It has been the custom at the Rancho to, twice annually, consult the venerable I Ching. Those times being general new year, January one, and personal new year, August 20. Random consultations are limited to the misery of heart break and betting the pony's.

In focusing in on a general forecast of what 2023 has in store, the hexagram Oppression (exhaustion) emerged and changed to Obstruction. Oh boy howdy. Anyone out there feel oppressed or obstructed?

Personal new year consultation was more in line with passing on lessons learned to those willing to listen, Approach changing into Decline. This aligns with the yoga teaching on how to best deal with the end game, which councils surrender.

Surrender of possessions, surrender of attachments, surrender of knowledge and wisdom accrued over the decades, and the surrendering of the fear of the great and titillatingly terrifying unknown which awaits us, one and all. A sacred ritual of passing on the essence of ones life experience, so that the vessel is emptied and the heart is filled.

In this regard, I go with Kurt Vonnegut's assessment of what life boils down to, which, he said was "fartin' around". The humanist view.

Then, after the great ongoing divestiture, and at long last, I can go busking for bitcoin in El Salvador. Surf shorts cinched, beggars bowl in hand, violin case slung over my shoulder and a million bucks banked from the sale of the land, just in case I want to buy dinner for some Latina heart breaker who takes a shine to my arrangement of "Gee Baby", and ends up making me consult the I Ching.

Lately, the homunculus (Munci) and me have been digging deep. It's not that there's a serious attempt at figuring anything out or achieving some insight or other. Over that.

The bundled strands of long neurons that connect the brain hemispheres is where Munci likes to hang. Strings his hammock across the corpus callosum and watches all the pretty lights flashing. Little feet dangling.

Our deal is, no baddah me, I no baddah you. But from time to time its important to huddle up and discuss, in this case the notion of dying healthy.

Munci could not help but intone: "but, my liege, is this not an oxy-idiot." That's oxy-moron, numbskull. And yes, it is a bit, sez I.

Oh pinnacle of tippee tops, he cooed. How, pray tell does one reconcile so divergent a postulate, save to toss it into the quantum chomper, allowing all things the truthiness they deserve. (did i mention he has a british accent?)

Well, that's one way to smooth things out Munci, but consider: our most common denominator in this existential slurry of competing urges is cashing in the chips, kickin the bucket, kackin the chicken, buyin the ranch, sellin the kids, passin over, dropping dead, feedin' the trees.

One would think that this mother of the father of all fears would supersede water cooler talk of last nights news report on pink cocaine from Medellin, which is not really cocaine at all, but.................oh never mind.

And how, lord of the vast unknown, would one start such a conversation, asked Munci. Perhaps, " hey mate, got a death story?. Wanna share?"

Although I sense a cynical tone in your conjecture, it's not a bad notion, because pretty much everyone has several that probably never see the light of day.

Might be a kid finding her pet canary lifeless on the newspaper floor in the cage, with two tiny eggs by her side. Might be the son, bedside, watching a wisp of spirit depart the dying fathers nostrils. Might be the indelible engravings of a life scorned battlefield. However it is captured, so should it be received, embraced and transcended. Then, peace. The questions which have no answer, can not be asked.

Otherwise, just stop beating yourself up, let go and pass with a smile. It's your dreamscape. Make it a hole in one.

In July, after three plus years, the intrusion of pigs to the property got resolved, meaning that sleepless nights in headlamp pursuit of the porcine mischief came to an end. Hadn't felt that liberated since that seven gram mushy gush in '77.

Since then, it has been a clean up and planting spree. Planting because of having confidence that the porker pain in the Boston butt would not fold, spindle and mutilate everything in sight. The relief is hard to describe.

It's like if you were in a Colombian cartel helicopter, about to be pushed out into the rain forest from five hundred feet, because someone told El Jefe that you were DEA, and just at the final moment, the crew all lit up with partly toothy grins and doobies and yelled April fools, gringo, while you poop your pants in gratitude. You know the feeling, I'm sure.

It is with this sense of gratitude that we here at the Rancho approach the oncoming vortex of human dystopia, in the hope that the more we merge with the forces of Nature that forever support Life's renewal, the less will our desire for Anything stand in the way of connecting with the vital importance inherent in being of service to the vision which Nature brings forth and supports. And if you think I mean kill or be killed, then take a gram of mushroom and think again.

An Aussie anthropologist went to live with the bushmen of the Kalahari to determine just how many hours a week were required to live the hunter gatherer lifestyle that provided the village with most all of its needs. As skills were developed they were put to optimal use. Everyone in a meaningful order working toward the thriving life of the community.

After a year, the anthropologist determined that with the efficient division of labor and knowledge of the area's flora and fauna, weather cycles and such, it took fifteen hours per person a week to keep it all together. He also said that those fifteen hours were spent doing tasks that we would consider leisure time activities, like hunting and fishing and hiking and foraging for yummies, etc.

Another bloke went to study the Australian Aboriginal concept of "dream time", which differs greatly from non Aboriginal concepts. He found that their concept was event based and not seen chronologically. It was the onset of events that determined a persons age, not the passing of the birth date. Spiritual epiphanies, which they noted, came three or four times per lifespan were considered as defining a persons "age". Trying to put a label to that sense of time, he came up with the term "everywhen".

My dharma clearly revealed. The hunter gatherer from Everywhen.

Have been quoting the bible of late for conversational effect, with some minor edits, like the genesis thing and God creating the heavens and the earth in six days and then taking rest on the seventh, I would add, "give or take", waggling my hand. Or my current favorite which gets deployed with some regularity is "be fruitful and multiply, with yourself".

Could someone please cancel cancel culture?! The clubhouse of cowards.

Wishing you all a measure of contentment in what remains of the new year, or the human race. Sorry for the delay in posting, but in Everywhen I'm not late at all. Besides, I was out hunting.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp