Pics
1)Sunset at the ranch
2)Bull
3)Cows
4)Moses and Rory the kitten


Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Location: Bison Ranch, Alberta

I’m still here. And I’m not going anywhere for a while. The reason, I’m waiting for Chris and Janet to come back from Terre Madre (Slow Food gathering) in Turin, Italy where they’re learning and speaking about the importance of Slow Food. I was going to do an interview with them leading up to the overseas visit, but things were really hectic here at the ranch, and I figured when they come back they’ll probably have lots to say. In addition to all this, I figured it would a nice gift for me to stay and give back by helping the ranch hand with feeding the animal, collecting eggs, and milking the jersey cow. It’s pretty quiet here without Chris and Janet, but this quiet is allowing me to get back to Searching for Dragons, and process all that I’ve been learning while here.

Back when my family was here, we all attended a Landmark Education introductory session held here on the ranch. It was really interesting as we worked primarily on the idea of our ability as humans to create possibility. Creating possibility, quite simple put, is creating a mind-state and/or vision with which you approach your life. For example, I’m going to create the possibility of happiness, and with that possibility, I’m going to enable happiness to enter my life.

This idea goes back to something I’ve mentioned before, the idea of humans as co-creators of reality. I believe this. I believe in the Hopi idea that the world is created out of language. I believe, “In the beginning there was the word, and the word was God.” I believe, as per eastern mysticism, that humans hold a great deal of energy, and whether consciously or unconsciously, they manipulate this energy. I believe in Quantum Theory and the idea that the entire universe is built out of vibration. I believe in the idea that with our language we create vibrations, and these vibrations help to form our individual physical reality. To sum up, in the beginning there was the word, the word consists of vibration, vibration is the basis of all things, and with our individual vibrations we can create new possibilities everywhere around us.

The question becomes, how are we vibrating?

In most of the world we have built, we find ourselves surrounded by so much technology that our natural vibrations have become something distant and long forgotten. As Marshall McLuhan once suggested, we slip into our technological world, as a fish slips into water. It permeates everything around us. And in being everywhere, not only do we affect it, but it affects us.

It becomes very difficult to create when you are surrounded by noise. It becomes very difficult to tune into oneself. And, it becomes very difficult to avoid inadvertently being carried away downstream by a quickly moving river.

I think that in order for me to find my way, I’ve needed to create the possibility of silence and space. I’ve needed to step out of the heavy vibrations of the modern technological world in order to see/feel where I really am and where I need to go. I know for certain that I’ll never be the same again. I’ve navigated past the space where I thought I knew, into the space where I recognized that I don’t know, and now I’m entering the space where I don’t know that I don’t know. They talk about this in Landmark. Only a small percentage (let’s say 2%) of your world is filled with things you know, ie. Rain falls from the sky. A larger but still small percent (let’s say 8%) of your world is filled with things you don’t know, ie. I don’t know how to fly a plane. The remaining portion (90%) of your world, is the place where you don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s here, in this space that I think the real magic exists. This is the realm where anything is possible. The key is how do we get there, how do we move past our fear and find comfort in a space of not knowing.

Man this sounds a little like a self-help book… what was I talking about?... ;-)

Oh yeah, vibration.

If the world is built out of vibration, we then have the power to use our vibrations to create our reality. Often I think we allow ourselves to be sideswiped by the ‘good vibrations’ of new information and technology. Misguided, and without any long-view critical analysis, we put our collective energy behind ideas sold as progressive, and in doing so we support the progress trap. Again and again we progress to higher standards of living or production, only to become trapped by our progress itself. In the prairies for example, we’ve created an enormously complex irrigation system to produce feed for cattle. Now, in the wake of climate change, we find ourselves facing a horizon of serious water shortages, where the current, once viewed progressive, model is unsustainable. Was it truly progress to build these complex feedlot systems in the first place, or would it have made more sense to stick to the basics of free roaming grass-fed cattle, a concept many experts today, are suggesting we return to.

Here and now I’m creating a new possibility. The possibility I’m creating is a new view of progress. What is progress to me? To me, it’s progressive to walk outside across the yard, and milk a cow for some milk, to me it’s progress to go visit the hens and collect a few eggs, to me it’s progressive to walk instead of drive, to support local economies, to return to nature, to slow down, to listen, to find or create spaces of silence. To me it’s progress, to make things just a little bit simpler for all of us.
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Last night my new friend Jed was telling me about how a few years ago farmers, like him, were sold on the idea of installing huge yard lights on their farms. Many people bought into the progressive concept of more light, while Jed was a little more critical, Jed recounts the conversation,

Salesman: “You need more light!”
Jed: “why.”
Salesman: “So you can see in your yard”
Jed: “Why do I need to see? I don’t work when it’s dark, and the animals can see just fine.”
Salesman: “Well it will prevent theft.”
Jed: “Hehe, maybe it will help the thieves see what there is to steel.”

By not being sold on progress, Jed now doesn’t carry the burden of the huge electrical bills the salespeople failed to mention. I think this is a good lesson to us all. Often we fail to see the truth of what we're really buying into. Rarely are we shown the full picture.

Peace,
d