CAMPING TRIP

I finally got out of town and went camping this past week, even if it was for just one day. I hastily put in for my vacation week at work early in the month because I was near to Burn Out, and needed to get away. The money situation made for a poor man's vacation spent at home doing things, and nothing around the house, at least one day needed to be away so Adrian and I packed up my tent and drove up to the mountains. It was a much needed escape, yet a melancholy overshadowed the trip as my mind never stops ticking and thoughts of how 'civilization' is destroying the world was the fly in my soup so to speak.
I have spoken before about how I wish to disconnect from the madness and what I now will call the EMPIRE, stealing a term I find very apt in describing our cultural spiral of ruin that is covering the Earth. In modern society it is virtually impossible to escape to a place where the EMPIRE is NOT.
I found it disheartening and at the same time it bolstered my urge to find a way to do a total disconnect.

THE FINAL EMPIRE: THE COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION AND THE SEED OF THE FUTURE
by WM. H. KÖTKE
This book is something I wish everyone would take a look at, as it outlines the fall of civilization in a way that actually offers hope if it can be believed for this End of the World like situation we have gotten ourselves into here in the 21st century.

I don't need to remind any of you reading this that we humans, as a species, are at a crossroads that is offering us either a road to oblivion or a road to Hope. I prefer the road of Hope, as hopeless as it may seem.

When I was at the campsite we had picked out for ourselves I realized that even I, who strives to be connected to the Natural world, am so disconnected that it hurt. My sense of separation from the world of nature was immense that night and I felt the disconnection that kept me from being connected to the 'real' world as an Entity itself. It was the EMPIRE, creeping into the woods with me as trash on the dirt floor of Mother Earth. It was everywhere even in this pristine place, plastic, diapers, cola cans,toilet paper with the shit humans had excreted over the beauty of this sacred spot. I had pick this spot because of how it had made me feel throughout the years, for me it is the most beautiful place on the planet. Pisgah National Forest.
It was were I had come over the years to refresh my sense of being by enveloping myself in a natural setting. It had always worked before, yet this time there was a sense of the frailty of nature, how it all could be gone in just a few years, and this could be the last time I experienced the 'wild' side of nature.
We got to hear a mountain cat that night, I am not sure if it was a Bobcat or panther, it scared Adrian a bit, but I was saddened by its pitiful yowling as it crept down the mountain possibly looking for its mate.
We drove up to Looking Glass Falls the next day, (pictured above) and again humans looked so out of place next to this waterfall. We drove up above it and stopped for a picnic to find the roadside trashed with litter and Adrian didn't know what to think when I made him help me clean up the area. We picked up all the trash except for the stinky diaper someone's kid had filled with shit and left by the creek. I had unknowingly taken Adrians picture next to their makeshift toilet before we found the evidence of their disrespect.
Needless to say, my camping experience was nice, getting away and all, but the deep sadness filled me up as I could never had imagined. Disconnecting was harder than I had ever experienced before, so my mind raced and wondered, "Is there anything one can really do, or is it too late?"

I have come to the conclusion that is laid out in the book I mentioned above, and that is that only by creating alternative pockets of humanity that wish to be INSIDE the realm of the Natural world, as opposed to being CONSUMERS of the Natural World that allows for HOPE.
Again that was the purpose of Citizens of Planet Earth Academy, to create such an alternative.
Being that we live within the EMPIRE, we are hard pressed to really escape the madness without totally creating an alternative. The Empire cannot be saved from within, I am afraid, it is too late, the only hope is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY OF BEING HUMAN IN THE 21st CENTURY.
Any takers on disconnecting and recreating a New World?