Copper Chronicles

Crushed or Squeezed?

April 30th, 2025

There’s a fine line I notice, between what may be considered affection…”a squeeze”, and the slightly more rigorous version, “the crush.” It’s possible the difference in perception depends on how ready you are when the squeeze/crush occurs.

Walmart reminded me of this phenomenon today. I feel like I have been squeezed and squeezed and crushed a few times since Covi_d. The pressure I can say certainly (if I am conscious of learning) helps me recognize what has value what does not.

For example, driving in Lynchburg, I realized in a SHTF scenario, a tattoo isn’t going to be worth much. The CVS isle labeled “Food” offered soda, chips, and other packaged/processed stuff that appears to be food.

Let’s face it, if I am starving chips soaked in industrial by-product corn oil isn’t going to save me. And there-in is “the crush.” Big businesses that have been selling us plastic sh** from China the last thirty years since “globalization,” are killing us. And, I hope they go bankrupt. Or, go to jail for it. Likely both.

Vikings are a hardy stock, rather frightening sorts (my ancestors); but, I am fortunate for the lessons learned. Always prepare for winter and emergencies. Keep dried beans. Be dependable! And useful. Sometimes, there isn’t anybody else around to help. If you don’t work, you don’t eat.

If I sound like a hardass it because my mother never let me loller on a couch as a child. When I asked her why can’t we have a couch like other families on the South Shore of Boston where I grew up, she said: “If we have a couch, you will be laying on it.”

Comfort wasn’t a thing at my house. I sure am thankful for that! Because there’s going to be a lot of uncomfortable folks out there that have only ever known comfort, ease, and security.

I use to envy those people growing up. I don’t envy them now.
Sergeant Lyle

April 29th, 2025

Last year, I was observing the rigorous role of Rooster while managing my hens. He was cocky, for sure – which may be mistaken for arrogance. Confidence that is well-placed in one’s calling and purpose can be mistaken for arrogance.

I mused happily, how nice for there to be a natural wake up call in our landscape! A sentry of sorts- valiant Rooster is- warning against the danger of sleeping too much.

That’s easy to say because I was reading about Roosters. I did not actually possess one. Let that be a warning against too much book learning: theories, postulations, and our best laid plans can be wasted instantly by our experience of reality.*

Take bitter pill here. It’s like eating spinach as I mentioned earlier, although spinach has high levels of some substance not so great for human health, turns out🤔

So, Lyle has taken up the role of ‘natural wake up call in the landscape.’ (Take bitter pill here, too.)

He is bossy and demanding. I am not sure who ‘programmed’ my lovable lion, but he is in earnest to wake me up. Whether I had a good night sleep or not. When I complain, he does not seem moved. Rooaaarrr!

So, I consider upon sober reflection that Lyle knows something I do not. There may be urgency trembling through the landscape that animals sense and I do not. I remember observing hens operate on a different frequency and respond to stimulus I could not observe with my natural eyes.

Yes, of course this is true. I am awake Universe! Sorry for not paying better attention!

*Reality defined as: what is true, authentic, and holds up against careful scrutiny. As opposed to Hollywood’s version of “reality” which is garbage-y, fantastic (as in not to be believed), and lacks authenticity.
Wrestling with Octopus

April 28th, 2025

Today, after several months of learning how to function as a digital citizen, I am a reluctant one at best. Being a modern person requires learning a whole new language, I discovered.

It’s a new world and has it’s own language. Young people know it. And, it’s not likely they are going to learn My language. So, I have to step in the direction of making peace with culture, such as it is. Somehow.

Kicking and screaming has abated. My blood pressure rises at times.

I gave an earful of displeasure to the fifth USAA customer ‘service’ person who said: “You must jump through this hoop now; wriggle around in this net… Then, we’d like 4 ways to confirm you are You” (so more digital jumps and tricks to perform). “THEN we will help you.”

“Is this helping Me?” I said. This isn’t easier than going to Rist Insurance in Turners Falls- a place where I dealt with human beings!

I know a labyrinth when I see one. It’s a maze and I must perform all the necessary ‘steps’ to access the cheese (insurance coverage, in this case).

So I must jump, writhe, squirm, dot this “i,” cross that “T” -just the way I am told- or, NO CHEESE for me.

“But, this isn’t easier than talking to a human being,” I said to the support person (who may or may not be human). “The system” created for my benefit and to make things easier for me, isn’t really achieving either.

“You work for me,” I said. (The system is an Octopus. It doesn’t understand English.)

I may be a peon to the insurance company. But, I am no peon to the universe. I have agency! And, the universe and I know an Octopus when we see one, and how to deal with it!
Abominable Me!

April 27th, 2025

Yesterday, I mentioned the liberty associated with clear thinking and a modest estimation of myself and my abilities. The social engineering of the last decades of my life are wearing off.

Although, I still ‘feel’ the draw to addictive foods, glittering screens with their ‘shiny happy people,’ the universe has bestowed upon us a great gift, I believe. The ability to discern what is real (authentic, genuine, and true) and what is fake (artificial, a facade only, no substantive value upon closer examination).

Now, the goal for me is to use my gift and not be distracted by illusions. That’s the goal of the “glitterati;” the shiny happy people who ooze hedonism from every pore and sell it to us.

That is their addiction! The need us to fuel their sales, their vanity, and corrupt empire of slavery and profit.

Eve must regret eating the forbidden apple. If I am to believe there existed some prior experience of human happiness that is free of human corruption and slavery, then, the promise of the serpent in the story must be an exceptionally crafted one. And, it must like all false things fall apart upon closer examination.

The serpent in the story promises Eve: “If you eat the forbidden fruit, you shall know good and evil. You shall be like gods,” I believe is the essence. They would no longer be subjects of an Eternal Good God, it claims. Adam and Eve could be their own masters (therefore not subject to anyone else.)

With all due respect to people who are highly educated, and lifelong devotees to human progress under the guise of Science: is it not obvious that human beings are indeed what prophets and seers, artists and poets, writers have warned for centuries: in a battle of colossal proportions against our worst natures?

The serpent who tempts us to disobey God, and promises us god-like power is clearly lying. I believe it is a lie not because the story claims he’s lying. But, because who wants to know evil?? I’d much rather being playing with Lyle, my loyal, lion friend. Or, reading some great book. Free of care.

But, no. Now I “know” evil.😞

Evil is rebellious, hateful and malevolent. That’s where empires that crush people come from: the love of power rather than the love of what’s good.

Evil lies to us and tells us things are ”good’ when actually they bad. It’s like a giant octopus trying to wrestle us into submission. And, it gets really angry when we say no.

So, the current question is for us: now that we ‘know’ evil: we recognize it, experience it, we’ve had a relationship with it (willingly or unknowingly), how do we like the world when human beings possess god-like power?
What a Tangled Web

April 26th, 2025

If you’ve missed a step or two, or few, in my journey from raising hens to raising myself, I have made sense of my troubled existence. Finally.

The missing element of wonder that I experienced in childhood has alluded me for many years, being troubled by cares of this world. And raising hens. Sometimes when you care about someone else you emerge your best self, I believe.

We don’t care about ourselves as we should. One journalist observes that people will take all measures for pets they love. But, fail to take similar measures of care and concern for their own well-being.

We’ve been conditioned to believe ‘others’ and living for others is what is required. But, we are not slaves to other people’s needs.

As Scarlett O’Hara says to her sick friend, Melanie: “Go back to back to bed! You’re no good to anybody if you’re dead.” (Scarlett was rather stressed from shooting a Yankee trespasser who died in a pool of blood on her floor in the story Gone with the Wind.)

Scarlett was direct and modern in behavior and speech, like Rhett Butler. Like northerners are today. Grace, kindness, and cushion-y speech that may ease the blow of what your saying was not her gift. (Compared to my southern neighbors, it’s not my gift either.)

Anyhow, compassion can be a tool of prey. I believe the amount of gas-lighting and shaming in our culture is proof we are being manipulated by our emotions.

We all want to feel a sense of self worth. And, ‘doing good’ helps us experience that. Often.

But, telling the truth (which required for functional adults): How much ‘good’ have we all done, never to see the desired end result of happiness, in ourselves or others for whom it is intended?

There is an ocean of human needs. And, though the Liberal New World Order promised us a quasi capitalist-socialist solution to meet those needs, it isn’t working! The solution to human needs cannot be top down. No system can solve the troubles of a human heart.

So, the happy news is after everything I’ve been taught to believe since birth- that’s been reinforced by media, public schools, by politicians- as it all falls apart, I am actually excited.

Inter-dimensional urging don’t fail me now!
Wright, Write, or Right?

April 25th, 2025

The rate of things happening that I do not understand is bordering on frightening. I’ve gotta go, again. But, Where? And, How?

Its possible the urge to “do this” or “don’t do that” I’ve experienced in the past shall suffice to be my guide. There is nothing else holding me up and holding me together as my world and its illusions are falling apart.

I’ve been looking and looking. I even looked behind the curtain at the Lentin Service I mentioned. It didn’t seem like anybody was there.

So, I have to be an adult and break the pattern of permanent infantilism created by my T.V. upbringing and now our glittering social media culture.

Being an adult I imagine means employing all my faculties: two eyes, two ears, a heart, or “core”- a root word from which we get “courage”. Plus, I need to open the door to the interdimensional urging (previous generations call this “the conscience”).

Well then, the epiphany of the day is: My whole previous existence was designed by people whose determined purpose was for me NOT to listen to my conscience at all. Or, use my brain.

What a shabby definition of a being a human being from one whose had 17 years of public education!

That explains the labyrinth of my brain from which there appears no escape! I’ve been ‘wired’ by culture to work and watch T.V.. Eat Kraft Macaroni cheese. Repeat.

I’v been like a rat in a maze and my reward isn’t even real food. Its addictive cheese-like substance made in a lab!

No wonder the universe gives us a “conscience.” It must see us as more valuable than slaves and rats.

I found the cheese! Finally! It’s real cheese! And it’s delicious! 😄
Hives of Worship

April 22nd, 2025

I have emerged from my drone state, that is, my previous existence where the rules imposed upon me by society, culture, or “zeitgeist’ must be unquestionably obeyed.

I left the Massachusetts hive for Lynchburg, Virginia, a noticeably different one. I studied it’s past, it’s present. It’s restaurants and scenic vistas.

Then, I realized how fun to explore different places and hear other peoples’ stories. I believe people in the past called this pursuit “history” and “literature.” I call it Adventure!

Compare this reality to my past T.V. generation childhood where public schools told us all cultures are “equal.” An obviously incorrect idea purported as a factual one.

Really, how many Massachusetts people claim ancient Aztec culture ranks right up there side by side with Massachusetts in 2025? 😄

Isn’t that how modern people define “Progressive”? A culture that serves as a testimony to human achievement and advancement?

So, some cultures must ‘progress’ more than others depending how people there define it; and how much effort they commit to the idea.

So, clearly all cultures cannot be equal. Unless you mean by the Roman Empire’s version of equality. “You are all equally subject to us, your masters,” they falsely believed.

Why did my UMASS professors teach me that “all cultures are equal” and that Progress is the goal which inevitably creates inequality? Why is the celebrated “Flagship University” stadium a literal shrine to Coca-Cola??

God, it feels like a wrestling match happening in my head.

One young Massachusetts man I spoke to was so dedicated to his hive, he got angry when I asked him if he enjoyed studying history. He was outraged and offended, suggesting all people living before now were “fascists.”

I am afraid public education in my southern hive has also veered from the prudent path of classical liberal education. When I said to one young man that I moved from New England, he looked concerned and said: “It must be very hard to live in a different country.”

Yes. I realized hours later. It is hard to live in a different country.
Isshtar or Easter?

April 20th, 2025

I don’t like things that don’t make sense. Or, confusion…the blending of things together that don’t actually relate. It seems the Christ story has blended with pagan fertility goddess stories (hence the eggs and bunnies.)

But, sometimes two things can go together and something completely new is born. Or, three things.

Like today, I figured if I am living in the “The Buckle of the Bible Belt” as one neighbor informed me, I better see what Thomas Road Baptist Church is all about. There is a strange relationship between the pagan goddess festivals of ancient times and Christian Resurrection story celebrated today.

Ancient cultures celebrated figures like Isshtar, Diana, and Isis. Female goddesses gave life, people believed, as Ra the Sun God gave life to Egyptians, their stories told. So, people seek their origins to give meaning to their lives.

I confess I am a bit of a prude when it comes to ancient forms of worship. I am blushing just thinking about them. Imagine a Beyonce or Miley Cyrus concert, only the priestesses are wearing even less clothes (if that’s possible.)

It’s hard to imagine there’s a ‘god’ that thrives on twirking. But, apparently twirking as ancient origins, too.

Thomas Road Baptist Church is like a sport complex, Chick-fil-A, and a really loud concert – all blended into one. ‘How worship evolves in modern times, I guess. Perhaps an Ai Jesus might appear? That will be weird. How can we tell the Real Jesus from the Ai one🤔

I liked the story, though. And, it was impressive to see thousands of people moving in and out of the sanctuary with Chick-fil-A like efficiency.
Reality Rumple

April 19th, 2025

A reality rumple is a slightly more vigorous anomaly than a ripple. A gentle ocean wave on the sand creates an effervescent fizz which is pleasant to experience. It’s intensely soothing, refreshing and exciting at the same time.

The sound of children tearing open Christmas presents has a similar rippling effect on my being. Happy and pleasant!

Rumples, however, are more intense. They don’t ripple through my being but pound a bit. They are distorting and unpleasant phenomenons- as if the universe requires me AGAIN to examine what I imagined to be true- in light of new information.

A reality Rumple may be like hearing my parents knocking and banging in the hallway late Christmas Eve when I was a small child. Shushing and cursing. (No Santa, I guess 😞)

Hopefully, if I am diligent to learn and adapt in my seeming ever-changing reality, I can avoid a level 3 disturbance: The “Rumble.”

A reality Rumble means I’ve been sitting on the couch, a bystander. A critic! No good effort being deposited into the universe that returns to me in “good measure, pressed down, and overflowing.”

Then, the universe comes knocking at my door. It wants to Rumble. It’s checking for viability. “Are You just going to sit there and wait? Yah, YOU!!”

So, I’ve got dreams. And, there’s a world of hurdles and obstacles. Traps. Fear, for one example. Self doubt is another. Self pity. Poor me…x y z has been hard!

But, these things don’t actually disqualify me. In fact, I’ve learned in hard times that truth emerges like a Phoenix. I see clearly. That’s when I learn what I am truly capable of.

So, if you’ve been beaten on, and beaten on, and thrashed… And knocked down….don’t think this an unusual phenomenon! You’re in training.

But, we have to do the work: Ask the hard questions. Seek answers!

Like, what the hell do eggs and bunnies have to do with the celebrated Christ- rising- from- the -dead incident?

Good grief, this smacks of religious ‘Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.’ Something’s not quite right!
Muse or Amuse?

April 5th, 2025

I heard a preacher say once: Amusement is a sort of diversion of our time away from meaningful pursuits. I thought he was a kind of sour puss.

However, “muse” originally means to wonder, to ponder, like Rocky the hen who sat in the tree at night watching the sunset. Muse is like a place of inspiration where artists and poets reside, but available to all. A place of questions and insights. It’s a place of purposeful pursuit.

Compare that to a-muse. A-muse is a place where no meaningful pursuit exists. No thought is necessary, no inspiration required. Sort of like the older generation’s Carnival, or my generation’s T.V.. The young people now have Tik Tok.

I asked a graduate from a Massachusetts’ High School last summer what her interests were (inviting her to share what excited her about her future). She said: “Tik Tok.” I sort of poked around gently – sharing my own ideas. She insisted she works and in her free time looks at Tik Tok. This may be viewed as “amusement” in the negative sense the pastor warned.

Perhaps a cataclysm like a volcano, or an earth-shattering quake is not a bad thing, in view of our nation’s current addiction to a-musement. Words change in meaning, they adapt and evolve. What one generation means by a word, is not necessarily the same to the next.

Generally, an earthshaking cataclysm may be viewed a bad thing. In light of the world’s obsession with meaningless pursuits, maybe it is a good thing. Words change meaning, maybe what we view as “good’ and “bad” also changes depending on our perspective?

I never believed the idea that there is no such thing absolute truth, or all truth is subjective. That sounds like someone trying to justify lying to me. A sort of Orwellian doublespeak. But, drawing on my experience in ethics (which is not much), it’s possible a crisis is a good thing right now.