We live in a day and age with many different opinions and in a time where people don’t know what live and let live means.
Some might say it is because we have surrendered too much of our self government to the governing powers.
The Project Vehicle.
Others would say it begs the question the idea that the government would not ‘enshrine our values’.
For people like me the poles of secular and religious nationalism express perfectly why I don’t consider myself having reached my country. My kingdom ‘is’ not of this world.
There is a belonging without violence.
There is a city without nationalism.
There is an inclusivity with open diversity.
There is identity with cosmically aligned individuality.
There is a post post modernism that progresses and doesn’t destroy all ancient values.
The apex we stand on like a spinning globe is the interrelation of movement that is fixed and chaotic.
The social architects of the world may be called ‘they’ by some but to cool headed non conspiracists who are not afraid of the mechanics of the worlds infrastructure we merely call it a project vehicle.
Imagine deep within your soul you want to give gifts to the world..but then life happens and you get tired.
Imagine having the passion of a Content Creator but not knowing how to put your thoughts into words.
What am I protecting? Is this modesty.. its own form of honesty?
In order to be a popular platform poster you need to “post every day” or at least a few times a week.
Ah
That might not work then.
Where is the passion I’m looking for? Where is the spirituality I once had or the zeal for living life as if this life is a rare commodity?
How do I take life for granted so much? How do I lounge in carefree boredom narcolepsy or not? Am I pregaming my midlife crises, getting ready for it, double fisting it?
Seems like a me thing to schedule such a thing rather than to be surprised by it.
Well why on earth am I surprised that there’s no element of surprise when I feel like I already know what the book of my life is about..like God and I deliberated and threw the book at me?
Sometimes I feel like I have some crystal ball or a blueprint to my life in my subconscious mind. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want the left hand to know what the right hand is doing. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of watching my movie from the outside.
Life and the enjoyment of life seems rather to be that the eyes and the ears and the nose would hear, see and smell what is here or at least whatever senses we have available to us. So strange that even Spiritual Doctors have remarked on sense “All knowledge comes through the senses.” Good job St. Thomas Aquinas for being like the Doubting apostle in your search for faith. I feel that heartily.
So there is that darkness in the soul of understanding (nous) to wit my life gives reference that I keep remembering that I don’t know and I do know. Part of me know my spirit though living in my body and not separate has separate agencies, faculties and ‘abilities’. I find it hard to be a gnostic because I’m an earthen vessel and yet though trying not to be “too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good” I find myself trapped between worlds, like a ghost with a preternatural stain on the ink blot tests of the collective unconscious of this age.
In my heart I watch kingdoms rise and fall revolutions turn and the sun set many a year. The ages of time acquiesce to an Apocalyptic dance that never seems to end. All of this is beautiful and is a verdict to my and the worlds mortality. I hope that I can learn lessons of this knowing that “the spirit gives life and the flesh is of no avail.” so that perhaps life can come to my dry bones again.
It is easier than people think for you to have an opinion when people are listening; contrary to the modern proverb “You can’t even have an opinion anymore.”
I know this because I wanted to be heard for years.
I had been glossed over. I had been forgotten. I had been passed over.
For about 5 or so recent years though I was performing live very regular as performing artist/ musician and in what could be considered a pendulum between a new entertainment extroversion to never before experienced levels and on the flip side semi extreme hermitism.
Then in comes the pandemic and I assume the role of a stay at home dad, the multimillion dollar company that used to pump posts about the show I leaded was no longer boosting my content with consistent and gratuitous amounts of ad revenue and that even in cahoots with some of my personal accounts.
The connection of my activity to Facebook translated mysteriously into my person seemingly having value to said algorithm (even if I wasn’t by any means even close to making the type of money the company I worked for was). To all possible intellectualization I could make out however, that the algorithm believed I was famous whether I was much at all. I was noticed somewhat. I was heard. I wasn’t so passed over.
Let me give you one lesson though. Facebook is not censoring you because they do not like you. Facebook just isn’t ‘boosting you’ because you aren’t making them money. At that time I was but now the algorithm believes I am noone, caput, basically a nobody.
This is the sad value testimony of human value in our crapitalist society. Nothing is usually popular in the way it was in ancient Athens.. back when intellectual values, philosophy of ideas and metaphysics were valuable of their own accord and merely for the fact of having mused upon them and nursed them into schools of thought. Now even that value is worthless unless it’s ready to pay the piper. I wonder how much money Facebook wastes not investing in these ideas. But I guess every time a toilet flushes at Walmart a tax deduction angel gets its wings!
So I’m settling in to a more long lasting version of my hermitage but I would be lying if I said that my depression has been totally at bay.
And yet still I’m doing something that some in the medicine/ science only crowd might think muddies the waters into dangerous hippy sentimentalist territory. I’m taking alot of walks in nature, exercising, taking my cbd, eating better, avoiding excessive alcohol or cussing at puppies and of course writing my blog as one part of my weekly healing process.
And you know what .. it helps; because sometimes even after a good helping of protein rich organic peanut butter pancakes.. on a rainy day, when your mind is racing and the sleep disorder demons have clocked out, they need someone to pick up a shift and of course the depression demons are ready and rearing to go. Even so when I write it out it has been transmitted from the realm of thoughts to the realm of words and in my subjective pseudoscientific opinion it seems to help.
I always knew I was an ‘ideas person’. I was always desperate to be stuck in a college academia library studying theology, philosophy, science, physics, social theory (EVERYTHING)!
I have always been mad that whatever secret branch of the government that hires for think tanks hasn’t broke their silence and reached out to me yet. But patience is a virtue after all! Le-sigh.
Re-sign. That’s my miraculous auto predict shake out of writers block! And that’s precisely what I’m getting to now.
The first step to embracing and truly enjoying solitude is getting past the loneliness and just because I’m married doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely when it’s just me and my daughter during the day. Yes.. even with my daughter there I get lonely sometimes and that’s ok even if her just being there really really helps!
You see loneliness is no respecter of persons. And yet perhaps its more helpful and comfortable to be all St. Francis like and call her Sister Loneliness.
Loneliness is like engaging a Jericho wall and sometimes you just got to blast a trumpet in your heart and shake yourself up a little to get past the false barriers it suggests and remember somehow, right now, life is still being lived.
You also must be humble if your’e more the type to be desirous of the hermit lifestyle because whether Pentupium Introvert 5.0 or not you just have to face the music that people aren’t always terrible and in many ways many of them are much better than you… and that’s ok! After all you have your own strengths and weaknesses too!
Most saints probably don’t mantra on that word too much or at the least they think it means something different than most people think it means.
So also a healthy hermit has to be humble and it is as intriguingly intricate as this idiomatic tongue twister.
The healthy hermit is the balance of ones needs and “the Others” needs.. whichever other or Other that may be.
Healthy solitude is a gift for a heart that is healing. It is the opposite of the crusted bitterness of undealt with trauma. The deep irony for he, she or they that seek solitude is this.. one can only seek solitude well as they find a supporting cast.
In this short video below I show you how I made my Crook Neck Squash Blossom Fritters.
So my wife and mother in law made ham and cheese cachitoes (little bread) from scratch and these can be made to suit whatever dietary preference is preferred.
I didn’t document the directions for those but if enough people ask I surely will pick mi suegra and mi esposa’s brain.
Now in this video I give you the run down on how to make my crook neck squash blossom fritters. Arguably this would work with any squash blossoms and if you are vegan any normal egg subsititute used in baking or frying should do the trick.
For the fritters, putting your blossoms in a bowl add:
One egg or egg substitute for binding.
Himalayan fresh ground sea salt is preferred.
Fresh ground black Peppercorn pepper.
Mozzarella or vegan mozz substitute. (I recommend Daiya)
Gluten free Pillsbury flour or whatever flour you wish. (the gluten free worked perfect for this).
Mix all together.
Put a little of the mozz into the pan saved apart from what was mixed in straight into the bowl. Let that crisp up a little bit. Then add your coated squash blossoms. Let that crisp up as well and then add some more mozz on top.
The goal while tossing in the pan is to make sure the mozz crisps up like a mozzarella pan fried chip.
The textural experience ends up one of lite, fluffy battered squash blossoms with a nice crunch. It’s like a delicate squashy mcnugget! XD
I served mine over a bed of spring mix greens along with wild harvested garden chickweed and some heirloom orange grape tomoatoes from the garden.
Original photo by me James Dillon Broxson. For enquiries message shastat78@gmail.com
Because I love Cholulas it made a perfect dipper for my squash blossoms. Of course I topped it all off with my (saved from lockdown kumquats) Kumquat Honey Greek Yogurt Smoothie. (Will provide recipe if asked.) I’m melting remembering this meal.
So there you have it folks. If you enjoyed this article and after watching the video give me a like and subscribe. I will greatly appreciate it.
Thanks Again for joining me for Cookin With the Captain!
Original video by me James Dillon Broxson. For enquiries message shastat78@gmail.com
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