I’ve always thought it strange that one would write a book about urban exploration. There doesn’t seem to be a need for it. What more is there to say than ‘don’t be stupid’ and ‘don’t get caught’? But Ninjalicious pulled it off with Access All Areas: A User’s Guide to the Art of Urban Exploration. While the high points of the book are the author’s stories of explorations, he offers an amount of good advice and even managed to expand my definition of the Art. It’s also a superior piece on social engineering to Mitnick’s The Art of Deception.
It’s by no means a must-read, but if you are interested in UE, I think it’s worth a skim in the bookstore.
The Scabbed Wings of Abaddon is Sean Kennedy’s second published book. Like The Bloodstained Rabbit the book is a work in occult-horror, but this one is much more mature, both in its concepts and execution.
The editing could still use work – misused punctuation and similar looking but incorrect words are all to be found, though, unlike Bloodstained, not often enough to detract from the overall work.
A recommended read for fans of Sean, the occult, and/or horror.
In it, NATO and the Russians, fighting World War 3, have agreed to limit their warfare to only small-scale, tactical nukes – painfully drawing out the death of the planet (and FirStep, the space colony). Behind the scenes is the Second Alliance, a sort of combination of PNAC, Blackwater, and Jesus Camp. Worldtalk, a stand in for Newscorp, has developed a device allowing them to scan and selectively remove memory of their subjects. The New Resistance, a collection of fighters, refugees, philosophers (and a musician) headed by an ex-Mossad agent (with questionable funding and support), is the only hope against the neo-fascist-corpolitical takeover.
An excellent book, it is perhaps the most disturbing look at our corporate-dominated future. Shirley truly puts the punk in cyberpunk.
Kamana One introduces the student to the ideas and style of teachings that will form the base for the rest of the program. It’s divided into two sections. The first, the “Nature Awareness Trail” devotes itself to the psychological aspects of the modern primitive. It deals with awareness; directions, surroundings, details. I was surprised at the remarkable similarities between it and vipassana.
The second part, the “Resource Trail” deals with the other half of naturalist training. Mammal and plant identification, bird language, and field guides are just a few of the topics covered. This part is often referred to as “the field guide for field guides” because of it’s ability to decrypt the otherwise esoteric manuals.
In addition to the text book, Kamana One includes Jon Young’s Seeing Through Native Eyes audio set. This is definitely the best part of the course. It’s best described as all of Jon Young’s vast knowledge squeezed down and compressed into 8 CDs, covering both psychological and physical aspects.
In the end, I don’t feel that the program (with the exception of the audio portion) gave me much new. The ideas presented in the “Nature Awareness Trail” I had already developed through my own readings and practice. The ideas in “Resource Trail”, too, I had already discovered through my own study, including the Learning Herbs kit. The course is better suited for one who is new to all of this. Someone who perhaps has an interest in the outdoors, in survival, but is looking to take that interest a step forward.
Nelson Zink‘s The Structure of Delight is a book of stories within stories. A sort of manual for reprogramming you mind, it’s the book that Daniel Quinn would write if Quinn had been a student of Freud.
Through the interwoven stories, Zink challenges perception and meaning, expounding that all is rooted in the mind, shifting the reader’s experience of reality.
Have you ever wanted to know the plants that grow all around you?
Would you like to learn how wild plants, even in cities, can both feed you and take care of your health?
This informative and hands on weekend experience introduces participants to the most common and useful plants of our area through direct experiences of touching, eating, cooking, and making meals and medicines.
The nature of this weekend offers a new relationship with plants--whether found in urban yards or vast wilderness--that intimately connects us to their lives while enhancing the nourishment, nutrition, and health of our own.
Skills include:
Plant identification to confidence and safety
Herbal oils and salves for most minor first aid situations
Tincture making with wild plants for cold & flus
Herbal teas and infusions
Herbal nourishment for better daily health
Mineral vinegars: the ULTIMATE "vitamin"
Making a wild foods meal that is nutritious AND delicious
Poisonous plant identification
Herbal first aid so you can treat yourself naturally
AND lots of other fun herbal surprises
We will weave all these skills into a way for you to bring wild herbs into your life to enhance your health.
What is seen by many as an overwhelming subject will be presented in a simple way, so you can easily access herbal wisdom on your own. There will be a good balance between class time and herbal activities.
Students will go home with herbal remedies for their home first aid kits.
Students will also go home with a free copy of Wild Foods for Every Table, an amazing 100 page wild foods books with delicious recipes such as sorrel soup, creamy nettle soup and spiced wildberry jelly.
Thomas Cleary’s The Essential Koran is a sort of summarized version of the Islamic text. It consists of passages selected for the opening of Islam to the modern Western mind.
I was surprised at the lack of myth in the book. It seemed to be filled with “God is this, God is that, disbelievers are poopy.” Names were dropped (Moses, Jesus, etc) and the Garden of Eden* was given a full page, but there were no real stories – the most important aspect of any religion or believe system. I’m forced to think that this is a result of the summation, that the actual Qur’an contains more myth.
I found many disagreements in the text, though none that I think are specific of Islam. Rather, all large, organized religions seem to fall to this.
Despite the beauty of the words, it describes a life of fear. Fear of some god, some master hanging over you. Even those who claim to love and find joy in their god must consider with every action what their judge will think of them. There is no harmony in this – these tiered systems, that find a distinction between heaven and earth.
They do not comprehend anything...except as God wills.
What’s this? Are humans not sentient? You are your own being. You are god. You know as well as any what lays before you and what lays behind you.
And what is the life of the world but the stuff of deception?
How can one live so removed? How can one deny the joys and beauties and truth of life?
There is much good in Islam – kindness, benevolence, tolerance – but it is still a structure of (dank) submission. A belief that separates its followers from the Earth.
A note on the Garden of Eden story: this version has the fruit enlightening Adam and Eve to their bodies. It is said “and when they tasted of the tree, their shame was exposed to them; and they began to sew together leaves from the garden to cover themselves.”. Our bodies are now something to be shameful of? So much for humans shaped in the image of their God, and all that.