A Secluded Forest Home in Port Orford, Oregon - 2010

A Secluded Forest Home in Port Orford, Oregon

In late May 2010, I began an extended visit to Port Orford, Oregon. My mission was to finish cleaning and preparing my mother’s former home and property for rental. Although Port Orford straddles U.S. Highway 101 in Southern Oregon, it is remote from any sizable population centers.

 

Seventy miles north are the twin cities of Coos Bay and North Bend, Oregon. With a combined population of under thirty-thousand, full services are available there. Eighty miles south of Port Orford is Crescent City, California. With a population of less than eight thousand, it has full services, but with a small-town feel. Other population centers on the Southern Oregon Coast include Bandon By The Sea, Gold Beach and Brookings, each with fewer people than Crescent City.

 

Interstate Highway I-5 is the nearest Interstate Highway to Port Orford. It runs north and south through the interior of the state. From Port Orford to I-5 in Grants Pass, Oregon is one hundred sixty-five miles. From Port Orford to Eugene, Oregon is one hundred sixty-seven miles. Reaching either road connection to I-5 takes over three hours.

 

Because of its remoteness, I planned to stay in Port Orford until I finished packing, cleaning, staging and preparing for rental of the 1900 sq. ft. home and its 1.72-acres of mixed coastal forest. Deferred maintenance on the property and my mother’s preference for natural surroundings meant that I had work to do, both inside and outside the house.

 

While at the property a month earlier, I had rehabilitated the driveway with a new coating of gravel. Since the driveway is almost one hundred yards long, I strove to keep the “country road” look, conserving a strip of moss and grasses down the middle. Upon my return, it was time to see if rainfall had sustained my greenery. Had any grass filled-in where I had raked gravel off its delicate bed?

 

By August 2009, Port Orford running total for annual rainfall was forty-seven inches. Early this May, the running total for 2010 had exceeded seventy-seven inches. With daily rain throughout much of April and May, grass had sprouted from the composted-encrusted seeds I had sewn on the driveway only a month before. At the house-end of the driveway, the grass between the two tracks was tall enough to clip.

 

When entering Oregon via U.S. 101 North, Brookings is the first town that you encounter in Oregon. Brookings likes to tout itself as being in the heart of the "Oregon banana belt”, claiming that it has warmer temperatures in the winter than other towns along the Southern Oregon coast. Locals in Port Orford would scoff at anyone who claims that Port Orford is part of any banana belt. Although there is more than enough rain to grow bananas, in April and May, local temperatures often hover near 50 f. In order to enjoy the Port Orford climate, one must enjoy intermittent or sustained periods of cool, damp weather.

 

Black-tailed Deer thrive throughout the mixed coastal forest and wooded lots of the Port Orford Cedar Terrace Tract. If one is driving near sunrise or sunset, it is wise to proceed slowly up or down 18^th Street, which is the entrance to Cedar Terrace from town. As the road leaves the City of Port Orford, the two-lane road changes names to Vista Drive. In midday and all night, it is rare to spot a deer in the area, but in the early morning and late afternoon, the woods seem almost alive with deer.

 

Often grazing in herds of five to ten, Black-tailed Deer graze on almost any new, green growth, including poison oak. Only plants that have a distinct gray cast are out of favor for nibbling. One morning, I opened my front door to find a herd of four females, led by a single buck. Since it was early in the growing season, the buck’s antlers remained short and covered with soft tissue. Rarely staying in one place for more than a minute or two, this herd disappeared into the extensive network of deer trails that crisscross the wilds of our front yard.

 

In addition to well-worn deer trails, there are many Black Bear trails in the woods, as well. Because of their propensity for hiding in heavy undergrowth, one can easily locate bear trails in the woods. Where the undergrowth is the thickest, they will use their bodies to clear neatly trimmed "tunnels" in the foliage. Such passageways are about four feet wide and three feet high, which give you a good idea of how large a bear is while walking on all four feet. To follow one of these trails, if one were foolish enough to do so, would require crouching down and clamoring head-down through a blind alley. I wondered what would happen if I had entered one of these “bear tunnels” from one end and a bear entered it from the other.

 

Speaking of bears is all that we can do here, since sightings are rare in Port Orford. Still, the bear-shaped passageways all over the area hints strongly at their presence. Wednesday nights are the favorite time for bears to visit the Cedar Terrace Tract. That evening, trash containers stand along the roads, seemingly ready for the pickings. Early each Thursday morning, Curry Transfer & Recycling trucks pick up whatever the bears left inside the containers. Only a strong splash of ammonia inside of the trash bin will keep bears from dragging any fragrant trash bags into the forest for further inspection.

In order to further enjoy the solitude of a nighttime walk in the forest, I carried no flashlight . In the dark, I made my way by the feel of my shoes on the gravel of the driveway. With no moon to light my path, only the feel of hard or soft material beneath my feet kept me on course. I thought, "If I cross paths with a bear, he will likely be more afraid of me than I am of him".

One Wednesday evening, I took a nighttime stroll down the long driveway. I walked from the house to

 

The next morning, I noticed something askew in the open-top waste bin that sat near the driveway. Overnight, someone or something had tipped a heavy futon cushion upright in the bin. Now, most of its length stood above the side of the bin. Upon closer inspection, I could see several large, muddy paw prints on the fabric of the futon. Claw marks extended out from each print. It was then that I realized that overnight, a bear had visited my front yard. While sniffing out a small garbage bag, the bear had used one mighty fore paw to lift the fifty-pound cushion.

 

Soon, I found two of my small garbage bags torn open, their contents strewn around in a clearing behind the waste bin. Having found nothing there to eat, the bear deposited a scatological calling card and then departed. Had the bear watched me walk the up and down the driveway the previous night? I consoled myself by thinking that bears only come out in the dead of night, when nothing is stirring. Either way, that is the last time I shall walk the driveway at night, under a New Moon, and without a flashlight.

 

Over the years, my mother and my stepfather had added on to their house three or four times. Starting as a rectangular box, including a one-car garage, it blossomed into a 1900 sq. ft. home. Now there are three wings in the front, plus an attached two-car garage and shop. Inside, I painted both bathrooms and did touch-up painting everywhere else. On hands and knees, I cleaned away any carpet stains. I cleaned the kitchen as if it were my own, spending over two hours on the oven alone.

 

After many days of cleaning, packing and organizing the contents of the house, I rested one morning inside my travel trailer. From my vantage point inside my coach, I saw a lone Black-tailed Deer grazing voraciously on the far side of the front yard. Not straying far, she quickly trimmed any adjacent foliage. From the quiet security of my coach, I shot some pictures of her activities.

 

Soon, she moved off-camera to my left, but then returned to the clearing. As I watched in astonishment, a newborn fawn followed her out of the forest. Opening my door, I shot several more pictures of the doe and her young fawn. Tiny, with a trembling gait, the fawn appeared to be only days old. Waiting for the fawn to find and follow her, mother led child out into the clearing, and then back towards the forest. As I continued shooting pictures, the fawn stooped beneath its mother and nursed.

 

After nursing, mother and child moved toward the side yard, which affords greater protection from prying eyes. Still hungry, the fawn dutifully followed its mother. As quickly as I could watch and perceive, the bonding between mother and child was complete. A few minutes later, I spied the doe, standing still in the forest foliage. Likewise, she watched me from the shelter of her forest redoubt.

 

Reflecting on that amazing scene, I wondered if our front yard was the birthplace of the fawn. During the thirty years that a house has stood on that lot, there were never any dogs or other known predators on the property. With my mother's quiet lifestyle, the deer and the bears had their run of a forest lot comprising over 1.5 acres. Since this was their shared home for so long, deer appeared to be comfortable birthing, nursing and grazing all over the property.

 

As I departed Port Orford in June, 2010, only the ten-cubic yard waste bin remained as proof that I had done so much work. Within the hour before my departure, a large truck backed down the driveway and then hauled the bin away. I was ready to leave and the house was ready for a lucky new owner to come and enjoy life in the forests of Cedar Hollow Terrace. Two years later, in July 2012 the property sold to a lucky new owner.

 

Email James McGillis 

By James McGillis at 12:07 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Phoenix, AZ - Laughlin, NV and the Mojave National Preserve - 2010

 

Phoenix, AZ - Laughlin, NV and the Mojave National Preserve

In mid May, I drove the 400-mile distance from Simi Valley, CA to Phoenix, AZ. Although Arizona was my former home, I now spend less time there. With so much time between my visits, changes to familiar landmarks are easy to spot. One positive change is the widening of many freeways throughout the Valley of the Sun. From Goodyear to Phoenix, motorists will find construction all along Interstate I-10. Additionally, the Interstate I-17 widening project, leading north from Phoenix, nears completion.

Sadly, the portion of I-17 between Anthem, AZ and the Sunset View Scenic Rest Point, near the Bumble Bee ghost town still rates as one of the most dangerous highways in Arizona. On I-17 North, toward Flagstaff, speed limits of sixty-five to seventy-five mile per hour are common. Interspersed on the road are sharp curves, steep hills and many motorists predisposed to speeding and traffic accidents.

During my recent visit, the Arizona Republic newspaper published the story regarding a motorist who lost control and drove unseen off the side of I-17. Despite tumbling with his SUV into a ravine, the injured motorist successfully completed a mobile telephone call to 911. The resulting ground search was insufficient to locate the motorist. An air search, initiated several days later, located the motorist and his son. Officers pronounced them both dead at the scene.

I love All that Is Arizona. Shortly before my recent visit, I was disheartened to learn that Governor Jan Brewer had signed legislation that places up to one-third of Arizona residents under suspicion. That new law requires Arizona police officers to check the federal immigration documents of those who they suspect to be undocumented immigrants. If unable to produce legal residency documents, the police officer will then arrest the undocumented person. We wonder if police will require middle-aged white people to produce Canadian immigration papers. The propensity for police racial profiling, conscious or not, tells me that few white people will have to justify their residency status.

One can imagine a routine traffic stop leading to the arrest of a person who has lived in Arizona since just after the federal immigration amnesty of 1987. Would that person, who has lived in Arizona for two decades be subject to deportation, right along with a 2010 border-crosser? If eleven to fourteen million undocumented immigrants now live in the U.S. , how busy might we expect Arizona’s police to be in confronting and arresting the undocumented?

Today, persons of Latino or Hispanic extraction comprise about one third of Arizona’s total population. The governor’s assurance that police officers will receive “anti-racial-profiling training” leaves me cold. As we know, whether we apply “positive” or “negative” energy to any subject, we will soon get more of whatever we focus upon. Thus, in attempting to avoid racial profiling, there will naturally be more profiling activity, whether intended it or not.

Similar to discrimination that Austrian and German Jews experienced before World War II, will Arizonans soon report their neighbors as suspected “illegal aliens”? Would the act of accusing one’s neighbor create “probable cause” for the police to verify the residency status of “the accused”? When the law goes into effect, I expect police “anonymous tip-lines” to ring more often. Those communications lines could soon allow one neighbor to accuse another of not being a "real" American.

That day, I stopped at Baja Fresh in Tempe for lunch. During my visit, a steady stream of people frequented the restaurant. As I sat and ate, I found myself wondering what comprised each individual’s ethnic or racial makeup. Soon, I realized that I was engaged in the silent racial profiling of Arizona residents.

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the U.S. Mexican War. At the time, Mexico ceded large parts of current-day Arizona, California and New Mexico to the United States. At their inception, Mexican Americans outnumbered Anglo Americans in all three territories. Native Indians may have outnumbered both Latinos and Anglos, but their subsequent sequestration, subjugation and near annihilation makes their situation hard to compare. By treaty, all Mexican Americans, but none of the Indian Americans became citizens of the United States.

I hope that any “anti racial-profiling” training that local police and sheriff’s deputies receive is superlative. For years now, the sheriff of Maricopa County has conducted document-search sweeps in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods. For a police officer to discern which Hispanic has a 163-year citizenship legacy and which one is a recent arrival is going to take some great “anti-racial-profiling training”. What criteria will they use to decide when to ask someone for papers?

Let us now remember the motorist who disappeared off the side of I-17, subsequently dying of injuries or exposure. Will the Arizona police soon be so busy arresting undocumented persons that they will no longer have sufficient recourse to search thoroughly for accident victims? As a motorist, I prefer to see more “search and rescue” missions, rather than “confront and arrest” missions now sanctioned by Arizona law.

With our time, energy and money, each of us “votes” for what we like, or dislike. Arizona’s politicians and electorate recently used their resources to whip up bigotry and fear of Latino or Hispanic residents. Now, this fear has spread to Utah, where the legislature is considering similar anti-immigrant legislation of its own. When pettiness and bigotry take over the energies of a “body politic”, it is time for me to place my energies elsewhere. Until its anti-immigrant laws disappear from the books, I shall avoid doing business in Arizona. Until sanity and humanity return, my Arizona visits will be restricted to necessary medical appointments. When this is all over, I hope that the Grand Canyon will still there. I would love to see that place again.

After my overnight stay in Phoenix, I visited my doctor in Scottsdale, and then headed northwest toward Laughlin, Nevada. There, I spent the night at Harrah's Laughlin, Nevada Hotel and Casino. My elapsed time for the 270-mile trip from Phoenix to Laughlin was less than five hours.

Once I crossed the Colorado River Bridge and entered Laughlin, I breathed a sigh of relief. For less than $50, I had booked a River View, King Room at Harrah's. When I checked in, the guest services representative invited me into the Diamond Check-in Room. There, she promptly dropped the price of my room to less than $40, plus tax. The room was on the fourth floor, allowing a panoramic view of the Colorado River. Throughout my stay, all hotel services were impeccable. Additionally, I found the onsite McDonald's and Baskin Robbins convenient for quick meals and snacks.

During my stay, there were many Japanese tourists at Harrah’s. As I entered the hotel, there was a group of twenty receiving their individual tickets for an evening event. Many more enjoyed the swimming pool, which was just below my window. On my hotel TV, NHK Cosmomedia Japan provided their English-speaking TV Japan channel. Unlike many U.S. cable news sources, TV Japan featured unbiased news reporting. If I had a choice at home, I would gladly exchange NHK for my current Fox. I love to stay informed, but prefer my news without an obvious editorial slant.

As I exited the casino that evening, I spotted a senior couple eating ice cream together at Baskin Robbins. They were enjoying themselves so much that they reminded me of a young couple on their first date. After passing by, I stopped, turned back, smiled and then said to them, "You are the two most sensible people in this whole place". The woman jumped about six inches, but the man smiled, held his hand out and said, "Thank you".

As my friend, Leonard recently said, "I really like Laughlin; my wife does not. I figure it takes me about as long to drive from Los Angeles to Laughlin as it does to Las Vegas. However, there is an obvious difference between the two. Las Vegas has too much; Laughlin has absolutely nothing. For me, it is a great place to get away and do nothing. I think "nothing" is the primary attraction in Laughlin.

Next to Harrah’s, the Riverside Hotel & Casino has some things to see. There is an antique automobile museum there and a watch store that sells all sorts of ... uh ... watches. The town of Oatman, Arizona is close by. I think Tim McVeigh hung out there before he blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City. Today you can go to Oatman and feed carrots to wild burros. Descendents of pack animals brought by miners long ago, they still wander the streets.”

The next day, I departed Laughlin for Simi Valley, California. My trip west across the desert via I-40, then south on I-15 was beautiful. With temperatures in the 80's, clear air and minimal traffic; I made it home in record time. In recent years, the Mojave Desert has experienced extreme drought conditions. This winter, the rains swept in and the Mojave National Preserve now looks green by comparison. Later, as I approached the north side of the San Gabriel Mountains on I-15, heavy snowdrifts there attested to this year’s wet winter in Southern California.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 06:12 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | Link

A Southern Oregon Forest Home - 2010

 

Port Orford, Oregon - "The town that chooses you."

A Southern Oregon Forest Home.

 

Over the past three years, I have traveled often to Port Orford. First, it was to help my mother after the death of her husband of thirty-five years. Later, I helped maintain her property on Cedar Hollow Drive, including 1.72 acres of mixed fir, pine, cedar and other hardwoods. A three-bedroom home stands in a clearing at the far end of a long gravel driveway. Last fall, I helped my mother move from there to Heritage Place, an assisted living facility in Bandon (By the Sea), Oregon. Next, I began preparing her property for sale, expecting to use the proceeds to pay for her new retirement lifestyle. After she passed away in February 2010, I opted not to sell, but rather to prepare the house for rental. In late May 2010, I shall make another visit to Port Orford, completing that process.

 

In Port Orford, U.S. Highway 101 changes names to Oregon Street. There, the highway is four lanes wide, with parallel parking along both sides of the street. Nowhere in Southern Oregon does the speed limit exceed fifty-five miles per hour. Despite signs and flashing lights warning of the thirty miles per hour speed limit through the city, many travelers barely slow down. As often as not, the local police cruiser quietly waits for the next speeder to blow through town. Rarely does he have long to wait. Announcing his presence with a quick “whoop” from his siren, there is no place for a scofflaw to run or to hide. Some call it a speed trap. Others will say, “We warned you, fair and square”.

 

To an outside observer, Port Orford appears to exist in a time warp. With no traffic signals to slow you down, you might drive through town in less than five minutes. If you are looking for national-franchise businesses of any kind, you will find only filling stations, hardware and auto parts stores there. Almost every other business in Port Orford is local, both in ownership and concept. For many businesses in and around Port Orford, a website is a curiosity, but not a reality.

 

When I began working on the Port Orford house, everything outdoors was reverting to nature, including fir trees that overhung the eaves and green moss growing on the roof and in the garden. Moss is appropriate in the forest, but when growing on a roof, it indicates that too little sunlight is reaching the surface. Twice in the past two years, I contracted with Blue Sky Tree Service, in Bandon to cut dangerous, dead or overgrown trees from the property. My goal was to lift the lower reaches of the canopy and to push back thirty-five years of forest encroachment around the house.

 

Inside the house, there were spider webs behind each piece of furniture that abutted a wall. By the time of my departure, it felt like I had vacuumed out enough spider webs to knit a sweater. As both the outside and the inside became cleaner and neater, I realized that the property is beautiful, beyond compare.

  

For five years, Mom’s 2005 Chrysler 300 was almost the only vehicle to use the driveway. Lately, heavy service trucks have used the driveway more frequently. By late April 2010, Port Orford had already seen over fifty-five inches of rain. The matt of decomposed forest material that lay upon the driveway quickly turned to mush. It was time to apply a new coat of gravel at each end of the driveway.

 

Looking at the driveway from the street, it soon becomes a double-track, with moss, grass and other small plants growing between the tracks. Farther on, the ground is higher and retains more of the original gravel. In honor of the natural surroundings, I wanted that section to have the undisturbed look of an old country road. Our goal was to rehabilitate the driveway, but leave a swath of green between the two sets of tire tracks.

 

After several recommendations, I contracted with Janet Dougherty, of Bandon, Oregon to provide the gravel that we needed for the job. Janet is the owner and driver of Big Bertha, a fourteen-yard Mack EZ-460 dump truck. Janet and Big Bertha quickly spread twelve tons of freshly crushed gravel for me. They laid most of the material at either end of the driveway, leaving the middle section relatively untouched. Each end received at least two inches of gravel, plus an extra pile, which I later hand-raked into place.

 

Upon delivery, the gravel was wet and covered with a thin coating of gray mud. The mud was a byproduct of wet crushing the rock. Most city dwellers are used to seeing washed gravel, which looks clean by comparison. In order to see what the gravel really looked like, I sprayed water on a few spots, flooding it until the gray mud ran off or soaked in between the stones. After washing, the material showed itself to be solid granite, three quarters of an inch in diameter and varying in color from dark gray to white.

 

After hand grading the driveway with shovel and rake, I then drove back and forth in my 2006 Nissan Titan truck. The wide tires acted like steamrollers, packing the gravel down to its base level. After grading and rolling, our transition from gravel to concrete is as smooth as a Los Angeles freeway. In the transition area between full-gravel and our country road, I raked fresh gravel off the median, and then built it up where the wheels of my truck might roll.

 

The next day, my driveway greenbelt looked sad. We had gouged it, dumped on it, scraped and trampled it. It rains so much in Port Orford that unless grass or moss are well established, soil can run off quickly. I decided to rehabilitate it from the ground-up. To do so, I first applied bags of bark mulch and potting soil, spreading those materials wherever growth was thin or damaged.

 

In town, I found a grass seed product that included a moisture-retaining growth medium, encapsulating each seed. After sewing the super-grass seed along the center strip, I raked up some extra pine needle-mulch and used it to cover much of my new ecological experiment. Next, I sprinkled granular plant food along my new garden path. Finally, I watered the median, from the pump house to as far as my hose would reach. Overnight, the Port Orford area received gentle, soaking rain.

 

On April 26, 2010 we completed the driveway, and then departed the next day. With frequent rain reported since then, we hope to see substantial growth upon our return in late May. With a bit of luck, we will have a clean, level driveway and thriving new growth down the center of our country road. Whatever the results may be, we shall report them here in Early June. At that time, please return for photographic evidence of nature’s bounty in Port Orford, Oregon.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 03:44 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Sun, Moon and the Chakras of Gaia - 2010

 

Sun, Moon and the Chakras of Gaia

 

A recent newsletter from SpaceWeather.com highlighted two items of interest. First was the discovery of a new "Radio-Active” Sunspot. During the final weekend of March 2010, sunspot 1057 emitted radio bursts, detected by shortwave receivers all over the world. Even tabletop shortwave receivers translated the Sun's shortwave energy burst into sound energy. Some described the radio solar bursts as sounding like a roar. To me, the recorded sound clip sounded like a waterfall, crashing into a redrock alcove from a precipice above.

 

As humans, are we ready for what some call “Contact”? The subject of extraterrestrial or nonphysical-contact with humans on Earth looks great in the movies. Too bad Hollywood has elected to portray those who might contact us as evil and destructive. Despite my belief that there is nothing to fear in contact, would I rush out to welcome ET if he or his spiritual cousins landed in my backyard? If direct, large-scale contact occurred, would pervasive human fear lead to chaos on Earth?

 

What if our non-physical friends and spirits were hosting shortwave radio broadcasts targeted toward amateur radio enthusiasts here on Earth? Even if widely publicized on scientific websites, such events would raise only a ripple in the great unconscious. If such a contact did recently occur, what might be the message to Earth or its people? Alternatively, might these shortwave bursts be a nonphysical "conditioning exercise", allowing humanity time to prepare for contact that is more meaningful? Perhaps The Masters bypassed humanity in favor of direct radio communications with Gaia, as we call the Earth when acknowledged as a living entity in her own right. Across her surface, the Earth can accept, bend and reflect radio waves. For example, shortwave radio energy bounces off of both the Earth and its electrically charged ionosphere. This skywave phenomenon allows humans on one side of the Earth to use low energy, two-way, wireless voice transmission to converse with similarly equipped humans on the other side of the world. It is like having a mobile telephone with nearly unlimited terrestrial range.

 

After the recent radioactive sunspot event, former enthusiasts all over the world are dusting off, and tuning in their old shortwave receivers. If the Earth receives another radio show featuring that big star, our Sun, will they be ready to listen in? If collective consciousness on Earth mimics the ways of the superorganism (an organism consisting of many organisms), we might yet crack the Sun/Gaia code and discern its message and meaning to Earth and humanity.

 

Also from SpaceWeather.com was an explanation of the first full Moon of springtime in the Northern Hemisphere. According to folklore, this full Moon has a special name - the Worm Moon. It signals the coming of northern spring, a thawing of the soil, and the first stirrings of earthworms in long-dormant gardens. In the reflected “Worm moonlight", we can see the awakening of the landscape. If you click on the accompanying image of the Moon, you will open an alternate, larger image. There, one can see evidence of the Moon Chakras, each one seen in reflected earthlight. In the lower right corner, we see humankind, as represented by an airliner in the evening sky.

 

According to one website, the Earth exhibits both a physical body and an energetic body, complete with a chakra system identified by ancient mystics and modern scientists alike. She has her own life force and her own path of unfolding, separate from us, but including us. There is general agreement that Gaia has seven major chakras distributed evenly across her body and connected to one another via two lines of energy that intersect at various points on the earth. Earth's First Chakra is located at Mount Shasta in Northern California; the second is beneath Lake Titicaca in South America, and so on across the face of the Earth.

 

Often, I travel on Interstate I-5 from Southern California to Southwestern Oregon. Even during drought years, Mt. Shasta retains a high mantle of white snow. Its position as home to the First Earth Chakra parallels and reinforces its role as a terrestrial weather creator.

 

On one visit, clouds shrouded Mt. Shasta down to its flanks. Otherwise, on each visit, that sacred mountain has always shown me something new. To view the Mt. Shasta as I saw it on three different visits to Mt. Shasta, click on her individual thumbnail images. Larger or alternate views will open in a new window. The first pair of images shows a cloudbank rolling toward the mountain, and a view of its peak, levitating above the cloud tops.

 

The second pair of images shows Mt. Shasta on a clear winter day. If you look closely, you will see a dark green energy being emerging from the forested area. Look for a character similar in appearance to Oscar the Grouch, just behind the tip of the tall pine tree in the foreground. The being’s snow-white right arm extends down to a hand. Its three fingers form a cursive capital “M”. Perhaps one of our astrologer friends can help us understand why an energy being is emerging from Mt. Shasta and making the sign of Scorpio with his right hand. Do energy beings even have hands? Some viewers will see a mountain, snow, rocks and trees. Others will see new energy, as it exists all around us.

 

In the third pair of images, we see a ring appearing on the snowy slopes above the tree line. Had it been a lava vent, ejected material would have accumulated at its lower rim. Instead, its circular structure and slightly raised center suggest a meteorite or comet strike. If comets, asteroids and meteors carried water and life to Earth, might they also supply vortexual energy to the Earth Chakras?

 

In addition to her seven major chakras, Gaia has minor chakras and other vortices of energy, all of which are significant to her life-energy system. As with any living thing, all these energy centers need caretaking. Just as we may heal ourselves through our own chakras, we may heal and support Gaia through hers.

 

According to Wikipedia, the Gaia hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis proposing that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth integrate to form a system, which maintains both climate and biogeochemical conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis. The hypothesis promotes viewing the Earth as a single super-organism. Having already passed many predictive tests, Gaia theory now moves from pseudoscience into the realm of scientific theory.

 

As the weather warms in spring, honeybees may swarm from their nest or hive. After laying eggs in a number of specially prepared “queen cups”, the old queen leaves the nest. Soon, she and her escort of scouts and workers alight upon an area of nearby foliage. As the swarm protects the queen beneath a blanket of their bodies, scouts confer on the best place to start a new hive. Using a form of dance, individual scouts tout the worthiness of their preferred new sites. Scouts visit each of the competing sites, then return to promote the one that they determine is best. The selection process may take days, hours or mere minutes, depending on the level of scouting completed prior to emergence of a swarm from the nest.

 

Once they reach consensus, the scouts and workers escort the queen to her new home. Meanwhile, back at the old nest, the forty percent of honeybees who stay behind elevate a new queen and carry on. Upon final departure, the swarm disentangles itself as each individual bee takes flight. In an aerial ballet that looks like pure chaos to a human observer, the mass disperses rotating vortex of bees. Soon, they are gone, spiraling away toward their new home. Using creative intelligence and some good dance moves, one super-organism of bees gives birth to another, right before our eyes. into the air, and then comes together again as a

 

In concert with Nature, the swarming of honeybees often coincides with the Worm Moon. The Sun’s rays warm the springtime air by day. Bright moonlight illuminates the pathway of those still traveling to the new nest at night. After watching a swarm of honeybees morph into a super-organism before my eyes, I believe that such events reflect the beneficent vortexual energies of our Sun, Moon and the Chakras of Gaia.

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 10:32 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link

The Bankruptcy of Super Bowl Advertising - 2010

 

"You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time" - Abraham Lincoln

While watching the 2010 Super Bowl, we enjoyed the game, but were dismayed that violence and antisocial behavior were elevated further as art. Our concern was less for the game than for its corporate advertising. For only $2.5 million per minute, a corporate sponsor could perpetrate any message they like on the largest TV audience in history.  

To see that violence is now part of popular culture, look no further than the gang cultures of Los Angeles. Over the past sixty years, gratuitous violence attained the status of cool or acceptable behavior. Now, the waterfall effect of violence pours down from one generation to the next. Likewise, high definition violence is now an integral part of corporate advertising culture. During Super Bowl XLIV, several ads featured physical violence perpetrated on innocent people. The most startling moments included blind-side tackles of vulnerable humans. The digitally enhanced tackles arrived rapidly from off-screen. Their apparent force was so great that victims flew off the opposite side of the screen.

The word, “New”, is the first tenet of Madison Avenue style advertising. Using “New” in an ad guarantees that people will pay greater attention. Many Americans think that there is nothing new in their lives. Corporations try to fill these unspecified needs with new products, services or simply their advertising presentation. While TV ad violence is not new, high definition images, with surround-sound enhanced violence is. Once a violent ad campaign becomes popular, the only way to “keep it new” is to ramp up the violence.  

“Sex sells” is Madison Avenue tenet number two. Selling sex is at the core of the GoDaddy.com ad strategy. Over the years, this strategy has rocketed GoDaddy from “also ran” to its current position as a top-ranked internet services company. This year, GoDaddy's edgily sexy ads featured female racecar driver Danica Patrick, lying on a massage table. As Danica languidly smiles at the camera and repeats here lines, an attractive blond masseuse stands nearby. Later, the masseuse rips off her own bodice and moves toward Danica. Cut – fade to GoDaddy.com logo. With a strip show going on, who remembers any message other than the innuendo of lesbian sex? What will the two, scantily clothed women do next? With GoDaddy’s history of showing racier versions of their ads on the internet, how many viewers browsed to see if more Danica Patrick action was available? 

The third tenet of Madison Avenue advertising is Death. Until 1975, self-censorship and tradition dictated that movie violence never originated off-screen. That year, Steven Spielberg’s mechanical shark faltered during production of his movie Jaws. During post-production, there was scant footage of the mechanical shark available. In order to salvage the movie, Spielberg kept the shark off-screen most of the time, using music to represent its lurking menace. When the shark finally appeared, it arrived from off-screen, attacking the hero as he stood on the deck of a boat. That single act of off-screen-to-onscreen violence legitimized the device, both in movies and corporate advertising.

At $100,000 per second, things happen fast in Super Bowl advertising. In the Mars Snickers ad, eighty-eight years old, Betty White runs downfield with a football. With her cutesy face and unsteady gait, naturally we root for her. After dodging several obstacles, Betty is then blindsided by a fast-motion, full-body tackle. Despite the crushing blow, Betty quickly returns. Fortified with a Snickers bar, she makes a successful downfield run. Not so lucky is an elderly, disabled man. Sitting calmly in his wheelchair, a high speed, full body tackle sweeps him off-screen. Why is it, I wondered, that advertisements featuring disabled people so often perpetrate violence upon them?

During halftime, Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend of the classic rock band, “The Who” sang a medley of their hits, starting with, “My Generation”. The song’s most memorable line is, “I hope I die before I get old”. Obviously, the folks at Mars listened to that one.

There is an alarming trend toward random acts of violence perpetrated on older or disabled Americans. Recently, the district attorney in Los Angeles charged and convicted a man for the unprovoked beating of a disabled person. If not for a security camera at the scene, the crime would have gone unsolved.

Contrast Snickers’ onscreen violence with the Anheuser Busch ad featuring a young bull and a Clydesdale colt, growing up together. Is this what The Who meant when they sang, “Out here in the fields, we found something real”? Designed to engender positive feelings about a brand, “feel good ads” of this type have broad audience appeal. How many children who watched this farmyard ad will grow up to favor Budweiser beer?  

Through their ads, corporations reveal what C.G. Jung calls the “Shadow Self”. Often representing the raw, unseemly side of our personality, we try to hide it from everyone. Blind to the messages they are sending, corporations rely on shock value to keep us watching their ads. Projecting anti-age, anti-disability messages immediately brands them as corporate hypocrites. Their sheer meanness is an indicator of the hidden contempt that some corporations feel towards humanity.

With masterful obfuscation on the subject of aging and death, many of these ads target young, healthy Americans. Corporate advertisers offer young people a “free pass” by perpetrating violence only on older, more vulnerable people. This perpetrates the hoax that generation “X, Y and Z” are immune to aging or disability. A deeper, meta-message is that corporations see older or disabled persons as “non customers”, and thus dispensable.  

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that corporations are “associations of citizens”. Their ruling neglects the fact that foreign interests control many U.S. corporations. Whether foreign or domestic, Corporate Persons, now have the same constitutional right to free speech as any other “citizen”. Does it concern the court’s majority that Corporate Persons immediately ratcheted up their high definition, surround-sound calls to violence against human citizens?  

Now that “corporations are people too”, we shall see an advertising onslaught of which Super Bowl XLIV is only the kickoff. Corporations may now spend their ad money on anything legal, including unlimited support for political campaigns. The 2010 Super Bowl featured at least one ad financed by “an association of citizens”. With its “pro-life” stance on abortion, the ad featured NFL football player Tim Tebow and his mother. In a dysfunctional payback for her not aborting him as a fetus, he blind-side tackles her as if she were a mere Betty White. 

Often unexpectedly, the “Corporate Person” displays its Shadow Self. GoDaddy.com is about sex, and they barely hide it. Mars Snickers are about death as entertainment. Anheuser Busch is about selling beer to children. Ironically, the pro-life “association” resorted to gratuitous violence against a mother to publicize their “pro-life” message.  

If The Who’s ten-minute mini concert had been a Super Bowl ad, it would have cost $25 million. Since Anheuser Busch ads ran for ten full minutes, you could say that they paid for The Who's presence onscreen. Did our new Corporate Person realize that The Who’s longstanding message is that we should mistrust authority, power and greed? “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss”, they sang.  

As the concert reached its crescendo, Roger Daltry belted out, “We won’t get fooled again. Oh, no…” The song’s finale directed all conscious viewers back to its central message, which is – Do not trust anyone, especially a Corporate Person who buys, sells or pulls the levers of power from behind a legal curtain. This applies equally to those who do their corporate bidding from the bench, wearing the black robes of justice. In either case, the cynical nature of their Shadow Self steps forward, naked for all to see.

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 01:51 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link