Christmas 2015

-

You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness.

- Terence McKenna

-

For me, over these 6 decades come and gone, this season is a triad of "holidays" (holy days). Dec 21 is both the day I mark as the Winter Solstice and my mother Vivian's (RIP) birthday.

Of course these days my mom's birthday is kinda sad as I do miss her, very much. She was such a good soul and having to raise me along with my 2 1/2 siblings must have been quite the challenge.

The Winter's Solstice... aaah... this is me. Long ago I slipped into the life stream of the natural world. And that world is one that exists not just as material but as the core of my heart, mind and soul. 

I love the earth. More than my mom, my family or my friends. 

Nature is all. It is all we have and all that we have has come from her. The life here on our planet is absolutely connected to life everywhere. There is no other, there is but here. Infinite life expands in all directions - macro and micro.

But Christmas... sigh... 

... Christmas was great as a kid. Innocence makes so much believable. But Christmas is like the Kachinas. It dances into the village costumed and caricaturized. Dancing a lie, a myth but telling the story. Only when an individual is old enough are they made aware that the Kachinas are their relatives, their neighbors. The masks come off.

For me the mask came off Christmas when I started doing sweatlodge and traveling with the plant medicines, the entheogenic spirits. 

I can't in good conscience share the "joy" of giving. Our consumption will be our doom. It's as simple as that. While many of my friends understand this, the majority of modern humans are clueless. For 40 years I've been at odds with the society around me. Heck, I've flung my body at that wall more than once.

And it's never been easy! I mean I sure don't want to be the Grinch. I don't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment, especially the children's. So my kids were raised celebrating Christmas. But once we moved into the farm celebrating Christmas became an enigma. It was mid-winter, energy bills are high, I'm raising 2 kids (teenagers!) by myself and I don't believe in it. 

Luckily (?) I've never had an issue being a bit different. It was tough maturing into it but the same process was always involved - "how many sheep does it hold?" Because of me being me fighting to save an old growth forest or being a hippie working for an environmental organization in the middle of conservative ranching country or driving a truck with pot leaves painted all over it when pot was still illegal (ughhh, gross!) takes a certain amount of crazy. The rewards tho'... that's the kind.

AND driving that truck (20' flatbed loaded with tons of lumber) for almost 5 years with no violations shows a certain level of skill. 

I'm not trying to change anybody. I do work hard on occasion trying to change minds - and hearts - but mostly I want to enjoy this lifetime's sojourn on a beautiful planet. A planet I call home and mother.

Merry Christmas!

(self portrait)

-

Please, if you like this, visit my other blogs as well:

AE, photographer (my photography)

Good Dog (drug war) (drug war)

Eugene Emeralds at Civic Stadium (Eugene Emeralds baseball)

for those who enjoy my work with Courtney

My Oregon Muse (adult content)

and my Facebook

My photography on FB

Thanks for visiting, feel free to leave me a comment or share with your friends.

-

Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.

- Terence McKenna

-

Holidays, holy days and everyday days...

---


---

“For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life”

- William Blake
---

For those of us in poverty, Christmas is not an easy time. Expectations and pressures to produce gifts can and do depress many.

This season has many faces. One of those faces was found dead on the street here in Eugene last December: Major Egan... why'd you do it? There are around 250,000 homeless veterans in the U.S. Many suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Deaths like that of Egan's touch me, they infuriate me and they help to feed my skepticism that humanity is salvageable as a specie.

On the other hand there are those who do act humanely, who give and share and make these winter holidays special. There are those who go about their lives and share Christmas with friends and family, give gifts to the kids and make the holidays special for those around them.

Whatever your perception and level of participation during this season's activities, remember that every day around our solitary blue water planet 10s of thousands of our fellow humans - our family of man - starve to death. We neglect those with the least and too often celebrate those whose riches are beyond boorish. We need a serious reprioritization of where our efforts and resources are aimed. We need to care and this time of year especially is the season to show that care. If you can, give. If you are needy, accept help. If you are just folk, celebrate and love your family and friends. Enjoy life. But always keep those with lives of tragedy in mind and maybe this year... leave an open seat and setting at your Christmas table as a reminder that there are far too many Major Egans falling asleep on our streets and back alleys, cold and often drunk, never waking again.

---

My daughter Robin's choirs have been performing a lot this fall/winter. It's enjoyable doing my photographic thing for them. I know the choir director, Mike McCornack, appreciates it. One of my pleasures is watching the interactions between the teachers and the kids. Truly the best teachers love their students and in turn are loved in return. Teachers are a big part of our children's lives and should be a positive influence on them. Which is what I see watching Mike and Willamette HS' band director Bart Ellis direct their students. The kids smile, they enjoy (although you know what? there are young curmudgeons! I was shocked...) producing their music and they become better people for the doing. They work hard and it shows.

These images are from their performance last week of the WHS Winter Festival, a combined effort of the schools bands and choirs.




(this image is all bands, all choirs - and a few alumni who came on stage and joined the group for a great and wonderful performance of Handel's The Hallelujah Chorus, directed by Bart Ellis)

---

Many years ago when I lived in California near the coast I used to spend a lot of time at the Guadalupe Dunes and Perfix Beach (I've blogged about that special place here. Why I mention it now is because during one of my camping trips to the Dunes and Perfix Beach (full moon, great weather) as I was walking at night along the beach I wanted some music other than (or to go with) the rythmic roar of the ocean's waves. At certain times of year the Bull Kelp "whips" that wash up on the beach dry out with the air bladder drying round and gourd-like. There are plenty of driftwood sticks and lots of small pebbles - the basic ingredients for a handmade rattle.

So that night, under the full moon and alone on a beach miles from anyone I created music with only the natural items in my local environment. Later on, after the trip, I was telling Grampa Semu about the rattle making experience. He told me the kelp rattles are indeed old style, once used by California's coastal tribes.

Under the coaxing of a dear friend I am going to begin making rattles again. I really am an artist. It's what floats my boat... I'd rather be creating than almost any other activity. So, I will be offering for sale these handmade rattles, roughly a foot long or so, made with supplies gathered on the coast in Central California, each one a distinct creation, unlike any other. The handles are leather wrapped and small shells are used as decoration. These are true Chumash style creations, based on my experience that full moon eve so many years ago.

They will be priced in the $50 - $75 range. If you want one made for you, contact me at allan_e@efn.org Here is one made for my friend Patricia way back in the '80s:





---

While I'm dealing with art and being creative and offering you my artwork I want to show what the photo products from RedBubble (where some of my galleries are) look like. The galleries are here: welcome to the world I see...

I've set the prices so I have a decent margin. If you want tomething different than what is offered there, contact me and let's figure out how to meet your wants. I was real pleased with my RedBubble calendar and so were those I heard from who had purchased one. The prices for these prints framed is about $110. Print size is approximately 8" x 12".





Cards can be made from any of the photos in the galleries and run about $5







And of course I do portraiture:









---
And just because there is already so much photography on here today... why not a few more. Enjoy (and thanks for stopping by)!














---

And this year... remember that extra setting at your Christmas dinner table. For the Major Egans among us. They may go unseen, but they are here.

---

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

- Elie Wiesel

---

Christmas and the Big C...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.”

~ Dalai Lama

Christmas is such a funny season... a holiday dedicated to good spirit and giving... has become for too many, a time of loneliness and despondency, a season that sees a sharp rise in suicide as expectations (whether self-created or pressured from perceptions of demands from the outside world) are not met. I know for me and my kids this will be one of our poorest Christmases. But they are ok with that. Better than I am with it. I feel that pressure of being able to provide, to give more, and failing.

But as with most things it is after all mostly a matter of perspective. I know who I am, what I've done with and in my life and I know that giving is an act that is possible each and every day. So, I go on, knowing that life will go on, that this low will again become a high, a rise in both economic and emotional terms. And I also know that the sense of failure is not a right thing. I have 2 beautiful kids and am gifted with a creativity that amazes me. I have my health and in spite of the negatives I remain a happy person. My friend Greg Burke once told me (many years ago) to know the difference between perception and projection.

Perception is the seeing of what is, of recognizing the subjective nature. Projection on the other hand is seeing but with our own biases coloring that viewing. And for me that very much is what Christmas has become, a matter of perception versus projection.

A dear friend of mine, whom I have never met (such as arises from this wired, wwworldwideweb) has been dignosed with pancreatic cancer. Beth is a very strong woman, a mom, a wife, a daughter, a friend and a sister... I know Beth from the political side of my life. She is one of those activists who goes out and does. She engages and teaches by way of example while she provides a service valuable beyond measure to those she aids. And I know that right now, for her, her family and friends, this is a time where emotions are a roller coaster ride that can leave everyone involved exhausted and exhilarated, all at the same time. (I've edited the post, changing the photo of Beth to one from her gallery on CarePages. At the upper right corner of the webpage is a link to a page on which to register, which you must do. Once registered you may use the link in the same location to visit her board page section. You must enter her name, one word, case sensitive, as follows: BethWehrman. If we volunteers are truly george Bush's 1000 points of light), Beth is at least 200 of those!)



So it is this Christmas, that even though my bank account sits empty, my cupboards hardly overflowing, the billcollecters howling like wolves at my door, I am thankful, so very thankful for what I have in abundance and that for me to complain would be so silly, in light of what Beth, her family and so, so many others around the world face these days.

And so, dear friends, I ask you all, whatever your beliefs, to offer up a prayer or a good thought, a wish for healing, for comfort and rest and a return to ease from this dis-ease for my friend and fellow MAPster Beth Wehrman, for strength for her family, that this cancer may be vanquished and eliminated.


Merry Christmas.


Here's one for Beth and her family: