My Sneaky Grandfather (the Fate of Los Angeles)
This story starts with a book I just finished "Eat, Pray, Love." Wonderful book, highly recommended if you'd like to get away from the gloomy fare many of us read for 'fun.' In it, a woman takes a year off to chase her passions, learn how to pray, and finally find those parts of herself she was missing. Truly a delightful read.
Early on in the book, a friend of hers in Italy claims that all cities have a 'word' that they are associated with; if you are in tune with that word, you fit into that city. If not, then you will spend your life feeling at odds with it.
With that in mind, we had a small discussion around the house about what Los Angeles' word would be: "success", "achieve", "Magic" were all thrown around. Looking harder at the city, I got this strange sensation there was something more to it. Then it hit me...
And now we rewind back a moment. :) So, several hundred years ago, Europeans come to town like a bad weed, bringing in disease, oppression and that one-way-of-thinking we all have come to know and loathe.
While it is some people's contention that the greater forces of the universe (who, assumably have a more interesting viewpoint on what the future holds than we do) will let things be as they must be, I maintain that there are forces who will strike back, though their timescale for hitting hard is a little different from ours.
Put another way, I can't picture Coyote -- Tukupar Itar, my grandfather and the local watcher over humans -- sitting on the sidelines when people f**k his sh*t up.
As nasty as this may be, I believe my grandfather is cajoling the city into committing suicide. Think about it -- the layout of Los Angeles is insane. It only works if you've got a car and you've got huge amounts of water pouring in. There's always the promise of instant glory, instant fame, instant money. So many people come here to find their dreams.
And there's that voice saying "yes, it's all here. All your dreams. And you can have it too... if you lose a couple of extra pounds, work a little harder, get that plastic surgery, go to the 'right parties', meet the right people you worthless piece of sh*t what makes you think you're going to get ahead in this town? What, with all the failed little hopes, you think you'll make it? You think you've got what it takes? You're just another failed waiter, concierge, check-out cashier, janitor, washout. This city is too tough for you. You're weak. You're useless. But maybe you've got a little something. Something that can get you noticed. Because, you know, it's all here. All your dreams. And you can have it too..."
It's Mother Culture on steroids, only I don't think it's entirely her. After talking to the Tongva, I learned that some of the Angeleno attitudes about sex, about diversity, about pride in your sense of place, these are old ways ingrained in the land. And yet, they've become so twisted / hyped up here.
If this place bottoms up quickly, it might minimize the damage overall -- or at least start the healing process sooner than some 'saner' cities who can green themselves well enough to last into the next century. It's a risky plan but hells, what isn't risky when coming up against civilization.
Gives me a headache to be stuck in the middle of that message though. Yeesh.
Well, that's my thoughts, crazy or otherwise. 
I leave this blog with a question. If what I'm thinking is accurate (perhaps even just mildly so), what, do you think, are the spirits doing for your territory? How are they protecting it? How are they dealing with the invasion of the grass-eaters and what will succeed from there?
Best
Bill Maxwell
A return to Jurassic Park?
Submitted by Esau on Tue, 2007-11-27 18:14.
A return to Jurassic Park? Awesome!!! 
Honestly, my feelings on all this are "yes, we really need to stop polluting like we've been doing" but, really, evolve or die. If a species can't cope with changes in environment (I know--changes which we've exacerbated extremely), then tough shit (same for humans as well as any other species). It's not called Survival of the Fittest for nothing.
Dinosaurs and Dimensions
Here is post by Ran Prieur that I think is somewhat related. Interesting stuff.
January 22. Return of the Dinosaurs. According to this article about ancient global warming, when volcanoes did what humans are now doing, and put a lot of carbon and methane into the atmosphere, oxygen levels dropped, temperatures rose, and dinosaurs might have appeared as an adaptation, thriving in that low-oxygen high-carbon greenhouse environment.
Now my own wild speculation: The deeper cause of dinosaur extinction was not some cosmic impact or volcano. They were already weakened, because through their whole age, atmospheric carbon was getting stored deep in the Earth, and oxygen levels were rising, favoring other species and dino-killing diseases.
But now, we are burning oil and putting that stored carbon back into the air! We are re-creating the ecological niche of dinosaurs. And I've seen the idea in indigenous traditions, in investigations of the "paranormal," and in Sheldrake's morphic fields hypothesis: that extinction is not exactly permanent -- that extinct critters can survive on some other level that we don't understand, making enigmatic appearances, just waiting for conditions to change so they can come back in full physical form.
So we could be circling around to a new age of the dinosaurs, 200 million years of hot, low-oxygen jungles as the carbon slowly goes back into the ground. And if the energy matrix of dinosaurs is hanging out somewhere, suppose it has intention and the power to influence the energy forms underlying this world. Suppose the consciousness of dinosaurs has created and steered human civilization to restore the conditions they can live in. David Icke could be literally right: Unimaginably ancient reptilians are controlling human society from another dimension. Except they're not aliens. This is their home more than ours.
January 22. Return of the Dinosaurs. According to this article about ancient global warming, when volcanoes did what humans are now doing, and put a lot of carbon and methane into the atmosphere, oxygen levels dropped, temperatures rose, and dinosaurs might have appeared as an adaptation, thriving in that low-oxygen high-carbon greenhouse environment.
Now my own wild speculation: The deeper cause of dinosaur extinction was not some cosmic impact or volcano. They were already weakened, because through their whole age, atmospheric carbon was getting stored deep in the Earth, and oxygen levels were rising, favoring other species and dino-killing diseases.
But now, we are burning oil and putting that stored carbon back into the air! We are re-creating the ecological niche of dinosaurs. And I've seen the idea in indigenous traditions, in investigations of the "paranormal," and in Sheldrake's morphic fields hypothesis: that extinction is not exactly permanent -- that extinct critters can survive on some other level that we don't understand, making enigmatic appearances, just waiting for conditions to change so they can come back in full physical form.
So we could be circling around to a new age of the dinosaurs, 200 million years of hot, low-oxygen jungles as the carbon slowly goes back into the ground. And if the energy matrix of dinosaurs is hanging out somewhere, suppose it has intention and the power to influence the energy forms underlying this world. Suppose the consciousness of dinosaurs has created and steered human civilization to restore the conditions they can live in. David Icke could be literally right: Unimaginably ancient reptilians are controlling human society from another dimension. Except they're not aliens. This is their home more than ours.