Staring into my glowing computer screen, I cannot help but ponder some of the paradox of Modern living (pay attention to the capital M) and reconstructing the folk-path of my ancestors. My surroundings, the artificial cave, with it’s industrial rumble of air conditioning and perceived safety; as opposed to the surroundings of my fore-fathers, the hand-built home,and in place of the machine-cacophony, the crackle of the hearth. We choose, and I express the choice of this word strongly, to perceive this as human progress. We as a species are more comfortable in the artificial cave, but in the wild ground, the natural world, we experience serenity (and Divinity!) in an indescribable way as opposed to being in the Hive-cluster of mass produced artificial caves. Now, as a creative type, when you are comfortable with the territory you are covering, you are not making true art. This can be extrapolated to the rest of your life. In general, when you are comfortable, you are complacent.

When you are uncomfortable, that is when you are at your most dangerous. Many of the world’s revolutions, and great changes are due to a lot of people being made very uncomfortable for a long enough time. That is why the Modern system is designed to make us comfortable, to create an artificial clone of Nature for us to play pretend in. It is even arguable the Abrahamic belief systems have a part in this, as there is the reoccurring belief that faith in God/YHWH/Allah is the way to salvation after death, a guarantee to eternal life; an extremely comforting thought. So, it seems we define progress as the continued infantilization of Man, and his removal from Nature, and the Divinity it contains. When Man removed himself from Nature, where He could look up and the beautiful blanket that is the Milky Way, and moved into the cities with their electric false-stars, a piece of Him died. People try to recover this piece of their Soul in a number of ways, but are simply just filling in a hole by digging a second, larger hole right next to it. They will become your run-of-the-mill Starbucks-frequenting environmentalist who’s connection to the land is running in the L.A. foot-hills, or perhaps they’ll take a week-long trip to Nepal or India and lecture you on how Buddhism and yoga works wonders and their “life-changing journey” with Eastern mysticism, even though they were born in Oregon.

In my world-view, there is one way, and one way alone for me to have recovered this piece of my soul, and that was finding the my natural folk-way. Certainly, this is not the religion for everyone, and neither do I want it to be.

Staring into my glowing computer screen, I hold my belief in the Gods steadfast, knowing the paradox of reality is just another step in the path.