GreaterWorld.org

[ZachreyBB]

10/09/2008

October 9, 2008

If you haven’t noticed, there has been a lot of fuss about the economy lately. If it is as serious as some people make it out to be, many people will starve to death this winter. If not, then we will continue on our merry way.

In either case, it doesn’t hurt to take the course, Death 101. So here it is...

Death 101

Death:
1) Everybody must die of something.

2) When you die, you will go directly or indirectly to a place or a space where there is a bright light that fills your soul with warmth and unbearable, pure love. This love is so intense, so unconditional that it will make you bawl your eyes out. This is the love of God. This is the peace of God. It is the kind of love that makes you complete with God all the “Bad” things that you’ve done in your physical life on Earth. In Christian words, the love compels you to confess every sin you’ve ever committed against God.

3) If you do not go directly to this space that is radiating intense, unconditional love and understanding, the place you will go is utterly dark or it may be filled with fire that burns but does not consume the body, smells awful and is a place of horrible suffering. It is a place that seems to be cut off from God...unless you call out to God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha or whatever the case may be.
3a. This place, which would clearly be called Hell in Christian lingo, has beings that are full of lies and corruption. Domination, manipulation and control is the rule. The goal is to use your past experiences with the help of other beings in this place to inflict greatest possible amount of suffering and humiliation forever. The beings will tell you that are cut off from God and that there is no escape. Just remember that they are liars and that God is always with you.
3b. If you find yourself in this place, reflect over the things you have done in your physical life on Earth. How did your actions impact other people on Earth? Did you harm other creatures on Earth? Did you harm your mother? Did you make your Dad wrong for something that happened? Did you hurt your sister? Did you hit someone in school? Did you kick a dog? Did you shoot a bird just to kill it? Kill salamanders? Did you call yourself “Stupid”, “Worthless”, “Fucker”? Did you curse God (i.e. did you say “God-damn-it”, “Jesus Christ”, “Jesus Fucking Christ”)? Are there people in your physical life that you hate, hold a grudge against or are somehow incomplete with them (i.e. love is not present when you think of them)? Did you deny God or ignore Guidance from Jesus or God?
3c. Call out to God. Call out to Jesus. Pray to God. Confess to God all the things you did that would not make God smile. You don’t need the Bible, a Koran, the Diamond Sutra to figure this out. You know what would not make God smile. Confess to God and ask for forgiveness. Forgive all the people who hurt you in life. Love your enemy as you would God. Love yourself as you would God. The beings in Hell will try to trick you into believing it is hopeless or they will scream and shriek when you say “God”, “Allah”, etc. Just keep going. Know that they have power over you only as long as you believe they have power over you. God will answer your prayers. Just let Jesus be your shepherd. Just do it. Let yourself be guided. Ignore what your mind has to say about that. You may not ascend immediately to heaven. He might give you a “timeout” in a space between Heaven and Hell or a “purgatory” to reflect on what you’ve done in your physical life. It is a dark space but a safe space.

4) Once you are in the presence of the most exquisite light and peace, you will go through some form of “Life Review”. Your whole life will flash before your eyes in the presence of God.

5) What happens after this, I do not know.

Prior to death:
1) Think of what thoughts, actions, and ways of being you can take on at this moment that would make God smile. Surrender yourself to God. Let God guide you.

2) Do it. Be it. Think it.

3) If you broke a pencil in anger, if you are being a jerk with your wife, if you are thinking about kicking the dog, confess it to God. Make it a practice before you go to bed to get complete with God. Ask for his forgiveness, truly feel the sorrow transmuting to joy. Ask for Guidance.

4) If you are near death and there are things that are still incomplete, clean them up now, if it is possible. If you have a brother that you have not been on speaking terms with for twenty years, contact them now. See him in the light of God’s infinite and unconditional love. Forgive him. Apologize to him. Tell him you love him. Tell him that God loves him. Say what there is to say. You will know when things are complete when you have brought forth the presence of love in him. And in yourself. If you don't know what to do, ask God for Guidance, then pay close attention to every moment. God works in strange and wonderful ways. I have experienced this myself many times now. It's subtle, but it is there. So far, it has not been like some dramatic voice commanding me to do something. It's been things like an itch on my left cheek that caused me to look back and see that Nicole's pasta was about to boil over. Or when I was oddly compelled to turn left into a parking lot and look in the back seat for my hat to find it missing. I then found it in the trash can at the police station where I was earlier in the day.

Does this whole life-after-death thing sound unbelievable? It did to me until I started watching testimony after testimony of dozens of people who have had near-death experiences (NDE). You keep hearing the same story over and over again. As long as I am still alive, why not ask God for forgiveness each night or whenever the need arises? If you feel uncomfortable doing it with others around, do it privately. When you feel comfortable, invite your wife or husband to join you. What could it hurt? It’s free and it actually feels good to do when done authentically. The more you put our heart and soul into it, the more Love, Peace and Joy you will experience. Think of it as a sneak preview. Love life. Love God. Love others as God loves them. See the world in a new light. See the world through the light of God’s love.

Here is the first prayer I’ve ever wrote down Wednesday October 8, 2008:

Dear God, who radiates pure love for eternity and whom I curse everyday without fail, may all my actions make you smile.

With some earthly guidance, I've changed it to this:

Dear God, who radiates pure love for eternity and whom I curse everyday
without fail, may I hear your voice and respond to your direction so that
all my actions make you smile.

This is more powerful for me.

If this leaves you with doubts, disbelief, cynicism and resignation, etc., please have a look at these videos on near-death experiences available online:

A six part BBC Documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I9-XxBAEsQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKv3rrFO0LU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjTgKPOkFuA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA37uNa3VGU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-sk2qW1tcc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9CDCZLRL9g


There are some near death experiencers from a christian perspective
who have shared their experiences. Here are a couple (I’m sure there are stories from people brought up in other cultures and faiths available online with some searching).

Here is one from a diver who was stung by multiple poisonous jellyfish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7i-e2lApL0

Here is a six part series from a plane crash survivor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hp-ZhXrFxs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrOu3mMbyfE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z93wvDFQlgA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7RkLZ-GH6w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL2_RnhNEMg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boXYOl-u7dc


There are many more available for free by searching video.google.com or youtube.com for things such as “near death experience”, “nde”, “heaven and hell nde”, etc.


All the fuss about the collapse of the financial institutions may just be mass hysteria. If it is not, however, start becoming good neighbors and learn how to grow food and capture rainwater for drinking. Plant food crops in every square inch of available soil. If possible, tear out asphalt parking lots and start planting food and compost crops. I think it would be fair to say that farming sustainably would make God smile. Farming unsustainably such that fertility is lost and topsoil washes away, etc, would NOT make God smile. If this collapse really does interfere with the delivery of food to the grocery shelves, it could be a hard winter. Try to provide food and water to your children as best as you can. But don’t resort to violence. That would not make God smile. Ask God for guidance and pay close attention to each moment. Be the servant to the Master; attentive, poised, ready for the moment the Master speaks. If things get really ugly, defend your children as best you can and know that if you should die of hunger or blunt trauma by other people, God’s undying eternal love is coming soon. And don’t forget to truly forgive the people who killed you. Truly see them. Put yourself in their heart and forgive them, pray for them, see them through the light of God’s infinite and unconditional love.


07/19/2007 Monsoon season is upon us! We got 0.57" of precip today! Several nice soaking "Mother Rains". Not too far from us, however, there was what appeared to be a cloudburst; a sharply defined vertical column of very heavy rain that fell near Three Peaks ABQ radar indicated that over 3" of rain fell in that one spot. Glad that wasn't us!


03/30/2007
There will be a hearing for the Special Use Permit for the Earthship Biotecture education center Tuesday, April 3 at 6:00pm at the Taos County Planning Commission Chambers.

Please join us to voice your opinion on the permit.

03/01/2007
Minutes of the, February 2007, Greater World Land Users Association board meeting were sent out in mid February. You can see the minutes in pdf format at:

http://greaterworld.org/OfficialDocs/BoardMinutes02_2007.pdf


12/31/2006
This was our second major snowstorm for the season with a total of 6.1 inches of new snow. Total snow on the ground was 7.5". Evidently, it has been very cold and the snow from the first storm really did not get a chance to melt into the cisterns. The cold outside and cold inside temperatures, due to lack of sun, led to a lot of fireplaces and woodstoves being fired up. This caused downdrafts in the chimneys of aquastar tankless water heaters in numerous homes. One resident even had their Aquastar 125BS freeze and burst sending water onto the floor.

Michael Reynolds at Earthship Biotecture and Zac Helmberger at Earthship Services are talking to HVAC professionals and scouring the Internet for possible solutions to this recurring issue at the subdivision.

The main problem is that fireplaces and woodstoves act like giant Hoover vacuums sucking air out of the homes and causing backdrafts in the other vent stacks. Since the Aquastar has the largest diameter vent pipe of any appliance, it backdrafts the majority of the air to feed the fireplace or woodstove. The permanent solution is to supply large amounts of outside air directly to the fireplaces and woodstoves via a pipe that has at least the same cross sectional area as the fireplace chimney pipe. Anything smaller than that and you start generating a negative pressure in the home and vents start backdrafting. Earthship Biotecture and Earthship Services are looking for other, and hopefully affordable, solutions since there is no "one size fits all" solution for every home.

12/19/2006
This was our first major snow out her at the subdivision. We got a total of 5.5 inches of snow from the storm. There was surprisingly little wind associated with the storm and, hopefully, most of the water made it into our cisterns!

To maximize water transfer to the cisterns, Zac Helmberger trampled down the snow on the roof and sprayed it down with water from the cistern (it takes water to make water). Hopefully this is a pretty low risk investment of precious water, assuming it melts and drains into the cistern within a few days.

09/17/2006
This morning was our first day of below freezing weather for fall of 2006. This makes the length of the 2006 "growing season" 128 days (last spring frost to first fall frost). Friday May 12 was the last day of spring frost.

08/01/2006
The month of July alone produced 3.99 inches of rain at Zac and Nicole's official CoCoRaHS rain gauge!! An amazing monsoon season so far. Look up nm-ts-1 on the www.cocorahs.org website for daily precipitation data from Zac and Nicoles' place. Wanna volunteer? Goto www.cocorahs.org and sign up and get an official NWS rain gauge!


07/01/2006
We had an amazing 1.10" of rain today! It did some serious erosion damages in places. But talk about badly needed moisture! If only the soil could absorb it and make plants grow.

06/07/2006

The GWLUA annual meeting was held at the Earthship Biotecture press office tonight. A quorum was not present and no official association business was conducted. The only thing that could be construed as association business was a call for nominations for a board of directors seat that will open up at next years annual meeting. Sally Margolin and Phil Basehart were nominated at this meeting. The meeting then became a forum for owners to voice their concerns about the structure of the association, covenant violations, proposed amendments, etc.

The meeting chair (aka the developer) did not lay down any rules or procedures at the beginning of the meeting and the usual chaos ensued with people interrupting each other, putting each other down, etc.

05/01/2006
We finally got some decent rain out here!! On Friday April 28, we got a whopping 0.55" of slow soaking rain! The total amount of rain for April 2006 was 0.99"!

Don't forget, the annual meeting for the Greater World Land Users Association is Wednesday, June 7 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

01/15/2006
At about 1 p.m., Ken and Carrie were hit by an unusually strong dust devil on their first day working at Janet Anderson's home. It was a clear, cool, and breezy day and Carrie was sanding rough sawn, 1x8x16' ceiling boards up on the driveway on the west side of Janet's earthship. Ken was busting basalt rocks on the east side of the house about 70 feet away from Carrie.

Out of the blue, zipping in from the west, a huge dust devil tore thrugh the site. About 10 of the 16 foot long boards peeled off the pile into the air and over Carrie's head! Two boards flew past Ken (70 feet away) and knocked down their transit. Miraculously, neither were hurt and none of Janet's windows or solar panels were damaged. The only visible damage was a buckled mullion cap, which took a hit from the butt end of a 16 foot, 1 by 8, board.

12/16/2005
A car went up in flames tonight at 21:30. There was nobody in the car and were no injuries as far as we know. The vehicle was a compact white 1992 Toyota (Echo?) w/NM plate GAJ 892. The car was about ten feet off Earthship Way north of the community well. Miraculously no brush fire was started even though the vehicle was spewing flames all over the place!

Sally Margolin was, apparently, the first to witness the fire and called the fire department. She said it took the about 15 minutes for them to arrive at the scene. This is a surprisingly fast response time given our remote location. The firemen quickly put out the fire and started hacking open the hood and trunk to douse concealed hot spots. The police arrived shortly afterwards and found the license plate and looked it up on their computer. All they said was that the car was not reported stolen, yet. At 22:30, the car was loaded onto a flatbed tow truck and hauled away, and that was that!

12/08/2005
A low temperture of 9 below zero Fahrenheit was sustained for about 4 hours early this morning. Several homeowners reported frozen pipes and/or frozen heat exchangers on their tankless water heaters.

To help prevent problems at your home, keep an eye on the tankless heater on especially cold nights. Put your hand under the heater and check for a cold downdraft. If the conditions are right, a wood-stove or fireplace can suck enough air out of the house to cause cold air to flow down into the heat exchanger of the tankless water heater and freeze it. Replacing these puppies costs about $700, not including possible flooding of the house if unattended.

If you have a recirculator for your hot water line, let that trickle overnight. This will help prevent freezing of the heat exchanger AND the hot water pipes. If you are a prospective earthshipper at the Greater World subdivision, please consider PEX (cross linked polyethylene) pipe for your water supply lines (they're almost impossible to burst from freezing).

If you do not have a recirculator for you hot water, find the faucet that is at the "end of the line" for your water supply system and set it to drip both hot and cold water overnight. This will keep the water moving to prevent freeze ups and possible damage.

12/04/2005
A meeting was held at Braden Trauth's earthship, Sunday 12/04/2005. The topic of the meeting was Food Security in the Greater World Community and West Rim. There were a number of Greater World members in attendance as well as a handful of people from the West Rim (near the Cattle guard on hwy 64).

Ethan, a GWLUA member, started off the meeting by saying the best place to start food production is on the other side of the land dam near the well. He also said that once you start doing it, others will naturally be drawn in and start growing some of their food too. Louise, a GWLUA member, said that fruit trees should be grown there because they are less work and can also help form a windbreak for annual crops. Zac, a GWLUA member, said that storing water from the summer monsoons for the springtime planting is essential for seed germination and rapid springtime growth.

There are two places right by the community well that catch significant amounts of runoff. The first is the semicircular annular ring shaped excavation immediately around the well that is capable of holding 110,000 gallons of water. The "land dam" formed by the construction of Earthship Way caught about two million gallons of water in the summer of 2004. This water came from a very intense rain a couple miles to the north of us and flowed down through the canyon/arroyo and into the land dam. I've never heard so many frogs screaming that night! But, again, two million gallons of water does not help out much when there are only two months left in the growing season. Long term storage of at least 100,000 gallons is essential for getting crops off to a good early start.

Many people mentioned the well as a resource. The only problem is it can only pump 1 gpm and there are no batteries on the solar system (i.e. you only get about six hours of pumping time per day or 360 gallons per day). Zac mentioned a possible way of cheaply storing a lot of water and creating a cold space to preserve the harvest...ice! You can pump water from the well during the off season and make ice. Build a cheap insulated ice shed and you have water for the crops and cold storage for produce storage. It sounds crazy but it might help.

But to be realistic a very large covered cistern must be made and filled up with captured runoff via siphons and water pumps. Since it was clear that organic matter is desperately needed to increase water storage capacity of the soil, there was a conversation for resources towards the end of the meeting.

As for desperately needed organic matter, Kit Carson Park, apparently, has mountains of leaves that are free for the taking. As of 12/04/2005, at least, the landfill had mulch that was free for the taking. Nearby ranches have manure available free for the taking and there are free 55 gallon drums for water storage available in Santa Fe. Go to the south side of I-25 on Cerillos and look for the Dinosaurs. Olguins Lumber was also mentioned as a great source for wood peelings, sawdust, and other forms of waste wood.

08/16/2005
At 17:45 an intense rain fell for about all of fifteen minutes at the subdivision. It was so intense that the excavation around the water tank filled to the point of overflowing! This excavation holds approximately 110,000 gallons of water. This is enough water to grow a complete diet for almost three people, according to calculations based on John Jeavons' "Grow Biointensive" method.

As of 12/16/05, there have been ten rainfalls intense enough to cause significant runoff for floodwater harvesting agriculture.

6/4/05
The 3rd annual 5 km fun run hosted by Becca and James was a success!

Participants included:
Zac and Nicole,
Sally and Diane,
Margaret,
Ken and Carrie,
Becca and James,
Tom and tag-along Josiah

First place for runners is the undefeated Ken Quinn with a time of 24:??. Second place is Carrie Thompson with a time of 24:??. Last place was Zac Helmberger with a time of 35:34 (first time running anything remotely resembling a mile, much less three miles, at 7,000 feet altitude)!

First place for the walkers was Tom and his son Josiah.


4/23/2005

Members of the GWLUA planted 56 trees in the Lemuria gravel pit on the north end of the subdivision. Participating members are:

Zac and Nicole
Ken and Carrie
Dave and Margaret
Dave Lickley and his son Joey
Becca and James
Braden
Tom and Amy and Josiah

Species included:

Narrow Leaf Cottonwood,
Skunkbush Sumac,
Serviceberry,
N.M. Locust,
N.M. Privet,
American Wild Plum


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