August 2006

  • Black Hills Mystery

    The Black Hills once spoke. Indians, trappers, explorers, and traders in South Dakota’s Black Hills prior to the 19th century reported that they would occasionally hear unexplained noises — distant booms like huge drums or faraway cannon, quite unlike thunder. This booming was part of the reason that the Indians considered the hills sacrosanct and… Continue reading

  • The Structure of Consciousness, Part Two: Astrology

    This post is the second part of a series on the integration of several theories about the structure of consciousness. I’m going to charge right into the middle of it here, so make sure you’ve read the first part! Continue reading

  • The Victory of the Sioux

    Last week I had lots of opportunity to look at a map of South Dakota. Notice the shaded areas that represent the Sioux Indian Reservations. Go ahead, look. I’ll wait here… Did you notice? A full one fifth of South Dakota belongs to the Sioux. This is an area about the size of Wales. A… Continue reading

  • Is it Too Late to Avoid Collapse?

    Archdruid John Michael Greer has a theory about the collapse of civilizations, a theory he calls “catabolic collapse”. The gist is that civilizations don’t drop from a great height immediately to the bottom of a chasm. Instead, they tend to tumble in stages, like a drunk falling down a stairway. They fall a little bit,… Continue reading

  • Neurolinguistic Programming: A Linguist Druid’s Review

    As I described in this previous post, one of the requirements of the Magic Spiral in the candidate year in the AODA is to learn about magic through reading and meditation. The books I selected to start with were three on “neurolinguistic programming” by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. I started with Bandler’s book, Use… Continue reading