santa fe, New Mexico

I watched the moon rise the other day, my phone couldn’t capture it’s brilliance.

full moon rise January 12th, 2017

I was fortunate to book a week of work through the Santa Fe Public Schools as a substitute teacher for a 4th grade class and several special needs students. I had a great time; learned things, watched in amazement at these different personalities and enjoyed this school and the quality of various teachers who impressed me.

fourth grade class

I like the attitude of this elementary school in general. The kids pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States with their hands on their heart, in English, then again in Spanish.

New Mexico state flag

Then they face the New Mexico state flag with their palms up and say that pledge.

New Mexico state pledge with open palms

in English and in Spanish. Then they do another pledge with the nuances inferred as they make the shape of a heart with their hands, about being kind to one another. This one I love the best.

elementary school pledge making a heart with the hands

Lots of pledges!

Habits of Mind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like the central place where I live where I bicycle on bike paths to the schools – last week a high school at the south end of town to teach in a chorus and technical music class (editing in Logic Pro X). From here I hitch up to the ski area to teach mostly beginners at Ski Santa fe.

Ski Santa Fe

Ski Santa fe

I cried when I was leaving the school after the 5 days with these same kids with whom I interacted. I really loved their quirky personalities, enthusiasm to participate, a reflection of their good teacher who keeps them on a good pace and who is a kind person.

I visit a dog Nala who’s a gentle pit bull living next to the Rail trail bike & pedestrian path en route from schools.

I’m off to the Friday evening gallery openings, for inspiration and occasionally nice spreads of food.

🙂

Faber Castell Water Color Pencil paintings Santa Fe area November & December

Here are the several water colors I’ve had time to create in these last two months, here in the Santa Fe National Forest and also at Tent Rocks, in New Mexico

I’ve been taking shots of them as they develop to show the progression

Pictures of the progression of Water Color Paintings done with Faber Castell

I’m actually not yet finished with the last of the three! I’ll post the completed version soon.

Colored Pencil Watercolor Progressions Santa Fe National Forest Oct. 2016

showing the progression – especially in the last series of seven sketches, and final water color painting, which I did on the site the next day in each case. I use Faber Castell colored pencils. I’ve been living temporarily adjacent to a lovely home, off Hyde Park Rd, 1,000 feet in altitude above Santa Fe, New Mexico. A hefty commute, by bicycle.
I was accompanied by my companion while I’ve lived up here above Santa Fe, a Husky/Akita mix named Luna. The most gentle dog, yet barked several bear cubs up trees! I’ve walked crossing into the national park from the cabin I’ve been a guest living in. Luna and I saw a mother bear and her cub again today! I saw one with the dog a week ago, a different mother bear that was larger and with more brown, and two smaller cubs.

showing the progression – especially in the last series of seven sketches, and final water color painting, which I did on the site the next day in each case. I use Faber Castell colored pencils. I’ve been living temporarily adjacent to a lovely home, off Hyde Park Rd, 1,000 feet in altitude above Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter artist, selfie Oct 27th, 2016

carol_on a hike looking at the golden Aspens above Santa Fe towards the Ski Basin Oct

Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness ~ Power & Powerlessness

Dedicated to Marshall Slade Agresto Smith, who killed himself the day after his 22nd birthday. His family includes French, Spanish, Native American and Lebanese blood. The blood of his life is on all of our hands.

Marshall Slade Agresto Smith candlelight vigil dedicated to his life, which he ended with suicide with his own gun.

He was an acquaintance whom i met at the bar where I asked to dj and incorporate my own music with the set. He hung out there from time to time, when he wasn’t working as a chef. Cooking was his passion.

Mashall Slade Agresto Smith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spoke to him, commenting that the way he dressed, he looked like the carpenter apprentices in Germany who wear a particular uniform and only walk between their apprenticeships, Zimmerman. I couldn’t remember the name, and intended to tell Marshall the next time i saw him.

Zimmerman is a tradition that is hundreds of years old, still practiced in Germany and parts of France.

A Zimmerman is basically a journeyman.

I noticed the last time I saw him to my astonishment that he had a real gun in a holster carried on his belt, hanging at his stomach. He said “yeah, it’s legal here in New Mexico”. Bout a week later, i was swinging by the plaza of Santa Fe coming into town at dusk and saw all these people standing holding candles and ‘CANDELARIOS’ lined up around the center.

Candlelight vigil for Marshall Smith

I thought to myself, which tragedy happened now around the world, a new bombing or flight disaster? I approached and tried to see in the darkness the picture setting there. I soon learned that it was a vigil for Marshall, who killed himself several days earlier. The day after his 22nd birthday he shot himself with his won gun. His family stated in the announcement of his obituary, to not let people who drink be near guns, and not let people with guns near alcohol.

I came across this article a few days ago and sensed it that it’s appropriate to the current zeitgeist.

Broken Open Heidi Barr on grief

“Politics.  Human decency.  Disrespect for women.  Self hatred.  Governmental control.  Fear. Complacency.  Planetary destruction.  Stealing.   Dishonoring sacred sites.  Destroying nations.  The despair of the poor.   The despair of the rich.  Outrage.  Ignorance.  Brushing it under the rug.  Dishonesty.  Hope.  Hopelessness. Wondering.  Paying the bills.  Running away.  Feeling stuck.

So I don’t think we need more guilt, or rage, or powerlessness.  We surely don’t need more entitlement, self hatred, or shame.   But we do need to grieve that which has been lost, that which has died, that which we or our children will never have, and that which is at this very moment fading away.  Stephen Jenkins says, “Grief requires us to know the time we are in.  We don’t require hope to proceed.  We require grief to proceed.”

Marshall’s one grandfather had been president of a local college, St. Johns. The other, a Native American who’s a fantastic chef, bringing the family together through this ritual and art, which his grandson Marshall adopted with a passion.

I feel that this is representative of a sickness of our culture.

We’re all ‘expected’ – by whom – cultural norms and habitual responses – to conform; i.e. in our economic incentives, the way we dress, the appendages and material possessions we obtain, through the work we do, the way we express ourselves and how we view and even interpret reality. It’s a structural conformity, that filters down to our routines and habits, the ‘weekend’ celebration, the time allotted from our economic machine to gather… otherwise – put your head down and don’t question. French, Ukrainians…question. Americans are severely brainwashed. Noam Chomsky communicated how the media contribute to this structural conformity in Manufacturing Consent. “proposing that the mass communication media of the U.S. are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion, by means of the propaganda model of communication.”

Suicides, drug addiction are all representative of cultural ills. War is a condoned, anticipated and enculturated norm which is uncanny. War and artillery, weapons and the military industrial complex are viewed through the cloak of nationalism. It is your duty, and is equated with loyalty and honor to your country. I become so disgusted with this that I often feel just disappointment with my fellow man, and have more affection, adoration & praise for other animal & life forms, including plants.

This young man was not a conformist by any means>>>>and our culture screams for conformity. Consumerism overpowers the urge for genuine communication and cooperation. We all quickly assess and judge by clothes. How do you dress? What kind of automobile do you drive? What are these things broadcasting about you? What is your job or profession? How do you make your way in the world to pay for your housing and clothes…so that you have a place to sleep when your weekend respite arrives to spend some time at home enjoying these? We drive by one another insulated in our automobiles or interact while attending an entertainment event which we usually need to pay for. The entertainment standard is something we passively ‘watch’, rather than interactively participate in. I have been viscerally thinking about this and wrote while waiting to attend the ‘visitation’…that I’m disgusted with Marshall’s suicide, feel it is representative of cultural ills – not merely family.

fiery orange sunset

The same day that I walked out of the visitation for Marshal and caught a glimpse of this fiery orange sunset which lingered pink on the horizon as I rode away, I later communicated the circumstances to a friend living in New Mexico who also saw this sunset. She said that just that day she had been reading about the Bridgend suicides, which were this sudden increase in suicides among mostly teenagers and young adults in the last few years in Wales. I found this article about it. The Mystery Suicides of Bridgend county

“The author talks to “cluster suicide” experts…Outbreaks like this are rare but not new…They have happened in Germany, Australia, Japan, the U.S., Canada, and Micronesia…Psychologists familiar with the phenomenon are saying that what’s going on in Wales is a classic case of the Werther effect, named for Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, about a young man who puts a gun to his head to end the agony of unrequited love and because he can’t find his place in the provincial bourgeois society of the day. The novel’s publication, in 1774, prompted young men all over Europe to dress like Werther and take their lives. It’s also called the contagion effect and copycat suicide: one person does it, and that lowers the threshold, making it easier and more permissible for the next…”

“These suicides are a symptom of a deeper societal malaise.”

This was just one individual, yet it prompted me to wonder how common suicides have been in history. It’s something I’ve never really wondered aboutinternational suicide rates. It appeared from my search that this has been on the rise in a number of different countries. I can’t imagine that this was common hundreds of years ago somehow.

International suicide statistics

About the same time that this occurred, George Monbiot – an environmental, social, economic and political writer – wrote this blog. “There Is Such a Thing As Society”

Why should plagues of mental illness surprise us, in a world being ripped apart?

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 12th October 2016

“What greater indictment of a system could there be than an epidemic of mental illness? Yet plagues of anxiety, stress, depression, social phobia, eating disorders, self-harm and loneliness now strike people down all over the world. The latest, catastrophic figures for children’s mental health in England reflect a global crisis…There are plenty of secondary reasons for this distress, but it seems to me that the underlying cause is everywhere the same. Human beings, the ultrasocial mammals, whose brains are wired to respond to other people, are being peeled apart. Economic and technological change play a major role, but so does ideology.”

“Though our well-being is inextricably linked to the lives of others, everywhere we are told that we will prosper through competitive self-interest and extreme individualism.”

Another article and preview of the film which it refers to also presented itself during these same last few days.
From Brexit to Donald Trump: welcome to the age of hypernormalisation in London

“No one talks about power these days. We are encouraged to see ourselves as free, independent individuals not controlled by anybody, and we despise politicians as corrupt and empty of all ideas…But power is all around us. It’s just that it has shifted and mutated into a massive system of management and control, whose tentacles reach into all parts of our lives. But we can’t see it because we still think of power in the old terms—of politicians telling us what to do.”

Hyper normalization Living in an Unreal World

Still from trailer of Hypernormalization film by Adam Curtis

“The aim of the film I have made — HyperNormalisation — is to bring that new power into focus, and show its true dimensions. It ranges from a giant computer high up in the mountains of northeast America that manages and controls over 7 percent of the worlds total wealth, to the complex algorithms that constantly monitor every move and choice you make online- giant computer constantly compares events happening around the world to events in the past. If it sees a dangerous pattern, it immediately adjusts its trillions of dollars to keep things stable. That is real power. The algorithms on social media constantly look at the patterns of what you like and then feed you more of that—so you enter into an echo chamber that constantly feeds you back to you. So again nothing changes—and you learn nothing new that would contradict how you feel. That too is real power.”

In the meantime, Native Americans and a handful of white people are in North Dakota trying to defend their land.

In North Dakota, the Dakota Pipeline protestors are actually Water Protectors

By the way, I learned the other day from a man I met who had been adopted by a Native American family who is a Native American Literature professor, that in contributing to the writing of the United States Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was inspired by the Iroquois. The Six Nations: the Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth

“The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois Confederacy, call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a Long House… The original United States representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of nations. Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history.”

Iroquois 6-nations Oldest Living Participatory-Democracy on Earth

Karl Marx was also influenced by the Iroquois in his political philosophy.

In fact, every kid in school is indoctrinated into this with the daily pledge of allegiance.

Second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence

And yet, I don’t particularly feel that we are all created equal, especially when those who inspired the declaration are the very people who live in sacrifice zones – A sacrifice zone is a geographic area that has been permanently impaired by environmental damage or economic disinvestment. These zones are most commonly found in low-income and minority communities.

Speaking of Democracy, wikileaks now reveals that it is not ‘we the people’ in a Democracy who vote for our representatives, but in fact just before the last election it was Citibank who were already planning even before Obama was elected, who were going to be taking the top posts in the Federal government. This New Republic describes The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton

What John Podesta’s emails from 2008 reveal about the way power works in the Democratic Party.
BY DAVID DAYEN October 14, 201

“Michael Froman, who is now U.S. trade representative but at the time was an executive at Citigroup, wrote an email to Podesta on October 6, 2008, with the subject “Lists.”

This was October 6. The election was November 4. And yet Froman, an executive at Citigroup, which would ultimately become the recipient of the largest bailout from the federal government during the financial crisis, had mapped out virtually the entire Obama cabinet, a month before votes were counted. And according to the Froman/Podesta emails, lists were floating around even before that.”

Is Compassion the Antidote to Neoliberalism

Meanwhile in his article addressing climate change and the disasters and devastation of the petroleum industries’, Monbiot writes in his blog “What Lies Beneath” – a nice play on words – is as biting and bold as his honest assessments always are.

“All this nonsense is a substitute for a simple proposition: stop digging. There is only one form of carbon capture and storage that is scientifically proven and can be deployed immediately: leaving fossil fuels in the ground.

“Their (governments in the pocket of the oil industry) choices are as follows. 1. a gradual, managed decline of existing production and its replacement with renewable energy and low-carbon infrastructure, which offer great potential for employment. 2. allowing fossil fuel production to continue at current rates for a while longer, followed by a sudden and severe termination of the sector, with dire consequences for both jobs and economies. 3. continuing to produce fossil fuels as we do today, followed by climate breakdown. Why is this a hard choice to make?”

In the meantime,

Great Barrier Reef officially declared Dead after 25 million years

The Great Barrier Reef is officially dead: http://www.theearthchild.co.za/great-barrier-reef-officially-declared-dead-25-million-years/

I am in the library with my laptop, the only place to come to, not having residual cash to pay at a cafe to sit and linger in communication with the rest of the world. I’m here among library patrons along with a regular homeless population, of which, I guess i’m sort of one. In Tucson, at the grandiose university student library, there were a lot of homeless people too. There are no places to congregate really, unless you have money to spend. I wish to continue writing blogs and doing the research to complete my book, wish to continue playing bass guitar and piano and composing music with computer programs. I am lost as to how to find an artist residency.

… I entertain myself through learning and reading and doing various creative projects, which except for the tools – is free – all the time and effort put in to it have returns in the delivery of delight and joy gained through doing something. It is empowerment through action, not through consumption.

I have been kicked out of numerous places over the last year; parent’s home in PA, the workaway on a ferry in Brooklyn, my friend’s house in PA, the WWOOF i had arranged in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, and then voluntarily from the place i could no longer afford by paying rent with my credit card…and a few other places among familiar people, because people need their space. In fact there are a lot of quite large homes here in Santa Fe and people with homes left vacant while they live in their other homes….and I now have even more stuff that I’ve aggregated to my side; a suitcase of clothes, my laptop, bass guitar, favorite piano book, camera, now a few more frisbees since I’ve joined in on local ultimate frisbee pickup games in each towns I’ve lived in…and yet am almost homeless again, as I’m living so far up into the hills – literally encroaching on the animal habitats of the animals that have no more space for their own territory to live and survive – that my back is started to feel the weight of carrying everything with me down the hill and then trekking back.

I’m going to attend the debates tonight again in a public forum, just to exchange with people around me in their loathing. I had found a place and exchanged a friendly conversation for almost two hours with the woman with whom i thought we had a lot in common, and she said she had to sleep on it, and then never bothered to call me to say she didn’t want me as a housemate. then i moved to this mountain home guest of a man living alone there whose dog I walk, and the other woman who i was going to move in with and had to wait 2 weeks + to move in, called it off at the last moment, after i’d taken down all my signs, stopped looking for housing. a day before move-in i received an email in blue ink, very comforting looking, saying that she wasn’t moving in. then i had my first day at a job substitute teaching and instead of the principal telling me that it wasn’t going to work while I talked to her about potentially exchanging positions with the music teacher substitute who didn’t know how to read music…didn’t bother to tell me to my face that the job was off, but i found a ‘system response’ later that night. Had i not seen it, i would have gotten up again at 5:30 am to get there. then last night, i went to practice bass with a band, and neither of the guys bothered to phone to tell me that this was off, in fact they were playing earlier together with another guy on bass, when the day before i was trying to arrange an alternative night to accommodate the one guys’ new job.

It appears to me that gay men control the fashion and the art industry and then a small percentage of people control everything else. I’ve put out housing ads, and there have been a few people who randomly contact me with obscure cryptic texts, and then there have been a few men who send me pics, practically sexting, to their abs in pictures.

In the meantime, An eye-opening flight over California’s dying forests
By Kurtis Alexander Updated: August 6, 2016 8:00pm

Dead trees sweeping across the Sierras – California’s dying forests

The four crew members were halfway through two weeks of flights over landscapes shifting ominously from green to brown, and already they’d begun to draw their conclusion: The mind-boggling number of trees that have died in California due to drought — an estimated 66 million over five years — is only the beginning.

It’s creeping farther north, and to higher elevations, not only providing tinder for wildfires, but also obstructing the forests’ fundamental ability to provide clean water and absorb carbon dioxide.

All i want is an artist residency where I can physically contribute to learning about and maintaining sustainable living, while also helping to ensure animal habitat conservation. My dream; a community of people contributing this, who are also committed to completing new works on an ongoing basis, the work which blends into education and awareness of the fragile planet and interrelationships that need to be sustained. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHRE THESE EXIST? WITHOUT A WAITING LIST?

guess i’m going to have to adjust the sails

“

Le plus dur n’est pas de rêver, mais de ce réveiller

“

….the most difficult is not to dream, but to wake up…..

Carol Keiter the blogger

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music performance and composition

Santa Fe, New Mexico Fiesta weekend September 9 to 11th, 2016

This past weekend the Fiesta was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico – September 9 to 11th, 2016.

This information below is from this wiki link describing the history of the Santa Fe, New Mexico Fiestas.

“Fiestas de Santa Fe has been held annually since 1712 to celebrate the Reconquest of the city in 1692 by Spanish colonists led by General Don Diego de Vargas (1643–1704). It is the oldest civic celebration of its kind in North America. The Spanish were earlier expelled from the city by neighboring Pueblo people during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and spent the next 12 years in exile in El Paso del Norte (now Ciudad Juárez, Mexico). The King of Spain appointed de Vargas to lead the exiled colonists in their reoccupation of Santa Fe by surrounding the city with cannons and threatening the Pueblo Indians residing inside with death. He re-entered the city on September 14, 1692; however the war for reoccupation of New Mexico raged on until 1694. Eight years after de Vargas’ death, a proclamation was signed to establish an annual commemoration of the resettlement.”

Santa Fe, New Mexico Fiesta weekend September 9 to 11th, 2016

During the parade, their was a float of rappers for Jesus who were local Spanish youth. I caught some of the freestyln’ of this girl.

and of a procession of horses going by. uh, it’s not exactly great audio, but funNy.

I took these pictures at the plaza during the evening of Saturday night the 12th and of the parade held the following day on 9/11/16. In the plaza there were members of the NYC police department who talked of their experiences as search and rescuers from September 11th on.

Here’s a link by the Santa Fe, New Mexico government that describes the city’s history.

“With a population of 70,000, Santa Fe, which means Holy Faith in Spanish, is New Mexico’s fourth largest city. Residents are primarily Hispanic, Anglo and Native American people.

Situated at 7,000 feet in the foothills of the southern Rocky Mountains, Santa Fe is the highest and oldest capital in the U.S. Founded between 1607 and 1610, it’s America’s second oldest city.

This link talks about the history of the United States and the first cities established in the country.

Preconquest and Founding (circa 1050 to 1607)
Santa Fe’s site was originally occupied by a number of Pueblo Indian villages with founding dates from between 1050 to 1150. Most archaeologists agree that these sites were abandoned 200 years before the Spanish arrived. There is little evidence of their remains in Santa Fe today.”

Hitchabout Tucson Arizona to New Mexico

clouds and palms in the Sonoran Desert

Saguaro cactus in Tucson, Arizona

I’ve been so absorbed with my new location that I haven’t had the opportunity to post my hitchabout highlights. Tucson sculptor Al Glann who has a studio in the Tucson Metalarts Village responded to my comment about his mastery in capturing the essence of creatures in his work, “the trick is to work quickly and to know when to stop”.

Al Glann sculptor at Tucson Metalarts Village

I enjoyed the arts of Tucson tremendously, yet my ambivalence peaked as new promises eviscerated. Final pushes lead to a pull towards New Mexico, where I’ve lived previously in several communities.

contrasts in light and dark driving from Tucson, Arizona to New Mexico

 

flickr hitchabout tuscon arizon link to pics

Ambivalence and the fact that I hadn’t quite dived in to the town (except in the pool at the apt complex where I lived which was eerily empty most of the time) was pointing me elsewhere – the ‘universe’ directing me with a number of different innuendos and nudges…and I wasn’t sure exactly when or where. Then I remembered that I have friends not so far away in New Mexico, in several communities there.

 

My intention, to hitch hike more or less 453 miles to Albuquerque, New Mexico from Tucson, Arizona, first stop.

I had the most successful hitch hiking experience EVER; efficiently arriving at each destination which I visualized, right within the timing I anticipated.

I had a great hitchhiking adventure with quick and easy rides. Just two, covering circa 500 miles.

 

Waited no longer than 5 minutes walking from my apartment, which I physically moved out of that morning, August 1st – now an extra bag in tow. Within yards of my residence, a woman stopped to bring me to the Interstate 10 entrance/gas station by there at my request. After leaving the gas station to walk to the highway entrance, a guy driving to Illinois picked me up as I was arriving there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I arrived to my first planned destination that evening, to stay with a woman friend in Albuquerque.

 

My driver opted to stay at a hotel and offered to drive me the next day to my next destination, Santa Fe. We had great fun discussing all sorts of things and talked non-stop until we were hoarse. He met both of my woman friends, and dropped me off at the door of my friend and former boss back when I lived in Taos, New Mexico. He’s a seasoned traveler himself. I listened to many stores. , It appears I was lined up to meet him and for us to influence one another. It seems that he’s brought me that much closer to wanting to simply trust traveling…even if I have no money.
Then to meet up with a friend and former boss in Santa Fe. Turns out she needed someone to cat sit for her and water her plants while she was making some road trips herself.

 

 

 

 
I’ve rolled into meeting a number of old and new friends who are moving me further towards collaborating and following my passions here. It’s gorgeous here. Bright blue skies, lots of fluffy clouds and also the rain storms.

And off for more art viewing.

Whitehawk Antique Indian and Ethnographic Art Show

Tucson ‘Christmas Lights’ Illuminated Year Round

lantern_lizard

lantern_quail

light_color_storyline_cactus_cactus

Tucson Christmas lights flickr link

lit_sailboat_george_washington_painting_2

Here’s the link to a bunch of pictures.

Bare with me in terms of the quality of the photographs. Some have managed to capture the essence, whereas others fall way short of what my eyes were seeing, because of the equipment (and lack of it) that I’m using. I mainly want to reveal that here in Tucson the ‘Christmas lights’ that I saw perusing around streets on my bicycle all over town in February, are still here in July. Tucson citizens and businesses have this creative decorative flair for their homes and businesses and downtown areas that are lit up, all year round. I love it. The most enchanting thing I found one evening, was a huge tree that looked like a fairyland with green laser pointed lights shining onto all of its branches. My camera just can not capture this, too bad. I’m using a Canon camera that is holding on and doing its best. And I’m doing my best without a tripod and all of the functionality of a fully working camera, with no special lenses. So I wince when I see a shot, take it, and it just barely captures in the darkness, what my eyes are seeing. In fact, I notice that in the viewfinder of the camera, the lights look more bright and then upon snapping the photo, it promptly dims. I’m also using an android phone for some shots that seems to function better for the dark shots, yet is obviously much grainier in texture, less dpi than the Canon.

illuminated_tree_branches_closeup

giraffe_sculpture

courtyard before Sinbad restaurant off University

illuminated_tree

restaurant_light_column

lantern_closeup

light_color_storyline_cactus_1

light_color_storyline_shotting_star_planets

Carol Keiter blogger and photographer shiny in the above 100º temperatures

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

the War on Terror is a malignant outgrowth of the Terror of War | Chilcot report: War on Iraq

Much is in the news about the recently released Chilcot report by Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the United Kingdom’s Iraq war inquiry. He was one of the bureaucrats in office during the time the United States and subsequently Great Britain governments’ decided to go to war on Iraq in 2003. The Chilcot report exposes the fact that there were no grounds to go to war on Iraq. There were lies, confounded by more lies that lead to this grave decision, which has subsequently ignited ISIS (whatever acronym you wish to call it), unleashing an insurmountable backlash of violence by groups coping with their own destabilization and horrors. Violence fueled by hatred in ever swirling spirals.

Carne Ross wrote for the New York Times July 6, 2016 Chilcot Report: How Tony Blair Sold the War

“Thus the invasion that was justified by an imaginary threat in Iraq helped create a crisis of global insecurity that will endure for a generation, at least.

The ministers and officials who enabled Mr. Blair to perpetrate this catastrophe must also bear blame. Brave after the event, many testified before Mr. Chilcot that they knew the war was a mistake — yet they went along with it. But without them, it could not have happened. The “threat” of weapons of mass destruction was repeated by many diplomats and officials even when they, like me, were well aware that the scant intelligence we had could not substantiate the claim.”

Matthew Schweitzer on the 8th of July 2016 writes in Mondediplio – the English version of Le Monde Diplomatique, Iraq’s trauma: the Chilcot inquiry

Schweitzer describes the history leading up to this, which has already been destabilizing the area years before. He mentions,

“In 1991, over 10 years before the events described by the Chilcot inquiry occurred, a United Nations report concluded that ‘the children of Iraq up to the ages of puberty are the most traumatized children of war ever described.’ The report arrived at the end of the first Gulf war, in which 20,000-35,000 Iraqi soldiers perished along with nearly 3,700 civilians.”

On July 7th, George Monbiot published on the Guardian’s website The Judgement of History: The Chilcot report is utterly damning; but it’s still not justice

“Mr Blair, the co-author of these crimes, whose lethal combination of appalling judgement and tremendous powers of persuasion made the Iraq war possible, saunters the world, picking up prizes and massive fees, regally granting interviews, cloaked in a force field of denial and legal impunity.

The crucial issue – the legality of the war – was, of course, beyond Sir John Chilcot’s remit…Justice is inseparable from democracy. If a prime minister can avoid indictment for waging aggressive war, the entire body politic is corrupted. In the Chilcot report, there is a reckoning, firm and tough and long overdue. But it’s still not justice.”

George W. Bush and Tony Blair the Guardian The US needs its own Chilcot report Trevor Timm

As a United States citizen born and raised in this country, who protested going to war in the streets back then, it occurred to me that I had read an indictment a few years ago from someone within the United States government exposing the US government’s ill conceived decision to go to war in Iraq. I googled, and came up with this article The US needs its own Chilcot report, written by Trevor Timm

“The former US president most responsible for the foreign policy catastrophe has led a peaceful existence since he left office. Not only has he avoided any post-administration inquiries into his conduct, he has inexplicably seen his approval ratings rise (despite the carnage left in his wake only getting worse).”

And in the politics of injustice, in which corpocrisy rules, it is really up to all of us to actually make a difference.

I beckon comments and suggestions regarding answers on ways to deal with the conundrum of hatred and violence. Perhaps if a large part of the citizens of the United States and Great Britain – for starters – would have the will and courage to make our voices heard and actually demand prosecution for the Crime of War, the consequences could be felt worldwide. That is, rather than passively watching this, actively making clear that you are behind persecuting these criminals – behind which are a bunch of corporations whose goal certainly was to invade Iraq for their own profit motives.

If the message sent to the rest of the world is that we care about other peoples lives who are embroiled in war and the injustice of it – rising above the political veil of democracy – to actually send clear messages of humanitarian love and peace, this in itself could begin wakening quite different responses from people who have only felt desperation and experienced hopelessness and horror.

I will promptly write in my digesthis blog about the concept of ‘othering’ (distancing oneself); a concept of Edward Said, mentioned by Naomi Klein in a larger context, together with the inspiring words of Akala regarding status quo racism built into Empire.

Another means of extracting ourselves from the rather undemocratic government we are in which is ensconced in the politics of money, as politicians are placed by corporate powers to parlay their wishes, is to have a GREEN SUSTAINABILITY REVOLUTION.

Perhaps as one person recently commented, the more that we involve ourselves in our own communities in DIY Doing it Ourselves: to grow our own food, actively engage in community building, build inexpensive systems to collect your own rain water, collect energy from the sun with solar, build community projects such as community gardens and windmills or whatever renewable technology is available and adaptable to the climate and geography of place…the more we will be energizing ourselves without paying into a corrupt system that is bent on continually receiving fees. And the more that people grow their own food and acquire energy from their own self sustaining systems, the healthier and happier and more independent they will be, so that they won’t need to support industries which are reaping huge monetary gains while delivering little. As people take responsibility for their own health and happiness, they will less and less need to buy into a system that keeps them locked into it: i.e. pharmaceutical industry.

Here I go again. Moved to create a blog, pulling together content from a variety of sources by established journalists who have done their rigorous investigative journalism, scrutinizing information to put it out there. I float these out to consecrate their points and add some of my own. I considered researching which print or online publication I could send a query to, to submit an article for which I’m paid, and I guess two factors are dissuading me.

The first, that I want to immediately get this information out there. Secondly, I realize that I am for the most part reading and re-circulating other peoples’ dredging labor involved in investigative journalism. Nevertheless, the more the information is circulated, the better.

Carol Keiter in Tucson, AZ

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Warm Welcome to Obama by Trudeau and Canadians | Obama stresses Pluralism and Tolerance

On June 29th, 2016, President Obama joined with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the North American Leader’s Summit. Obama was given a warm welcome at the event and his speech to the Canadian Parliament and Prime Minister Trudeau received a number of standing ovations. His reception was strong not only because he mentioned a number of Canadian icons, but also because of the resonance that the dignitaries felt when he mentioned that the US and Canada need to work together, leading the world in demonstrable ways to show racial tolerance and in committing to renewable energy.

US President Barack Obama Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto North American Leader’s Summit

Certainly there are transcripts, yet I’ve included the notes that I took, which are extracted highlights of Obama’s address. He stressed many of the values that our two countries share and went on to talk about international trade, security and climate change; mentioning that the latter is not an abstraction, but very real and happening right now.

President Obama stressed tolerance, pluralism and open arms to immigrants and refugees; specifically being inclusive with Muslim communities around the world to provide them with hope and opportunities.

Obama’s opening moments and warm response

He spoke of the need to respect the dignity of all people, especially those who are most vulnerable and of our commitment to a common creed. We must not waver in embracing our best values. Both of our nations are nations of immigrants who must continue to welcome people from around the world. The vibrance of our economies is enhanced through embracing refugees.

“We can’t label people as terrorists, who are the vulnerable people who are fleeing terrorism.”

Obama acknowledges Maryam Monsef Canadian (MP) member of parliament who is an immigrant from Afghanistan

With respect to his point of the obvious need to be tolerant and receptive to immigrants and refugees, Obama mentioned Maryam Monsef, an Incoming Liberal (MP) Member of Parliament sitting there in the session. “She was only three years old when her father was killed, caught in bloody crossfire at the border of Iran and Afghanistan. This link in the Ottawa Citizen includes an interview with her.”

Maryam Monsef Afghanistan immigrant now MP in Canada interview

Here are my highlights of his speech:

He started by claiming that the long border shared between Canada and the United States has maintained the longest period of peace of any border worldwide.

The transatlantic values we share as liberal based democracies are still strong.

The circumstances of Brexit may be unique to the UK, yet the frustrations people felt are not. Working things out on the short term is one thing, but the long term trends of inequality, dislocation and resulting social division can’t be ignored.

How we respond to the forces of globalization and technological change will determine the durability of an international order that ensures future prosperity for future generations.

We share the values of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity.

He referenced a quote; A country is something that is built every day out of shared values” and that.with respect to this, what is true of countries is true of the world.

If our recent financial crisis and recession taught us anything, it is that our countries do better when everyone has an opportunity to succeed.

If a CEO makes more in a day than an employee makes in a year, it is bad for the economy; that worker is not a very good customer for business.

If a young man in Ohio can’t pay his student loans or a young woman in Ontario can’t pay her bills, it tamps down on the possibilities of growth. We need to embrace policies that will lift everybody up.

The measure of an economy is how the people are doing.

We may think that drawing a line around our borders for more control is the way to go. However, restricting trade or giving in to protectionism in this 21st c economy will not work.

When combined with investment, research & development… we can spur the connectivity that makes all of us better off.

We need to look forward, not backward.

Thanks Canada for hosting the negotiations with the Cuban government.

Justin Trudeau and his wife responding to Obama’ words

Wealthy countries like ours cannot reach our full potential when other countries around the world are mired in poverty.

With our commitment to new sustainable development goals, we have a chance to end the outrage of extreme poverty. Bring more electricity to Africa, banish the Zika virus, our goal of the first AIDS-free generation. Working to replace corruption with transparent institutions that serve their people.

Development is not charity, it is an investment in our future prosperity. Our own security is enhanced when we step up for all nations to have the right to security and peace.

Multilateralism is not a dirty word. (In 1990, Robert Keohane defined multilateralism as “the practice of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states.)

We will continue helping forces to push back comprehensively against terrorist networks.

We will work with partners around the world, in contrast to the hatred and nihilism of terrorists. I looked up the word Nihilism = the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless.

Being inclusive in particular with Muslim communities; to offer a better vision, path of development, opportunity and tolerance, because they are and must be our partners in this effort.

We will be more secure when every NATO member contributes all of its forces. NATO needs more Canada.

Our two countries are leaders in humanitarian aid. We are going to work as hard as we can to help Syrians to live in peace.

The threat of climate change is not an abstraction. It is happening now. Last year he was the first US president to visit the Arctic. The tundra is burning, permafrost is thawing.

Climate change is not just a moral issue, it is not just an economic issue, it is an urgent matter of our national security.

Carbon emissions in the US are back to where they were two decades ago, even as we’ve grown the economy.

Alberta is working hard to reduce CO2 emissions, while still promoting economic growth.

If Canada can do this, the whole world can do this. We can lead the world. We need to bring it into force this year. The whole world can unleash economic growth while still protecting our planet.

Paris just had the most robust Climate Summit and we need to follow through with implementing these goals.

Let’s generate half our energy from clean energy sources within a decade. This is achievable.

We need to save the planet, and America and Canada are going to have to lead the way.
(As I listened to this I thought to myself that actually Germany is already leading the way in terms of implementing renewable energy. They stopped all nuclear power plants following the Fukushima incident. And in their green revolution, the southern city of Freiburg gets 100 % of its power from renewable energy.)

Freiburg, Germany is 100 % renewable, leads in green energy revolution

We believe in the right of all people to have the right to succeed in our society.

What a powerful message of reconciliation around the world when Justin, your government pledged a new relationship with the First Nations.

Democracy is not easy. There are those that offer a politics of “us verses them”, a politics that scapegoats others, the immigrant, the refugee, someone who seems different than us.

We have to call this mentality what it is: a threat to the values that we profess, the values that we seek to defend. It’s because we respect all people that the world looks to us as an example. Our Muslim friends who are our neighbors, serve in our government We need to stand up against the slander and the hatred of those towards people who look or worship differently. Obama mentioned that he has a bias (having two daughters) and wants all woman to have the same opportunities as men.

He professed to the audience not to shy away from speaking about these values of pluralism, tolerance and equality. These are universal values, inalienable rights, the rights of citizens to speak the truth, the rights of journalists to speak the truth.

A respect for the dignity of all people, especially those who are most vulnerable. Our commitment to a common creed. We must not waver in embracing our best values. Both of our nations are nations of immigrants who must continue to welcome people from around the world. The vibrance of our economies is enhanced through embracing refugees. We can’t label people as terrorists, vulnerable people who are fleeing terrorism.

We were all once strangers. Your grandparents were strangers; they fumbled with language, faced discrimination and had cultural norms that didn’t fit. At some point somewhere, your family was an outsider. We will continue to welcome refugees and ensure that we are doing so in a way that maintains our security. We can and we will do both.

Increase our support to central america.

The coming global summit this autumn on refugees, we must step up and meet the needs.

People of good will and compassion show us the way.

Obama gesticulating in his speech to the Canadian government and North American Alliance

How blessed we are to have had people before us, day by day who built these extraordinary countries of ours.

Barack Obama ended his speech saying “What a blessing”…and what a positive and lovely, gentle way to end of speech, to communicate such a positive concept to let this ripple through the room and the world’s stage.

Thank you Barack!

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

carol_before_hitching_to_SF copy

Nightingale Song and Coyote encounter on Midnight Prowl in Sonoran Desert

Last night, i was on my way bicycling – taking a different route home as always – to discover in the darkness (also daylight) all of these different lovely residences with cool plants and/or lighting at night here in Tucson, Arizona. I’m presently charging the batteries of my camera to go out on a night trek to capture the fact that all over in this town, strangely, there are ‘christmas’ lights that remain, uh, year round, as it is approaching the end of June and they’re all still there.

nightingale pics

I stopped to listen for quite a while to the song of a nightingale, then left, heard my phone beep, stopped to look at it and it occurs to me to go back to capture the sound via video. I went back to the bird. (I have since downloaded an app for audio recording) I stood there motionless with my one arm up in the air like the statue of liberty, my phone next to the tree, when I saw activity down the block. Too big to be a cat, a family dog no. As a figure in the darkness silhouetted against a wall approached, I realized it was a coyote. To my delight, there were at least four of them. One of them started trotting directly towards me from across the street, which caused me to turn around, which startled them. It darted away and several emitted some low barks. I turned the light of my phone on as I was still in video recording mode. Though I wasn’t successful in capturing them, as i shown my light towards them I saw several motionless pairs of illuminated eyes looking back at me as they stood still for a moment in curiosity, trying to figure out what i was all about. The nightingale was still singing away, a plethora of tunes, in such a dramatic range of sounds and octaves…what a wild few minutes of this evening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhCRzwxVnv0&feature=youtu.be

I’ve just found out that the best means to get an mp4 out there to the world, is not by attempting to upload it to Facebook or WordPress, but to my (your) youtube channel, and then providing the link. voila. Here’s the link to the video, during which time at 2:45 into the tape, while capturing the nightingale’s melodies, you here the barks of the coyotes.

This is a dark video, for the purpose only of capturing a tiny fraction of the immense diversity of song of the nightingale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_nightingale

“The common nightingale or simply nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), also known as rufous nightingale, is a small passerine bird best known for its powerful and beautiful song.”

coyotes difference between dog, wolf, coyote, jackal and fox

Coyotes are slick, coming into the town during the night. It was about midnight. How cool! I then got on my bicycle to follow them, found one lagging behind that darted into bushes. Tucson is mostly flat, one story houses. I’ve seen baby quails, lots of lizards, have seen a coyote during the daytime by a dry river bed, but not yet any javelinas (wild pigs). I love nature!

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/coyote/

“The coyote appears often in the tales and traditions of Native Americans—usually as a very savvy and clever beast. Modern coyotes have displayed their cleverness by adapting to the changing American landscape. These members of the dog family once lived primarily in open prairies and deserts, but now roam the continent’s forests and mountains. They have even colonized cities like Los Angeles, and are now found over most of North America. Coyote populations are likely at an all-time high.”

Tucson, Arizona is located in a small fraction of the immense area that encompasses the Sonoran desert.
https://www.desertmuseum.org/desert/sonora.php
Sonoran desert region presented by the Sonoran Desert museum.

Sonoran desert region and its subdivision -sonoran desert museum

I have since downloaded an audio app, to record the unfathomable richness and amusing song of nightingales. 🙂 delightful encounter!

Don’t know why it sounds like i’m standing next to a fast moving river – – ha aha – – here in the desert. poor audio. i’m working on it.

Carol Keiter the blogger, musician and composer

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations to her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Happy Summer Solstice 2016 & Full Strawberry Moon

A rare coincidence: The full ‘Strawberry Moon’ meets the summer solstice

Strawberry Full Moon coincides with a full moon during the summer solstice

Today is the longest day of the year, Monday June 20th, 2016. The solstice will be peaking at 6:34 p.m. EDT. When a full moon also coincides with the Summer Solstice, it’s called a Strawberry Moon, named for when Algonquin tribes used the solstice as a signal for when fruits were ready for picking.

Full Moon in Sagittarius June 20th 2016 mysticmamma

This mysticmamma article says: “Alchemical magic this second FULL MOON in Sagittarius coinciding with the SOLSTICE!

Both SUN and MOON at their peak align to bring us illumination of the patterns that need to be rewoven within our own psyche, within our relationships and within the greater collective Reality. The arrow of Truth is swift and on point bearing the way.

On this ¤FULL MOON SOLSTICE¤ day, take time to be still and connect your heart to the beating, pulsing heart of the cosmos. Like our ancestors before us, we are reminded that we are part of it, an intrinsic part of the cosmic weave.”

11 Things About the June Solstice

On that note, find a summer solstice gathering near you!!!

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations to her writing, eBook, music composition & art

Carol Keiter the blogger, musician and composer

Letter to my Sister Joan | “I’M IN” British Referendum to Join EU | Trump: Fascism arrives in Amerika | Prince Ea Future Generations Sorry | ww right wing political responses prey on fear and xenophobia…forgetting history of colonialism and capitalistic expansion

I just had a FaceTime conversation yesterday with my sister (8 hours ahead in time) in England. Because of my sister Joan’s intelligence and sensitivity, we always have had interesting conversations about an extensive number of topics through the years. In this conversation, many different subjects came up. She and her husband live in York, England, ‘whitey white’ as she calls it. Living in England the past 5+ years – not in London where the metropolitan nature tends to be more tolerant and progressive – but in smaller towns mostly in Yorkshire, she’s seen the inbred, territorial bigotry of Englanders’. Where not only does the intolerance speak out against rivaling neighboring townships, but also occasional negative remarks regarding ‘Yanks’ = MerKons (that’s my condescending label for Americans who display similar racism), and ‘Paki’s’ = Pakistani people whose labor keeps Great Britain running, just as Mexicans are omnipresent within the United States labor force; in kitchens and various other under-payed positions. They do the jobs Americans don’t want to do.

I’M IN button in Great Britain regarding the referendum to join the European Union

Our conversation started as she held up a button to my view, which she had had pinned on her shirt, which because of its political and specifically economic implications, those in her group were vehemently opposed to. She mentioned that the number of Polish immigrants in England is one of the contentious issues. For those against Great Britain joining the EU, their reasoning is that immigrants will take their jobs. It’s however mostly an excuse, masking their bigoted and xenophobic response; besides taking our jobs, refugees may taint our race (uh, destroy the purity of whiteness). Sound familiar? I’m not alluding to the Holocaust, but of the frightening prospect of the right wing parties popping up all over the West. We’ll get to that in a minute.

My sister was ‘not allowed’ to join the group which she’s been attending, because of her refusal to withdraw her show of support for the Great Britain referendum to join the European Union, by taking off the ‘I’M IN‘ button pinned on her blouse. It’s sort of a holistic therapy group; all about using tools such as meditation and the arts and therapy to develop one’s awareness and healing. It was ironically this group who cast her out, because of their intolerance and fear.

Here’s some info about the referendum and the split it’s gouging among English citizens, which is informative for those of us not directly involved in their politics.
The UK’s EU referendum: All you need to know. Among the information in there was this, started in Belgium:

What does Brexit mean?
It is a word that has become used as a shorthand way of saying the UK leaving the EU – merging the words Britain and exit to get Brexit, in a same way as a Greek exit from the EU was dubbed Grexit in the past.

I found this article written in the Guardian by Oliver Imhof, “Why I’ll leave the UK if Britain votes no to Europe”. “As a German living in London, I love the flexibility of life here, if not the food. But I won’t live in a country that turns its back on the postwar consensus of solidarity and human rights.”

Joan points out that for the most part people don’t want more Polish immigrants to take their jobs. She has a local story about Polish workers kicked off of their jobs in the fields, which then the British ultimately didn’t want to do themselves. Her point stating that the Brits, rather than isolating themselves, should be more transparent and resilient, open-minded & open-armed to the current worldwide refugee crisis. As one of the Western powers who, uh hum, propagated the policy of bringing immigrant workers into their country in the first place, to do the low-paying, shitty jobs – through slavery and brining in workers from the countries they subjugated. Currently this subject has struck a nerve, all over the Western world as revealed in their politics. Yet the country forgets its own history, of colonial expansion as a super power at that time, for their own economic gain. Same as the trend of American and other multi-national corporations to downsize and outsource their jobs; setting up shop in remote parts of the world to obtain labor at slave wages and pollute those areas that are out of one’s own back yard.

In the meantime, I came up with this Guardian article,
“Polish migrants to strike and give blood to demonstrate importance to UK”

My sister mentioned that locally someone wanted to – and succeeded – in kicking some Polish people out of their jobs in local farms…and then no Brits wanted to do the work. Point is, if in this case the British people don’t want the Polish, Pakistani, Indian immigrants or Syrian refugees….they wouldn’t have much of a rich and diverse culture now would they?

She asked me, “Do you know how many Polish people are in Britain?” dunno, well, – now wait a minute – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_the_United_Kingdom ‘bout a million.

Because my sister and her British husband go regularly to France, the topic of the violence among football hooligans in Marseille came up. Deaths occurred there at a soccer match between the French and the Brits. While talking, I googled and sure enough, found these headlines: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/euro-2016-violence-running-battles-as-violence-breaks-out-in-marseille-while-england-fans-chant-isis-a3268166.html
“Euro 2016: Violence breaks out in Marseille as England fans chant ‘Isis, where are you?”

Fans Clash in Marseille – Brit Football Hooligans shouting racist remarks in France

We talked about this with distaste, then she mentioned that that same day, she had been accused of being a Yank in a pub, and harassed for it. The lofty talk of Britain not wanting more Polish people to come into their country, or any other immigrants or refugees for that matter, lead her to mention this, sort of regurgitating what reasons lie behind these voices that are opposed to this, which demonstrate their violence and racism.

She then asked me pointedly, “How many refugees do you think there are in the world today?” to which

I answered, uh, 8 million? “No”, she answered, “60 Million S I X T Y M I L L I O N.”

I offered the information that many of the refugees are fleeing their countries because of either ecological / climate issues or economic ones, or war… all direct and indirect repercussions of the business and commerce activities of the Western world; i.e. EXON Mobile, Shell Oil….I immediately googled that one while we conversed, and there it was on the Atlantic (formerly Atlantic Monthly), “Violence Has Forced 60 Million People From Their Homes”

Joan mentioned that if each town would take in say 500 or 5,000 people -respective to their population – the worldwide problem could be mitigated and assuaged. I added that if the EU and UN would work together to investigate communities and their geographical conditions, to find locations to set up research and development for appropriate renewable technologies, and then assign and relocate people into communities. Rather than all of the deaths, these people who are fleeing problems that are impacted by the West, and relocated in a civilized manner.

The western world could facilitate helping refugees to integrate into jobs serving all of mankind; healthier environment, healthier relationship with all life, healthier relationship with one’s own immediate community. And all of the deaths that we hear about and then look away from, due to the black market of refugee trafficking, would end.

Basically, if it was you’re dad, brother, mother, child, uncle that was trying to flee, you would want this operation to be legal and facilitated with regulations and hospitable treatment.

It’s a world crisis that is a direct result of activities of the ‘Global North’; the northern hemisphere of superpowers that perpetuate activities that consistently harm the environment, think about only short-term gain instead of long-term consequences and continue to drive a wedge of ‘economic rifts’ by keeping things in the status quo; profit driven by greed.

This will change, it already has been.

Because of his eloquence and all-encompassing message, I need to place this here> Prince Ea’s music video rap which poignantly says it like it is.”
Prince Ea speaks to Future Generations: Sorry“, describing what a future generation may come across, when the Amazon Rain Forest becomes the Amazon desert…or when a tree is a thing of the past. He then stops himself mid beats to beckon the audience that it is not too late, if we all resolve to do something.

Prince Ea Music Video Dear Future Generations Sorry

Naturally, our conversation lead to discussing the present political scenario. “Do you know that Trump could become President?” she said, accusatorially. We talked about the frightening thought of a bigot and zealot entering the White House after the graceful and articulate Barack Obama is ushered out. I mentioned the fact that there’s been a wave of right-wing parties propagating in Europe; bringing up the example of how the Netherlands which formally had been heralded for their open-minded nature – a country who historically have had open arms to immigrants and a very accepting and tolerant nature, have now rebounded towards closing their doors. In 2004, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (a distant relative of Vincent Van Gogh) was killed by a Muslim extremist. Shot dead – his freedom of speech and art the reason for exterminating his life, because the shooter had interpreted van Gogh actions as an insult to his religion. Dutch citizens have since collapsed their openness and are up there among the most fearful in Europe with their anti-refugee stance. Joan brought up Marie Le Pen in France. I had recently heard that Austria just had a quasi facist right-wing political party enter the scene (which either threatened to, or have come into power). Sorry, no time presently to look up all the sordid details of the various different European government political systems. Just that it’s a fact that there’s been a sweep of right wing zealots all over Europe, capitalizing (pun intended) on the public’s fear of economic instability and xenophobia. I went to the news source in English for Le Monde Diplomatique, Mondediplio, and there in this issue is an article by one of their regular writer’s “Why the far right is on the rise” by Serge Halimi. His first line of the article answered my mention of the recent Austrian election, “Before long a domino is going to fall: a far-right candidate failed to become president of Austria by just 30,000 votes.”

In the American political race, Trump is a man who is a joke and buffoon to many. Yet, he’s been getting huge amounts of free advertising and air time, because of the fact that he’s so outrageous. In fact, his absurdity and complete lack of morality and diplomacy, is actually serving as his tactic. He reaches his audience through the lowest common denominator; machismo, speaking to peoples anger, and playing upon their fear and insecurity. He’s already been well-versed in illusion in the arena of television, a stage he’s been very familiar with and knows how to play his part well. He can draw audiences and ratings because of how politically incorrect he his, nothing barred, says whatever he feels and the more inane and the more he taunts, the more amusing he is to his audience. Like regalia to adorn his stage, his wife and daughter are eye candy accoutrements to smile and wave. Having hammed up his tv personality, he knows how to rip out ugly statements that are dramatic in their shock appeal.Somehow, Americans are either dumb and dumber or so conned that they don’t see through his lies, or realize that he’s playing a ‘reality tv’ sitcom comedy called “running for president”, without any capability whatsoever of diplomacy, empathy or strength as a leader whose actions could inspire the world. He’s a con artist who dares to say what he thinks – which i guess is the reason that many people praise him for being real. Perhaps this is because many people cower about saying what they truly think, and therefore look up to someone who does because they don’t want to take the risk or are too lazy to bother to look up the facts to see if what he is saying is actually accurate. In fact, much of it is false, and somehow people are getting snowed, blinded by his bravado. This brazen man, by his uncouth statements with hatred and scapegoating etched into his sarcasm, could easily uncoil into the makings of a tyrant; his overblown ego and harsh statements and emotional instability are the makings of another Hitler. I believe that people prefer to believe what they want to hear. So instead of a gracious and educated, genuinely diplomatic and eloquent Barack Obama, here’s this sarcastic prankster who is all smoke and mirrors. I just happened upon this article on a German friend’s Facebook page, who is one of many people who pay attention to what is happening all over the world, as opposed to having their heads buried in the sand…although that may be what he’s doing right now on a vacation with his wife in the white sands of the Maldives. This article in The Washington Post articulates exactly what I was saying. uh hum. This is how fascism comes to America

I mentioned an article I just read about how emotionally unstable and narcissistic Trump is, the current Republican nominee for President in the USA. Yet I also adamantly responded with a no, he will not become president, because of the eloquent words of a consciously aware and articulate woman whose short but intense youtube talk revealed. I’m not typically aligned with the typical psychic, but this woman is simply an articulate and intelligent person speaking the truth. Psychic and Medium Danielle Egnew sayin’ “2016 Psychic Presidential Prediction – You may be shocked!”

-.-.-.-.-.-.- Here’s the actual letter I wrote to her following our conversation, with only a wee portion of it censored!

subject: You have special gifts to share with the world – yes, ‘I’M IN’

Hi Joan,

i’m so happy that I looked at the clock and decided to try you on FaceTime. It sounds like you are going through so many different feelings right now between Carole Anne whom you just befriended nearing her death, the incident in the pub, the fact that you couldn’t go on your vacation with Graeme and then not being allowed in – because you stood up for yourself and your right to freedom of speech and choice.

You also have had many fortunate things woven within these stories, but presently the more hurtful ones are screaming out. I’m so happy to talk with you. we have always been communicative through all of the years of growing up and you working at CBS so that we talked so frequently sharing many things. I’m glad to still share this with you and have always learned and expanded my awareness through your insights and intelligent looks at the world.

You can feel like an underdog and feel resentment…I have basic misanthropy because i’m often mostly disgusted with what humans have done to the world…however, WE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO NEED TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD.

It is not just for you or my own egos, it is because the world, many many people are either completely unaware, ignorant, stupid or just conned through habit and their lifestyles (kids, economics) to not have or make the time to reflect and contemplate about the actual things happening in the world. therefore we need to speak out.

you have the intellect, insights, wit, sarcasm and you can start writing (4 minutes a day) the notes towards a comedy/satirical podcast about these things, and then edit them and put together a 4 minute/5 minute piece about the hypocracies. you could make it funny as hell. for example, the I’M IN button, and the fact that you were ostracized from a fucking health and well-being therapy group for speaking your mind! that’s a joke as a start!

I love you. I worked on music, then realized, oh shit, this really, is not working, so I started yesterday to bit by bit repair it – creating loops that are 1. the same length, listening carefully to the beats to match them, cutting out stuff that is unnecessary…and sure enough, I’m learning through the process of doing it. Instead of shrinking in embarrassment for what i put out, i’ll fix it and show the tremendous improvement and that process alone makes me proud. I have been way too much of a perfectionist all my life, which stopped me from even beginning often. well, not really, but it’s not going to throttle me any more. I read two weeks ago about a kid here who’s made a big success; 1. his parents taught him to never, ever be afraid of failure, because that is how you learn. 2. his father drilled into him a quote the gist of which is that he who hesitates, could wind up dying before they get their masterpiece out there!!!! don’t hesitate, just dive in.

Well, you’ve always dived into things, you’re not timid about that. I just say to remind you as well as mother, to be thankful and have gratitude for all of the positive things that you can list. There are many. 1. the fact that there in the most potentially miserable 2 weeks of your life in the hospital, there you met Carole Anne, who befriended you, with whom you bantered, and with whom you gained trust, sympathy and a bond, so that she gave you this beautiful ring to always, always have her close to your heart.

Think if you can, about how lucky you are for having the fucking brain, insights and perspective that you have, so that you can laugh at these poor hooligan close-minded Brits and make a joke about how pathetic they are!!! and remember that you were having a pleasant exchange with nice reciprocation with the other people in the bar.

it is very easy to hone into and only exaggerate the negative, like when a person has a wound, it is that which nags and raises itself to one’s consciousness above everything else. But do something with these wounds, with this awareness Joan, to help to heal the world.

Yeah, and it is devastating that Mother couldn’t be in her own home – i even think that when one MUST walk and MUST move around more, they DO. Anyway, I would have had her living with a Guatemalan sister and brother who fled as children refugees into the United States, who are by nature family oriented and loyal. They could get basic healthcare training, and because mother speaks Spanish, she would love the company….but this is no longer the case. We can encourage the new girl to take her out for a walk and to perhaps drive her around to be in the vicinity of trees, woods, to hear birds, see sunlight moving. She will be there for a long block of time, 2x a week, so I’m sure she could have authority and time to do this.

Hang in there and put that energy into bit by bit creating a skit! or new designs! You are very creative and have special gifts to share with the world Joan.

Love,

Carol

Carol Keiter the blogger pensive

Appropriate photo following yet another mass shooting last evening in Orlando, Florida in the United States; slaughtering 50 people because of hatred.

nomadbeatz aka Carol Keiter ~ As an avid blogger who is presently picking up where I left off to complete my eBook and beginning again to compose music, I ask you rather unambiguously and unabashedly to please donate, if you are able. !-))

Sovereignty of Consciousness | Psychoactive Plants as Guides | Graham Hancock TED talk | Rupert Sheldrake TED talk

Graham Hancock’s banned TED Talk on The War on Consciousness deserved all of the applause that it received. He talks of human consciousness as emerging through ancient and sacred visionary psychoactive plants, as teachers in themselves. Yes, the plants as the guides, that have been used throughout history, including among indigenous populations around the world today, as sacred vehicles to discovering our own human dimension of consciousness.

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness Message of Mother Ayahuasca plant

“By demonizing whole areas of consciousness, we deny ourselves the possibility of our own human evolution. We can’t claim to be free, until along with the right to freedom of speech, we demand the right of adult sovereignty over consciousness. We have the right to make sovereign decisions with respect to our own consciousness, including the responsible use of ancient and sacred visionary (psychoactive ) plants.”

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness various ancient traditions use of psychoactives Soma of the Vedas

I see that Graham Hancock has written numerous books, which is revealed in his website. He declares that
ayahuasca is not alone, but part of an ancient worldwide system of targeted, careful, deliberate, responsible alteration of consciousness. Kykeon used in the Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece, Soma was a beverage used in the Vedas of India, perhaps a psychoactive fungus, the Amanita muscaria, DMT, the Lotus used by ancient Egyptians in their “Tree of Life” belief system and shamans of indigenous peoples presently use various mind altering substances such as ayahuasca and peyote or psilocybin mushrooms…to create a relationship of what the ancient Egyptians called ‘Ma’at‘, balanced harmony with the universe.

Maat ancient Egyptian goddess of truth, Maat or Ma’at was the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice

 

I participated in a peyote ceremony while residing in Taos, New Mexico. The sacred ritual took place in a tee pee from dusk to dawn on the reservation of the Taos Pueblo.

the peyote ceremony took place in a Teepee – Tipis are typical of the Plains Indians

I was invited by a young Native American girl whom I had gotten to know. I knew of these ceremonies years earlier, and perhaps was motivated to attend one more for recreational reasons. The opportunity didn’t arrive until after a I experienced being in an automobile accident which dramatically caused me to reassess my life. It was only then that the possibility arose. It is said, you don’t choose the peyote, the peyote chooses you.

When I arrived at the designated time and place, she was not to be found. I was nevertheless accepted. I accompanied a woman to her kitchen while she prepared for the ceremony cutting corn husks which had been blessed. These rectangles were then rolled with tobacco, which were each smoked at the onset of the ceremony, as our individual and collective prayers were carried by the rising curls of smoke. The ceremony was conducted by the Elders, to heal someone in the tribe who had asked for this to take place. We each directed our thoughts – prayers – towards this person’s healing as well as our own.

I talk about this in my blog Burning The Man: A Utopian Requiem describing that the ceremony was steeped in ritual movements. I had been assigned to an individual next to whom I sat in the circle, to ensure that my movements would not alter the Feng Shui deliberacy. Instructed to simply bow forward if I needed to regurgitate, that the fire-keeper would take care of this, as he methodically fed the fire in the center of the human circle for the duration; raking the coals and shaping the burning embers from a thin crescent moon in the beginning, to a full circle by its’ end 12 hours later.

Graham Hancock implores offers that “We have no right to go around the world imposing our version of democracy, while we nourish this rot within the heart of our own society. It may even be that we are denying ourselves in the most vital step in our own consciousness.”

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness Tree of Life of Ancient Eqyptians and use of DMT

Hancock mentions that the Amazon is a horrific example of neglect; where the lungs of the planet are being dismantled; clearing the forest to grow soybean to feed cattle, so that we can eat hamburgers. “It’s an insane global state of consciousness, an abomination.”

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness Amazon rainforest – the lungs of the earth – cleared to plant industrial soybean to feed cattle to make hamburgers.

The rot he’s speaking of is witnessed through alienation, separation, a disconnect to nature and other life forms in addition to other humans. As witnessed by gun violence, wars, in a culture in which there are more lawyers, psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies prescribing drugs to tame a whole host of modern so-called psychiatric dis orders, which themselves are as much attributed to the alienation that our society, consumed with material acquisition, competition through material appendages and the material interpretation through the sciences of the world around us. The need for weapons, protection, which the pharmaceutical military industrial complex insights, and the disintegration of relationships and recognition of the interrelatedness of all species and awe and respect of all life, is feeding the ego and enforcing competition rather than cooperation.

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness by demonizing areas of consciousness we deny our own evolution

He mentions the slew of drugs that are accepted in this culture, stimulants like teas, coffee and the sloppiness of alcohol, yet visionary plants that have been used in religious ritual for eons and which are part of the emergence of human consciousness, are suspect and illegal.

 

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author. He proposes that “everything depends on evolving habits, not on fixed laws. His hypothesis of ‘Morphic Resonance’, is that everything in nature has a collective memory; resonances are based on similarity – even crystals have a collective memory.”

Rupert Sheldrake on Morphic Resonance – Self-organizing systems inherit a memory from previous similar systems

He elaborates on the reasoning behind this lack of comprehension, talking about the The Science Delusion. Sheldrake approaches the subject by questioning the authority of the tenets of science, turning the basic scientific materialism-based dogmas into questions.

He proposes that this is the default worldview worldwide, of educated people….and proceeds to demonstrate how utterly non-factual these rules are.

…revealing in his TED talk that in fact the opposite is true, to what is proposed, that:

1. nature is mechanical and machine like – nature, animals & plants are like machines, brains are genetically programmed computers

2. matter is unconscious- no consciousness in stars, galaxies, animals and plants

3. the laws of nature and constants of nature are fixed; they will be the same forever

4. the total amount of matter and energy is always the same – it never changes in quantity – the big bang, everything sprang up out of nothing

5. nature is purposeless; there are no purposes in nature and the evolutionary process is completely purposeless

6. biological heredity is material; everything is inherited form the genes

7. memories are stored in side your brain as material traces; everything you remember is in your brain, modified proteins

8. your mind is inside your head; all consciousness is the activity of your brain and nothing more

9. psychic phenomena like telepathy are impossible; your thoughts and intentions can not have any effect at a distance because everything is inside your head. therefore, all psychic phenomena is illusory; people are deceived by coincidences or wishful thinking

10.mechanistic medicine is the only kind that works; complimentary and alternative therapies can’t possibly work (due to the placebo effect)

In my digesthis blog, presently I write about food sovereignty.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz ~ As an avid blogger who is presently picking up where I left off with my eBook to complete it and and beginning again to compose music, I ask you rather unambiguously and unabashedly to please donate, if you are able. !-))

“The Lie We Live” | short film by Spencer Cathcart | “Le Mensonge dans lequel nous vivons” | “Die Lüge die wir leben” | “La Mentira En Que Vivimos”

The Lie We Live
short film by Spencer Cathcart

http://www.trueactivist.com/this-video-exposes-the-corrupt-world-were-living-in-but-we-can-change-it/

short film by Spencer Cathcart http://theliewelive.blogspot.com

français

Le mensonge dans lequel nous vivons

deutsch

español
“The Lie We Live – La Mentira Que Vivimos”

Script for the film

In front of you, you have access to more information than any human in history. But you probably don’t care. That curiosity we once had in the world is gone.

Why is it the older we get, the less questions we ask? Throughout history we’ve always accepted whatever world we were born into. And if anyone tried to question our world, they were ridiculed. It’s only years later we look back and ask ourselves: how could anyone accept that world?

Today we call ourselves developed, as if we have nothing left to learn. But in a hundred years, when people look back at our generation, will they too ask themselves: how did anyone accept that world? 

It’s no secret our world is full of problems. We rally, we protest, still the problems only seem to grow. And maybe, because they stem from a much larger problem we fail to see.

Why do we search the universe for new life, when we can’t even coexist with the life on our own planet? It’s as if we expect any life out there to be just like us. As if life can only be human. How is it in a world with millions of species we see ourselves as the only one that thinks, feels, or matters? It’s a reoccurring theme in our history, the belief that some life is inferior to others. We’ve always struggled to accept those unlike ourselves. To recognize because something’s different doesn’t mean it should be treated differently.

When we look at other life, we say our technology makes us more advanced. Yet all we seem to advance is the destruction of the world surrounding us. You look around and there’s little life to be seen. Most animals we know, we’ve only witnessed on screens.

It’s funny how we call them “animals” but ourselves “humans”. As if we’re two different life forms with nothing in common. We see them as beasts and ourselves as people.  Calling their actions barbaric, yet our actions tradition. But while they kill to survive, we kill even as we call ourselves civilized. And we don’t just kill; we raise life to be killed. Not because we need to. Because we like the taste, the look, the feeling. And when you see life as an object of value, it’s hard to see the value in life.

Why is it when some animals are killed it becomes a headline. But when others are murdered, we don’t blink an eye? Why are we enraged at the thought of a culture eating dogs? But laugh when another culture refuses to eat cows?

Our idea of normal may change depending where you are, but our desire to be normal has always been the same. It’s only when the norm changes that we criticize our former ways. Today we live in a nation where it’s normal to get cancer; to become obese; to develop heart disease. Clearly there’s something wrong with this way of life we call normal. But it’s all we’ve ever known.  

For as long as we can remember we’ve eaten animals. Growing up we’re taught meat gives us protein and makes us strong.  Yet so do many foods we don’t need to kill for, but we’re not told that. We hardly hear about the numerous studies showing the diseases associated with meat. Or all the food and land we waste fattening the animals we eat. When you drink the breast milk of another animal your whole life it doesn’t seem odd. It just seems normal. After all, it’s what we’ve always done and we don’t question tradition. We embrace it. But if we never questioned the traditions of our past, we would never evolve.

I’m sick of this politically correct yet morally fucked world. A world where we’re afraid others will be offended by our words, but not that others will be affected by our actions. A world where everybody says they want a solution, but nobody’s willing to admit they’re the problem. The choices we make travel further than we think, but we choose to ignore the impact we have. There was a time I thought we could change. But as I get older I find myself asking, even if we could change, do we want to?

Perhaps this is simply who we are. From the beginning, we’ve been unable to coexist with other life on this planet. And no matter how far we’ve evolved, it’s a theme that lives on. If the story of our planet were a film, up to this point humans would be the villain. And like any great villain, we’ve always refused to see ourselves as the bad guy.

Each generation comes into this world thinking they can make things right, only to be remembered years later for what was wrong. Today we may have more information than any other generation. But what good are answers if we never begin to ask the right questions.

None of us chose to be born into this world. None of us chose who we would be. But all of us have the choice to change what we become.

-Written by Spencer Cathcart

Tucson Arizona Mailbox Art feat. Flora & Fauna Unique to Sonoran Desert

A composite of a variety of mailbox art in Tucson, Arizona.

wired saguaro cactus bird sculpture mailbox

gecko stones encased in metal box

The bulk of these photographs are singling out the artsy and crafty mailboxes that Tucson, Arizona residents demonstrate. Others are capturing lovely landscaping or funky yards along with nature pics.

black and white cow mailbox

For the most part these are a sample of the creative, humorous and quite unique mailboxes that I’ve encountered here in this funky town of Tucson, Arizona. Some of the symbols and sculptures are descriptive of the kinds of flora and fauna found here in the Sonoran desert, including the cartoon character looking birds with a ‘graduation tassel’ hanging from their head, the

common backyard birds of Tucson – Sonoran desert Arizona – the Gambel’s Quail (Callipepla gambelii)

To original 72 photos, I added 178 more, and then another 44!!! As I bicycle around, commuting to this or that event or errand, as I encounter them, I add to the mix. This could go on endlessly!

brick layer mailbox

I apologize for the fact that rather than using my camera, I’m using an android cell phone that is not exactly stellar quality, especially when dealing with a very very strong sunlight. Many of the photos are sort of washed out, and I’m not going out at dawn and dusk, unless I happen to be out at that time to capture the best lighting.

artist craftsmanship mailbox

I will naturally periodically add more mailboxes as I encounter any spectacular ones over the next months as I’m commuting by bicycle and come upon an extraordinarily designed mailbox or spectacular landscaping, but I don’t have endless hours to devote to this project, as I have too many other things I’ve got to tackle.

dragon mailbox

wagon wheel saguaro cactus mailbox

gecko shooting star mailbox

chili pepper mailbox attached to lamppost

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been fun, since this town is mostly full of one-story homes with the good old fashioned mailbox, that neighbors seem to escalate into an art form! I apologize but I will not be sitting here with photoshop to enhance the quality, so you the viewer will just have to live with the bleached out nature of many of these. Wow, so much fun to see different peoples’ craftsmanship and care going into making something unique for everyone else to see.

barbed wire nest mailbox

saguaro cactus stand mailbox

blue mailbox metal southwestern desert themes

fire hose mailbox

copper flute player mailbox

Another image often used is that of the Saguaro cactus, also unique to the Sonoran desert.

Saguaro cactus unique to the Sonoran desert of the southwest

Sonoran Desert Region and subdivisions featured by the website of the local fantastic Sonoran Desert Museum

Again this coming weekend, as in last weekend, there’s a two day Tucson artist open studio event. May 14th & 15th and 21st & 22nd.

inspirational_tucson_artist_diane_fairfield at the

I was powerfully moved by the artwork of a local Tucson artist, Diane Fairfield http://www.dianefairfieldart.com with whom I spoke briefly this last weekend during the two weekend long Tucson Arts Open Studios will be taking place again this coming weekend; Saturday and Sunday, from 11am to 5pm. It was in the Steinfeld Warehouse 101 W. Sixth St.

Bill Baker’s photography of the desert.

 

 

 

 

I was stimulated as well by the photographs and conversation with a local photographer, Bill Baker http://bbakerphoto.com. These encounters are why my heart pulled me to stay in Tucson this last weekend to dis cover from without and within.

And though I’ve found a number of volunteering opportunities in this town – using my French language skills for African refugees and love of animals to lend a hand at a wildlife sanctuary on the outskirts of town – I still have no income what so ever. d’oh!

Carol Keiter selfie sun squint

Cheers!

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz ~ As an avid blogger who is presently picking up where I left off with my eBook to complete it and and beginning again to compose music, I ask you rather unambiguously and unabashedly to please donate, if you are able. !-))

Break Free from Fossil Fuels | 2 week global Wave of Escalated Action > Keep Coal, Oil + Gas In The Ground | Sat. May 14th

Actions are happening all over the world