Cliff Crego's blog, whitebark—
Notes scratched into a stonepine snag, open to the light, clear air . . .
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July 2012
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07/27/12
3 MINIATURES
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 8:34 am

THE GOOD & THE BAD

We shape the world and the world shapes us.
In Nature, the good and wholesome plants outnumber
the poisonous 100 to one; Walking down a city
street, the good people outnumber the bad by at least
a thousand to one; And yet, we’re all prisoners of this
wrong side of the devil’s percentage, defeated before
we even begin, held captive by our own self-created
fear, unwilling to trust, to taste but once, the pure
waters of the abundant good that surrounds us.

TWO SPECIES OF PROBLEM

There are those problems that Mother Nature simply
“throws at us,” like the ever-present need for water,
food, shelter, and clothing, together with those
sure-to-come perennial calamities of flood and
drought. But there are also those problems which,
taken together, seem to form a radically different
species of difficulty. These are the problems which
are essentially self-made or man-made, and are clearly
far more difficult to resolve, far more potentially disastrous
and deadly. These are the problems of war, of waste,
of pollution, and of the cultures of self-serving ignorance
that sustain them.

ON THE TWO SIDES OF JUSTICE

“All virtue is injustice comprehended.” Greek aphorism,
quoted by Aristotle in Book V,
the Nicomachean Ethics

Justice always has two sides: One is protective; the other
is corrective. One protects the necessarily calm, rational,
neutral center of Democracy’s scales of equality; The other
corrects the imbalance of past injustices by helping the
suppressed, the exploited, and the disinfranchised obtain
the rights needed to fully flower in the clear light of Freedom.
If indeed “all virtue is injustice comprehended,” then it is
clear that the overly-narrow circle of concern we have drawn
in the past must now expand to correct the gross injustice
of not including the whole of Earth’s biosphere. In this view,
rivers have rights. Rivers are protected by first, doing no harm.
And in this view, if harm or injustice has been done by, say,
pollution or inappropriate dam-building, then this wider view
of justice demands that we correct these past mistakes
regardless of the short-term consequences to merely
“human-centric” economies. Just as the argument made
only 160 years ago, that ending slavery would hurt the
cotton industry horrifies us now, so too, in the future, will
perhaps the arguments that we need massive hydro projects
for electricity and flood control.

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07/25/12
TWO SPECIES OF PROBLEM
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 3:10 pm

There are those problems that Mother Nature simply
“throws at us,” like the ever-present need for water,
food, shelter, and clothing, together with those
sure-to-come calamities of flood and drought.
But there are also those problems which, taken
together, seem to form a radically different species
of difficulty. These are the problems which are
essentially self-made or man-made, and are clearly
far more difficult to resolve, far more potentially
disastrous and deadly. These are the problems of war,
of waste, of pollution, and of the cultures of self-serving
ignorance that sustain them. They are more difficult
to resolve only because it requires that we deal with
the problems at their source, which, because they
are entirely self-generated, is a way of thinking or
perception, ways of thinking or perception which
in a highly confused manner block the very serious
self-reflection needed for real change.

comments (0)
07/23/12
THE GOOD & THE BAD
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 11:07 am

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

In Nature, the good and wholesome plants outnumber
the poisonous ones 100 to one; Walking down a city
street, the good people outnumber the bad by at least
a thousand to one; And yet, we’re all prisoners of this
wrong side of the devil’s percentage, defeated before
we even begin, held captive by our own self-created
fear, unwilling to trust, to taste but once, the pure waters
of the abundant good that surrounds us.

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PRIMARY PROBLEMS
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 7:24 am

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

If we think of problems as circles, primary problems
are the widest circles we can think about. They are
important because they shape and condition to
varying degrees all the smaller, secondary problems
which lie within them.

The two most important primary problems are the
circles we draw naturally around the whole of the Earth,
and the whole of humanity.

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NATURAL JUSTICE
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 7:20 am

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

Just as we can say that sympathetic resonance
is the beginning of Love and Compassion in the
physical world, we might also say that there are
physical principles which are the beginnings of
a kind of natural justice, as a way of just and
equitable distribution, not merely of resources,
but more importantly, of living space and
life potential.

Three key features of natural justice we already
see present in the environment generally are
freedom of movement, place to be, and equitable,
non-centralized, distribution. These three taken
together might be seen as a species’—any species—
basic rights, for without them, it would be
impossible for the natural intelligence of
adaptation to flourish.

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5 OUTER SENSES & 3 INNER
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 7:14 am

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

The five outer senses recognized by Western
culture—sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell—
are greatly strengthened and complemented by
three equally innate and essential inner senses:
the senses of harmony, rhythm, and sympathetic
resonance (or empathy).

These inner senses of harmony, rhythm, and
sympathetic resonance are essential because,
in the view sketched here, it is not possible to
characterize the uniqueness of the human species
without them. Name one other species that can
hear when an octave is perfectly in tune; Name
one other species that naturally dances to any
music it hears; Name one other species that
naturally senses the pain and grief of another
as if it were its own.

Tragically, all eight senses, both inner and outer,
are now being systematically and grossly corrupted
by the current corporate amplification of the
metaphysics of a radical materialism.

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BALANCE
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 6:56 am

For a vibrantly healthy science, art and religion,
both skepticism and mysticism must be kept
on something like a cultural leash.

Too much skepticism, and we’ll lose all contact with,
and our theories will no longer be informed by,
the spark of the wild, the unknown, and perhaps,
the divine;

Too much mysticism, and we will no longer be
able to deal with the hardnose, rugged, yet
neutral reality, of what is.

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07/21/12
COMPLEMENTARITY
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 6:24 am

In Complementarity, movement strives naturally
not so much to the opposite extreme, but to the
balance of the dynamic mean. In balance is the
transcendence of duality.

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ALL LISTENING IS NOW
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 5:47 am

All listening is NOW. Listening is never
2nd-hand. May the Muses take pity on
the “Old Music” and Baroque musicians,
so full of fear and worry about “how Bach
would have played.” All music is NOW, and
naturally resists being a slave of the past.
“Authenticity” is only of interest insofar as
it is relevant, or resonates with, the repertoire
of current metaphysical urgencies.

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07/19/12
REAL PHILOSOPHY
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 5:42 am

The problems of academic philosophy are frequently
like so much stagnant water: muddy, opaque, going
nowhere. How differrent is real living philosophy,
placing itself squarely in the middle of the natural,
walking the great ecotone of Nature and Culture,
surrounding itself with the sounds of wild, flowing
water, pursuing each new problem to its source,
each step a potential change of direction, a
potential discovery.

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MONEY?
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 4:30 am

Money is a species of movement which
always seems to be going in the wrong direction.
Debt is its engine; Interest, its seemingly
inexhaustible fuel.

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07/13/12
ALL RELIGIONS ARE TRUE / ALL RELIGIONS ARE FALSE
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 12:42 pm

All religions are true insofar as they attempt
to attune and align the spiritual being of
humankind with something greater then itself,
with something divine; And all religions are false,
insofar as the very thing they attempt to do,
they make to varying degrees impossible.
Clearly, we need to transcend this contradiction
with something totally new.

[NOTE-
HAVE BEEN AWAY. Had a pretty bad mt. bike accident.
(V.16.2012) A truck passed me on a back road. Threw
dust & dirt up into my face. For a moment, I couldn’t see.
Went 360. Dislocated shoulder; chipped bone; smashed
right hand. So I retreated to the High Wallowas to do
yoga & mountain running for 5 weeks to get my arm
back. Going fairly well. I can bike; I can climb; I can carry
a heavy pack. So can’t complain. But still can’t hold a
camera in my right hand. We’ll see . . . Down at my
Office for a week to deal w/ all the digital dust which
piled up while I was gone.]

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