(After my pre-dawn qigong practice I had crawled back into bed, at which point these dreams occurred. It had had been a difficult, trying practice, the right side of my brain raging and intrusive.)
I was sitting with a blonde-haired girl on a concrete sidewalk next to an asphalted motorway. We were on the top of a low hill. It was bright, daytime; the sky was blue. Brick structures stood across the road to our front left and farther down the rise to our right rear. Walking paths had been worn into the scrub grasses that covered the now-empty lots around us where buildings had once stood. My bicycle lay in the grass behind us, and some part me remembers having just left a cluster of abandoned and crumbling single-storey buildings somewhere nearby.
A person drove past in a rocket-powered sled of some sort, gunning the engine to maintain speed. Though it was a warm spring day there was still enough snow on the motorway to allow the the sled to slide along quickly, without its steel skis kicking up sparks. I pointed it out to my companion, who seemed nonplussed, saying something like “Oh yeah, that’s a...” (I forget the name she used for the contraption.)
The next thing I remember was being in a house with colorful walls, watching a couple - a man and woman I knew well - getting ready to venture forth on an outing. They bustled back and forth within the large kitchen where I too stood, gathering things and talking to each other in quiet, friendly tones. Bright, golden light streamed into their abode from windows set into its thick outer walls to my left, warming the parquet flooring and wooden kitchen furniture. To my right was an inner wall painted an earthy red. The two were dressed in mismatched but colorful clothing, leggings and long-sleeved undershirts under shorts and t-shirts. Both wore what appeared to be straw hats with bandanas tied around their chins to keep the hats in place. They vacated the structure through a door to my rear, leaving me behind. I went to a cupboard at the far end of the room where I knew I would find a vacuum-sealed coffee thermos and a rolled up yoga-mat. The items were indeed there. I spoke with a companion, the blonde-haired girl perhaps, explaining something to her as I took out the items. I remembered, then, that I had similar items elsewhere, and put them carefully back into the cupboard.
Realizing that I had other places to be, I exited into an inner courtyard with red walls. Rectangular stones paved the courtyard, which was littered with wheeled contraptions, ancient wooden pushcarts perhaps. As I was walking toward the gate that led to the outside, I passed under a broad arch that led to the exit. In the adobe above my head, directly in the center of the arch, was an opening that appeared to have been hastily-patched with a rusted ventilation register, into which I peered, finding however little of interest.
americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑
Showing posts with label clothes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clothes. Show all posts
03 April 2017
05 December 2012
on cleaning clothes
I no longer use a washing-machine powered by electricity. Instead, I have developed a series of buckets in which I clean my clothes, a system that works fairly well. To start, I fill up an old cat litter bucket – one that is clean, squat, and wider than the average contractor's bucket – with the clothes I wish to wash, a dollop of detergent, and water. Usually, I allow this brew to sit for many hours out on the deck so that the soap and water can impregnate the fibers and make cleaning easier. Such long soakings (which make up phase 1) work fine in summer; in winter, however, they find me cleaning my clothes in the evenings, the cold and the dark conspiring with the dirty, frigid water in which my garments have been sitting to make for a miserable task. Now, I process a load in one go, the wash and the rinse cycles following one another closely rather than being spaced out over an entire day.
I agitate the clothes in the squat bucket by poking one side down with a long bamboo pole (a broomstick will also work during this, phase 2), forcing the items down on one side, which pushes them up on the other and allows me to mash the garments thoroughly. After I see a particular shirt or item for the third or fourth time, I put aside my stick and drop a skinnier bucket into the squat one (skinnier in that its bottom goes all the way down to the bottom of the wider bucket), this one with many holes drilled into its bottom and sides. I sit on the top of the skinner bucket, thus forcing the water from the clothes using my own weight. Once I am satisfied with this rudimentary straining, I take the skinnier bucket back out and resume poking at the clothes with my poker, rotating them around and around until they seem well agitated. (The water at this point will be oily, brownish, and filled with tiny particles of sweat, skin, and dirt.) I usually agitate and strain at least three times before dumping out what water I can and moving on to phase 3.
Phase 3 involves putting the skinnier bucket back into the squat bucket but then flipping both over together so that the water runs out. Then, I sit on the bottom of the squat bucket, using my own weight to strain the clothes against the skinnier bucket (which, again, has holes drilled into its bottom and sides). This forces much of the remaining water out of the clothes; I get even more out by rocking back and forth and by shifting position on the bottom of the squat bucket, which allows trapped pockets of water to escape onto the wooden deck, which must be swept off afterward to keep it from rotting quite so quickly. I generally give the clothes a visual check at this point, and a close smelling, to see if they need a third rinse or if the are clean enough to move on to phase 4. This last phase involves taking the wet items from the squat bucket and hanging them up to dry on my clothes-spider, a retractable hanger that perches at the edge of the deck far enough from the house so that the water dripping from the clothes does not seep into the foundation or moisten the siding. I usually leave the clothes there to drip their remaining moisture onto the grass; if I am lucky, they get an additional from the rain. Once the clothes are mostly dry, I move them to lines under the roof of the upper, front porch, where they are allowed to dry fully before being taken in, folded, and put away.
Cleaning clothes in the manner described above takes more time than with an electrical washing-machine; it uses virtually no electricity, however, it is all but silent, and it provides the washer with a good upper-body workout. The cost for the buckets, soap, and poker is less than $20, but the ability to wash one's clothes – without electricity or undue physical strain – is nearly priceless. Regain a slice of independence through honest effort! Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
I agitate the clothes in the squat bucket by poking one side down with a long bamboo pole (a broomstick will also work during this, phase 2), forcing the items down on one side, which pushes them up on the other and allows me to mash the garments thoroughly. After I see a particular shirt or item for the third or fourth time, I put aside my stick and drop a skinnier bucket into the squat one (skinnier in that its bottom goes all the way down to the bottom of the wider bucket), this one with many holes drilled into its bottom and sides. I sit on the top of the skinner bucket, thus forcing the water from the clothes using my own weight. Once I am satisfied with this rudimentary straining, I take the skinnier bucket back out and resume poking at the clothes with my poker, rotating them around and around until they seem well agitated. (The water at this point will be oily, brownish, and filled with tiny particles of sweat, skin, and dirt.) I usually agitate and strain at least three times before dumping out what water I can and moving on to phase 3.
Phase 3 involves putting the skinnier bucket back into the squat bucket but then flipping both over together so that the water runs out. Then, I sit on the bottom of the squat bucket, using my own weight to strain the clothes against the skinnier bucket (which, again, has holes drilled into its bottom and sides). This forces much of the remaining water out of the clothes; I get even more out by rocking back and forth and by shifting position on the bottom of the squat bucket, which allows trapped pockets of water to escape onto the wooden deck, which must be swept off afterward to keep it from rotting quite so quickly. I generally give the clothes a visual check at this point, and a close smelling, to see if they need a third rinse or if the are clean enough to move on to phase 4. This last phase involves taking the wet items from the squat bucket and hanging them up to dry on my clothes-spider, a retractable hanger that perches at the edge of the deck far enough from the house so that the water dripping from the clothes does not seep into the foundation or moisten the siding. I usually leave the clothes there to drip their remaining moisture onto the grass; if I am lucky, they get an additional from the rain. Once the clothes are mostly dry, I move them to lines under the roof of the upper, front porch, where they are allowed to dry fully before being taken in, folded, and put away.
Cleaning clothes in the manner described above takes more time than with an electrical washing-machine; it uses virtually no electricity, however, it is all but silent, and it provides the washer with a good upper-body workout. The cost for the buckets, soap, and poker is less than $20, but the ability to wash one's clothes – without electricity or undue physical strain – is nearly priceless. Regain a slice of independence through honest effort! Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
17 October 2012
science & faith
People today who self-proclaim as faithful seem to be hypocrites. Instead of relying on their god to provide them with nourishment, for example, they go shopping at grocery stores and fill their larders with food; instead of trusting in their god's ability to heal them of sickness, they go to doctors and wash their hands with soap; instead of allowing themselves to waste away so as to reach their promised land that much sooner, they brush their teeth and go for walks and care for their own health. If these people were truly faithful, they would not even think of gathering food for themselves but would only eat what happened to fall dead within earshot, trusting that the Great Magnet would fell enough for their bodies to keep on living; if they truly believed, they would let their physical shells rot, caring not for tooth-ache nor for compound fracture nor for the deepest laceration, in the knowledge that all healing comes from that mystical power that cannot ever be named; if they were wholly pure of heart, they would sit quietly with neither attachment nor aversion as the leaves piled up around their feet and the stars wheeled by, high overhead, upon the vast and inky firmament.
I am among the greatest of offenders in these matters, a humble and worthless whorphan too full of ego and malice to still his soul of greed, too wrapped up in life's shiny trappings to focus on the gentle spirit bursting within his loins, blinded to the subtle majesty of the Universe by desire, selfishness, and discontentment. Some day, I hope to shed myself of this peripheral clutter and bask in the glowing rays of god's own pulsating sphincter, but not today, old boy, and certainly not anytime soon, for my faith is too weak, my ambition is too strong, and my adherence to the false parameters of life and death is greater than my capacity for Total Emptiness, known to the Chinese as wu.
Returning to my original point: To live in a house and to drive a car is to rely on science; a car runs on a liquid called gasoline, which burns at a certain rate if the pressure in an engine's combustion chamber is just right; a house keeps the pounding rain and the slanting sleet of off one's head because it has a sloped roof and see-through windows made of glass and wood. To bathe regularly with soap and to refrigerate food is to believe that science works, that its lessons and warnings are true; soap cleans because it is a mildly caustic mixture of animal fats and lye, and food spoils less quickly when it is stored within an air-tight box and blasted with frigid winds. To wear a coat in winter, moreover, is proof of doubt in the Supreme Deity's ability to keep a body from freezing to death, irrefutable evidence that a down-filled covering trumps the warming knowledge of a personal savior, any day. Therefore, the next time you see someone mount a high horse and start squawking about how pure and righteous is his god, remind him that his house, his cellphone, his car, and his clothes, are all proof of the failure of his personal faith; but beware, for religious fanatics – regardless of their faith, be they Christian, Muslim, or Hindu – are dangerous people best avoided. Mahalo.
© mentiri factorem fecit (場黑麥)
27 July 2012
on public worship
Why do people go to churches in order to pray to their god? Why has congregating with one another in groups become the baseline method, the normal state of affairs for Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Mormons, animists, and wiccans? I am merely a lay person, and an ignorant, worthless whorphan at that; therefore, I can only present here my own poorly-conceived thoughts, offering them up freely upon this, the altar of public opinion.
I believe that churches are a stubborn hold-over from earlier times during which the great majority of people could not read. During, say, the European Middle Ages, the individual had to physically enter a church in order to hear such words as he thought were his god's teachings, words which his under-educated and stunted mind accepted, without question, as Fact. Since our governments have forced their citizens to become educated to a certain standard, and since the literacy rate in most western industrialized nations (WINs) sits at nearly 100%, we should no longer need these bastions of foul old organized religion, as we can now all read our Bibles and our Korans and our Bhagavad-Gitas by ourselves, and in the privacy of our own homes.
Among the primary factors contributing to the survival of churches and other places of worship is the fact that these communities act as meeting-places at which different people can share resources with one another without going through the hassle of trawling for useful acquaintances among the general population; it is assumed that anyone who manages to stay within the church without pissing off too many people and who is witnessed to perform the community's shared rites and rituals is a trustworthy and generally good chap upon whom one can rely to accompany the kids alive on the biannual canoing trip. Another reason is that these communities are self-perpetuating, with new parents retreating to the bosom of Mother Church as soon as they hear their child's first screams, just as their parents did when they were born; having suddenly tiny people around – the sanctity of whose souls are, for some reason, in doubt – seems to drive both man and woman back into the clutches of organized religion, where they and their children become ensnared, so that when the children become adults and have kids of their own, they return to tug on the apron-strings of corpulent, silken-shirted charlatans who profess to know more about freely-accessible books than other people do.
I believe that churches are a stubborn hold-over from earlier times during which the great majority of people could not read. During, say, the European Middle Ages, the individual had to physically enter a church in order to hear such words as he thought were his god's teachings, words which his under-educated and stunted mind accepted, without question, as Fact. Since our governments have forced their citizens to become educated to a certain standard, and since the literacy rate in most western industrialized nations (WINs) sits at nearly 100%, we should no longer need these bastions of foul old organized religion, as we can now all read our Bibles and our Korans and our Bhagavad-Gitas by ourselves, and in the privacy of our own homes.
Among the primary factors contributing to the survival of churches and other places of worship is the fact that these communities act as meeting-places at which different people can share resources with one another without going through the hassle of trawling for useful acquaintances among the general population; it is assumed that anyone who manages to stay within the church without pissing off too many people and who is witnessed to perform the community's shared rites and rituals is a trustworthy and generally good chap upon whom one can rely to accompany the kids alive on the biannual canoing trip. Another reason is that these communities are self-perpetuating, with new parents retreating to the bosom of Mother Church as soon as they hear their child's first screams, just as their parents did when they were born; having suddenly tiny people around – the sanctity of whose souls are, for some reason, in doubt – seems to drive both man and woman back into the clutches of organized religion, where they and their children become ensnared, so that when the children become adults and have kids of their own, they return to tug on the apron-strings of corpulent, silken-shirted charlatans who profess to know more about freely-accessible books than other people do.
I find it curious that people feel the need to worship in public, where they will be spoken to by the holy man and quietly shunned by their fellow parishioners if they do not perform their group's rites and rituals according to its rigid standards. It seems to me to be a very petty thing indeed, putting on expensive clothes in order to perambulate in the midst of other well-dressed people, everyone bowing and scraping and singing and tapping themselves on the head and torso in rigid adherence to a highly-ritualized ceremony meant to bring people, in some mysterious fashion, closer to the god that they think created them. If there were a god such as YHWH, the Christians' foul deity, an omnipotent, omniscient being that felt spited if it were not prayed to enough times or in the correct fashion, I think that that god would be able to discern whether its supplicants were performing correct rites in the correct way without them having to all get together and sing and wail and moan at each other in fancy, multi-million-dollar places of worship. In my opinion, it is by far preferable to pray in the privacy of one's own home, so that any mistakes one makes will not be seen as failures-to- adhere-to-policy, but, rather, as the steps that any fallible and self-aware creature must take on the path towards its own betterment and enlightenment.
In America, churches are built and refurbished and re-roofed regularly, financed by supposedly good people whose cash donations should instead be used to improve the lives of chronically poverty-stricken, perpetually hungry persons livingin the Third World; then again, however, I am little more than a spoiled, worthless whorphan – what the deuce do I know?
場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit
In America, churches are built and refurbished and re-roofed regularly, financed by supposedly good people whose cash donations should instead be used to improve the lives of chronically poverty-stricken, perpetually hungry persons livingin the Third World; then again, however, I am little more than a spoiled, worthless whorphan – what the deuce do I know?
場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)