h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Apparently my response to post 3609, re: my own post 3608 failed to post.

Actually I'm not very adept in Spanish.

I used 3 dictionaries and 2 translation programs to put that together and check syntax.

It'll be a while before I'm thinking in Spanish.

On the other hand, I've plenty of opportunity to practice.

Spanish is the majority language in the nearest small town to where I live, and the preferred language at the closest green-grocers.

Hello Daydreamers

I hope you are all faring well

I have some exciting news to share, I am going on a one day course to learn the some basics of wildlife rescue and rehab This I am looking forward too in its own right but I am also hoping it will give me the confidence boost to apply to volunteer as there are vacancies at the centre.

Watching the barn owls, not only inspired me but reminded me of a few things that I am actually good at, observation, data collection, record keeping*, handovers. I am used to medical setting albeit people ones but am confident around animals, have bags of common sense and learn quickly particulary in a practical setting.

While I am compassionate and passionate about individual animals and wild life and habitats as whole I am not sentimental, a wild animal is not a pet and shouldn't be petted and that is for their own benefit.

Poo, pee, puke, blood, injuries, distress etc I can handle and while humanely euthanising an animal is not a good part of your day, nor will all animals make it, it is part and parcel of life and you have to accept it as such and I do. Wonders if that seems too unfeeling?

Cruelty to animals is a real kick in the guts but again, while you are on the job that is what you have to focus on and deal with that in your own time.

I can make a weekly commitment to a day a week and am fully confident that I can relied on to do that and am looking to that being a long term commitment, right now for the next year. How do you think I am doing interview wise??

The position I would apply for would be on the hospital wing.

* my personal paperwork I struggle with but everyones elses I can do, it is a massive contradiction.

So sorry not daydreamy but here have some daydreamy Perculiar

oops forgot a bit, for all the crappy days, or stories, the rewards are immense, to look after and to see a recovered animal re-released into the wild is just an amazing buzz and so wholly satisfying and that is what gets you through the grim ones.

That's really Peanut. I think you'd really enjoy that and it is a privilege to work with wild creatures. with your studies and interview.

hah! yes! evening all!

Ahhh these glorious golden days of September, we've been absorbing the last warmth of summer, swimming in the sea, but thinking about socks. Socks? Yes, I think about socks at this time of year. . Like, how I'll be wearing them in a few weeks.



I wondered about that ITI. For some reason I link California with Spanish, as if I have lived there one time, and spoken Spanish, which is completely flaky, because I haven't. I must have dreamed it.



Last night I dreamed that I was on a plane, but we had to stop in this strange town to refuel. Someone said we were somewhere in the Canary Islands, but it was the strangest town I've ever been in, not at all like the Canary Islands. There were all these weird characters, good people, just a bit unusual. The plane landed in the main street , like it was a bus. Seemed quite natural.



Now let me consider this life of Peanut.

Amazing my darlin', this sounds so right for you, and what a wonderful vocation, and direction, and if I was one of the interviewers I'd accept yuu without question. That is just so amazing, I'm proud of you, indeed I am.

Let us know how it all goes?

That's interesting, eh, about how you struggle with your own paperwork, but you can do paperwork for a public cause. hmm. I shall think about that one.



I'm running late with my guilty pleasure. Oh no! Well, September isn't out yet. Have to get thinking. Or guilty.

Best wishes Peanut for your course and I hope you get your place at the wildlife rescue centre.

Thank guys for the and best wishes, I am getting some experience the kitty brought in a live one, little mouse is in shoe box with stuff to hide in, some food and water.

It is not bleeding and its legs look ok, bit difficult to believe it has escaped any internal injury but it has gone from shocked/play dead to scurrying about the box, and mostly taking a bath in the water it seems, perhaps it is washing off the cat germs.

I am going to give it while longer then if it still active, release it at the back of the garden, which is the best place available and keep the kitty in.

Little mouse is out, little

The Spanish were the first European settlers in California and establushed a lot of the culture and place names.

When the California missions were first being established, they were located a days march apart along the southern Calufornia coastline.

January of 1985, I was hiking up the coast from Newport Beach to Gaviota beach and quickly fell into a rhythm, arriving every day at the doorstep of the next mission in the line at sunset.

It was something unp!anned and unconscious, merely a result of following the line of least resistance along the coastline, mostly walking along the beach except where the terrain forced me inland.

Hey CC, I thought you'd be interested in this piece from BBC Culture:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140904-i-see-songs-in-colour

Evening all!

That's fascinating, ITI, about the Spanish connection with California. And what about that hike you did then? To arrive at a mission, at sunset, every evening. That is really very fascinating, I can somehow sense the rhythm.

I love that, following a rhythm, like a surrender to a strange pulse. The pulse of the moment. When I let myself do this, I know that everything is somehow OK, and I can walk around writing songs in my head, and prose poetry follows me like a keen brindled staffie.

What?? .

I see songs in colour, says Elektra's amazing looking link, except I can't open it. . It says it's BBC International, and it won't let UK readers in. Hurrumph. Sounds amazing though. I wonder if I can find a UK version of the same article, I'm really curious. I see songs in colour!! I love that!



What about E.C.C.O then.. oh, wait, back in a minute.

I was reading this strange book the other day, about mind states and things, so what's new ..

..and John Lilly was mentioned. He was the fellow who communicated with dolphins. I think Douglas Adams bases a character on him on So Long And Thanks For All The Fish??

Anyway, Mr Lilly was a serious ketamine addict, wrote a metaphysical autobiography book The Scientist, and spent a lot of time in isolation tanks.

I am secretly fascinated by a concept of his known as E.C.C.O, which is the Earth Coincidence Control Office.

It's a shame he couldn't access these amazing science fiction ideas without the K-addiction, but that's just who he was. Maybe it wasn't a shame to him.

I like to think we can all naturally pull out extraordinary ideas from our brains, without having to endure brain fry as a result. Mind you, people used to read my writing and think I was on drugs or near death. Hurrumph. . Neither! I would say. I'm just being playful and imaginative. And I eat healthy foods, and go swimming. And ..

Oh, have to go. Documentary on TV, about Deep Purple (the band).

See you on the other side.

Richard Feynman, the physicist, was one of Lilly's friends and writes about him in his autobiography.

On Lilly's belief that porpoises can talk, I'm personally convinced they can, though their accent is very difficult for an untrained ear.

Whatever else, if I ever find myself in the water out at sea in shark infested water, the first thing I intend to do is submerge and do my best impression of a porpoise in distress, as loudly as I can.

Deep Purple, King Crimson...

I need to start a pot of stew.

...where did I put that jar of nopalitos...

heheh I wish I could eat that stew with you, ITI. I think we could have an very interesting conversation. And I could learn about Californian/Mex stews.

But then, being on hootoo, we can transcend geography, and have interesting conversations anyway. I wish we could eat through the screen, though. . Send me some stew!

Which I could wash down with Perculiar tea . Of course.



Nopalitos? What's nopalitos then? According to my Google research, nopales or nopalitos are pads of prickly pear? And you put them in a stew. What do they taste like?



I must read that Richard Feynman autobiography. What's it called?



You think porpoises have a language? That would be useful in the shark infested water. .

I think porpoises have a language. I think plants have a language also. Sort of. Do they? Perhaps everything has a language. I know the shamans can hear them.

Was John Lilly a shaman? Is there a difference between his K dependence and using the psychedelic substances as a sacred sacrament?

Here's to you, John Lilly, wherever you are.



One of my favourite books is The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby. He suggests that when the Amazonian shamans see snake hallucinations, they might in fact be glimpsing the double helix of DNA.

That's quite awesome really. I wish I could see the double helix of DNA, but I'll just have to contend with taking photos of coffee cups in a high exposure so they look like ghosts. Which is completely irrelevant, but it's what I was doing this morning.



King Crimson? I was just listening to them in the gym this evening. . Nothing like a bit of Robert Fripp to ruin the flow of an ipod suffle. In a good way, of course. Robert Fripp is such a quirky genius, I just love him.



Ah well, in the absence of nopalito stew, I have to go eat some veggie chilli pie.

Well, that has been some interesting reading tonight on John Lily and porpoise communication.

Knowing my luck if I tried to talk like porpoise the sharks would bugger off but then I would get beaten up by

I have taken hallucinogenics, for the experience and found that I didn't really like it even though it wasn't bad trips, so I would be a rubbish sharman like that.

Smoking skunk ( a strong type of grass for those who might not be familiar with these things, quite pungent too) and meditating though has taken me places that I wouldn't get on my own steam, even with considerable practise, for me once I have been there it is somewhere I can then get back to with out the smoke.

Not that I am going to big up smoking to something that I have solely done for the mind expansion because that would be an untruth, I enjoyed it in the same way as I enjoy drinking wine. Both of those have downsides and I am not advocating either drinking or taking drugs just talking of my experiences.

Perculiar , totally legal ingredients I hasten to add

Hullo luv! hmm, interesting. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I don't think healers these days need the hallucinogens. I would prefer to consult a healer who wasn't using them, in fact. I guess it depends on the cultural context. And who am I to say, I'm just also attempting to express my experience.

Nothing like a bit of deep breathing or meditation, or yoga, or dance or whatever. Sometimes I like to consider small miracles, like the eye, or the fingernail, or the blade of grass or the fact of science or music or macaroni cheese. I like simplicity.

In the 80s I lived with a couple of friends who destroyed themselves with hard drugs, I was going why? why? why? One of them said, the emptiness, she couldn't deal with the emptiness. I said the Buddhists have a different take on emptiness, but she said I was lucky that I could get there by writing things down with a biro.



I'm interested in the accounts of ayahuasca and peyote ceremonies, the Native American Church, that kind of thing, because I'm interested in the history of shamanism, and mind states, and I can relate to quite a lot of the places that hallucinogens can take people. I guess we all can.



I must admit I think Timothy Leary was somewhat irresponsible.

Hmm, hurrumph.



I've had a coupla smokes at Glastonbury Festival, and eaten a meal that was spiked with shrooms, that's my entire experience.

Not for me. The latter was hell, because I was so angry with the spiker, so it was all green melting walls and angry monster feelings , but the Glasto experience was mighty fine because I felt absurdly forgiving and well disposed to all of humanity , which was probably also somewhat illusory. .



I've just watched this programme on TV about space. I wish I understood space. Could anyone, anywhere, please try to define black holes for me? In one sentence?

And what about the Big Bang then? Where did it happen, if there was nothing there before it?

Doh. Now I must go to sleep, take the weight off my brain.

You had every right to be angry, spiking someone with anything is a downright dangerous thing to do

I have deleted a long post about addiction, mostly because I thought it sounded judgey, so I will just say this, addiction is complex, multi-factorial and one hell of a hole to get of. The answer to the why, why why question is that they were addicted, remove all the other perimeters, you will still be an addict once you are there.

Until you can say, or think, I am an addict full stop,not I am addict because, I don't think you have faced the fact that being addicted, an addict, is the issue that is front and centre and address it in its own right.

I do actually take an issue with you being lucky, you know what, you made better choices. Again I get the multi-factorial in people's ability to make them but somewhere down the line,(excuse the phrasing) you have to take a responsibility for the choices you are making no matter how hard, or indeed impossible you are finding the alternative choices are to make. I am making no judgements on peoples ability to make them, or them as people, or dismissing circumstance as also an issue, it is not something you can do on your own I think, the support and appropriate frameworks need to be there like I said one hell of a hole to get out of.

mmmm, that was serious, for a daydream and a Sunday morning, sorry about that, also seemd to have written another longish post

A black hole? it´s something like that drawer or cupboard that absorbes all kind of objects from your home.
If an errant button, or paper, or needle, or... whatever comes near that black hole it will be absorbed with its magnetic and unseen and unexorable force. The object will end there, and you won´t be conscious of that, you will forget it all, the moment it happened, even the object itself...
domestic black holes are the more numerous ones.

The Big bang is the natural consequence of black holes. there´s a point when the drawer can´t absorb more objects/energy and then it explodes.

physics is a cake for me not sure if it contains peyote, though.

Scientists used to say it didn't make sense to ask what was before the Big Bang because time started with the bang, so there was no before.
But I always wanted to know where all that matter came from. Can it have come from nothing?

I've read more reently that some scientis have suggested there could have been something before the Big Bang - a big crunch,perhaps from some other universe. It gets mind-boggling that physics lark.

Hah! You splendid peoples one and all. . I really appreciate your input, you make me think in new ways.

So, firstly, yes, that's interesting insights into the addiction loop, Peanut. Uncompromising, realistic, yet understanding. Tough compassion. Tough love. Has to be that way.

I think it's essential to direct people to the right help. The amount of times I've tried to be helpful, but ended up doing the loop de loop in someone else's loop, and burning out.

I often hear the term 'addictive personality'. Is this just an excuse do you think? Like, I was born this way so there's nothing I can do?



Now, to consider black holes. Better change postings .