Move, and keep moving
"First they are laughin’, then they start askin’."
Two days ago, Friday, feeling a bit agitated, I finally paused long enough to listen to my body… My body was saying, MOVE.
So up the sidewalk on a jog toward the nearby creek. Having not moved nearly enough in some time, the jog soon turned into a walk, at times a saunter, ambling along for the next two and a half hours, through the pockets of nature nearby.
After .67 miles of concrete lining residential streets, there’s a way into another world. Follow the brown path tucked under the bridge. It’s a world parallel to the rushing-around-world. And if you feel lost, or afraid you’re missing something, that world can still be viewed across the creek—there’s a paved path with people scurrying about. Over here the path is dirt and mud and roots. Things are slower. A humid afternoon, yes, but leaves filter the sunlight. The path is inviting.
Have you ever felt out of balance? I’m someone who spends quite a bit of time in my head. Likely too much. It fills up and I feel like one of those toys balancing a ball on top. In that scenario, responses to requests are too short, lacking key details (or longer, unnecessarily verbose). Instead of helpful energy there is a tone of discouragement. When in balance much of the daily work feels effortless by comparison.
…Our intent comes through in every thing we say, do, and in the energy we give off. So too in our appearance. My skin was dry and cracking.
Even though the body has proven capable of various athletic feats, such as the recent 50-mile hike in Jay Cooke State Park, there’s obviously more to a healthy body than merely pushing it to a certain limit periodically.
The body needs to move every day. And in useful kinds of ways. Through the various planes of motion, not just forward/back, not just sideways, or merely twisting, but all three planes with a twist here, a twist there, hold it, breathe, untangling the fascia. After a year of practice, the body can squat flat footed with butt three inches from floor (use a 3x6x9in yoga block to train), like used to see people in Jakarta along the street doing all the time.
The body knows what it needs but our programming gets in the way. So many programs to delete. All these unnecessary apps, cables, connections, screens. They take up storage and short term memory. What awaits us once we disconnect? (At least create just a bit of space.) There are other programs to uninstall… to borrow loosely from a fren, it took 4 years to get a degree, but it may take 40 to get rid of it… hopefully I can halve that. But maybe this line of reasoning is missing the plot altogether: Recall that the Prussian system was developed to mold workers for the current servant-based, industrial model, described in Deschooling Society.
Oliver Anthony describes the outcome of decades of this in “Rich Men North of Richmond” with the lyric: I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day. Overtime hours for bullshit pay. (And if you live in places like Minnesota, what you do make is about a 50% tax… basically an extension of a scheme gradually built up from 1913 after the very bad Federal Reserve Act which then Minnesota Congressman Charles A. Lindberg Sr. spoke out against—relayed in The Economic Pinch, suggesting that if signed would be signing grandchildren into slavery… I happen to see indications that we are doing away with the unnecessary parts of this financial servitude.)
Part of my daily routine has included non-routine (spontaneous) facial maneuvers learned from my friend Matt in the Human Garage movement. The idea as I can best articulate it is simple: the body heals itself so long as we allow it to. The facial maneuvers with deep breathing themselves are simply a gateway to larger scale healing. (The best approach I’ve found to healing has been letting go as prescribed in a book of the same title, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender… instead of suppressing/repressing (hiding them away) or expressing emotions (augmenting them and projecting onto others), it is best to allow them to come up, deal with them, and then let them dissipate. Depending on the emotion, it could take minutes to days.
About 2.5 miles in, I spoke with Toni, a woman, age 61, under the bridge at Lake Hiawatha. Last time we spoke she said she was saving up for a kayak to fish with. Last year she caught a 19-inch walleye. This time I learned she had to go home soon. Apparently she’s been married 45 years and her other half doesn’t take care of the cats like she does. But she’s been coming down to live under the bridge for a while—at least a few seasons is my guess. She told me all about the wildlife. The otters that poke there head up from the water at night. The big birds. The fish which weren’t biting this year. I thought it was great that Toni was going home to be with her husband, as hard as that might be. Meanwhile, the fishing part of that conversation reminded me of a cab driver last week in Springfield, MO, who lit up when talking about fishing…
On the way back to the Springfield airport after the election event, I spoke with Don: He was a self-described old-school fisherman who had caught 80- to 90-pound catfish, from Missouri to Memphis—he explained how he and his dad used to fish at night during full moons because the catfish would hunt for the moon-eyed scad, who eyes are lit by reflecting moonlight. I was impressed that he used a notebook to document everything he had learned from different locations, lakes, conditions, and techniques over the years. I asked what people thought of his old-school ways. “First they laughin’, then they start askin’!”
I loved hearing this story because it had nothing to do with the stolen elections I went into when the driver asked if I was in Springfield for business. His entire being lit up and that energy affected me and then I learned something that is hard to articulate, but it has to do with where I think we can go, which is to a place where more and more people do what they love all the time. Our current CIC has talked about that before… and he has also said “Nothing worth doing, ever, ever, ever, came easy.” So a salute to all of you out there who are moving and continuing to move.
What follows is a post from Project Minnesota, a news site for Minnesotans written by Minnesotans:
With the CIC's "mug"shot heard around the world in the rear-view mirror—for a nice explanation of its meaning, try this (and do look up the references)—it's time for the people, yet again, to find where we want to contribute to making timely information available to those around us. Why? Because the MSM has been shown to be irrelevant, including to watchers who thought it still was, when Trump went on Tucker (261M views) during the GOP debate on Fox and then Trump's photo, with ELECTION INTERFERENCE (likely referencing EO13848) having now reached nearly 250M views on just the original post in just under 72 hours.
By practicing our civic duty, which includes passing news to our friends, family, and neighbors, so that all may be informed so as to give informed consent, we gradually make ourselves more deserving of a Republic.
The simplest way of course is word of mouth. Conversations, phone calls, video chats, a wave over the neighbor's fence. When combined with the positive energy of in-person meetings and events, information can flow quite quickly.
Email lists and newsletters. Keep these for various areas and topics that interest you. Can make contact groups in most email providers by hand. Others use sophisticated software with targeting. Residents for a Better Bloomington (RFABB) sends one every few weeks.
Substacks and equivalents. Midwest Seeds has been the best way for me to share updates as it tends to get read by about 1,000 Minnesotans. For others I like, consider The Zark Files (Andrew Paquette), The Future of Communications (Martin Geddes), or South Dakota Canvassing Group (Jessica Pollema).
Audio and video podcasts also serve a purpose. I rarely watch full length podcasts or videos but that's a preference of mine. I tend to learn more when I remove inputs (by taking walks or hikes) than by connecting more things/voices into the tangle. This may be because I'm still developing my discernment.
Websites with mailing lists like Project Minnesota have a place because citizens like you and me can write about what's happening locally or keep a record of consistent attendance at commissioner meetings (like the ACEIT group in Anoka County). Cause specific sites like Rebuild the MNGOP or Save Minnesota are effective because they offer information not offered anywhere else.
If you'd like to contribute news stories to Project Minnesota, just email erikvanmechelen@protonmail.com - the easiest way will be to get you setup to write from the comfort of your home with your own login/password. With enough of us doing this, we won't have to spend as much time complaining about the other news that is broadcast, which most reading this know is scripted at best, intentionally harmful at worst.
Okay, going out for a walk. Enjoy.
oh, Eric, walking from the west river road( from our old, family home), to Minnehaha Falls was my heartbeat!
moving is hard, and pushing one’s self to move now in new and different surroundings is doubly so.
walk, breathe, and disconnect often ( for me) in that wonderful area :)