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European, and later American, displacement of Indigenous people has since transformed into an urbanization which empowered coordinated efforts of Urban Indians to influence Modern American (and global) Politics. This success scenario is practiced by many previously displaced groups of people and is particularly successful with more than one other displaced community whose Suburban efforts are coordinated by Urban upper classes that provision and guide the local townships and cities in fostering growth. The story of the American Urban Indian began with a displacement, followed then by an admission that the land was originally owned by its original Indigenous inhabitants. This lead to a brutal allotment process that further divided this culture with no representative central authority. These people had no system in place by which to exchange this commodity (land), or utilize it through coordinated efforts, leaving many lone Indians to tend to land they were sorely equipped to maintain alone.

In his “The Outrage of Allotment”, Dewitt Clinton Duncan claimed, “What am I to do? I have a piece of property that doesn’t support me, and is not worth a cent to me, under the same inexorable, cruel provisions of the Curtis law that swept away our treaties, our system of nationality, our every existence, and wrested out of our possession our vast territory. . . .,” where he outright declares the effects of acts of the United States government which he claims dismantled all preexisting agreements that he’d grown to rely on during his life (“Hearts on the Ground: The Outrage of Allotment.” Native American Testimony, Penguin Books, 1999, Page 266). Under these previous agreements, he indicates he was able to farm on a larger plot of land. There’s a lot of context that’s missing from this short passage, specifically why Duncan was not able to subsist on 60 acres is left unanswered (For reference, an average plot for various Roman/European peasants was generally less than a quarter of this).

In his testimony, Dewitt Clinton Duncan indicates that escalating debts that were assumed by him lead to his plight – something that very often not all the mismanaged land in the world can generally get folks out of feeling the effects of. Of note here is that if one were to accidentally write, “Curtis Law” (as written), instead of “Curtis Act”, into Google (or literally any search engine), you’ll see the inherent bias to further neglect an Indigenous culture in an attempt to hide the history under dozens of the same type of institutions that Duncan was referring to in his testimony as corporate law firms displaying smiling white people come up at the top of the results and not much else.

Duncan’s referring to the replacement of tribal law with United States federal law through the Curtis Act, which ensured that Indigenous folks whom were over-leveraged and heavily in debt would’ve had their collateral turned over through the use of collection agencies performing business in the United States. This is in opposition to having a different solution which presumably would have been found in the effectively de-personed Tribal Courts. Understood, but not discussed here, were the political motivations behind the expansion being predominantly a response to wars with the British Empire, the Spanish Empire and Mexico; many of which were paid for in land deals in exchange for that which was needed to pay for coming out ahead as a nation from these wars. Acts such as the Curtis Act, and processes such as allotment set the stage for the urbanization that followed this and many other stories just like it, as the preceding generation was left without ancestral homes or lands to grow up at.

As great example of the fallout of urbanization, Tommy Orange in his, “There There”, describes one relatable result of losing tribal and familial lands. Orange conveys the impression that Indigenous folks had the assumption of a sort of sentencing to death, on first living in cities. He conveys a message that North American Indigenous folks found their assimilation in embracing American urban life to be empowering. Orange writes of the initial fear and apprehensiveness, “Getting us to cities was supposed to be the final, necessary step in our assimilation, absorption, erasure, the completion of a five-hundred-year-old genocidal campaign. But the city made us new, and we made it ours. We didn’t get lost amid the sprawl of tall buildings, the stream of anonymous masses, the ceaseless din of traffic. We found one another, started up Indian Centers, brought out our families and powwows, our dances, our songs, our beadwork. (There There, Vintage Books, 2018, Page 8).” Orange is describing the pivot in Indigenous culture that became part of it in its entrainment in a larger American culture. He describes power being found in doing this, and sees a continuation of the beliefs that were inherent to the past generation prior to the change. He makes an important point in differentiating this adaptation to a different lifestyle as something that has less to do with persistence and resolve.

In showing this, Orange writes, “The wound that was made when white people came and took all that they took has never healed. An unattended would gets infected. Becomes a new kind of wound like the history of what actually happened became a new kind history. All these stories that we haven’t been telling all this time, that we haven’t been listening to, are just part of what we need to heal. Not that we’re broken. And don’t make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived, is no badge of honor. Would you can an attempted murder victim resilient?” (There There, Vintage Books, 2018, Page 137). What he means here is that the taking of the land damaged these people in a way that Orange can only describe in metaphors, and their continued existence isn’t some cheap byproduct of their strength of character, more that it’s something more on a shared cultural level that continues to empower these people as they further adapt American lifestyles, politics and cultures to their own needs. In doing so, a resurgence in cultural representation, political power and actual people with Indigenous backgrounds become a daily part of American life.

In conclusion, there are two topics here in this paper, one is where Indigenous people were brutalized to feed wars that never really stopped and continue taking from people to this very day. This process typically results in the relocation of people into larger cities where facilitation of them can continue due to the broad amount of resources that are in cities by design. The second topic is that this urbanization process is not unique to the Indigenous people of North America and has been very successful in transferring wealth from people to the coordinated war machine that seeks to pursue an ever-expanding empire to this day where, “The West”, now is representative of an increasingly expanding population base. In exchange for the loss suffered when European, and later American politics, forced a displacement of Indigenous people, an urbanization effort which empowered coordinated efforts of Urban Indians to influence Modern American (and global) Politics and their local tribes has grown in the intervening ~200 years. As this process continues this trend, American Indians will become more prevalent in the American culture.

Works cited

Nabokov, Peter. Native American Testimony, Hearts on the Ground, The Outrage of Allotment, Dewitt Clinton Duncan, Cherokee. Penguin Books. 1999.

Orange, Tommy. There There. Vintage Books. 2018

Throughout the last few thousand years, spiritual beliefs have been expressed through myths and stories in order to explain the natural world and to provide an outlet to express the Divinity felt in consideration of a particular topic or belief. Methods of story telling through skilled crafting are employed that interconnect and overlap with different belief systems while simultaneously being able to communicate a level of sublimity through the work created. This is the case in architecture whereby building styles are carefully selected and designed to display dominant cultural and spiritual values. A reason for doing this is that individual cultures can establish social, religious and artistic paradigms in which beliefs are conveyed to both perpetuate the local culture as well as expand the relative influence over those who don’t currently share an identical set of beliefs. This dominance of the perceived sacredness and divinity that a group of folks will have is often seen as an expansion of their belief system as it becomes incorporated into a growing cultural framework.

In the same way that architecture is an example of skilled work one can express perceived divinity in nature, various decisions must be made in order to complete this type of work and projects. Considerations regarding raw material suppliers, aesthetic choices, building regulations as well as the people to perform the labor are all Modern examples of moments where decisions must be made in building architecture in order to select a desired outcome. To make the choices, it’s not possible to neglect the impact of a divine guidance in answering these questions and others not listed here if the intention is to create a complete object. In the same way that some trees won’t naturally grow on sand, nor will some buildings naturally remain standing on the same sand; therefore, skilled labor such as selection mechanisms and architecture have come to be some of the most powerful tools in this arsenal in the continued venture to tame and tend this universe. The proper use of these tools demands that grace flow through the crafters so that the underlying divinity inherent to the specific work might manifest itself, rather than for simply satisfying a need egregiously declared to be immediately needing a solution.

Architecture is a good example of a skilled craft through which people may express their appreciation for divinity, because it’s a process that requires them to select a particular building style and then combine this with their creative efforts to produce tools and structures. Work such as this can show that the same level of aptitude that allows folks to express themselves spiritually, while simultaneously respecting the environment in which they live in as their common home, provided the proper selection mechanisms are in place. Divinity which was originally exclusively seen as a part of nature and animals and mankind has expanded to incorporate being seen in the tools that people create through extension of the divinity implicit in themselves that’s interconnected with the divinity in nature.

This incorporation of divinity in skilled work has lead to a more modern outlook beyond simple re-purposing of nature for immediate individual efforts and has moved toward creating that which is to become natural – power that was originally attributed to higher deities such as God in Christianity or otherwise wholly represented in action through Nature. This disruption in nature has shaped modern viewpoints in recognizing divinity and interconnectedness as natural landscapes have given way to city-scapes that are just as breathtaking and in many ways have become natural through the rigorous incorporation of appreciated and identified divinity in skilled work. Nature, having previously provided tree cover or caves as shelter, is observed yielding to people as the honing of the human mind has further enabled the directed application of the raw materials from nature to make increasingly complex architecture.

John Ruskin, in his, “The Nature of Gothic”, conveys an assertion that proper work wouldn’t follow suit in making, “a tool of a man”, and says, “You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions” (“The Nature of Gothic: Savageness.” The Stones of Venice, Ballantyne Press, 1900, Page 11, Section 12). He further writes on the division of labor, “It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the men :- Divided into mere segments of men-broken into small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin or the head of a nail.” (“The Nature of Gothic: Savageness.” The Stones of Venice, Ballantyne Press, 1900, Page 14-15, Section 16). This means that the division of labor in this Modern society has been applied in such a way as to enable final products to arrive into the hands of the consumer in an incomplete state. This is a state that’s often functionally equivalent, but lacks in the touches that’d otherwise indicate the object was subject to the learned hand of one who was endowed with the cultural and spiritual values requisite to spur the demand for the object in the first place (as opposed to a machine).

Ruskin further elucidates that this form of creation cheapens both the worker and the builder, and the implication is that the cost of this loss is materialized as increasing corporate profits that have pilfered much from these Divine characteristics as the worker becomes more of a tool than even Ruskin would have been familiar with. Ruskin discusses decoration that’s the most aesthetic characteristic of Gothic Architecture in distinguishing the architecture itself as separate from the Gothic decoration in the very same building. This indicates that this imbuing is a step beyond simply constructing a structure, an integral step that’s invariably intermixed in the buildings structure, that becomes a way to grade the work. He writes, “Foliation, while it is the most distinctive and peculiar, is also the easiest method of decoration which Gothic architecture possesses … yet a builder without imagination at all, or any other faculty of design, can produce some effect upon the mass of his work by merely covering it with foolish foliation”. (“The Nature of Gothic: Savageness.” The Stones of Venice, Ballantyne Press, 1900, Page 72, Section 99).

Ruskin is saying the result of not imbuing the skill into the work, and as a result, leaves one person thinking and another person building is to provide people with work that cannot, by the nature of the arrangement, express that which is divine. Although the work may yield just as powerful outputs, unless one were to reconsider that which is actually divine and then reassess the current output of the process, Ruskin would still find it lacking integrity. His reference to, “any other faculty of design”, could be considered in the light of corporate monetary profits. There, the typical architectural ornaments one could easily see a respect for nature and the divine; instead, lie unadorned from many Modern buildings as the work needed to keep up with an unrestrained growth in scientific power (indicating the power of the mind) has lead to more demands for basic housing rather than needs for a high quality of life.

John Ruskin goes to far greater lengths and with much better wording than can be deployed here to provide an overbearing analysis of Gothic Architecture that incorporates much of the cultural and spiritual values that he saw at work in the style. While in no way could Ruskin’s chapter of a book even hope to be satisfactorily summarized here, the specific aspect of the book that I’d like to discuss is in line with his sections on describing the nature of skilled labor and its role in society, as well as a very specific interpretation of the grace that flows through the hands of workers in incorporation of the foliation present in Gothic architecture as discussed in his chapter. Per Ruskin, this dilution of capacity has lead to folks no longer being able to communicate or otherwise express the divinity, power and beauty they’d see in their work, that they’d’ve otherwise imbued in their work as a way to pass along the grace with which they might express that there is something greater than the individual that interconnects their creation to nature or a divine force.

It’s on this force’s behalf that the builder wields their knowledge that passes through their hands by a matter of considered selection, rather than creation for the sake of itself and its creators immediate needs. Doing this allows a worker to imbue properties understood of this interconnected whole into the work that’s performed. In making perceived divinity purchasable for a price, while simultaneously selling that which is without it for less, a selection mechanism has been applied to cultures this system operates inside of. An example of this selection mechanism impacting values can be those found in spiritual beliefs of Indigenous folks who were accustomed to them. The beliefs of both cultures, Indigenous and Western, are seen to be in decay as they slowly return to nature in Linda Hogan’s, “Power”.

Linda Hogan spent a fair amount of time in describing the homes in which both Ama and Omishto live in. Hogan opens describing Ama’s home as appearing, “..raw and abandoned, but it isn’t; Ama lives in the rickety thing. The place sits on cinder blocks in case of flooding. It’s a square, simple house, gray-looking, with a porch that wraps around one side. She uses palmetto fronds on the roof to keep the place cool, so it looks something like a hut sitting in the shadows of a jungle, even though it’s close to civilization.” (“Power”. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998, Pages 5-6). She continues to describe in further detail how this home appears to have blended in with the nature that it’s surrounded by, representing a sort of border between Modern Western civilization and the idea of a fading Taiga society that both women are a part of. The indication from the way this was written is that Hogan is trying to express that Ama adapts the architecture of the home, originally a part of Western civilization, to her own spiritual beliefs that were a combination of both Taiga and Western beliefs. It’s not that the forest simply took over the home, Hogan wrote that Ama took part in making it appear this way. More in depth, the lack of an appreciation for the Western architecture that the home was originally built with shows the inherent disconnect in the beliefs. By extension, she implies that Western culture has some ability to facilitate the Taiga belief system, like a substrate; however, later in the story Ama abandons this home, and it then is lived in by Omishto.

The home is used as a literary tool to describe more subtle points of the characters personalities. The architectural adornments that were part of the home became part of the integral structure of the home, as Hogan indicated that there was some utility to using parts of nature to fix the home (fronds). The description of Ama’s home when Omishto was living in it use such lines as, “You would think it is only an abandoned building, the plants already reaching up after the storm, in a slow crawl. He sees subdivisions. I see life. He knows the cost of things, but not their value.” (“Power”. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998, Page 196). The value Hogan writes of is the same value that Ruskin writes of, which is the spiritual value inherent to the decorations of architecture. In the same way Ruskin wrote, “The system, then, of what is called Foliation, whether simple, as in the cusped arch, or complicated, as in tracery, rose out of this love of leafage ; not that the form of the arch is intended to imitate a leaf, but to be invested with the same characters of beauty which the designer had discovered in the leaf.” (“The Nature of Gothic: Savageness.” The Stones of Venice, Ballantyne Press, 1900, Page 69, Section 95), Hogan is describing what Omishto and Ama see in nature that is divine value in the home that they shared. This was expressed in the skilled work of both women acting to tend to the structure in a way that invested aspects of their spiritual beliefs in nature and the divine.

Another aspect relating to the skilled work on the architecture of the home was that the cat was not placed in them home on its death. This indicates an implied inherent hostility in the building toward that which is divine in Taiga culture, despite the skilled work that went into making the home have “value”. For the cat, an unknown burial plot was presumably chosen instead. The reader can surmise that Ama was not of the opinion that it was Western culture that was to be the burial place of her culture, and by extension, it will not be in Western culture that her spiritual beliefs will be found embedded. It’s left to assumption, what happened with the cat. Its not the property, which is implied to have eyes looking put from it, but instead the forest, indicating a hierarchy of sacredness that places the home (A tool of people made of skilled craft work) below the forest.

This sends a message that something harrowing and divine may have happened while Omishto slept, as the true story of the remnants of the cat are left to the reader to guess. A mythological aspect here is that because nobody but Ama knows what truly happened to the cat, its representation of cultural beliefs are also left open to interpretation and in doing so empowers the reader to see the cat where ever logic might apply its presence. By extension the presented Taiga beliefs, the implication is that the sacred presence is instead felt in the same interconnected presence that the story opens with in describing something peering out from the woods. The cat may even have simply been left to “come alive” elsewhere due to the divine nature in which the hunt ensued and the mythological aspect of the cat itself. This is at the cost of diminishing the importance of the home, the structure, its framework and adornments, in order to attribute this mythological aspect to nature. This “cost” is the same that’s paid as the home is a “segment” of architecture that couldn’t possibly be a sacred enough place, due to “other faculties of design” (per Ruskin) that make it not an acceptable place to bury mythological animals at in this story.

Hogan presents the Taiga people in her story on power, whose general rejection of Western culture deem Ama’s home incapable of hosting something sacred and divine such as the embodiment of decaying cultural values she indicates in writing of the status of the cat at its moment of death as, “bony, lying on the ground with gray-looking fur and a wide, bony rib cage.” (“Power”. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998, Page 66). What she presents is actually two cultures that she indicates to be decaying, Western and Taiga. She does this by the plain descriptions of what was once lively architecture that had become rich with the embodiment of nature through the grace of Ama, where the home is instead being reclaimed by nature as opposed to standing apart from it. What then, is required for such a thing to be done as to have a return to sacredness and sublimity such that there could exist such a situation that the dead animals (horse and cat) remain buried, or otherwise sufficiently respectable so as to be in a state of death as to be proudly displayed before ones ancestors and elders? Other tools of human civilization may be at play for acts such as this, as I’ll cover now with Charles Darwin’s selection mechanisms.

In putting the very broad category of architecture aside, there’ve been other examples of skilled work being used by folks. The application of selection methods, essentially where one thing happens and another does not, by the decision of another thing, have been applied by Nature, and through it the Divine, throughout the majority of human history here on Earth. Charles Darwin, in his, “Origin of Species”, describes Natural Selection methods that’ve been applied by nature before and into the Modern era. This mechanism has shaped the massive amount of biodiversity and richness in variation that’s often reported as disappearing in this Modern age. This is, in part, due to the growing stature of humans as a species who’re coming to overshadow nature in such a way as to become its Shepard as their shared vision moves toward the cosmos and beyond Earth. In doing so, skilled work such as applying increasingly powerful selection mechanisms are being utilized in order to direct the actions of whole societies of people in such a way as to operate as an interconnected whole.

Darwin describes “Social Selection”, when he says, “In social animals it will adapt the structure of each individual for the benefit of the community; if each in consequence profits by the selected change,” on explaining Natural Selection. (“Origin of Species”. ElecBook, 2000, Page 85). It’s this growing body of knowledge composed of emerging selection mechanisms (based in science and political opinion) that lead to a more modern understanding of selection mechanisms that are designed by people to mimic effects previously caused by Nature. Reflected in all the cited work of this essay is that a misapplication of variously applied Social Selection mechanisms generally tend to result in a perceived elimination of the same level of variety (in species, culture, language, most things) that folks enjoyed even as recently as a few hundred years ago.

The recognition of this has lead toward a push for social harmonization across otherwise disconnected countries that are now all physically interconnected under a “technocracy” (Per Pope Francis – discussed momentarily). Unprecedented growth in science has lead to a commensurate growth in the relative power of applied Social Selection mechanisms. These mechanisms have had a rough inception (~200 years) that reportedly reduced quite heavily diversity across all aspects of life, and nature, in its pursuit to manifest the same level of interconnectedness that had been since forever been perceived in nature.

This Social Selection tool sets the bar for the level of interconnectedness that one may experience in their particular interaction with any specific thing, be it an object like a home, or a concept like taxes, or a device like a computer. The mechanism empowers one to ask, what home? Or, taxes for what, imposed by whom? Or, what site or program, in the case of a computer? These mechanisms require skilled labor to apply them correctly. John Ruskin writes, “… but if you ask him to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find any better in his own head, he stops ; his execution becomes hesitating ; he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong ; ten to one he makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you have made a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an animated tool.” (“The Nature of Gothic: Savageness.” The Stones of Venice, Ballantyne Press, 1900, Page 11, Section 11). This means that with the newly found capacity to apply powerful Social Selection mechanisms (which are highly susceptible to the cultural values inherent to the underlying civilization that produces them) have recently (~200 years) been applied to the individual in such a way as to produce a desired effect that has been wrong at the cost of empowering people to understand this newly applicable mechanism.

The application of skilled labor through these mechanisms have serious risks for misapplication. It’s become apparent as inhumane perpetuity’s continue become the status quo across the world. What’s called modern society continues to further separate into an increasingly less-populated yet ever-growing-in-power class of people, from an increasingly larger and ever-so-persistently-poor class of individuals in which this perceived differentiation and variation built by nature is perceived to be under threat of being crushed under the growing weight of this technocratic oligarchy that works to interconnect and tend to all people at the cost of the displacement of the natural environment they lived in. This tending to has been met with little regard for the cultural values of the societies that’ve been dominated. It’s generally left a society with less resources, less ability to be a unified culture, and less touch with divinity and nature than ever before. With the ability to tend to themselves being suppressed, the reliance on satisfying the interconnected needs of different cultures it displaces becomes more important with every additional increase in the magnitude of power of the technocracy.

Needs for divinity and nature are being replaced with a growing need for simpler things like a growing requirement for basic food and shelter. The growing technocracy has both empowered and enslaved human civilization to a paradigm whose power dwarfs Nature in such a way as to both enshrine them to better respect their place in the universe, and also allow them to further define it. This has come with the recognition that the perceived continued abuse of our shared home (Earth) in this growth in power is an unacceptable behavior that’s built largely on a misappropriation that conflates that which is sacred and divine with that which is powerful. Pope Francis, in his, “Laudato Si’”, writes, “Any technical solution which science claims to offer will be powerless to solve the serious problems of our world if humanity loses its compass, if we lose sight of the great motivations which make it possible for us to live in harmony, to make sacrifices and to treat others well”. (“Laudato Si’.”, The Holy See, 2015, Page 62, Chapter 5, Article 200). What he’s saying here is that through the “great motivations” and “compass” one finds in seeing Divinity and Nature and respecting its interconnectedness, one can find the solutions to the greater perceived problems faced in this Modern world, and not without them and only instead with science that can only offer power.

“Laudato Si’”, is a sobering and powerful analysis of the application of the tools of human civilization, addressed to all reasonable people and in it the Pope calls for a wonderful return to Divinity by making a case that the continued elimination of variety, grace and culture in this age is due largely to a technocratic oligarchy coming into power that has displaced these. It’s quite an important piece of literature that covers material related to the perceived place of mankind in relation to their current place in Modern times. Francis writes, “What would induce anyone, at this stage, to hold on to power only to be remembered for their inability to take action when it was urgent and necessary to do so?”. (“Laudato Si’.”, The Holy See, 2015, Page 18, Chapter 1, Article 57). He is stressing the dire urgency to swiftly address eroding cultural and spiritual beliefs so pervasive in Modern societies.

He urges action to reassess the mechanisms by which this nascent technocratic power structure imposes itself on society. This means that the “selection mechanisms” have displaced folks in the inception period of this oligarchy, and the situation demands an immediate remediation. The Pope calls for grace and an empowerment of those who stand to become under-represented in this new structure that imposes powerful Social Selection mechanisms. He urges that human life be valued for more than what it has been recently, and requests for a return of value in a manner sympathetic to a church that previously Shepherded a large chunk of the world through the last few thousand years without it.

The loss of this power that the Pope calls for would simply cause it to be found elsewhere. For example, Pope Francis later writes, “If architecture reflects the spirit of an age, our megastructures and drab apartment blocks express the spirit of globalized technology, where a constant flood of new products coexists with a tedious monotony. Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything.” (“Laudato Si’.”, The Holy See, 2015, Page 36, Chapter 2, Article 113). What he means in saying this is that the skilled work that goes into architecture that otherwise reflects the spirit of an age has instead yielded to a bleak outlook that produces very repetitive and inadequate results. He’s underwhelmed with the performance that’s provided barely even basic living requirements in this new technological paradigm and is asking that the buildings (and by extension all skilled work) be adorned with characteristics that reflect a spirituality that he speaks much of in the rest of the Encyclical.

In tying these cited works together by first returning to Hogan’s, “Power”, in neglecting to describe the recognition of power in architecture in the buildings that were discussed in her story, she confirms that there seems to be a distinct lack of hospitality for spiritual awareness and sacred cultural beliefs and happenings in the design or setting of the Western culture presented. It was only Ama’s home that had “value”. Ruskin portrays a style of building that incorporates culture, accentuates spirituality and has room to reflect not just the spiritual beliefs of one society but instead allows the divine to manifest and blend seamlessly with the actual framework of the building through the Gothic Architecture style as it interconnects the building with the spiritual values. This shows the concept that it’s the beliefs are what comes with the skilled work. In their separation, authors like Hogan observe decaying spiritual belief systems which have no capacity within this dominant scientific system to persist in continuation with the beliefs of the Taiga people. No form of hospitality is offered, leading to total and complete abandonment of the spiritual beliefs which degrade in much in the same way Ama abandoned her home. Thoughts such as this are echoed by Pope Francis, who says that this “value” (and more) is sold off to further empower a growing technocracy that’s also then afforded much more power for itself at the expense of the loss in vital representation of those people who are displaced and are attributed with the variety and biodiversity of this system by all these authors.

With so much effort in continuing on the path of taking the skill out of labor, turning its lack of cost paid into corporate profits, where goods are sold for the same price, inflicts a degradation to the quality of work and spiritual understanding of the human that produces the work. This perpetuated captivity in electing this technocracy as Shepards in this Modern era will continue for as long as there’s a perceived absence of divinity, nature and interconnectedness in its outputs that’re observed in the quality of life of all humans on the Earth. The variation that in work has been replaced with monotony in order to pay for this luxurious squandering. This cheapens individual efforts, in likening them to tools, no different than an animal or logical system that thrives on calculable inputs in order to produce planned and selected outputs. Offing this skilled work at the individual level has enabled a societal selection mechanism to direct the efforts of entire groups of people so that they may continue to live in the face of calls for their reduction in number due to perceived unaffordable burdens in continuing their existence.

Ruskin indicates that this loss of skill in becoming a tool is the case for an individual, but fails to make a plausible case for this being symptomatic of a degraded society. Pope Francis indicates that this is a problem, defines the actors, scope and those affected quite well. He claims the cost being paid is a loss in grace manifesting as dehumanization, which creates a loss of cultural and spiritual diversity. Ruskin’s, “Mere segments of men”, – the fractured skill sets Ruskin describes intermixed with Darwin’s explanation for different species inter-working with each other indicates that in the Modern age, failing to work together to create this system causes Authors like Linda Hogan to then go on to describe, “Pieces of Architecture”, in their stories due to the very same cheapening the Pope discusses in “Laudato Si’”.

Regardless, much of the work in the Modern age is much too broad of a topic that gets washed out in a sea of tangentially elusive information that usually only seems relevant while simultaneously being overabundant in supply. This generally excludes many folks from appreciating the skilled work that goes into so many things in the Modern age. It wasn’t until tens of thousands of years after humans made such a Gothic Architecture since they were building structures in the style, it certainly won’t be another hundred thousand years for something comparable to come about. In the general lack of depth, the cursory understanding vastly understates the sheer magnitude of depth of what goes into these applications.

Masterful work took on a new guise in the Modern era. As folks moved away from architecture to things like various pharmaceutical concoctions, the specialization still comes with an almost sort of magical or divine feeling as it’s just so easy to forget that a few hundred years ago there were no simple looking solutions with which to inject oneself with, producing such expected results in the majority of cases. For example, you certainly wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a Vitamin B injection and Tirzepatide injection, even though their effects are quite different. While these look so similar, their context dwarfs even the greatest application of Gothic Architecture in their magnitude relating to exactly what the object has been imbued with. The level of Divine implementation is comparable the screaming of volcanoes to the ant that is the human capacity to understand as the roar is just so much louder than any single human was selected to have the capacity to understand. Generally, they don’t have the requisite machinery with which to even begin to fathom the level of complexity that goes into most things these Modern days, nor has this been afforded for them as the Pope so voraciously argues in, “Laudato Si’”.

In conclusion, throughout much of history, human spiritual beliefs have been expressed through myths and stories in order to explain the natural world to express the Divinity felt. Methods such as skilled crafting through architecture and selection methods are employed that interconnect and overlap with different belief systems while simultaneously being able to express a level of sublimity in the work created. In the same way that some trees won’t grow on sand, nor will some buildings, skilled labor such as selection mechanisms and architecture have come to be some of the most powerful tools in the arsenal in the continued venture to tame and tend this universe by mankind. The four works cited in this essay cover much in the way of trying to express that it is through the grace of skilled craftsmanship that’s empowered by a spiritual regard for divinity in nature that enables the continuation of the skilled work in perpetuity, and not much else.

Works cited (Check youtube for audio recordings too)

Darwin, Charles. Origin of Species, Natural Selection. ElecBook. 2000.

Francis. “Laudato Si’.” The Holy See, 18 June 2015, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa- francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

Hogan, Linda. Power: A Novel. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.

Ruskin, John. Stones of Venice, The Nature of Gothic, William Morris.London, Ballantyne Press, 1900.

In Linda Hogan’s, “Power”, the tribal court system judged Ama to be spiritually at fault and as such charged her with banishment. This was the punishment for seeking to gain spiritual power over her own tribe. To have concealed the tribe’s revealed weaknesses from them was a powerful act in itself, and the crime wasn’t necessarily as shallow as the other court (where she was found innocent) made it out to be. In this story, Ama acted with some sort of divine guidance with total disregard for her tribes wishes. She did this so that she may somehow protect her tribe from its own pride, so as to not be exposed to their diminished place in the world. This denial of spiritual understanding from her of the tribe was seen as a grievous offense in which Ama recklessly acted with intent to stifle the spirit of the tribe by concealing its sickly personification in the panther. Instead of engaging her tribe in facing this revelation together, she enabled the tribe to continue in their perceived self-destructive efforts without empowering an intervention. In doing so, Ama denied them their claimed right to even know this, further denying the tribe the ability to make the observation for themselves as to whether or not their actions had lead them down a path of ruin. This sabotage was seen as an unforgivable spiritual act, in that it empowered Ama to face and kill the weakness on behalf of and at the spiritual expense of the tribe. None of this is generally regarded as even being able to be judged at the spiritual level to an extent that is punishable here on Earth in a Judaeo-Christian belief system. In a Judaeo-Chrisitan belief system, the spiritual judgment is largely left for God in the afterlife for practicioners. This generally allows people to walk free during their life here on Earth historically, but to some extent this void has been filled with the legal system. Judaeo-Christian folks will readily believe that it’s God’s domain to judge one spiritually, but there still must be some form of dominion over the people transgressing and doing things that mostly nobody wants them to do here in this life. As such we’ve a legal system that’s a mixture of arbitrary and democratic laws. The book is making the fundamental statement that there’s no singular judgment day or judge in the belief system presented, as there is in Judaeo Christian beliefs. In its place is a human mechanism that does this. This relates to divinity because while both cultures and belief systems they follow undoubtedly see divinity in nature, the approach toward seeing it is very different in that divinity is a gift of God’s time who alone can judge what you personally did was right or wrong here, whereas in contrast to this it is the job of mortal human beings to pass spiritual judgments based on observed divine guidance in ones life here in the Indigenous belief system presented.

The painting, “Deer’s Skull and Pedernal”, by Georgia O’keefe, and the poem, Poem (the spirit likes to dress up), by Mary Oliver, are two pieces of art that show a level of spiritual awareness that indicate that both authors were spiritual people who were trying to show their spiritual beliefs in their work through the mythological and divine themes that they used. These relate to Nature and the Divine in Myth, Literature, and Art because as the progression and portrayal of every-day life continues in art, the constant awareness of how close one is to these topics can be seen in all facets of life. This essay will cover a brief synopsis of each work and then cross-examine the two in order to discuss how both authors share a unified theme that shows an interest in just how close divinity is to modern daily life.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s, “Deer’s Skull and Pedernal”, is a work of art that relates to the context of this course. Depicted in it is a deer skull, appearing to be suspended from a tree. The skull features a prominent European Mounting display (even mounted on wood). This is possibly as an indication of the authors fascination with the particular style in which the skull could convey her intended message by capturing a European-oriented attentions that would be familiar with the popular style of mounting. It appears quite light in color, indicating it may have been bleached or further treated. It’s prominently displayed in the forefront of the scene, with a mountainous background showing the Cerro Pedernal mesa that’s so commonly found in O’keefe’s paintings. One of the three clouds sits on the change in horizon, cradled between a small branch and the tree trunk. Two of the points of the deer skull are touching the border of the painting, and only the middle of the tree shows up in the painting. Green land can be observed below the skull with a light pastel vibrancy.

The skull is the only depiction of both animal and implied human life in the photo. The skull itself appears unnaturally affixed to the tree because nothing is observed affixing it to the tree. Two holes appear in the skull, as the supraorbital foramen holes appear to be lined up with the optic canal holes, which match the lighting of the sky background. It would be assumed that the tree would be underneath due to the positioning. The holes instead matching the lighting of the sky background show that the trunk does not pass solidly back there. This indicates that the tree itself may be connected by the deer skull, providing a bit of surrealism to the picture. Because the method by which the skull is associated with the tree is not apparent, it gives the impression that it’s also possible it’s floating there as depicted in her other works.

The skull itself is just bone, there’s no remaining part of its owners skin or other bits left on the skull. It has six very symmetric points, indicating that the deer was not of an old age upon its death. At first glance, the skull may have been placed or hung on the tree by a hunter who would have presumably killed it (nothing else would have done this sort of hanging and preparing of the skull). On closer inspection the method by which it’s fastened to the tree is not apparent, providing more of a mythological feeling to the arrangement. The painting appears to be quite symmetrically oriented as the left part of the painting is quite similar and undifferentiated from the right side of the painting This shifts the focus on being in the middle of the painting in the same way the middle of the day is shown using shadows.

There is duality expressed in the two points on the border, two branches leaving the page, and two parts of the tree above and below the head.

The tree trunk appears to be branching in much the same way the deer’s antlers are, likening them to each other. The top of the painting is not the same as the bottom of the painting as was left and right. an impending doom is felt that may be in line for, or has already happened to, the nature depicted (in much the same way the bony head hangs from the tree). This feeling is justified because the painting indicates that the animal and nature are similar through their similar branching appearance. The skull at the forefront and the mountainous background also give some extraordinary depth to the painting, this implies that the unnatural is right in your face as it is much closer to you than the natural background. The shadows on the antlers indicate the sun is directly overhead, where the tree continues toward, and the deer head does not.

In, Poem (the spirit likes to dress up), Mary Oliver provides a poem consisting of nine stanzas discussing the spiritual nature of the different physical parts of bodies of trees, people and the planet. The lines are offset slightly, with return to the left margin at the end of the stanza. In the first stanza, she says that the spirit is essentially wearing a meat suit and in this case indicates a spirit of a human wears this like clothes. In the second stanza where she mentions shoulders and all the rest, one can imagine the arms and trunk and neck that all seem to branch around that area, likening the human body to a tree’s body. She utilizes a duality of light and darkness, as is common to her poems, and likens the human to the black branches of a tree, showing a duality between nature (the tree and its branches) and humans, in the same way night and day are diametrically opposed to each other. This implication indicates that nature’s “spirit”, as well, wears clothes, in a way similar to humans.

Oliver continues on in the third stanza, further expanding the scope from a human and a tree, to instead the world itself that wears “blue branches” of watery oceans on its surface. She then refers to the indicated “spirit of the world” and says that it could float (as one would imagine a spirit flying through the air, free of its physical body), but “decides” not to, for there was something else it wanted to do that she explains in the fourth stanza. There she says that the spirit of these discussed, required the body because otherwise the spirit is without substance and instead it speaks through metaphor by “wearing” parts of itself so as to better express its wishes to the universe. She speaks of a few examples of these “body” pieces as lime, appetite and oceanic fluids to further reiterate. In doing this, she was referring to different things that a spirit may wear so as to express itself in the explicit sense that the expression is made apparent for what it is supposed to be the metaphor of.

In the sixth stanza she describes more things that she is declaring to be part of the “body’s world” including imagination, experiencing time and sweetness, tangibility and a declared need to be understood. Following this she says the line that implies that her perception of spirit here is, “pure light that burns where no one is”. She says that it is this component of light that comes to one in a morning, much like a dawn of the day starts with the sunrise, the life of a person starts with the light of spirit entering them and making their body (she refers to this as “plumb rough matter”). She closes the poem by saying that in darkness (at night), it’s this same spirit that’s as wonderful as a star. Meaning that which is currently unreachable still contains a mysterious depth to it that connects life and spirit in a divine way.

Oliver is making an attempt to describe the spirit as a separate entity from the body in this poem and does so by making a lot of a metaphors, in this case likening the spirit to being as vast as a star. When combined with the realization that as a technicality all parts of all bodies are equivalent to matter made from stars (per scientific belief system), it’s about the same as saying that we’re surrounded by shooting stars and there is just as much inside of us to ponder or wish upon as there is outside of us to understand and the implication us very spiritual in nature. That there’s this type of implicit divinity taking place or at work as the body takes shape around the spirit. O’keefe implies this in her painting as well using more subtle techniques in relating the physical matter of the deer’s head to the tree behind it.

On cross-examining the two works, the pure bone appearance in the painting indicates the “clothes” the deer used to dress up in have long since been removed, leaving the presence of the deer’s spirit to permeate the painting. In doing this, O’keefe empowers the observer to associate with what the deer means rather than allow one to observe it as some living thing that could have been more easily be related to at the cost of burying the meaning she was looking to express. The skull itself is distant from the natural background, possibly offering feelings of distance in ones modern life. An eery depiction of that which is left behind when the spirit and the body are no longer united bids the thought that, despite the spirit being gone, something from it has been left behind. Is it for something? Itself? Other spirits inhabiting other bodies? Has a part of the spirit been left behind?

Much like Oliver writes of, “the dark hug of time”, this skull sits there in the broad daylight, as illuminated as ever, clearly having been hugged by more than enough time for itself. So much so that it no longer appears to be much affected by time, more that it has now happened to time, and they’ve managed to find some middle ground. What then, is left of time, with nothing left but a skull? This characteristic that Oliver writes so profoundly of as something that the universe would wear as if it were an item of clothing in which to better express itself has found itself holding no more power over this deer skull with a sort of permanence that one only finds in objects that time does not so much affect any more. This reinforces the mythological aspect of the painting and provides an effect that conveys a deeper spiritual meaning.

In the painting, O’keefe paints a picture of a time between morning and night, and places the contents of the painting also in the middle of the painting. Oliver refers many times to dark and light, indicating night and day to be the same as this, while alluding the body being something the exists of both day and night. Cerro Pedernal contrasts the deer head well because both of these would appear to be unnatural at first glance, how on Earth could a deer’s head hang from a tree, and how on earth could such a large landmass appear to be so flat, if not but for human interaction (of course, the land itself was formed naturally, but this is more of a subtle fact based in science that wasn’t available until the last few hundred years).

The portrayal indicates that there must be some sort of divine power at work that would’ve shaped the mountain, in much the same way that a human could’ve shaped the face of the tree. Furthermore, calling it the face of the tree indicates that possibly this is O’keefe’s idea behind what is left of the remnants of bodies, to then in turn become metaphors so that nature may express itself in much the same way Oliver indicates many different things that the spirit would express as a part of its body. Here, O’keefe likens the living tree to a dead animal’s skull by indicating that humans may utilize their mechanisms to empower nature in such a way as to cultivate nature through allowing it to express a metaphor in a way that allows its tending. This is done in much the same way they’d generally use parts of nature to tend to animals.

The tree in O’keefe’s painting is also twisting, reminiscent of something unnatural which could’ve caused the tree to take on a slightly unnatural appearance . The line, “It could float, of course, but would rather plumb rough matter.”, is interesting in context of O’keefe’s painting because the skull itself is floating. Seeing the sky through the skull implies that the two holes, reminiscent of eyes, that a trace of the deer’s spirit lingers behind the two peepholes. It gives the impression of a freely floating spirit similar to wording in Oliver’s poem. Something mythical, the spirit, that has returned to or is a part of nature can be seen looking back, hauntingly, out of the the picture, through the eyes. The choice to make it sky colored indicate that it has this spiritual connotation, not just of the tree that is also present at the forefront.

In conclusion, both of these works show divinity in nature by discussing simple aspects of normal modern life in subtle ways. Georgia O’keefe does this by portraying a hunted deer’s head eerily in front of a tree. Mary Oliver does this by trying to make the point that everything physical in relation to ones person is an adornment that the spirit living within those pieces uses to express itself, for all of the earth, nature, as well as people. Both artists incorporate Nature and the Divine in Myth, Literature, and Art because as the progression of every-day in united themes expressed in their work. Georgia O’keefe shows us a surreal and mythological aspect not normally associated with a hunted deer and Mary Oliver does this by likening aspects of the physical representation of an object to extensions of its associated spirit that leads the reader to respect the interconnectedness of a divine presence in all aspects of life.

God, dominion, nature and their roles in an established hierarchy were common themes in many writings that American and English authors have shared for centuries. Unifying these themes are the Judaeo-Chrisitian religions that form the base for this hierarchy to be presented. In this essay, Henry Thoreau’s “Walden” as well as William Blake’s “The Lamb” will be cross examined to show that man is a part of this hierarchy by design and god exists at all parts of this hierarchy. The innate need to form a dominion over the another thing in the hierarchy establishes a circular chain of command in which one can’t say what the top of the hierarchy is, below God. This hierarchy includes animals, men, women, nature, God, Jesus and much more, but for the sake of discussion here it will be limited to these.

Blake’s poem, “The Lamb”, viewed with the accompanying artwork is a piece of art designed to reflect a spiritual hierarchy among god, man, nature and animals. Depicted in the art is a farmer and a flock of sheep, he’s seen feeding a lamb by hand. There is a tree whose branches appear to have been trimmed unnaturally level as to indicate a place for the pastured herd to exist in. To their is right a barn which was likely built from the cleared trees from the land. Bordering the painting is the vine that interconnects and travels through much of Blake’s works. It conveys the interconnectedness of nature and by extension establishes this common theme in his works.

The art portrayed lies on paper sharing a story written in English words, indicating some sort of duality. This counterbalances the poem in the same way the farmer feeds the sheep. In providing both, Blake is doing the feeding by making the art “digestible” by a reader through incorporating the suggestive words to accompany the art. In this way Blake equates the reader to an animal, who he is feeding and has come to his pasture through interest in the written word and he is the Shepard.

Blake depicts a farm, farmer, barn, tree, plot of occupied and cleared land, a lamb, that which it is fed with by hand with and a flock of sheep. The presence of the lamb represents its role in domestication by the farmer, in order for it to become a sheep as part of the herd. The cleared field with overhanging tree has carved a space in nature for man to control his flock of sheep depicts control over the land as well as animals in this established hierarchy.

With the trees no longer present in the cleared plot, a barn now stands to protect and cover the sheep. This shows that man’s domestication through cultivation of nature by rearranging and processing it in such a way provided and sustained many lambs into a herd of sheep. This forms a hierarchy where nature and animals are tended by humans, who in turn displace nature it to allow space for animals. Blake goes on to say that, “we are called by his name”, and in doing so he makes the statement that dominion through faith in God (The Lamb) reflects Christian morals inherent to the belief system. Because God (as man, Jesus, as animal, lamb, etc…) exists at all tiers of the hierarchy, one can see God everywhere. The implication here is that God is the force through which we are also interconnected in the same way the vine is observed surrounding the poem (as it trails off the same page it seemingly entered from).

This contrasts Thoreau’s descriptions of simple sights in nature that described the human-like social interactions he observed while living at his home in the woods. In “Walden”, he opens with asking why is it that these species are the ones we have. Reflecting for a moment on Blake’s work, these animals one person would see in the forest would differ quite a bit from the other in the pasture. For the farmer, a species would exist because he feeds them. For Thoreau it would be something in nature (seen, or unseen) that would likely have come about in a very different manner. Some of the species we have are there because of the doing of man, who carved them a place in nature and cultivated them there. Thoreau is saying that nature also takes part in this process, more so than as resources for man to use to provide for herd animals.

Thoreau writes, “the woodcock led her brood”. This observation is different from the one discussed in “The Lamb”. The poem implies that the person depicted, who is assumed to be the farmer, is also the one whom leads the herd. One story indicates that animals cultivate animals in the woods, the other story indicates that when not in the woods it’s the people that raise animals. The contrast here is that mankind is assuming a place that nature also took, by displacing it. The social interactions of the animals with each other decrease and are progressively replaced with the human for their social interactions as they live their lives.

This interaction was further contrasted when Thoreau continued in saying that “the mother would then in turn circle the human in defense of her flock,” as if to indicate there is some natural predisposition to exhibit the behavior. These behaviors are minimized in the herd, the animal having known the human for their whole lives, and left without a mother for their tending to (as Thoreau also wrote of his chickens). As the tree was cut to make space for the herd in the poem, the naturally arising (growing) behaviors of animals are also tended to by the presence of mankind. The role of a mother is changed or minimized when faced with living as a herd, which appears to be lead by a masculine type in Blake’s picture (such as a Father would). This sets a general expectation of men and women in the authors individual societies. This tone is that while an individual or small group of youths may be raised by a mother, it’s the role of a Father to Shepard a herd. This is a very Christian viewpoint often repeated in much of Judaeo-Christian literature.

Blake’s poem relates to Thoreau’s “Walden”, because both authors convey a theme for giving human characteristics to animals in their presented work. The authors indicate that God acts through the animals by implying their domestication, or are otherwise cultivated as one tends to a plant. Thoreau describes “these [animals] as [living] secret but free”, and reflects often of them not having seen man. Thoreau then goes on to relate the various social interactions he sees in the animals to human-like encounters, so that a reader might relate to the animals. This technique is shared by both authors.

In some moments, Thoreau describes the animals as exhibiting traits more effectively than humans. He comments that he’d witnessed humans fighting more resolutely than he’d observed in human conflicts. In depicting these characteristics, Thoreau showed God at work by exemplifying the interconnectedness between humans and animals acting otherwise independently in nature despite the actions being relatively similar. In the story, animals are often observed as dominating or cultivating each other. This was seen when he wrote about the black and red ants fighting, and the mother bird and the young birds.

In conclusion, both of these authors present work that reflects their religion. They convey that God is interconnected in all levels of a hierarchy that includes everything that was stated to have been created by God. These levels of hierarchy tend to displace each other for different reasons. In Blake’s poem, nature has been displaced to empower the tending of animals. In Thoreau’s story, he indicates that the social interactions that are naturally occurring tend to be displaced to empower the tending of animals. In doing so, these authors also liken themselves to the situation by implying that their writing is nurturing in the same way a farmer would tend their sheep. Blake does this by having a poem accompany his artwork. Thoreau implies that nature is also tasked with this cultivation of both man and animal, by his writing making the lives of forest animals so relatable. There are many other implications, comparisons and contrasts that can be made between these two works but there is only so much that can be covered in a short essay.

Two selected works from reading this past week enshrine a contrast between spiritual belief systems found in European (Celtic) Paganism and Judaeo-Christianity and Indigenous North American Cheyenne Spirituality quite well. The Cheyenne Creation Myth, “The Great Medicine Dance,” and an anonymous story, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” offer a rugged disparity between the cultural values seen in various societies that bore rise to the individual stories such as creation myths. European multiculturalism, acting through Roman Catholicism, slowly enveloped all within its grasp. It overcame European (Celtic) Paganism and then later Indigenous North American Spirituality which came to be reflected in stories from the same Judaeo-Christian religion. The believers of these religions were slowly dominated by the insatiable need for growth often seen in Judaeo-Chrisitanities. This was to sustain itself across generations and assert itself towards the top of the prevailing religions worldwide.

As beliefs became integrated into this religion, so too did the underlying cultures they originated from. Such is the requirement, then, to always reflect in some way the beliefs of those incorporated, as a requisite for this dominion over them. The Green Knight, by way of his Knightly and Christianity armor, and the Medicine Man by his admonishment of a token bull head required to perform a dance well enough to create. The token having come from the creator, as a message of power handed from a creator to the created, to usher his bidding on the world through dance. In much the way God had handed Moses tokens to make the “animals” follow his bidding, comparably the mission is a comparable token which was used to obtain power and dominion over the animals. This essay will cover differences and similarities that can be seen in these two stories that indicate that the cultures under the belief have varying opinions on women in society, romance between the sexes and physical tokens used in religious practices in relation to their perceived interaction with nature.

Starting first with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, there were multiple symbolic items that represented power that Sir Gawain was equipped with, beyond his moral character. These were needed to fend for his life from the Green Knight. His shield, bearing a pentacle, was mentioned only one time in the reading, meanwhile the magnificent splendor of the rest of the garb he was adorned with was described multiple times.

The passage in Part 2 Lines 491-1125 that describes this reads, “Ever faithful in five things, each in five fold manner, Gawain was reputed good and, like gold well refined, He was devoid of all villainy, every virtue displaying In the field. Thus this Entangle new He carried on coat and shield, As man of troth most true And knightly name annealed. It’s not typical for a knight to either display or have been said to display anything other than the correct crest here, which is different from the one he would be expected to bear on his own shield.” This passage even says quite directly that the crest is different than the one that a knight would typically bear. This was written this way in order to pander to the infidels for whom this story was intended to sway toward the Protestant faith. It captured their attention by using a commonly known symbol at the time. Like a dog whistle, the enshrinement of Pagan symbols in this literature will draw Pagans to reading this literature.

Near the end of the story Gawain came to bear the green scarf, which was passed to him from the salacious Morgan Le Fay. This woman was revealed to be his aunt later in the story and she attempted to entice him into betraying the morals expected of a knight. These two items, along with others, served specific purposes in the story that appear to have been vastly under represented by the author in very much the same way the stories of exploring the countryside looking for the Green Chapel appear to have been vastly underrepresented. This deters the reader from associating the story with a pagan mindset, and is used as a literary device deployed to narrow ones scope to the story at hand.

Had Sir Gawain not been equipped with that specific armor he would have had issues with the stories that were seemingly skipped over in this tale. Had the armor not been adorned extravagantly the reader might not have been enticed to read the story and imagine such riches. Had the pentacle not been affixed to his shield, how otherwise would a Pagan identify with the symbolism established in foregoing the normal crest that a knight would bear on their shield? Instead, it was forsaken with a Pagan symbol, this too is a literary tool designed to draw the Pagan attention. Had Sir Gawain not carried the scarf, then how would the Green Knight have come to know what the result was of his temptation by the woman? Items being required beyond ones moral character in order to confront a God, in this case the green man of the forest, are underrepresented in the story. This shifted the focus instead to be more on the Christian morals of Sir Gawain himself being pitted against the Pagan beliefs that he was confronted with.

Two individuals including the lord of the forest, the earth, fertility as well as a mother, that which is representative of creation were revealed to be the mastermind behind the plot to tempt Sir Gawain with the Green Knight as her executor. Sir Gawain’s aunt controls nature by association of coordinating her efforts with the Green Knight in accordance with her real husband. In taking this role, she assumed the likeness of the mother of all God figurehead such as one would find in Indigenous North American creation myths, despite her motherhood or mother-like qualities not being explicitly mentioned in the story. Gawain sets a high bar to which one believer of the Christian faith could be held to, in regard to the moral considerations of taking another man’s wife to bed under Christianity. This story of temptation is just one such story of how one may live to uphold Christian values in the face of an unrelenting, Pagan world that this story would have been released into. It would have been prevalent in many people’s minds as the Christian belief system further encroached on daily life of folks that previously didn’t believe in it.

This encroachment was fueled by absorbing Pagan Deities into Christian stories, so that a code of morals could be established for a nascent Christian who’ve come from a life time of Celtic (or any) Paganism, in this example. This is the root of the tendency for dominion inherent to the Judaeo-Christian religion because dominion is one of its tenets. This, in addition to following the commandments of God. This story was proliferated to convert pagans and to domesticate them at all costs available. In doing so, it must make the point that at its core, a man that follows such values is not a morally reprehensible person from the viewpoint of a Pagan. Inasmuch as one of their gods, the green man, here the Green Knight, was selected as a literary and cultural weapon to “test” a man of Christian faith and in turn find him worthy of living, but only when read from the viewpoint of a Pagan (or other sort of infidel).

How a country such as Rome could conquer these nations or displace the various forms of Paganism rested implicitly in its ability first and foremost to convince the people, behind the warriors whose blood was spilled, that they were good people. This is requisite in most forms of conquering anything, and in instances where this is not possible, then force is used. The next generation is then told the stories their fathers and mothers were not left around to tell. Make no mistake here, that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is not so different than a Corps of warriors laying siege to an entire city. Stories such as this conquer just as much, but peacefully so, when peace can be had. It wasn’t just the Roman Catholics or the Church of England imposing its control on various European Pagans and the like. This conquering was followed by then conquering the Indigenous North Americans shortly thereafter.

To summarize this discussion, the items Sir Gawain was equipped with were just as important as his moral character in accompanying him on his journey to find the Green Chapel and its Knight. This is important because much of Celtic Paganism just as Judaism just as Catholicism stress the importance of physical things and it’s more of a Protestant revelation that physical tokens are not as important as the unseen intention. Otherwise, explicitly mythical objects that generally escape human use. Therefore, to me, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a story that heavily directs the reader toward the Church of England, undergoing the Protestant reformation at the time. The tokens displayed in the story were downplayed to redirect the emphasis toward that which was worth money, the diamonds, the gold, the jewels, the women, the morals and more.

These tokens were repeatedly mentioned in this story, and undoubtedly would have produced an endorphin rush for any a common infidel who’d imagine or think of the vast wealth these other tokens would come to represent. This rush would then be placed instead on the context of the story and, by extension, the very moral character of Sir Gawain himself after having passed “the test of the old gods”. In this case the Green Knight, acting on behalf of the representation of Mother Nature that one would find in Indigenous North American and various European Pagan myths. A story such as this would tend to supplement those stories and displace them slightly, rather than act directly by denouncing the different faiths that many of them held.

An Indigenous story that contrasts the Pagan vs Christian theme shown in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the creation myth of the Cheyenne people called, “The Great Medicine Dance”, where a token was needed to perform the sun dance correctly. In the Cheyenne story and many other Indigenous stories, items appear to take central roles, right along side animals in relative importance in telling the story to the reader as literary devices. I picked these two stories because of their staggeringly different approaches to the various spiritual concepts relating to the taking (or coveting) of other men’s wives, the usage of tokens among them, and the general representation of women and their approach of dominion over others.

As a sharp contrast to Christianity, in The Great Medicine Dance, one can take the chiefs wife away on an adventure. While this was a noteworthy experience, it being forbidden or an act of wrongdoing was not discussed explicitly or implicitly in the story. This concept being introduced in this central creation story the Cheyenne assumed to be held dearest to their culture shows a very different mindset than the one portrayed in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Code of Chivalry is tied to the Christian commandment that a man may not take another man’s wife for it’s forbidden “to covet thy neighbors wife.” This concept was leveraged to entice the Celtic (European) Pagans away from their own belief system which was shard the North American Indigenous belief. Many pagan beliefs were oriented around a marriage that did not hinge on the monogamy as was perpetuated in Judaeo-Christianity to reinforce the belief. The idea follows that these massively influential societies and cultures existed previously without having followed creed such as found in Christian doctrines and were able to facilitate their societies despite this contrast.

A token of a woman being taken on a journey as seen in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, when compared to having taken the woman herself on a journey as seen in The Great Medicine Dance are very different actions as well. In the first story, Morgan Le Fay offered a green scarf as testament to the fact that the man abstained from having coveted the woman herself. It was accepted under the extraordinary situation whereby special circumstances involving it lead directly to having saved his life. Were he not to have bore this, how different the story could have turned out. It was because he stopped at taking the scarf, that he was able to live and continue with his good life. On his return to King Arthur’s court, all knights there tied a green scarves to their arms. Opposing this, in the Cheyenne story, the woman and her effects went with the man on the journey and in doing so they brought the medicine dance to the people along with the mission. In doing this, the distinction is made clear that these two belief systems have wildly different understandings and feelings towards what two people can and should be doing together in this context that comes up regularly between people whom are romantically intertwined with each other.

In the Cheyenne story, the chiefs wife didn’t give the medicine man a green scarf with which to perform his quests, she went right along with him as a counterpart to the story. In doing so they took part in creation, and in sharing the medicine dance itself, something tremendous from an imagined Cheyenne perspective. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the seemingly benign woman was represented as a good person who was able to spare her garments as a token stating that Sir Gawain was welcome to covet the woman otherwise. In another moment in the same story, she became some reprehensible thing in cahoots with his evil uncle and this conveyed the message that when men and women work together that surely some trickery must be at hand. The ending of the story represented a very different different women (Something that I didn’t cover here, there being not two, but three story-driving women in this story because of this deception) from the one in the Cheyenne story.

These are two very different tales that tell wildly different opinions on the values of the cultures they originated from when it comes to how two people should behave sexually and romantically. On one hand, the wife of the castle or burg was a deceiver, an entice, an enchantress whose whims a man must overcome in order to overcome untimely but agreed upon death. In the other story the woman is a companion, a friend, who again questions the man in the same way, but that they work together and not one as a deceiver is a large different to me in these stories. These stories are just a cross section of a small part of the representative culture the stories are told from.

The opening scene of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has the woman on some elevated pedestal, seemingly also to be representative of high Christian morals as the passage reads, “Guenever, the grey-eyed, gaily dressed, sits at the dais, the high table, or table of state, where too sat Gawayne and Ywain together with other worthies of the Round Table (11. 58-84, 107-115)”. The difference in opinion of what roles women are to play is made readily understandable in that the first of two opportunities for them in the Christian story was that of an unapproachable demeanor radiated by Guenever. The other woman, Morgan le Fay, at the end of the story was revealed to be a deceiver. It makes one wonder what the belief system is supposed to represent. Or, what the expectation of their role in society was to be. Why would they be represented in such a light in a Christian story? In the Cheyenne story, the woman was a counterpart and an accomplice, a counterbalance, one who is seemingly more integrated into overall progression of the story. Why this placement, opposed to having powerful, pointed parts and specific uses at specific times for the benefit of some hero?

A similarity that can be identified across these stories is the dance conducted by sir Gawain which was done with his words, in an attempt to dance around the Morgan le Fay’s words, as she attempted to seduce him. She had an agenda which was pitted against the combination of words that came out of Sir Gawain’s mouth, that were then revealed to be on trial by a Deity. The Cheyenne story tells us that a dance was to be learned at a mountain by the man and woman from the creator. It was both of these dances, that were subjected to judgment by Deities. In the Cheyenne story the words are, “and if they perform the ceremonies in the right way …”. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it was more the implication of,”if Sir Gawain performs the rite of not taking another man’s wife in the right way …”. The end to both of these were that, “the hero(es) will be favored for generations to come provided they pass the test of God”.

Largely absent from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight were many references to animals beyond his horse and a small acknowledgment of their existence in encounters during Sir Gawain’s travels to find the Green Chapel. This indicates the author was not so concerned with them in this story, possibly by design. Contrasting this is that it’s essentially a requirement in Indigenous North American stories such as The Great Medicine Dance to make the point of the belief system understandable to the person whom is receiving the story.

Just the wording, “thus the man and woman walked sacredly”, in the Cheyenne story is impressive and that it’s written in the Cheyenne creation myth denotes the relative differences in opinion regarding the sexes. Continuing here it says, “The man and the woman did lovingly what was necessary to continue life”. This means they worked together to ensure life continues. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the man (Sir Gawain) and Morgan le Fay worked in opposition in order to continue Sir Gawain’s life in spite of the woman’s desires to humiliate and conquer the Knight. She was doing this in conjunction with her husband. It becomes clear as reading continues that in one story it seems to be the case the man and woman will struggle for the power of dominion over the other, including dominion over their values that constitute how they act. This is a very different picture portrayed in the Cheyenne story in which dominion of one gender over the other doesn’t seem to be a requisite condition driving the theme central to the story presented.

To support this point of how different the societies beneath the religions were, the sacredness of the issiwun is respected in such a way that the rest of the elders of the village don’t then go and get a buffalo head and wear it and cheapen the devices mechanisms. Instead, its sovereignty is maintained as a distinguishable object which was not to be disrespected by sharing with the village. Instead, its effects of existing and being used for its stated and given purpose are shared through dance in order to enrich the village. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, all knights make a copy of the token. This is to shore and share the immense burden of supposedly having such a flaw as to succumb to the whim of a purportedly married woman who was purposefully testing the stated morals and values of the Knight. This green scarf token was representative of this burden which was then shared among the court, by copying the token and bearing it. The difference here in the stories is that the issiwun was offered as a way to control the wandering of animals bequeathed by the creator, whereas the scarf was to control the straying of Knights from their oaths and as a sign to the creator deity to know.

In conclusion, these two stories contrast each other in many ways. There are some similarities, but the number of contrasting ideas generally far outnumber those which are similar. The Christian propaganda piece that discusses Sir Gawain reflects an appropriation of Pagan Ideology and wraps it in a neat Knight Suit it calls The Green Knight. In doing so, it presents to the reader various aspects of a Christian doctrine which asserts how the sexes are to interact romantically, the role of women in society and the role of tokens in relation to animals. The Cheyenne Myth The Great Medicine Dance introduces cultural concepts that were valued at the time. The Judaeo-Christian story presents women as devices to be used to cause an effect or serving some pointed purpose, where the Cheyenne story presents a very different picture. One story indicates that it is not wrong to covet another mans wife, the other story maintains it as an important aspect of creation. One story indicates that tokens are meant to control man, another indicates that tokens can be used to control animals. There are many other comparisons and contrasts that can be made between these two stories that were not discussed in this writing, this is just a very high level overview of the differences in cultures of the different religions.

Here’s a brief background of John Martin’s Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon (1816). Following the end of the Neapolitan War in 1815, it’s not much of a surprise to see Martin completing a painting such as this the following year. This painting may be categorized as an example of Romantic art because it displays the individuals role across a romantic landscape even in the face of war. We see Joshua, front and center, demanding that the sun itself stand still and not fade in the face of inclement weather (oncoming night), so as to bolster their charge. The hopeful feeling implied by Nature itself encouraging the charge, in the face of something as wicked and terrifying as war itself, offers a highly romantic viewpoint of what war could do for a man. This seems, to me, to be more of a propaganda piece overall, a recruitment effort to bring in more troops as the romantic notion of being able to command the weather, or other forces of nature itself, in the face of war is something depicted or imagined. An attempt to potentially convince an observer that they too could be imbued with such power were they to take part in this war in which God has taken note of, and natures will itself will bend to the oncoming throngs of soldiers pining after their enemies.

Here’s a scene organized from light on the right to dark on the left, introducing an obscured light on the top left of the paining, as rays of light and possible rainfall come down. The visual composition of the spatial configuration allows for you to see that the individual rays appear substantially thinner over the cloudy and obscured side. They also seem less organized, almost chaotic, as if to convey that both light and rain were intermixed. On the right, the darkened cloud cover is much higher and the sun is below the cloud cover. Light rays extend from the sun itself, while in contrast on the left the rays extend from the clouds or breaks or holes in the cloud cover, and could even be observed as rain coming directly from the clouds. On the left there are storm clouds with a clearing just past the horizon. Also on the left you can observe more of a distant mountain range, at first becoming a valley, then followed by shorter and rounded foothills.

More distantly, jagged mountaintops begin to appear. In the valley a winding river appears, which gives the visual appearance similar to the forefront of a winding band of people. In the forefront, the soldiers appear to be coming out of the city and just to the left of the forefront are a pair of archers below Joshua’s feet, who seem to be drawing their bows against some foe. Between the distant foothills and mountains lies the other city over which the clouds part a little. Extending back from the further city and into the plains in the valley is a descending path that cuts in diagonals and allows the entrance and exit into the distant city from the valley.

Overlooking all of this is an even higher cliff closer to Gibeon, that partially obscures a view of the city. From this cliff it feels as if one would clearly be able to overlook both the city itself and the valley and all else that can be seen in the painting. On a lower edge of a cliff further down, one can see Joshua, right arm raised, with an open hand with his palm extended away from him offering the same command for which the painting is named for. Behind Joshua, two men dressed in robes, also repeat the gesture though to a lesser extent.

In the center of the painting, the fortified and walled fortress of Gibeon overlooks the valley. Rays and rain deflect to the left as if to move around the fortress as they originate from the clouds above. Much of Gibeon depicted is filled with square or rounded buildings, with either columns or arches except one structure near the entrance of the fortress which depicts a pyramidal structure that shows three sides and a slightly uneven top, that partially obscures one of the columnar buildings.

Regarding the appearance of motion/movement in the painting, I made an assumption based off the idea that most folks seeing this painting at the time would’ve been taught to read English from the right to the left. The point at which one would start writing on a paper is on the left, whereas the point at which one would return to write a new line is on the right most point. Here, the soldiers appear to be moving from right to left as they travel out of the city and entering the darkened valley, possibly indicating that the light seen over the city travels with the soldiers. At the base of the mountain in the forefront, the soldiers coming from Gibeon appear to be splitting up as some travel to the left of the foothill, and some travel to the right. The foothill itself obscures part of the valley, and splits the river that cuts through it into two. On the left of the foothill, the painting grows quite dark as the soldiers appear to travel off into some darker spot not captured in the painting. On the right, and more in the center of the painting, the other trail of soldiers tapers off as the trail wraps around the cliff and disappears.

There appears to be a lot of balance offered here with darker colors being used around the borders and edges of the painting and lighter colors being used in the center of the painting, offering the effect of seeing a rounded portrait of a scene rather than a rectangular portrait. There is a fair balance of light and dark clouds and there is a duality and mirroring occurring in relation to the two cities being on opposing high grounds. On the left appears to be a rainy and darker view, but on the right appears to be a greener and more vibrant view. There is a large sense of unity implied from the soldiers moving in an ordered formation, giving the appearance of they’re moving due to some unified cause. One lack of balance, to me, appears in viewing the archers who seem to have no easily identifiable opposition. This left me to imagine such a force as would justify having arrows notched and aimed at it, as there is nothing seeming to offer return fire.

A few contrasts are that the city on the right appears to be higher in elevation than the one on the left. Another contrast is that the solider offering the command, while having the ability to do so from higher ground, has not gone to that location to offer the command, and has instead done so from the same or similar elevation as the rest of the soldiers. Many different colors are used through the painting as well, where one sees a lot of vibrant green connecting the cities and beyond. Behind the further city can be observed what appears to be snow-capped mountains that white and gray and blend with the horizon although the visibility is such that one can still make out all the mountains as they fade away. The sky itself is composed of the sun reflecting off of the clouds over the further city, which reminds me of the “fire” mentioned in the bible story the painting is based on.

The appearance of rain seems to be given with the white streaks from the dark rain clouds that extend in straight lines and seem to fall down everywhere except for where the sunlight appears to be poking through the clouds in some places. Blue skies appear in the right over Gibeon along with what appears to be much better weather. The cliffs themselves are often dark and shadowy, where Martin has also mixed in some brown and rust colors. The limited use of these colors makes it very easy to differentiate the soldiers from the landscape in the forefront. As the train of people makes its way into the distance, it becomes very dark on the left and seems to blur in with the greens on the right of the foothills, causing trouble in differentiating between the landscape and anything else. Many white horses and white and red clothing can be seen which offers a reasonably easy contrast to differentiate them from the landscape.

The mood that I feel this painting conveys is that of a war, where soldiers are leaving one city and are in transit to their destination. Eager readiness for combat overshadowed by the presence of impending rain and strong weather offer a sense of the urgency with which these soldiers travel through as not even the weather, or other natural forces, wish to prevent them from moving forward. It also conveys a tense mood, as the two archers with bows drawn are ready to loose their arrows at a moments notice.

In conclusion, I feel this painting conveys a powerful image whereby taking into account that the artists home country was just overcome by war the prior year, the timing for the piece was appropriate. I find Martin’s painting to be more of a propaganda piece for the war effort as he appeared to be relating England to Gibeon as the Allied forces pressed onward only to crush the first French Empire led by Napoleon as he was left to surrender at Waterloo just that past summer. This painting, seemingly a rally to bolster the mood following the unified victory, was one among many that doubtlessly helped set the precedent of a career with the military as a viable option for many a young Englishman at the time.

So I don’t eat the same things many people eat. For the most part I’ll be found to be eating slow cooked foods that people otherwise wouldn’t typically pick first. A few examples would be pulled pork barbecue (aka – carnitas meat), baked beans with chicken & bacon, oats, vegetable tomato sauce, and slow cooked vegetables like beets and sweet potatoes. I’m a snob about the way I eat and the source of the food used, moreso than the meal itself. I’ve settled on this way of eating after setting out on making some changes starting back in 2018, and my experiences have spanned about 5 years or so of experimenting with what did and didn’t work for me specifically. Because first and foremost, I’m not writing this to advertise a new way for someone else to eat – it’s more for my own benefit so I don’t have to keep summarizing the way and things I now eat to people regularly because it’s a little tedious to have to say it over and over again and have folks talking offense regularly to me here.

Often people just think it’s a ketogenic diet or something .. but after even moderate exercise and spending a few months with a nutritionist I can safely say that ketosis is not some magic new age diet. If you exercise even moderately, or even diet lightly, you’ll cycle in and out of this absolutely normal metabolic process quite reqularly and come to tell almost immediately the difference between dehydration and ketosis as time goes on. I feel for the most part the obsession with the fad or popular diets comes from folks often not having the experience or capacity to understand on an educated level what they’re doing. Not saying here that I know much better, as for all I know everything I know could just as well be a lie. More that I’ve attended much more schooling than the average person, having 240 college credit hours at the undergraduate level and feel reasonably comfortable diving into the basic metabolic processes and posess a basic understanding of them after having gone through physiology, biology and nutrition courses at colleges over years and I feel pretty comfortable taking the risk in trusting my own understanding to a point. So anyways, this education in combination with having worked directly with a nutritionist and also various articles on the internet over the years has lead me to coming up with something that’s mine, man. Sorry, you probably can’t copy it!

So without further obnoxious setting-of-the-stage here .. the way I eat is very picky at this point, in short. I’ll often tend to favor slow cooked meats, when I’m eating meat. I don’t generally spring for the grill, fryer, and under absolutely no conditions will I even consider touching the microwave to heat something up (unless I’m using the light bulb underneath to proof a couple loaves of bread in it). This leaves me with the oven & slow cookers. I like chicken, sure, but I’ll usually blast it for 300 or 350 F for a half hour then slow cook it around 200 or so for hours, until that meat falls off the bone every single time. I really enjoy pulled pork cooked for an entire day or two around 200 – 215 in the oven, when spiced right. I generally avoid beef like the plague, it really just has a weird taste to it these days as if it’s generally been more boiled after cooking than anything else and I guess they really only can inject so much water into the stuff to push those profit margins that much further out. That’s a large mentality to my approach to eating .. avoiding that kind of stuff.

Avoidance for me starts by preventing this crap from getting into my place. I just don’t buy it, is all. My shopping list is limited approximately to : eggs, chicken, tuna, pork shoulder, pork belly, herring, salmon, broccoli, celery, asparagus, bell peppers, avocado, onions, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, apples, bananas, garlic, oranges, lemons, blueberries, brown rice, dark chocolate, whole wheat flour, yeast, peanut butter, oats, dry beans, whole milk, some cheeses, pepperoni, maple syrup, honey, vinegars, lettuce, poblano peppers, hot sauce and various spices. This is the most reasonable approach to eating for me, but the major drawback for me is visiting other folks and having no prepared devensive measures for the delicious poisons they all have in their homes.

I then employ methods in selecting the foods on the shopping lists. For some backstory in this, I’d read that coin-clipping was a common practice back when coins were minted with precious metals and didnt have the knurled ridges on them to provide easy identification that the entire coin as intended was present and accounted for. It was the process of shaving or adulterating the edge of a coin so as to pilfer the miniscule amounts of shavings from the unwitting transactor by a vile practicioner of the theft that’d often make these grubby folks quite rich due to the volume of the number of transactions they were involved in. What this means to me, when it comes to food .. well in very much the same way and for exactly the same reasons the entire food must be present and accounted for. I consume a lot of food, thus it follows that I stand to lose a lot to a clearly hostile market, at least to the living. Corn syrup is not corn, therefore this is banned in my cabinets. Even further in this analogy, corn itself as a food source has had some extra ingredients added right into the genetic structure of the corn (yes, genetics is a topic I’ve also studied in my time at Mount Saint Mary College). Thus, it follows that in addition to the whole food being present, not more than the whole food must be present as well. It’s for this reason I don’t buy corn. This then becomes a topic of content, because who’s gonna say what is and is not food at the genetic level. So, I’ve found myself not often taking foods that’ve been genetically modified at all. I understand this is an impossible feat, but sometimes the shotgun approach combined with not knowing any better is going to let a few bits of poison through and I can accept this as a calculated risk.

Under no circumstances will I use vegetable or seed oils for this same reason – because the entire vegetable or seed is not present. As a really crude explanation here – I’ve reason to believe that my stomach is “pretty dumb” and receives “genetic instructions” on how to properly digest the food only in cases where as much if not all of the entire food source is present. So if someone’s gone and pilferred the hull of my rice and has opted to sell me white rice instead of brown – my gut only knows how to treat it like a sugar and metabolize 100% of it as fast as possible. Another example is that in the event I were to use olive oil – my body has no true and correct understanding of how to digest “olive oil” or even what “olive oil” is, unless the oil came with the rest of the olive. Sure it guesses, often incorrectly, how best to do this without the directions “stored in the rest of the olive”, but these incorrect guesses I then pay for directly in various accumulations of fat deposits and other damages to my physical structure .. most often in the form of accumulated fatigue, or associated poor decision making and the like.

My chosen method of cooking is entirely a slow cooked style. I do this to slow myself down, from eating. Most everything must take over half an hour to prepare. I can down literally 2000 calories in under fifteen mintues and I’m not unique in this capacity. Taking the moment to heat things up, allows for me to think about the food I’m intending to eat well before I eat it and as such I’m able to better portion my food, and in the event I’ve too little food, or feel I’ve prepared too little food, it’s quite the deterrent to be waiting another hour to heat up more. This is why I don’t fry things, or microwave them. Using a microwave in my home is banned. The most I would consider is grilling, here, which is about the only way I’ll have beef. The slow cooking itself I’ve found comes best from using thick walled ceramics, but also the induction base on some pans will allow stovetop slow cooking to take place too. Short of this, any metal pan with a lid and a standard oven will do.

Another topic of content for me is freezing meat for more than the amount of time you’d expect to keep it in your fridge. Why do people think this is acceptable? Fat does not freeze, and just goes rancid. You don’t generally notice this though! It’s gross. You’ve never gone to a grocery store and purchased a frozen pork roast, or a frozen t-bone, ever in your entire life! Why do you think this is an acceptable practice, to leave fatted meats in the freezer for over a year and then eat them with the rancid fat and mostly edible slightly destroyed muscley parts? I can taste this every single time. You probably think or have thought it to be freezer burn. It’s not. It’s rotten fat and you’ve been eating more than your share of it! Stop hoarding or get a real (-80C) freezer!

Metabolically alcohol is awful in all aspects, and specifically what people do to alcohol is the worst. What with HFCS sweeteners and the like .. make it very hard to drink alcohol, especially because you don’t know and can’t know what is in it. This leaves mostly the only available options to be high proof liquors and well those are bad in different ways, especially if you’re pre-disposed to alcoholism and feel “normal” after drinking 750 ml so for the most part screw that noise. I won’t waste much time explaining this, other than saying that I’ve never sweat my ass off more than when I’ve drank the day before.

Things I curently consider neutral include many condiments and water. I don’t have the capacity to bother with wanting to go around and tell people I don’t eat ketchup because any reason whatsoever. So I don’t. I just eat it usually. I use it rarely enough to not care, because the food I eat doesn’t generally call for its use. This is an example. Usually I’ll heavily spice my meals with high quality spices, and don’t need much more than something like vinegar anyways .. which is a highly under-rated condiment in itself. Overall, I generally never use sauces due to the tendency for the ill-intentioned to cram them full of butter, sugar and syrup and that just drives me nuts and gives me heartburn and a stomach ache if anything. As for water, I’ve found that dehyration induced by consistently being observant of the quality of the water and avoiding “bad water” is more of a health hazard to me versus just drinking the water itself in all my cases. My current approximation of this is that we’re a product of our environment, despite all efforts and pretense otherwise. As the quality of the water is an aspect of my environment, I therefore tend to just drink the water that I also shower and wash my hands with, yes.

I’m very selective with my caffeine intake as well. I generally prefer black teas. For me, there seems to be something that grows in coffee makers that my body finds toxic. I’m able to drink more often than not from new coffee makers, or cleaned/sanitary devices like french presses, but machines where the water sits inside of I often find to be too unsanitary for me to drink coffee from and as such I will generally opt for hot tea. Green tea comes later in the day, same with herbals like mugwort or chamomile. I prefer a water kettle to heat the water. The toxicity is still in the coffee for me, at all times I’m wary of drinking it and usually I’m physically unable to have more than a few coffee’s in a week before I start having digestion issues like an aching stomach and intestines and I don’t generally have this issue with caffeinated teas which I’ve found mostly due to the method of preparation of the beverage. Seriously, I went for a decade thinking I was allergic to coffee – that’s just not the case. It’s the case that I don’t wish to be vigilant of coffee makers everywhere and as such just stick with tea.

My approach to spices is more that the meal is an excuse to take in large amounts of the spices themselves. For example in eating oatmeal … I’ll usually have about a heaping tablespoon of ceylon cinnamon in there for a single cup of oats and then top it with some maple syrup for balance so it tastes less like Big Red. I like the effect and way I feel after eating a lot of cinnamon and it’s quite delicious to me. Careful which cinnamon you use, apparently only Ceylon can be eaten safely in large amounts, I’ve not tested this or cared to, the internet told me this and I got no reason to care one way or the other as it could just be a marketing gimmick. For meals I generally tend to favor ample amounts of berbere or harissa seasonings, baked into the food, due to how well the profile seems to fit slow cooking foods. Even then, fresh spices are still the best over dried and jarred ones. I do consider vinegar to be a spice too, here, and usually if I have some lettuce its more of an excuse to down a few tablespoons of vinegar due to I’ve had a lot of good benefits and it tastes good.

TImes it’s okay to let loose on these rules, for me, include predominantly hybrid moments where one finds themselves in a normal food setting, but instead is working toward a particular goal that will offer better benefits were they to cast aside all restrictions and partake in consuming literal poison. This includes getting to know your co-workers, meals prepared by family, going out on dates and not wanting to overwhelm them right away, so mostly meals with company and the like. Of course, these types of situations have the tendency to come one after another .. to which one’d certainly need to at one point just decide, to eat right again at the cost of impacting that business meeting, or that family member – the costs are real and dire at a social level, but so is the cost of unwittingly consuming a poisonous diet and each must live through their own desired threshold of pains in this life. Seriously! My body is such a snob that it can actually determine if the vegetables are past their prime! My tongue’ll swell up and actually ache, I shit you not. For a while I played with the idea that this was due to something being sprayed on the vegetables or the like, but all it seems to be is an affinity to detect decay in what seems otherwise like a perfectly fine vegetable.

Something I don’t mind too much though is a diet soda. I’ve not had any immediately negative consequences of drinking these things, but I’ve seen the recent reclassification of Aspartame into a cancerous chemical of late and well I can at least say that yes, it’s completely possible to lose 40 pounds and keep it off while drinking diet sodas and I’m tired of having the same argument with people that just have not had the same experience I’ve had with these drinks.

Anyways, I’m sure there’s a few other things I can add to this list but for the most part I’d consider that about 90% of the way I eat and what I eat is represented here, without going too far off topic, so I guess it’s a mostly complete article for me at this time. In summary, since last year this way of eating has lead to me losing about 90 pounds when I stick to it, but allows quite a bit of room to gain weight back, too. Especially around other folks. It also runs me about $400 – $450 a month, which is a reasonable price to pay for food here in the USA this year.

So, what do you eat?

I have got some plans to spend the rest of the Month of May in Massachusetts, on the southern side of the state below Boston. In being there for about two weeks, I’ll have a lot of time to check the place out and so far am planning on going to (Plain Ridge Park Casino, Wrentham VIllage Premium Outlets, Normandy Farms, “An Unlikely Story”, Boston University, possibly even Harriman New York for the holiday at the end of the month if I have time).

I’ll be staying at Residence Inn Providence Lincoln, 632 George Washington Hwy, Lincoln, RI 02865. This is a two week trip and I’m planning on getting out of there just after memorial day. While I’m there, I’ve got a lot to check out. I used to live in Lowell, MA and Nashua, NH too and I have not gone back to either of them since 2014. They are a little bit of a stretch for me to go that far north from where I’m going to be at so I don’t know if I’ll be going to those locations, but if I do go there it would be to check out Lowell’s Suppa’s pizza joint if it still exists. So as a reference – check out the luggage! That’s about 200lbs of luggage.

So I got in on Wednesday, mid-afternoonish. Just in perfect time for Boston’s rush hour. For some reason I ended up flying into Boston at this time to make my way over two hours south to Rhode Island where I was staying. It’s been a while since I was in Boston, and really the only thing that I recalled a little bit was passing through the street the stadium is on. GPS really does not help here, I’m sure I spent too much time looking at that to recall much else from ten years ago. So I stayed at the Residence Inn in Lincoln or something. As I’m checking in, I asked for some extra hangars that never did arrive. So while waiting for these things I drove around a little bit. Just to the store and back really. I was pretty tired because I’d started the day at 3:30 am and got to the room at 6 pm but I didn’t want to end it that fast. So I just went to the shops across the road, I stopped at Stop and Shop. Been a while since I was in one of those either, my home town back in Monroe had one of them when I was growing up. On the way back I drove by the Planet Fitness to see where it was located one exit up on the highway. Then I came back to the hotel and went to the gym there. The equipment at the hotel is pretty nice Precor stuff, all quite new. Actually the whole hotel seems pretty new.

On the way in, I decided to pull up the GPS to see how close Boston University was. I was actually passing by it with it on my right as I was going down the highway. I am still considering going there, and have quite convinced myself at this point that I’d like to go there. Seems like the right thing to do. The place I was staying at was alright too, check it out.

So on Thursday here, I checked out a place called 110 Grill and the Planet Fitness nearby Lincoln that I drove by the night before. 110 Grill was a nice spot, they were pretty thoughtful there. I got salmon for dinner here, about anywhere I went this close to the coast I got seafood – even if it didn’t have much of a chance of coming locally. I also got some clam chowder here it was very good and I would get it again. After that I went to the gym nearby the hotel, it seemed very new along with the rest of the buildings in that parking lot. I spent an hour there just doing aerobics and then went back to the hotel.

Friday I checked out the pizza place in Plainville and the Met in Pawtucket. The pizza place was in Plainville, MA. It was called South Street Pizza. I think this place is a great lunch spot (So much I went back). The choices are many, most of all, there are those, here. I got an italian sandwich and it was pretty good, I also got a baklava dessert and it had about a hundred layers and I had to ask the lady there if they were making it there, but she had told me no but they were coming from a local place I didn’t catch the name of. After that, I went to the Met to check out a rock concert with Gary Hoey. Gary plays the guitar and there’s a band that plays some music with Gary. Every once in a while Gary continuously introduces, and then seemingly reintroduces the same keyboard, drummer and whoever else was playing alongside Gary that night. Gary plays a lot like a Joe Satriani, only without the Satriani, so Gary plays like a Joe. Anyways, the place could clearly hold about 400 or more people, and there were about 40 people there on this evening. The music was loud and I had worn earplugs, the venue has clearly had louder. So I walk in and the bartender asks me where I was from, after hearing the accent in my voice. I mention a few of the places I’ve lived in, in an attempt to resolve the fellas confusion as to my inexcusable accent. He then asked what I did, and I told him a little bit of what I did. I got my local beer, something or whatever from the draft, for 8 dollars. I handed him a ten and told him to keep it and then walked off and stood around for a few moments until the show went on. After a while I decided I was hungry so I left the show after a set.

Saturday I checked out Boston, Quincy Hall, Boston Harbor, the park there, the beach there, it was raining so the boston trip got cut short, chipotle and river falls in the evening. It was a pretty busy day. So I got into Boston in the morning, and this time the GPS was a lot more correct than it had been the other day. On getting into Boston I had some vague flashbacks from 2014 and I could barely remember much of going in and around the city at all, so fortunately the place didn’t leave any lasting damage, I guess. Anyways, I spotted a park as I was driving in and I needed to figure on where to go anyways so I parallel parked and walked through the park, toward a beach. There were some fellas playing basketball on the completely uneven courts as I strolled through, and then before the beach there was a small running track and field and stadium dedicated to a one Paul J. Saunders.

I continued on through the park, and crossed the road to find myself at Carson Beach. Of note on this reasonably windy, chilly and somewhat cold day was that there were two women just chilling and doing tiktoks on the beach, one was wearing a red bikini, this was the one on camera, apparently. They seemed to be having a fine enough time, being about the only two people in sight on the beach. The beach itself was nice, surrounding Old Harbor. It was otherwise quiet, which I assume was due to the poor weather. The rain turned into a mist at this point and I headed back to the car to make my way downtown.

Arguably, the 38 dollar view from Boston Harbor Parking garage was both the best view available on this day, as well as for the best price, at least to me. So I got downtown and decided not to park on the street due to the rain, so I made my way up to the jellyfish level of the Parking Garage. For reference I believe this to be the fifth floor. There were two more floors, one being lobster or something else. Parking was quite easy and getting down there was an elevator so I can quite certainly say that aside from the view, the parking garage itself was nice enough. Check out the views from it!

So I took the elevator down, and started heading towards Faneuil Hall, this being the destination I had in mind to check out. So I get down there and pass by what some engraving claimed to be a fountain and then decided to backtrack a little bit to go to the bathroom. It’s not so hard at all to find these, here. So I go inside of the hotel there and inside there is a coffee bar thing and then there’s a sign indicated that the bathrooms were outside. The buildings got two main entrances into this hall spot, so I figured it was indicating that the bathroom was on the other side, because I didn’t see one coming in.

After getting out of the entrance to the hotel I began heading towards the marketpalce again. I wanted to check it out, just to see what it was like. For the most part it’s still a marketplace, some of the stuff probably still comes in on boat, even. There’s three main halls now and then one they dedicated as a food court. So I got there and walked around for a few moments but I was hungry so I wanted to stop at Quincy Market building. It was gigantic.

So I went inside and there seemed to be a lot more people inside, than there were outside, it being a rainy morning and all. So I got almost halfway through and found myself sold on some lobster sandwich place. There were people dragging their meals all throughout the place, looking for a spot to sit though. Another meal in particular that seemed to be popular was a loaf of bread which had the center hollowed out and in place of the bread center it was filled with clam chowder. This seemed like a pretty heavy meal to me, for a lunch, and so I found myself ordering a lobster grilled cheese sandwich and a drink for about 34 dollars from this place.

The sandwich was delicious. It had about as much lobster on it as you’d expect from a lobster roll, only instead of a roll it came on two slices of white bread and filled with a bunch of ‘Merican cheese. Overall very easy to eat, and yes it was a little heavy for a brunch but I’d not had anything for breakfast so this was worth it to me. Anyways after the sandwich, I walked out about halfway through, near a dinosaur exhibit. After getting a photo of it, I was approached by a 350 lb white male about my age that was wearing a red hoodie and wearing some car keys around his neck. He asked me if he could have some food. I informed him that he sure could, the food court was right next to us and there was a lot of food inside. His facial expression dropped at this point, as he realized that he might have gotten a bit more than he had asked for. So he mentioned that that was not what he meant. I knew damn well what he wanted, but he didn’t ask for that – he had asked for food. I asked him if I looked like a fucking banana tree and then went on a full two minute rant about how he could just easily walk in the food hall and ask people for any of the food that they were not going to eat that they left on the table and even then if he continued to be denied that he could just grab it when they left, or just snatch the fresh food from the trash as any reasonably hungry person would do (This, I do know, yes?). Anyways, the guy certainly could have missed a few hundred meals and certainly was not in any shape to actually need a meal, and so had he asked me for the ten dollars he actuallly had wanted, I might’ve actually given it to him. So anyways, after my rant, he actually says, “Thank you”, and I say, “You’re welcome”, and walk off to the Samsonite store asking other folks if I looked like a fucking banana tree along the way. Tell ya one thing – nobody asked me for more food on this day. Check out the dinosaur.

On my way into the Samsonite store, a lady walks in in front of me and decides to toss her umbrella on the ground outside the store before walking inside. She immediately realized this was a mistake as she was quickly instructed by the store staff that she was welcome to bring her wet umbrella inside the store with her. So, not wanting to back out, I grabbed the soaking wet thing off the ground and handed to to her by the stem and then proceeded to ask the folks there if they had the bag I was looking for. They didn’t have it. So I left there, sat near the entrance to the place for a few moments while being grilled by a fella sitting off in the distance (I assume he heard my rant – one of those inner city denizens, for sure), then decided to walk out of there because the rain was picking up. I had wanted to do a few other things in Boston during the day, but I didn’t want to get soaked. So I went back to Lincoln, RI, walking past the same fountain as on the way in.

I stopped at some of the harbor docks near the same hotel as on the way in, on the way out. There was a sea pidgeon there, eyeing me a bit. Seemed alright though. Not much was going on and the rain was building up a bit, so I stood under an umbrella and watched it for a few minutes.

Anyways, I drove back to the hotel after Boston and then went to the gym there for about an hour. I found out that my watch had been connnecting to the workout equipment as I was using it and apparently it was doing some kind of conversion into steps and sending this to the watch every time I was working out. So on this day it told me around 19k steps or so. Anyways, after all that I went back out to go get some dinner at a place called River Falls. It was an alright spot in the middle of a square that reeked like cannabis and there were at least 6 other restaurants surrounding the circle. Inside the place, the waitress was quite tolerant of bullshit and relentless passes, ultimately having to inform me that she was dating outside of the restaurant, which she was told that we never had to leave the restaurant, and so on and such. Anyways, it was kind of empty there, but the food was alright, I got some fish and chips, but instead of chips it was just french fries. Nice quiet little spot.

Sunday I went to Cape Cod, canal, Sandwich Beach, Fishermans View, canal, gym, spicy stores. Cape cod I went fishing in the canal, walked along the beach, went to a gym. I also tried to find some ceylon cinnamon, at about 3 different stores. The only place that had it was Whole Foods. I go with ceylon because when i put 2 tablespoons of any other cinnamon in my oats I bleed like a motherfucker when cut, and I’m not one to settle for less cinnamon in my oats. The trick is to balance it with actual maple syrup. That corn syrup poison just won’t do – they tried to pull that shit on me at the hotel buffet breakfast.

I went to the canal twice – once to figure out where to go on the way in and another time on the way out to do some fishing. I had some extra bait from lunch I’d saved up and for reference, covering raw salmon in lobster guts didn’t work for me. It might’ve, if my pole was about two feet longer. I couldn’t get far enough into the canal with the smaller 8 foot rod I’d brought – the things more meant for lakes and rivers, not sea canals. It was nice, either way, the fishing.

Monday I went to do some laundry here in the hotel, Lime Rock Rreserve trail, then went to the gym here, also the poke place (Poke Bros or something?). For dinner I had some Chipotle that I’d managed to bake the hate out of with my slow cooker. If you don’t take a slow cooker or frozen meals with you when going on vacation – have fun waiting for food – I spend less time having better meals, personally. The trail itself was pretty nice. It was really two trails – one offereing a view of a manmade pond and the other being a bit mroe rocky and hilly. I took the one with the pond view. This was good for this day as my legs had quite a few pulled muscles from scissor kicks I’d done the day before last. Anyways, the views were great. On my way to somewhere in the morning I happened upon a painted turtle that had decided to cross the road at an inopportune time, and fortunately the road was queit enough for me to hop out and move it out the road. I tried to snap a better photo but while I was doing this my laptop bag slid around from my back and hit my elbow, launching the turtle about 3 feet away only to bounce off a log, land upright and finish the scurrying off it was already doing!

I also learned on this day that there is a different syle of poke all over the place, apparently the style I had on this day was a Hawaiian style. I don’t recall seeing other styles, ever, but anyways, it was good, with some spicy salmon, avocado, soy beans, brown rice, wasabi mayo and fish eggs topped with cashew ground up. This was for lunch. For dinner – I’d been slow cooking a meal I’d gotten from chipotle a few days before. I didn’t feel like tossing it is all. I had happened to show up right before the dinner rush apparently, and by the time I’d gotten a meal there were about 15 other people in line waiting for food. Just 3 people there to prepare food, though. I’d originally wanted to leave because they just didn’t have the staff present to serve the food, but I was talked out of this. By the time I ordered I suppose the girl had heard me rambling for a moment and so anyways she seemed pretty mad, visibly so at this point, so I mentioned at this point that that’s usually why I don’t queue to get fast food – because when we all stand in line like this, the folks get pretty frustrated, and anwyays I could practically feel the hate pouring into the food as the girl kept apologizing for no apparent reason, I was quite content, waiting, that is. It tasted about as I’d expected it to taste, but I only got through about a quarter of it before I’d decided I was full. I slow cooked it for about two days and it was very good after that. Aside from the brown rice, which seemed to have been partially pilferred .. the hull was thinner than I recall thinking brown rice should’ve been.

Tuesday I went to Seekonk river north of Providence, Swan Point Graveyard, Blackstone Park, Good Burger scene shoot, the restaurant and planet fitness. So I drove up and down Blackstone Boulevard – very pretty views on this but I was driving and only got one good photo. There happened to be a movie scene being filmed on the road as I was passing through. I didn’t realize at first, i only saw a funky looking car and managed to snap a photo of it as I blew by at ten miles an hour or so. Check it out!

So anyways, I’d first navigated just to “Seekonk River” and Google thought that I was looking to park in the back of a retirement community. The staff eyed me as I parked there and looked for a better spot, only to find myself parking right alongside Seekonk (not SeeCock!) River, I walked along it for a bit before I found an entrance into Blackstone Park near what was identified as “Hockey Pond” and so I walked around the pond and then back to the car.

So I got back to the car and then drove down Blackstone Boulevard, looking for a better view of the river, only to find myself driving through Swan Point Cemetery. Here I found H.P. Lovecraft’s grave (According to Google!), and a lucky turkey with her dedicated flock of males in pursuit.

Wednesday I went to Patriot Park & Gillette Stadium & the nature trail & cranberry bog back there, and the Planet Fitness in North Attleborough MA, then went back to the hotel to do some laundry.

After the gym, I went back to the hotel and went to sleep for the night. Thursday I went to Scialo Bros. Bakery, Telford Park, Whiting Pond, I took it easy because my knee was aching and i needed to pack for an early flight the next day. I had put the treadmill at a 6.5% grade and about 3.2 miles per hour, and usually I keep it under 3 miles an hour because my right knee will ache the next day due to injuries I’ve had since most of my life that I can remember. The bakery is located in Federal Hill, which felt to me like a Newburgh, NY downtown, but a lot nicer and also right next to the ocean. It’s got some of the best baked goods your money can still buy. Telford Park seemed more like a place to bring kids so I just stopped there briefly enough to plug in Whiting Pond. Whiting Pond boat launch is more of a quiet little fishing spot, but was perfect to end the trip on and eat the cookies I’d gotten from the bakery.

Friday I traveled back, 12 hours of travel time. I left at 530 in the morning EST and got back in my place at 430 CST. The flights were nice. The second one was a little bumpy but for the most part I slept through them. I went to a place to eat on the layover in Georgia for a turkey wrap and they had decided that it was a good idea to put Pesto and some soft cheese in there. It was a very strange wrap, from a texture standpoint. Even the french fries were oddly cut – not straight, more like really thick half-potato chip shaped. Worth the meal for that experience, but overall the taste was not there. Possibly they could do with some better mayo or ketchup, or just better quality ingredients overall. I took an uber back from the airport and it was about 4 times more costly than usual, I guess this is the price of rush hour traffic. It took maybe an extra minute to get back though, so whatever. So from the start to the finish of this trip, there’s about another 23,000 words plus some 200+ more photos and even more words that I didn’t put on this site – this was just what I felt like putting on here to send the reminder that anything here’s very much a movie based on a book, in that this is only about 16 percent of my summary of the trip that I bothered to put here.

I’m pre-writing some of this to see how it reads after I’m done here. I’m spending a week in Green Bay in May and I have got a few things planned coming up. I’m flying in Monday night and am staying at the Radisson near the casino next to the airport. The gym and pool and things are apparently all 24 hours during the times I’ll be there. So when I get there, it should be around 10PM. That night I’d like to at least locate the pool and the gym and see what all they have got going on there. The next morning I’d like to actually go to the gym and the pool there for a bit, then check out the casino.

So I got in on a Monday night, around 9pm. The layover was quite a quick flight out of Detroit for me, ended up having about 20 mintues to walk 15 minutes after the first flight was delayed twice. Once before the flight and another during the flight. Apparently it was a re-routed flight and crew, who knew? Anyways, I took the shuttle over to the hotel and they got me checked in quite prompty. The room itself was pretty nice, having one single king bed and having laminate throughout. Very roomy. I spent the night locating the pool and the gym. I had to let the fella at the desk let me in, and damn if that wasn’t the first time i connected that brisk Wisconsin accent to more than a few folks I’ve known through the years. Anyways, he let me into the gym because my card didn’t work to let me in there and I checked it out for suitability in the morning. The bike and treadmill were up to my standards, and so I went back to the room and fell asleep.

The next day I checked out Lambeau Field. The whole place itself seems to have just been originally an outdoor stadium that they put a massive operational facade on. It’s quite beautiful inside. In there was a massive metal football trophy, the entrances to the stadium and a restaurant or two. I saw a bunch of folks walking around with lanyards so I assumed they worked there. Anyways, while there I checked out the 1919 restaurant which was recommended to me highly by many folks at this point. The food there was wonderful, the cheese curds were some kind of orange cheddar. I had to ask the lady what kind of cheese they used for the cheese curds because they were great and she just came back saying it was an orange cheddar. I assume it had to be some local variety of cheddar because not too many cook like that in the deep fryer. Anyways I got the mango-something salad and it came with watermelon radishes, macadamia nuts, a very fatty vinegarette, crumbled feta, lettuce and of course bits of mangoes that appeared to have been pulverised into some uniform shape somehow. The salad tasted pretty good, but after a few bites I caught on to how fatty the dressing was and had to stop half way through the salad. Not that there was anything wrong with the salad – just that mine are usually consisting of just some lettuce, pepper and apple cider vinegar.

Anyways, downtown Green Bay was quite an event in itself. This direction being the one goes if they would like to get to the bay itself, in my opinion. While downtown, I was quite abruptly met with a full-pursuit police chase. A run down white van rolls past me, moving from left to right and I don’t catch on at first, but then there’s two full police SUV’s. These pass, but traffic does not move. So, I decide traffic is right and sit with it. Good thing I did because two more crusiers come barreling by, then I see the same white van only this time on the other side of the road traveling from right to left. It was at this time I realize that the driver was fleeing the police and was witnessing my first active police chase in over a decade. So in total there were 7 cop cars and they nailed that poor bastard about two blocks up. Anyways after this I headed over to a marina on the south side of Green Bay off Lake Michigan, because you can’t go to Green Bay without seeing the bay! The marina was neat, wildlife was abundant as some geese took refuge on a small island off the shore just out of earshot of most things but close enough to come back for food. There were gophers hanging out in some lumber by the breakwall. The breakwall was just covered in shells and drift-sticks (for reference – this is driftwood that doen’t qualify as driftwood, so it’s a drift-stick here). Got some nice photos of the day on this beautiful day and then came back to the hotel.

The jacuzzi was great – they actually let you run the thing in hour long increments! I also got to check out the gym and the bike there was really comfortable to run. After that Tuesday was about spent so I went back to the room becasue I had just found out earlier that day that I’d gotten accepted to Boston University for some reason only God knows and wanted to check out what that was all about. Anyways, on the next day I had some breakfast at the hotel. I didn’t realize at the time of me walking in there that it was apparently a fulls service restaurant and back which was not something I was expecting at this place at all. So I walk in there stinking like a gym and meanwhile the folks there are ready to start their day after breakfast. Anyways, getting back to the service side. I had some bacon and two over-hard eggs. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had taken the time to order anything other than sunny side up or fried eggs or not, but it’s not often that you’re going to come to a place that can cook an egg over medium or over hard. These are things I feel like people should do, because nobody really wants to eat that fried egg by itself, but sunny side up seems like such a waste when you don’t get toast with your egg. For this, the over-hard egg is the proper selection more than not. Anyways, it was quite well cooked and the bacon had an increible taste and texture to it and was delicious too. I had to get out of there so I had to prod the lady a little bit by standing up and letting her know to please bring me the check and I did this and then left.

After that later in the day I checked out a place called Parker John’s BBQ and Pizza. It was wonderful barbecue. One difference between carolina BBQ pulled pork and here is that in NC, it’s a bit more moist and I think this is due to the juice being re-added to the meat after cooking it. I don’t believe the cooking method at this place had this step in there, but re-adding the broth really adds a level to the dish I don’t think this place was looking to offer. They did seem to cook it at a higher temperature too, similar to the one you would use for carnitas. I very much liked their mustard sauce. This meal also came with a side of beans and some cole slaw. They also stashed a cornbread with a pad of butter on the tray and then let you go at it. It was overall incredibly high quality barbecue and I would definitely go back to this place. The scenery was well matched to the style of the place too, wonderful things to look at. The waitresses had shirts on them that said “Smoke meat not meth” which I couldn’t help but blurt out laughing at due to the audacity of a restaurant giving it’s folks a shirt at all that said anything in particular about anything was a welcome sight and I enjoyed this most of all. If, for nothing else, say you go there and don’t even eat barbecue – do go there for the folks wearing this shirt. Great lunch place.

After that, later in the day on wednesday I checked out the Oneida Casino here. The door on the entrance informed me that it was the select casino partner of the Green Bay Packers. Seemed legit. So inside of this casino connected to the hotel is a neat array of cheap slot machines. A lot of them would let you spin for fifty or sixty cents, I was not able to locate anything that lets you spin for lower. So I took out forty dollars from the ATM and paid $1.50 for the fee for the convenience of having the machine there. I fed a farmville machine 20 dollars, and within moments I found myself leaving the remaining 50 cents with the machine. I then continued on to a green machine, another slot machine but this one I could pull the handle. So I fed this machine 20 dollars, and played a little bit on my phone because its spins were a dollar a piece so i wanted to space out the spins a little bit. I walked away from this machine with more than I fed it.

The next machine was something with some pumpkins on it. I had cashed out from before and fed the machine 20 dollars. I then found out the machine was halloween themed and otherwise had the same face card draws other machines would have and its persona was prominently displayed as a halloween witch that I don’t recall seeing before having sat at the machine. I had been drawn to the machine because I had seen some meme circulating about a dog and some baby pumpkins earlier that day and it had made me laugh. So i sat at that machine on recalling that, and walked away from the machine with $59 and 8 cents. I decided that I was done gambling, cashed out and left the casino. You know they still do vending machines with cigarettes in them there? Then I went and spent the next few hours going to the hotels gym, jacuzzi and pool .. in that order.

So the next day I woke up, had some breakfast here at the casino and had to explain the the lady that a fried egg is just a broken egg yolk that you fry up like an over hard egg. She told me that she would just tell them to break the yolk. I can tell you right now that if I walked into the right restaurant and asked for a fried egg, they’d know exactly what I’m asking for, and understand that I’m not asking for an over hard egg and that if i wanted an over hard egg that they would give me an over hard egg. Also apparently ordering two orders of the delicious-sounding bacon from yesterday translates to giving 8 of the scrappy thin cut poor tasting bacon I got today and so I’ll have to admit that I got bamboozled there. God, they even put the egg in a round thing too – it was super pretty! Anyways, around the middle of the day I made my way over to a place called El Sarape West Tequila Bar and Restaurant.

This place is your typical, fantastic mexican food joint that people belong at when eating lunch. So I walk in and I was instantly greeted with a bench signed by a bunch of Green Bay Packers players. Bench like this would be a part of history at some point in the future, much like most things now. Anyways, they got me in a seat pretty fast as it was emptier than I feel like it should have been for the time it was. The place had gotten pretty crowded by the time I was done eating. So I ordered the beef enchiladas with mole sauce and I don’t think I’ve tasted such a nice silky mole in many years, it was quite wonderful and I did like to dig through the shredded lettuce on a scavenger hunt to find just one more bite of the enchilada with that sauce. I highly recommend the mole. But really, if enchiladas aren’t your thing – don’t even bother picking up the menu just order what you like at this point because they are going to have it! They are also really generous with the chips and I’d be quite impressed if any of the salsa had come out of a can at all. This had to be the single place in Green bay that I didn’t try the cheese curds at. I’m sure they had them though, everywhere here does. So I got out of there after a bit, the oncoming onslaught of folks pouring into the door was taking more and more of the lady’s time from me and so timing to leave was about as right as it could have been.

So a little bit after this I went back to the gym at the hotel and the woman at the desk helped me get the door open to the gym. There was a fella on the ellipcial machine that had been there before when I first tried to open the door, who got about half off his elliptical by the time she’d gotten the door open, when she had spotted him and said “You’d think he could have just opened this for you”, and walked off. The fella was still a little startled so just as the door shuts I tell him, “No worries, I just like making them walk back here at this point to let me in the room,” the door’s been “broken” since Monday night when I was told “Oh we just don’t want peoples kids in there,” and, “The guy that fixes those things was on vacation since last week and just came back”, and half a dozen other stories I enjoyed hearing but not believing either. Anyways, a bit later I ended up at a place called Legend Larry’s.

I’d decided to go to Legend Larry’s because the cheese shop I’d wanted to go to at the time was closed before I’d made my way to it. Their loss I guess. So, Legend Larry’s feels like a local, townie bar far enough away from downtown that the locals can go there to enjoy it, but close enough to downtown that at least a few non-locals would straggle in there. Legendary for that, at least, sure. The door is absolutely un-decorated, double metal doors with no windows, signage and you would not otherwise think this to be the entrace to anywhere other than the kitchen, very unwelcoming feel. Then you go inside and feel like you should have been there yesterday, or that you already were, or have been all along. Something like that, legendary for sure, yeah. I don’t think I’ve gotten that kind of feeling from anywhere else that’s a wing bar. So then, there’s nobody to tell you to take a seat – you just gotta remember that you should take yours! So you do, only to sit down and find there to be those order menus and pens at each table for folks to select what they would like and drop it off at the bar which you’re supposed to figure out for yourself, also. This whole process was actually the neatest part of the whole visit. So I filled it out, same as you would with one of those all you can eat sushi places – only with chicken wings and appetizers! They also had shrimp in place of chicken wings, I was there for the wings though. I grabbed the 12 medium wings and the cheese curds. This is a good place.

Anyways, I’m out of here at noon tomorrow and don’t have much planned that I feel like putting on here. Next week I’ll be headed over to Massachussetts. Check out various pictures below: