Ben Axiom

Post apoc Matt Groening Mad Max world dream

2009-05-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

post apocalyptic mat groening world, I was mad max, some elder village guru recruited me to go under the ground where the ocean still is, he gave me a breathing bubble and we went to the bottom where all the nuked remains are. He said we needed to make sure people find and get lust for the ruins and material objects. as we came up to the surface they had revolted and were shooting arrows at us trying to get to the toxic treasures.

2009-04-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

I was just listening to the bug out bag episode of the survival podcast and happened to need to go to Post office for an errand. I was thinking about the recommended back up communications devices for emergencies (prepaid cell phones, calling cards, etc.) and it struck me that I should get some emergency stamps for my bug out bag. I ended up getting a strip of 20 "Forever" stamps, they're good for mailing first-class up to one ounce "forever" regardless of price changes.

http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/forever_stamp_facts.htm

Maxed out documentary on US consumer debt crisis

2009-04-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

Check out the film MAXED OUT. It's a witty yet chilling documentary on the US consumer debt crisis.

http://www.maxedoutmovie.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJJQiEn329Y

(if you have a Netflix account you can watch it online instantly)
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Maxed_Out/70058892

Was Y2K a hyped so that 2012 would be dismissed?

2009-04-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

E.O. Wilson's presentation on the concept of the environment

2009-04-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

A few years ago at a sustainability and philosophy conference at the University of Oregon I went to a keynote speech by well-known scientist E.O. Wilson, he had a ground breaking thesis about redefining our notion of the "environment" not as something outside of us, outside of the human body, mind, and civilized artificial habitat. He showed just how blurred the line is. Everything "out there" affects us so much "in here" that we need to develop a new conceptual framework to comprehend how interconnected we are. We tend to perceive things as separate because we can see and feel with our eyes and hands where something begins and ends. But this is just a few vibrational frequencies in an infinitely layered and complex reality.

The case study that he used to dissolve the humans/environment dichotomy was as follows. There was an experiment where a cutting was taken from a plant so that there would be two living plants with the same DNA. One was planted in a valley, the other on top of a mountain. He showed how there were vast differences between the two plants as they grew because the environments were so different the genes were expressed differently. They had different stressors, nutrients, amounts of moisture, sun light, predators, diseases, etc.

It seems obvious that despite having the same DNA, they would manifest into the world very differently based on the parameters of their respective environments.

The point of this illustration was to give us humans a reason to think deeply about how we are more of a "product of our enviroment" than we normally think. So much more about our health, our bodies, our minds, our thoughts, our attitudes, etc. is determined by the nature/quality of the physical environment.

All of the toxic air, food, water, stress, disease, etc. in the natural and artificial environments that surround us, really ARE US. You are what you eat, what you breathe, what you drink, what you think...

It was a striking view, the healthy plant and the sick plant. We really can't say the environment is out there, because it determines to such a large degree what is in here.

Help from the Co-Creatress, Inside the Spiral of Blooming Doom

2009-04-17T22:15:00.001-07:00

Terence Mckenna is famous for founding "Novelty Theory" stating that the universe is an engine that's constantly producing new forms and higher orders of organization. He's mathematically worked out a novelty time wave that maps points in the evolution of the cosmos, life, and human evolution/history that coincide withcertain recurring points on the wave. It actually ends up looking like a tightening spiral with the end point or "zero point" being around the end of the year in 2012.

When looking at the points of high novelty throughout the time wave, it can be deduced that there is a directionality of evolution. Not simply to some perfected form of life that's the most fit in Darwinian terms. If that were the case it would have stopped at the cockroach. No, evolution isn't trying to just make beings perfectly fitted to ever-changing eco-niches. It's really working towards ever more complex organization through which to express consciousness. The history of evolution is the history of increased expression of consciousness loosely defined as the awareness of being aware. That's not a very solid concept. Here's a better way of thinking about it, one that's flattering to us humans: The human brain is not one brain, it's three, there's reptilian, the mammalian, and the uniquely human neo-cortex. Each one a further ramified iteration of natural biological technology using the DNA code framework. What's happening here? Invisible will, consciousness, a creative force is coding matter, dna, cells, neurons, etc. towards greater novelty, complexity, interconnectedness, communication, knowledge, self-reflection, etc. all to increase the ability to co-create with increasing awareness.

The human neo-cortex is the most complex piece of matter in the known universe. Why? Because of a purposeless dead sterile mindless meandering chaotic nonsensical process of natural selection? I'm not a creationist, but I would be if it could be understood and admitted that creation never stopped. 7 Days a few thousand years ago is not satisfying. Rather, an invisible, constant, yearning force beneath and behind matter on this plane on this planet is what is creating in every second.

Evolutionary theorists call it "tinkering". Well if "evolution" is tinkering, doesn't that notion presuppose some kind of sentient, intelligent will? Is it every life form for itself struggling to push the envelope, are there trillians of different wills pushing through mutation to evolve to keep up with the changing environment, or is there some over-arching meta-mind, the Gaian Mind perhaps that's self regulating and tinkering. I'm inclined to believe in the Gaian meta mind. The intelligent awareness of the planet playing all of us life forms like an orchestra.

That makes more sense to me than the idea that some male external vengeful god made the earth in 7 days so that patriarchal male human rulers could have dominion over it all. That kind of self serving androcentric cosmology is exposed for its "Wizard of Oz"ness by looking at some cultures that practice clitorectomy. In order to justify female genital mutilation, origin stories are told that create an eternal punitive curse on women for some original sin. The tight control of women, animals, and the Earth by men is forever carved into womens' flesh as they're forced to be owned, enslaved, and traded like cattle.

Back to evolution, what's happening on the third rock from the sun is much more complex than either the patriarchal male monotheistic view would dictate or the sterile dead purposeless view of science. There simply is a force that's enacting the truism: the only constant is change. Creation is continuing. It's interesting the use of the word "constant" in that phrase. In mathematics, a constant is a quantity assumed to be unchanged throughout a given discussion. Well in the discussion of the time-wave/spiral of consciousness evolution on earth, we can imagine that the constant is the amount of change, and what varies is the amount of time that the recurrent constant amount of change takes place in. To put it simply, more is happening in every moment. More novelty, more change. But why? And what about the paradox that Terence addressed, that the dominator societal archetype that came out of domestication, agriculture, surplus, civilization, capitalism, industrialism, etc. some how seems to epigenetically continue the spiral, yet it's totally antithetical to the Gaian evolution of the natural matrix. Why this horrific, toxic, murderous, omnicidal tangent. Why is "profane history" doing this to us. Is it part of a plan, is it a hard lesson, is it a gestation of consciousness through form? I feel like it's just a cancer. The dominator culture, the partriarchal "cut and control" paradigm has taken the once free and equal creative capacity of our species and grotesquely contorted it into a highly mechanized global doomsday machine. The only way I can reconcile the use of the products of this blood soaked digital age is to believe in my heart the Gaia is still alive, awake, and aware and working through whatever means she can to help us correct this course and get back to co-creation that's balanced and beautiful. Sure not everything in nature is balanced, peaceful, harmonious, gender equal. I'm not naively saying that everything natural is innocent and utopian. I just know that humans are biologically and culturally adapted to co-create beauty on this planet and part of what made that possible was our tendency to share and be equal. Compare Bonobos and Chimps, chimps are violent male dominant brutalitarians, Bonobos are gender balanced if not matriarchal and live in a cooperative peaceful environment maintained by making love not war. Something about the descent into patriarchal human history can be understood by reverse engineering our primate cousins. It's believed now that the reason Bonobos evolved gender equality, peace, and love is that their ecology changed at one point to allow the equal sharing of labor in food procurement on the ground in the absense of larger apes. Chimps conversely have adapted in a way that allows requires males to climb high in trees to get food that will then be hierarchically divided and provisioned. The apes on the ground are a threat, and a competitor so male and female chimps are divided into separate but unequal classes.

Engles established this material determinism in the Origin of the Family, Private Property and State where he demonstrated that in societies where men seized the means of production, women were soon marginalized and banished to the domestic sphere. While of course women worked as much if not more, some slippage in the equal valuation of gendered work occurred and thousands of years later here we are, a world of missiles and sky scrapers.

Losing gender equality has meant that our species' uniquely evolved ability to co-create with Gaia has been bastardized by a rogue primate framework that we gracefully shed long ago.

For at over 30 years now, ethnographers have studied the last living egalitarian human societies to find that in the state of nature, as uncivilized, non-industrial, matrifocal tribes/bands, our ancestors flourished socially and ecologically without domination. Terence Mckenna simply describes the archaic world as one of human partnership societies.

If the constant is that consciousness is evolving through form to manifest ever more co-creative beings, imagine what could have been created by now had we not descended into the dark realm of patriarchy. No we didn't need to wipe out almost all traditional cultures and all ecosystems just to become cyborgs to reach the evolutionary trajectory of telepathy. We could have peacefully found our way there, tripped our way there, danced, sang, painted, loved... If telepathy is the next plateau of consciousness evolution, I would have rather our species got their through plant worship than cybernetics, natural vs. artificial intelligence if you will.

Terence said he felt that computer technology was very feminine. I think he meant that it was mirroring the gaian matrix. I extend the notion to say that our co-creatress, Gaia knows that we're trapped in history, and the internet, and the anarchic egalitarian spirit of the open source movement are gifts from Gaia that the pure-hearted can use to derail apocalypse and engender the archaic revival. It's as if she's reaching through matter to hand us this gift to save our selves.

I always think about how totally hopeless I would have felt if I had this critique of progress and patriarchy in the middle ages, or on the American frontier. I certainly couldn't have blogged about it. I couldn't have joined an international digital social network. I would have been burned at the stake, like so many witches and heretics.

That's why I'm so astonished that anyone can be apathetic or hopeless now! I'm going to try to be the spirit of a burned witch or alchemist who's last blood boiled thought was 'if only I could create a device through which to interconnect human intelligence so that centralized domination of culture and creation would be forever subverted...'

Well, the digital revolution is an alchemists dream. With these tools we are limited only by our dreams. Memes compete in the primordial ooze of social networks. Are people of conscious who want change engaged in this ecology of ideas? Yes, but sadly not enough. Now marginality is optional. There is no excuse. Spread the memetic revolution by word of mouse! The revolution will be bookmarked, texted, syndicated, emoticoned, popped-up, uploaded, downloaded, shared, tracked-back, pinged, , backed-up, hard-driven, and ranked number one in Google's "organic" search results!

Consciousness is evolving, we are being given more and more tools to co-create. We have the biological and cultural technology to reclaim the dream from the nightmare.

Hopefully we'll break the chimp spell before 2012 when the next great opportunity for intensified consciousness and material restructuring occurs.

As different as we are from chimps, is as different as we'll be from ourselves, will it be a beautiful free, equal, loving and peaceful tranformation, or will it be more grotesque domination?

EVolution of consciousness structures

2009-04-17T18:16:00.000-07:00

I listened to a Daniel Pinchbeck talk and he was talking about different consciousness structures that have evolved over in human history, not incrementally but during bursts of mutation. 2012 is expected to be the next major consciousness mutation/evolution/restructuring event. From all that I gather now from the cosmology/astronomy of the 2012 movement is that in sun cycles there are points of alignment where galactic forces align or collide or eclipse causing the sun to intensify it's mutagenic effect on the life on the planet. Everything living on Earth is encoded in DNA, the HTML of life. Perhaps the intelligence being(s) that are driving consciousness evolution on earth (us included) know about these cycles and opportunistically push for new functions and features during these galactic moments of opportunity. Now I'm thinking that 2012 could mean a difference in human cognitive/anatomical organization to the point of being unrecognizable to ourselves. Or at least some of us will become unrecognizable, like a spontaneous mass shape-shifting event. We may be self aware at a moment of mutation where we actually get to think and feel in a state of human awareness about growing wings, fins, telepathic neuronetworks, etc. Could be fun! Just don't pull a Ray Stantz (Ghostbusters) who when given the chance to manifest instantly out of the morphogenetic field ended up creating the StayPuft Marshmellow Man!

benaxiom@yahoo.com

Cross-tasking

2009-04-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

Being a 21st century digital boy means having to train in martial arts in a very multi-tasked way and in the cracks of life. I wish I could be training traditionally where that is the core of daily life. But making a living and working on creative projects = way too much time chained the computer.

At work on bathroom breaks I work in stretching, a few pull ups, some squats, some side and front lunges, some hindu push-ups, and some side-kicks. If no one's looking I throw a few kicks while walking down the hall.

At home, every thirty minutes a pop-up window reminds me to do pull-ups on a bar I have hanging right above my head. I don't even have to get up, haha, I just pull up.

I try to park further away so I push myself to jog to my destination (recommended by Bruce Lee). It helps if I'm late, I have to push myself to run faster.

I made a resistance band out of a used bike inner tube by tying knots on both ends. So I can grip the knots with fists and punch out and simulate parrys/blocks with constant resistance. It's helped my drumming significantly. The lactic acid/fatigue threshold has increased greatly since I've used the resistance band regularly.

At home I also put 15 pounds of ankle weights on each leg so that while I'm stuck on the computer I can simulate double bass drumming movements with added resistance.

benaxiom@yahoo.com

Indoor/Outdoor heat conserving structure building tip

2009-04-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

If in the event of a snow/ice storm the power goes out, or if you're surviving a cold night in the wilderness, apply this principle when building a heat conserving structure: keep it as small as possible! Your body is a heater, but like a fire place, it can't heat a big space, the heat will dissipate. The smaller the structure the warmer you can make it with your body heat if you insulate it well. Indoors you could make a mattress and blanket igloo/fort, if outdoors you could dig a trench or create a small shelter (smaller than an average size one person tent) out of branches and cover with brush, a tarp, etc. Space blankets on the ground and ceiling help insulate as well.

Keep insects out of your work boots with nylons

2009-04-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

Stretch a pair of nylons over your garden/work boots to ensure spiders and other insects don't post up in there and bite you.

benaxiom@yahoo.com

Beer to clean indoor plants!

2009-04-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

It's recommended to take a cotton ball, dip it in beer and swab the tops and bottoms of leaves to fight dust and bacteria that choke off indoor plants.

Also, Asprin is actually a plant growth hormone, you can dissolve it in water, and pour it on plants that have stopped growing in containers, a glass every two weeks until they get a kick start and grow again.

benaxiom@yahoo.com

test

2009-04-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

test

Whales evolved from land mammals

2009-04-11T15:11:00.001-07:00

I just learned about the evolutionary theory behind the argument that whales evolved from land mammals, apparently unlike fish that move through water with a horizontal body motion, whales move using a vertical motion that's characteristic of how 4 legged mammals move on land. I guess we have a chance come Water World...

benaxiom@yahoo.com

new ultra cheap DIY cardboard based solar oven design

2009-04-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

The solar oven design has been streamlined so you can cook food/boil water with two cardboard boxes, some black paint, some foil and a piece of glass!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/09/solar.oven.global.warming/

Notes from John Streets Wilderness Survival Video

2009-04-10T16:06:00.000-07:00

7 enemies in all environments

fear and panic
cold
thirst
disorientation and confusion
pain
injury

planning survival:
waterproof materials
know weather/climate where you're going, get road maps, topo maps
talk to a professional in area that's knowledgeable of the outdoor activity you're planning
leave with a responsible person knowing you're itinerary, medication someone's on
check in and check out of the area you're visiting, if there's a sign in/sign out you

should sign it.
let a ranger know where you're going and when you're coming back

forecasting weather
wind altitude cold heat rain lightning
be prepared for the worst wherever you are
lightning kills about 200 people a year
never be on the water in a lightning storm
never be on a mountain ridge
never under a large tree
lightning strikes a tree, it bounces around the area
study the different cloud types: puffy clouds are cumulous, flat are called stratus
wind and barometric pressure study can help

signs of bad weather coming
1clouds stack up and thicken
2wind blows strong in morning
3 barometer falls

signs of good weather
1. clouds decrease
2. sky turns red in evening with sun appearing like a fireball
3. Barometric pressure rises

handling emergency
learn first aid
cut, scratch, scrape, burn, strain, sprain, facture
be careful, and be clean, eliminate a lot of infection by keeping body clean
have topical antibiotic or disinfectant soap
space blanket, offers shelter, means of signaling, useful for first aid

series of diagnostic signs for first aid:
1. air sign, notice the position of head and neck, if it’s scrunched up, don't suspect head

or neck injury, move obstruction, lower head, raise jaw.
check for rise and fall of chest or lean over and feel air on side of the face. if not

breathing, practice cpr.

If person is breathing, monitor respiration rate: adult= 12-20 breaths a minute

2. blood signs,
look for bleeding parts of the body
if bleeding is present, stop it by applying direct pressure with bandages, if a bandage

bleeds through, ad another compress, taking it away would stop the clotting action that

should occur within 6 to 10 minutes, don't apply tourniquet
pulse, radial pulse=wrist, carotid pulse=neck
monitor pulse rate adult=60-100 bmp

3. mental signs
establish communication
ask if has pain
ask to move body parts to make sure doesn't have temporary paralysis

4. skin signs
skin color, is it normal, pale, blue
hot and dry or wet

shock: anything can bring it about
what the skin condition is, cold wet?, another sign, weak and rapid pulse, shallow rapid

breathing.

treat shock be keeping body temp near 98.6
elevate the feet
insulate person from the ground, ground will steal body heat

heat exhaustion/heat stroke
exhaustion is almost a form of shock, symptoms person showing a lot of moisture, rapid

pulse and breathing, move person to cooler location treat for shock

heat stroke: hot dry skin, as much as 110 degrees, serious medical condition, lower body

temp any way you can. don't go below normal body temp

number one outdoor emergency killer: hypothermia. symptoms: shivering, loss of body

coordination, sleepiness, lapsing into coma, death.
reverse cooling of body, apply heat to head, neck, chest and groin areas. when shivering

stops, administer warm fluids, no alcohol coffee or other stimulants

snake bite. bees and ants kill more people than snakes ever did. 25% of people bitten by

poisonous snakes are not invenomated.

look for puncture marks, if on upper limb remove wrings or things would restrict, get

person to help
don't cut, don't place a tourniquet, don't use ice, don't give alcohol

shelter
avoid mountain tops or ridges because of wind
stay away from dry stream beds in deserts because of flash floods
avoid dead or tall trees
avalanche zones or rock slides

good location:
signals, out of wind, firewood,

improvised shelters
only make them size of personal comfort, gear, and firewood
space blanket in cold: wrap around you and light a candle inside, could save your life
space blanket in desert: 2 blankets separated vertically by a couple feet to create air

temperature , make a shade shelter, make a pit, creates 40 degree difference under shelter

always in a desert cover your head. long sleeve cotton clothing, never travel in daytime.

always move at night, early morning or early evening

site selection: where there's fuel and open space
snow shelter: use space blankets to stop drip from snow above
use bows
build fire up off the snow
snow cave: borrow into a deep drift

treating water
you can only live about 3 days without water
average daily need is about 2 quarts
ration your sweat
respiration, urination lose water
always carry water with you when you're outdoors
if you dont have it, it can be found in nature, streams, lakes, snow, ice, plants, dew,

rain, water found in ground.

survival still: dig a 3 foot wide/deep whole, need pot or container, siphon hose, plastic

cover, green vegetation. sun will make the ground sweat, condensation on plastic, rocks on

plastic make a valley, condensation drips into container. make sure plastic covering is

securing covered and packed air tight. make sure drinking tube goes completely to the

bottom of the container. water produced by stills need not be treated. you need several

stills to have enough water to survive. leave over night.

be prepared to treat all water today. 4 main means: boiling, filtration, chlorine

treatment, iodine treatment.

boil at least 10 minutes, add one minute per thousand feet above sea level
filtration: need sophisticated filters, 2 microns or smaller, they won't filter out all the

pathogens, chlorine sometimes fails. Chlorine tablets lose potency, subject to exposure to

air and cold. iodine kills most organisms most of the time. potable iodine, and tincture of

iodine.

how it works:
use handkerchief to filter water
treat it by pouring half of the fluid of your water generator into the water
wait a half an hour
in the generating bottle, there are crystals in the bottle, they're poisonous, make sure

they're not getting in your water. avoid if pregnant, thyroid disease, or iodine allergy.

making fire
tender, bark dry non resinous wood, rope that's frayed, all made into birds nest structure
add fuel smallest to largest
burning glass
until early 1900s, flint and steel kits with burning glass
pocket knife and shoe lace, bow drill and hand drill
Bow drill:
bow, string, fireboard, socket, woodchip to catch ember under a notch, align body over the

drill, wrist tight back to the leg
cut notch into the fire board

flint and steel:
flint, quartz, quartzite, chert, chard cloth or preignited wood,
char cloth: denim, t-shirt, charred wood, seal in can heat materials in can over fire, burn

off the gases. pick the can up, seal the lid tight, set away from fire to cool.
use sharp edge of stone, put char cloth above stone right above the stone edge, strike with

steel, the bit of steel will spark and ignite the char cloth. move cloth into birds nest

signaling rescue
reflecting light, creating light, making sound, being visible
flashlight, reflector,
day smoke/night flares
suvival signaling mirror can be seen more than 20 miles.
whistle
three gun shots means that you need help
beat a stick on a log, noise can be heard for a half mile
make light smoke by placing organic material that's heavy in water on the fire
dark smoke by burning oil soaked cloth
open place away from trees, lay out
intl ground to air signal

acquiring food
bush hook fishing
spring hooks trap: bait stick, trigger toggle, wire, enclosure
figure 4 dead fall, depending on size you can kill anything.
figure 4 trigger mechanism, base log buried, weight on top of trigger stick,
Ojibwa bird snare, catch bird hold by foot, don't kill birds, out in open area with few

perching sites. drill a whole in limb, square perch trigger stick, bait or make a natural

perch
pole snare or tangle snare, fasten at night, tie little loops along a thin branch, little

hitch knots

120k different types of plants
pine needle tea
all grass, all grass seeds are good to eat
all birds and all bird eggs are good to eat
if you see animals, not birds, primates, deer aren’t good, small game, follow them and see

what they're eating, try it, barely taste it. bitter sour milky, don’t eat it. if you can

hold it on tongue or between teeth and cheek and you don't feel any discomfort. wait 24

hours and try more.
nature was the first super market, it fed our ancestors

understanding navigation:
compass: pointing or arrow indicated, base plate, housing.
be careful positioning compass away from possibly magnetized metal
use geologic maps, show difference from directional north vs. magnetic north
natural method, 2 sticks, mark spots at tip of shadow at one point in the day, then one

later,
in the dark, you can take a pointer stick and a reference stick, line up on a star. 15

minutes later, look again, the direction it moved will tell you east to west. make sure

corner stick and reference stick line up to the star. stars travel east to west

nail shadow on finger nail

solar, lunar, and stellar navigation

orienteering:
adjust the compass to the maps magnetic north
from a known reference point find the magnetic north indicator, then see at what degree a

straight line can be made to get the point on the map that you're trying to find.

constellations:
Orion, center belt straight line to North Star
big dipper corner star opposite the and points to North Star
moon, if the moon is in the first quarter, shiny side points west ward
in last quarter, shiny side points east ward

assembling tools
aluminum foil
have high quality compass
candles
water bag
bouillon cubes
means of starting fire, several
sewing kit
strings on gear packs/kits so you can't lose them
water purification
survival fishing kit, hooks, spinners, line, fly baits,
old soap dish organizers, burning glass, signal mirror and string, sharpening stone,

magnesium block, wire saw, Morse code/air to ground signaling on small laminated card
variety of lines, rope to nylon, snare wires, wire cutters for snares,
insect repellant
small vile of salt
fishing tips and broad head tips for spears and arrows
large fishing hook
extra line