I journeyed over to The Big City 4 days ago to see family and clients. I had to get used to stop lights, the heebie jeebies, and I brought my wallet and driver’s license in case I lapse into an identity crisis. So far, so good. I’m staying in a Day’s Inn on the southside and it has a real sit down restaurant. We’ve been hitting the town and the many fine eateries. Yesterday we raided McGuckin’s, the most amazing hardware store this side of the Mississippi River, and we stuffed the truck with loot.
Bikers and hikers and runners are out and about all over the place, clad in the finest athletic garb. Here one must stay vigilant for all moving objects, and pedestrians have the right of way. Pearl Street Mall is still going strong, as is every conceivable retail outlet. There ain’t no recession here. The Big City is still beautiful and lively and affluent. Everything seems like it is going fine here. No need to be alarmed.
Part I, The Sommelier’s Choice
Yesterday morning I opened email to find the weekly update from Andre Angelantoni over at Post Peak Living, the Uncrash Course, a site I recommended in the recently posted incisive and lengthy entry, entitled “The Sky is Falling! (Based on a True Story).” That entry was posted on May 20, 2010.
That entry which I uncorked is a doozie, and has an edge to it, perhaps a slight whift of acerbic aroma. Andre, on the other hand, likes to approach this subject matter with a more gentle persuasion, definitely lighter and more fruity. He is not slamming you with the themes, none of those smokey woody overtones, or biting aftertaste. You might even desire another glass of it.
I am appreciative that Andre is putting this sweetness out there. It is the same preparedness theme in a gentler bottle, and so maybe you will find it more palatable than my version of the same. You are the sommelier of these styles of presentation.
It is difficult to make this preparedness subject sweet, but, by golly, we might have a winner…….
Andre is fully aware of the looming chaos. Andre is fully aware that martial law may well be right around the corner, and he is fully aware that we may not be able to access our money funds at a point in the near future.
I know how he is thinking because of what he is writing, and what he must have researched to be able to write what he is writing; obvious geopolitical, socioeconomic, and geophysical concerns have brought him to the conclusions he deftly covers.
He cleverly refers to our coming struggles as a result of “post peak oil” shortage probability, and all of the cascading problems that may result from not enough petro. However, it is far more involved than just simple post peak petro.
Andre is using a ruse here. He switched the label, and I like it because you are more apt to drink his product. Maybe you will buy a few cases of the vintage. And so, yes, go for it!
Drink! Drink ye all of this…….
You might review some of the points I referenced in that May 20, 2010 Crestone and Beyond Journal entry, nonetheless. I made the major points down towards the end of the entry, in Part II. I also referenced Andre’s online primer in that entry, http://www.postpeakliving.com/uncrash-course. Please sign up for his emails, at the least, and ingest therefrom. After ingesting, please metabolize and assimilate. Keep sipping, don’t slosh.
Andre is easing you into a difficult line of thinking, instead of getting in your space with it, like I did in Part II of “The Sky is Falling!,” and also in several prior entries. A similar informative entry is the May 24, 2009 writing I posted entitled “A Little Reminder to Wake Up, But Only When it’s Convenient.” That entry is now over a year old, and it is still accurate.
Andre and I come to the same conclusions, but we write about it differently. Pick your style. Frankly, I am glad he’s out there. We are not the only voices crying in the wilderness about these difficulties. There are many others. Check them out.
Remember, there is always the standby old faithful site, www.survivalblog.com. This site is replete with a large amount of valuable archived information. At an unpredictable point in the future, information sources will be hard to come by. Build your library of books and writings, and most importantly, as Andre says, build your skills inventory.
Please prepare.
OK, schoolmates, welcome to class!!
Here follows Andre’s recent entry. This is an excellent entry. Remember, you can get these weekly email classes for free. All emphasis and italicized wordings are mine. I’m messing with his wine.
Post Peak Living Class #4
“Congratulations, you made it to the last class!
Is there someone you want to take the course? Send them to the Post Peak Living home page where they can sign up from the sidebar.
Didn’t save the emails and want to take the course again? Just provide a new email address on the signup page and you can repeat the course. Unsubscribe the second email at the end of the course.
Homework Review
The three pieces of homework you were assigned from Class #3 were:
Practice managing your mind during energy descent
Started preparing for the loss of money’s purchasing power
Started creating a skills inventory
This week you will:
Further distinguish that you are not your emotions
Continue moving your money out of stocks and cash
Start filling in the missing skills in your network
This email builds on the previous one so if you didn’t complete your homework, do that now and come back when you’ve done that work.
Prepare Your Mind
In Class #3 you were introduced to the idea that your brain continuously creates reactions without your say so. Over the week, you may have started noticing that you are not your thoughts and emotions.
This may sound obvious but if you notice how people act (including you), you’ll quickly see that many people have little or no power over their emotions. For the most part, we are emotion machines with a bit of thinking thrown in. Emotions run the show for human beings.
I’m pretty practiced at noticing my emotions and not letting them run the show, but I still get into arguments with my wife. She says “x” and it’s as though someone pushed the “start Andre’s reaction machine” button and off I go.
No doubt this immediate sort of emotional reaction got my ancestors out of some tough situations, which is why I’m here today to write this course. (Presumably my ancestors who didn’t have these reactions were eaten by saber-toothed tigers.)
But for everyday living and especially for planning for something as big as energy descent, emotions are a distinct hindrance. A little fear to keep the adrenaline going is fine; paralysis or panic does not help at all.
Distinguishing that you are not your emotions is vital to being able to respond to peak oil and energy descent with a clear head.
The good news is that simply distinguishing that you are having an emotional reaction, and that the emotion is not you, is all you have to do. You will still have your emotional reactions (remember that your brain is a reaction machine that can’t be turned off) but you just don’t have to accept the first (or second or third) reaction that it comes up with.
You will have the ability to choose whether you respond to your emotional reaction, or choose to stay on your strategic path. Keep practicing noticing your reactions this week. When you get very good at this, you’ll see that even some of your cherished “best thinking” is often just a reaction to something that happened well in your past. (But that’s beyond the scope of this course.)
If you notice your brain going down a dark tunnel, bring it back. Wherever it brings you is not the future — it’s a possible future, no more. With this course, you are taking actions that will prepare you for whatever comes your way.
Prepare Your Circumstances
Last class, I wrote: “We are experiencing the largest credit contraction ever — and we’re moving into an unstable period. Pay attention to the direction the economy is going — we won’t have a recovery.”
Recently Societé Generale, the third largest bank in the Eurozone, warned its clients that a worldwide collapse was again in the making:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22776263/Societe-Generale-Worst-Case-Debt-Scenario-Fourth Quarter-Nov-2009.
This is similar to the warning given by the Bank of International Settlements, the central banker for central banks in Zurich, before the 2008 crash:
“The Bank for International Settlements, the world’s most prestigious financial body, has warned that years of loose monetary policy has fueled a dangerous credit bubble, leaving the global economy more vulnerable to another 1930s-styleslump than generally understood.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/06/25/cncredit125.xml
These organizations are likely not even aware of peak oil. They are issuing their warnings based only on the credit bubble that has formed. If they knew about peak oil — and had the courage — they would clearly state that there is no way for the world to avoid a depression as we enter Energy Descent.
Are you delaying moving your money?
Do you think your house will still be worth even half its value in ten years when the economy is in shambles?
Do you think you should keep your 401k, just in case, because you’ve lost so much already?
Do you think you’ll have a pension (if you are one of the lucky ones to have had that opportunity)?
Do you think there will be Social Security?
If you said “yes” to any of these questions, consider that you are missing a fundamental piece of the puzzle.
Or, if you think you have the whole picture but still aren’t acting, then you might be a matter of summoning your courage to act.
It definitely takes courage to act when few other people are, but if you wait too long you may discover that it will be too late.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that courage is the absence of fear. Courage is having fear — and acting anyway.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Crestone and Beyond
Andre hit the jackpot with the last 2 sentences, a theme I often harp on with clients: Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is moving on with dignity and poise despite having the fear.
The purpose of the fear is to inform us that we need to access utilitarian anger, form some boundaries, and then access utilitarian pride, and then access courage to move into the experience. This is a natural progression of the emotions of action in a healthy Emotional Guidance System/Toolbox.
More on this Emotional Guidance System/Toolbox later.
We never give up our fear. We learn to listen to it. We listen to what it saying to us. And then we act. Do not get paralyzed!
Fear is the emotion that alerts us that we might be in danger, or trouble. If you don’t have fear, then you do not live in a human body on Earth plane. If you think that you don’t have fear, then you are fooling yourself. You may be intentionally incompetent or unconsciously incompetent about this little repression/suppression issue that you have.
I once worked with someone who had one of those “NO FEAR” decals on his truck. What an unfortunate irony. This individual has a big pile of repressed fear capped down forcefully in his psyche. And what emotions did he often display in the workplace? Why, none other than shadow anger and shadow pride. Many were hurt by this. It is an inevitable consequence of repressing and hiding one’s shadow fear, and the underlying shadow grief which drives it. It needs compassion and forgiveness to heal it. Forgiveness is the only way we heal.
OK, back to Andre the Astute…….
___________________________________________________________________________________________
“We are heading into a Depression far worse than 1929 that we won’t ever get out of. Turn your money into things without delay.
Prepare Your Community
Last class you started a practical skills assessment with your family and friends. I’m sure you discovered some interesting things you didn’t know about them.
The reason you have been given this homework is because your network (who you know) will become very important soon. In Orlov’s book, “Reinventing Collapse,” he stresses that during the Soviet collapse the network was how most everything got done.
Keep asking people about their skills and have fun with it. You find out about people who are geographically far away but I would concentrate on the people close to you first.
Do you have the following skills in your network?
-medical care (both natural healing and Western-style medicine; both have their place)
-dental care
-construction/handy man/appliance repair
-installing renewable energy
-gardening
-sewing
-food preservation and cooking
-(if you are a community organizer or run a business) computer repair
This week your homework is to seek people out who have these skills.
Look for someone in each of the categories above and start creating a relationship with them. Don’t be shy. People love talking about what they know how to do. You’ll get into some fascinating conversations, guaranteed!
If you can’t find someone easily for a particular skill, you may have found the perfect post-peak role for yourself.
You’ve reached the end of the course. Planning for the impact of peak oil, climate change and resource depletion brings up all sorts of emotions. Be compassionate with yourself.
Sometimes it helps to be in a course with other people who are also preparing. And it’s even better if there is an instructor who has been through what you are dealing with.
Consider checking out the courses we offer from some of the best instructors and material out there. You may find something that’s perfect for where you are.
http://www.postpeakliving.com/courses
Stay in action and good luck with your preparations!”
—André
Our mailing address is:
Post Peak Living
39 Corte Mesa Avenue
San Rafael, CA 94901
____________________________________________________________________________________________
OK, Andre gets it! His style is sugar coated, soft, and sweet, but he is right on! We are all first graders at these difficult considerations. He has savvy about behind the scenes information and madness, no doubt about it. I recommend his weekly letters to help you get your clarity organized. I recommend doing his homework asignments, and getting your Emotional Tool Box highly organized and psychically ergonomic.
Having a psychically ergonomic Emotional Toolbox means that your Emotional Tool Box is not a mess. You know which emotional tool is which, and you know how and when to use these tools.
There are 17 tools in this tool box, and most people can only use a few of them incorrectly. The organization of The Emotional Tool Box, or what I also call the Emotional Guidance System, is one of my specialities, and so if you need some help and insight, please call me. It works for all life issues, not just global chaos preparedness and sustainability concerns.
Part II, A Little More Russell, Just to Keep You on Your Toes
Yesterday I also received another posting from my favorite, the venerable financial sage, Richard L. Russell. It is his latest of the Dow Theory Letters, which he has been writing daily since 1958.
In this letter he starts off by recounting the observation that he had a stroke 2 years ago…..
The Dow Theory Letters, by Richard L. Russell, June 4, 2010
“I don’t recommend strokes. Given the choice, I’d say definitely avoid them. One way of avoiding a stroke is to cut way back on your salt-intake. Then get a little portable blood-pressure machine and check your blood pressure. Oh yeah, there’s one more thing — avoid stress. If what you’re doing creates stress — stop doing it. If the city you live in creates stress — move. If the job you work at causes stress quit, and get another job. What, you can’t find another job? I’d rather be unemployed than have a stroke.
A young man who worked for the great J.P. Morgan approached Mr.Morgan. Said the young man, “Mr. Morgan, may I have your advice. I own a portfolio of stocks and it’s not doing well, I can’t think, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I worry day and night. What do you think I should do?” Morgan with his fierce demeanor eyed the young man and growled, “SELL TO THE SLEEPING POINT.” That may be the best advice ever given regarding investing. The truth — I’ve often used it.”
Crestone and Beyond insert—yes, stress is not healthy, and the wizened Mr. Russell is correct in his personal views. Stress comes from a chaotic Emotional Guidance System, made chaotic because of retained trauma memory. This retained memory continues to be triggered by ongoing daily events, and thereby reinforms the Heart Mind and the Autonomic Nervous System as a cacophony of emotional energetic floods the mind-body. This flooding also has profound negative looping entrainment effects on Heart electromagnetics, what we are putting out there, and what we attract.
There are 17 key emotional states in the Toolbox/Guidance System. They are arranged from low frequency shadow vs. utilitarian states to higher and higher frequency states. All of them are very important to understand while living in these bodies.
Of the 4 aspects of our being– body, mind, emotion, and spirit–the only thing we all have in common are these same 17 key emotional frequencies, The Emotional Toolbox. Our bodies, our minds, and our spirits are seemingly different, but we all have the same emotional tools. The purpose of these emotional tools is to help us protect and heal our lives. Learn your emotions, and what they are trying to tell you. They will help save you, or destroy you.
Like the Rabbi Jesus said,”If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” From the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Mr. Russell goes on with these words of discernment:
“Trillions of dollars of stock values are being lost as we watch. This has to make its mark on the economy and consumer buying. I’ve never seen so many professionals being “taken” by the market. From e-mails received here, I’m pleased to see that the great majority of my subscribers have acted on my advice, rather than the pure nonsense we’ve been hearing on TV, radio and in the clueless newspapers.
Today’s decline was blamed on the news that unemployed Americans are facing the longest wait on record to find work. The average duration of unemployment jumped to 34.4 weeks in May from 33 weeks in April and 16.5 weeks in December 2007.
This unemployment report is going to inspire the Administration to come up with more stimulus plans and more general spending. The total cost of the Obama-Bernanke plan to halt or reverse this bear market is becoming bizarre or fantastic. I warned that the primary trend of the stock market cannot be halted. Now we are seeing some of the fearful results of Obama’s and Bernanke’s ignorance. It shows you what can happen when professors face the real world. Yes, Obama and Bernanke were both professors.
The Dollar Index was up. Despite the surging dollar, August gold closed up 7.70 to 1217.70. You just can’t keep a good currency down. Gold is looking ahead to the slow demise of the Yankee Dollar.
What can the administration do? I know what I’d do. I’d boost the price of gold high enough so that all our Fed Notes would be backed by gold. That would make the dollar “as good as gold.” But problem — do we really have the gold? The last time the US gold holdings were checked and audited was in 1954. What if we don’t have the gold? Simple, we’re broke, and the Fed Notes aren’t worth a thing. Wait, we can always sell our creditors our beach property and our buildings — and our corporations. If America goes broke, the whole nation will be up for sale.
If you listen carefully, you can here millions of Chinese businessmen salivating.”
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Please reread and reponder the last paragraph above.
Gold is holding strong above $1200/ oz. despite the dollar going up. Not bad, at least in the speculative sense, but bad in another sense.
Mr. Russsell is very bullish gold in the short term, and in the long term. His oft made points about gold being built into human DNA as the “last man standing,” and the only real monetary wealth we humans have kept through the ages, is noted.
But please remember that gold is historically volatile, and will be due for a correction somewhere in the future, and so maybe your money guy can help you understand the trends and buying opportunities. Or maybe he can’t.
Whatever you decide about what to do in these next few months, get most of your money liquid and start converting it into hard goods now. Believe me, that will be far better than gold. So, just like Andre is putting it here, invest in tangible hard goods, on the ASAP.
And Andre makes an excellent point about your retirement plans. I hope you caught that curveball. If you didn’t, please go back and pick it up.
And learn new skill sets…….anything.
Part III, New Skills for the New You, Plus a Reality Check
The next skill I want to learn is how to spin yarn. No Nonsense got a big bag of dirty buffalo hair from our local buffalo meat supplier from over in Del Norte, Colorado, here in our San Luis Valley. Jim Stone raises buffalo across the Valley and he drives up to Crestone every week to sell the fine bison meat. He also drives to The Big City and sets up at the farmer’s market there. We like Jim alot and hope to be seeing him often, like about every week.
Jean Ann worked on cleaning the buffalo hair some herself and then sent it off for a more thorough professional cleaning. It came back roved, like dreadlocks wound up into a basketball sized ball of soft future potential. It is now ready for spinning.
We are fortunate to have an expert spinner nearby. She receives spinning retreatants from all over the country for her spinning workshops, and is just up the road in Villa Grove, Colorado. Amber is her name. Amber runs Villa Grove Trade on Colorado Highway 17. She’s a hippie heart, and always has a big warm smile on her face. She’s gonna take me on, and learn me about spinning, a meditative experience.
We need to reacquaint ourselves with our connection to the Creator, Source Energy, from which all is manifest. Because we have lost our connection to higher self, we have lost compassion and unconditional presence. We have to practice giving, not taking.
We shall see how our vineyard manager, Andre the Astute, poises his future letters on “self and family protection.” I would imagine he would call it something like that, and that’s great, as long as you read it, and soak it in, and confront your paralyzing fears and denials.
If you, or your family, or your loved ones, or an innocent one were threatened by a wild animal (think human), you would do everything in your power to defend them, wouldn’t you? If you are thinking that you are not so sure if you could fight for your life, or for the life of another, then you need to get a grip.
Look at your fear tool and your anger tool and your pride tool, and understand inside of yourself just how you have been practicing using these tools. I can inform you right now. You have been using them to hide and cover up your Grief Box so that nobody else can know your hurts and secrets. When you are strong enough, and it is safe enough, you will open that Grief Box, and its creaky rusty hinges of self judgment and non forgiveness will give way.
You will put a key in the lock, called The Key of Self Love, and you will turn that key, and you will go inside of your Grief Box, rummage around some, and behold all of the beautiful treasures from your past that have helped make you special. You can start organizing all of your hurts and secrets, and let go. Forgiveness is the only way we heal.
After you practice that some, your Grief Box begins to transform into your Treasure Box, and you liberate your previous shadow fear, anger, and pride, and take up a more compassionate banner, and march forward into your day. Now your shadow fear, anger, and pride has become utilitarian, and you are using these emotional tools to protect and heal your life. The tool of Courage is now easy to grasp. You are ready for a new calling, a new threshold of adventure.
Consider enrolling in some kind of school and immerse yourself in tactical training and skill at arms. I recommend www.frontsight.com. They take celebrities, high profile people, low profile people, and all other kinds of people, and the excellent and professsional teaching staff instill confidence, safety, and the wherewithall to know how to react if you are faced with a deadly force. They treat the celebrities and their families special, and handle them discretely, as they should.
For those of you who don’t know me, I am a pacifist at heart. I don’t do macho as a modus operandi. On the other hand, I am nice, until I am not. And then I am even nice with that. It’s the Mercy of dispensation.
Even His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, has stated that he would take up arms to defend his life, or the life of another. He is a realist. It’s actually a pretty straight forward admission, especially when you consider the extraordinary wonders of Life After Life, to which His Holiness would dispense the nasty taker. It’s the Mercy of dispensation, like putting down a terminally suffering animal, who otherwise might eat you.
His Holiness is my kind of pundit, even as he lacks skill at arms. Good man. God Bless. Can you think of any Nobel Peace Prize Laureates who might be willing to lay their life on the line to preserve the life of others? Martin Luther King did that, in my opinion. He stood up to the Anglo American hierarchy is what he did. He gave his life for the sake of others in a just cause.
Think about a recent recipient of that honor, 2009, The Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to Barack H. Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Barack is continuing onward with the status quo. He is leashed by the military industrial complex and our Gaia (non)compassionate petro folks, to carry on with assisting America in going broke by printing trillions of fiat dollars, by continuing forward with its 134 military outposts in the world (I know, we must continue to fight the elusive “global terrorists”), and by continuation of our petro presence in the Middle East.
This is pure imperialism. Our Commander in Chief, Barack, lacks the inner guidance and fortitude to just stand up, and say, “This is wrong!” He knows these words might be some of his last words. His Soul offered him this incarnation to exercise a choice–to participate for the sake of humanity in the right place at the right time. Can he do it? Can he make a real world changing effort to allow the words of “intrernational diplomacy and cooperation between people” to actually manifest?
Otherwise, his Nobel prize is an irony and a mockery.
If he veers into his autonomy, and expresses his Presidential power on behalf of the world, they might cut him down, just like they did Gandhi, and JFK, and RFK, and MLK, and he knows it. Some consortium of shadowy figures usually kill the good ones. Enough!
Can the people rise up and support him and demand that he allow his real integrity to shine forward? It will take all of our energies to garner that pride and courage from him. He cannot do it on his own, or so it appears.
The type of imperialism that the United States of America is forcing onto the Gaia family is the type of imperialism which bankrupted England in the late 1800’s, before their banking elitists hopped across the pond to help set up the “Federal Reserve.” It is not Federal and it is not a Reserve. It is a private self serving banking cartel. Check it out.
No Nonsense can knit anything, and I hope to have a knitted buffalo hat for next winter. Buffalo hair is highly insulative. Those animals can take 60 below.
Das est alles.
Signing off from Crestone and Beyond.
Love