What We Know

                                                                                  written 23 November, 2025

                                                                              published 30 November, 2025

 

            At a Science and Non-Duality conference, a UC Berkeley professor of mathematics once said, "There are two things we can know for sure: I am, and something is happening.  Everything else is just a story we tell ourselves."  

            The two things are direct personal experiences.  By our belief, we make the stories we tell ourselves into a potent reality that shapes our experiences.  But the infinite nature of the universe, and the finite limitation of any story, means all stories are either wrong or incomplete.

         Mark Twain said, "It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so."

            Dr. Gabor Maté, who works with trauma survivors, defines a trauma as something bad happening to you, or something you need, not happen to you.  He figures as many as 90 percent of the population has suffered trauma.  What keeps people stuck in dysfunctional behavior is the story they told themselves at the time, imperfectly trying to understand their situation, which is still active after the actual event is long gone.  His successes involve helping people rewrite their internal story.

            Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist who suffered a massive aneurism in her left brain, the primary seat of the ego, describes the event in her book "My Stroke Of Insight".  She experienced losing all her personal history and capacity for sequence or language, but became aware of a profound peace and connection to everything everywhere.  She got medical attention in time, and over her eight years of recovery, she was able to examine the stories that had once controlled her life, editing out most of those that no longer served her.  

            We are all a collection of stories, some laid down even before birth.  Our native language sets patterns of perception below our level of consciousness.  Our family dynamics, our culture, our religious orientation, all tell stories that draw lines, make definitions, and shape our experience of what is going on.  Across the globe, one of the most fundamental stories is the illusion of separation, which often expresses as greed, hatred, and violence.  

            Religious organizations, even those founded by prophets preaching unity and love, eventually accumulate material wealth, and to preserve it, often shift to promoting separation and domination.  Hundreds of millions have died, and many more impoverished, because religious groups claim to have the exclusive truth, ordained by God, thereby justifying slaughter and oppression of the other.

            Men feel entitlement over women, a story of misogyny thousands of years old, even embedded into religious dogma, disempowering half the population, and traumatizing children for hundreds of generations.  Superficial skin color is the root of racist entitlement stories, because anyone different is considered suspicious.

            Our economy proclaims the rich are entitled over the poor, insuring wide spread misery, anger, and rebellion, making enduring peace just a dream.  To sell products, businesses tell lies in the form of advertising.  To protect profits, businesses tell lies to cover corruption and defects.  

            A person locked into the story of separation works only for their own gain and has few, if any, true friends.  Our current president typifies this, and our county, and even the planet, suffers as a result.  But we all manifest some of this same separation story, because this is how we have been raised to a great extent.  We know we can do better.  

            We can begin by examining the stories we have accumulated over time.  Some near the surface may be easily examined, and changed.  Deeper stories are like the water we swim in, and not easily noticed.  However, if we pay attention in life, reality reflects our stories back to us as we encounter the world, for life is like a mirror.  We get back what we put out, both from our conscious and unconscious being.  

            At the least, we can apply critical thinking, and begin examining stories as they are presented to us, rather than just embracing them whole.  This is good advice for dealing with Internet scams, and it applies to life in general.  Does this story actually help me, or improve my experience of life?  Does this story align with other information I have come to trust?  Does this make me feel better, or more at peace in this moment? 

            We are expressions of an infinite world, and are much more than we have been led to believe.

 

 

 

 

Learning From History

                                                                                  written 16 November, 2025

                                                                              published 23 November, 2025

 

            Black swan events have low probability, but very high impact.  Because the frequency, magnitude, and duration of these events are uncertain, it is difficult to plan for resilience, or calculate the cost.  However, we can get some information from history.

            The Cascadia subduction zone stretches from Ferndale, CA, north into British Columbia, Canada.  This is an area of geophysical plate motion where part of the oceanic crust is being forced under the lighter weight continental mass of North America.  Subduction zones, due to the physics and scale of the masses involved, produce the largest earthquakes on the planet. 

            The entire Cascadia fault last ruptured 324 years ago, estimated as a magnitude 9.2 event based on Japanese tsunami records.  Geophysical investigation has found that over the last 10,000 years, the entire length has ruptured 20 times, with intervals ranging from 110 to 1,150 years.  The southern portion has ruptured twice as often, with intervals ranging from 40 to 720 years.  We have now gone longer than 93 percent of the known times between earthquakes in the last 6,000 years.

            Large earthquakes make the planet ring like a bell for several days.  Seismologists report a Cascadia event could trigger motion on the San Andreas fault.  The northern portion under San Francisco hasn't moved since 1906, and the southern portion under Los Angeles hasn't moved since 1857, both were magnitude 7.9 events.  A Cascadia/San Andreas combined disaster could affect the entire west coast of the United States, costing hundreds of billions, requiring years to recover.

            Beginning in the December, 1861, two strong atmospheric rivers hit both northern and southern California dumping 10 feet of rain over 4 weeks.  The central valley was flooded 20 feet deep, which didn't clear out for 6 months.  164 years ago, the area was relatively unpopulated.  Such an event today could cost a trillion dollars, displace millions for the duration, and take untold time to recover.  These inundations have occurred before, with intervals ranging from 51 to 426 year, some greater than the 1861 flood.  On a warming planet, storms carry increasing water content, making inundation events more frequent and extreme. 

            In September, 1859, the Earth was hit by a strong solar flare: an electromagnetic storm known as the Carrington Event.  When a magnetic field passes through a loop of wire, an electric current is induced in the wire.  This is why electric motors and generators work.  166 years ago, telegraph systems were just being installed, creating loops of wire many miles long.  The solar flare induced such large currents in these loops, that sparks flew from the telegraph keys, and the system was able function without any batteries.

            Since then, the national electric grid has been constructed, with many more miles of wire forming loops.  If such a flare was to hit the Earth today, the induced currents could blow out the large transformers that are essential to the operation of the grid.  A modest geomagnetic storm knocked out power across a wide area of Quebec in 1989.  There are about 55,000 transformers in the US grid, and destroying as few as 9 critical ones could black out power across the country.  These transformers are all custom built for their specific location, and delivery time is measured in years. 

            Society today has the expectation of constant electricity, but is dependent on an electrical grid which is ageing, fragile, and occasionally stressed carrying even the normal load, in a world that can change very quickly.  Systems that worked before electricity no longer exist, or are unable to carry a civilization of so many people.  If electricity went away completely, 90 percent of the population would die. 

            Any of these three natural disasters, without even considering hostile human activity, could disrupt our electrical supply for an unknown duration.  These natural events have already happened, and we know they will happen again.

            While atmospheric river and space weather forecasting can give a few days warnings of flooding and solar flares, earthquakes are essentially unpredictable.  We could have a quake before you finish reading this article, or not for another century.  In the face of this reality, it is prudent to prepare for what is possible, even if we can only lessen the magnitude of the impact.  The technology for local power resilience not only exists, but is the cheapest power to install.  

            Do we have the will to act while we still can?

 

 

Blessing The Rain

                                                                                    written 9 November, 2025

                                                                              published 16 November, 2025

            My entire life, I have been a left brained, plan-acholic, living primarily in the world of concept.  I have been educated in science and trained as a mechanical engineer, with a rewarding career.  But I am also driven by curiosity about the world.  Over time, I became aware of the limitations within the western scientific paradigm, specifically, the consideration of consciousness.

            I define consciousness as the combination of awareness and volition: input and output.

            Western science had to dig out from under the lethal dogma of the Church.  In order to thrive, science limited itself to just objective reality.  This perspective of the physical world eventually prevailed, but abandoned serious consideration of subjective reality.  Consciousness, if considered at all, was described as nothing more than a consequence of material complexity, a view still widely held in western biology today.

            A little over a century ago, two revolutions in western thinking shook the world: psychology and quantum mechanics.  Psychology recognizes that what we think affects our experience of life, and that our waking, self-conscious, mind is but a small part of a larger constellation, containing individual and collective subconsciousness, and an overriding super consciousness.  Quantum mechanics recognizes material reality is both a particle and a wave, arising from a vast unity of energy.  We experience particles or waves depending on how we choose to examine the world.  Consciously observing physical reality changes it, challenging the assumption that consciousness arises from matter.  

            Eastern science understands consciousness transcends material reality.  I suspect this is because eastern religious thinking is more inclusive, accepting there may be many understandings of the divine.  This is not to say there are no eastern fundamentalist fanatics, but there is more institutional tolerance than in the west.

            Our experience of material reality can be described by four dimensions, three of space and one of time, but modern physical theories consider 10 or more dimensions, most of them beyond our direct experience.  Chaos theories of disordered physical systems postulates stable patterns in higher dimensional fields.  There is more to the world than just our waking experience.

            Each level of dimension has a new quality associated with it, not available to lower dimensions.  A line (one dimension) has extension, while a plane (two dimensions) also has area.  Volume has density, and time adds endurance.  We can consider consciousness the quality of a higher dimensional form, which transcends and includes all the lower dimension forms we experience as matter.  Thus, material reality resides within consciousness.  

            Remember, what is normally considered consciousness is really only the small self-conscious part of the larger quality of consciousness.  Whomever we think we are, that is actually only a part of something much larger.

            But this is all just words: logic chopping.  Is there any objective proof of any of this?  

            In 2004, Masaru Emoto wrote the "The Hidden Messages In Water", which chronicled his efforts to demonstrate that proof.  As described in Wikipedia, "his water crystal experiments consisted of exposing water in glasses to various words, pictures, or music, then freezing it and examining the ice crystals' aesthetic properties with microscopic photography".  The resulting pictures showed water exposed to positive thoughts and words formed elaborate, symmetrical crystals, while water exposed to negative thoughts and words formed asymmetrical, relatively simple crystals.  He found the two most positive words were Love and Gratitude, qualities that show up in all spiritual traditions.

            Of course, mainstream science has dismissed this work as pseudoscientific and eccentric, the same dogmatic rejection early scientists received from the Church, but without the lethal consequences, which shows some form of progress.

             I have chosen to embrace Emoto's work, and live my life as an experiment.  I am grateful to live where it still rains each season.  I feel drawn to experience the rain as often as I can, especially after the long dry summer.  This last week, during our first strong rainfall, I sat on our covered deck, thanking the rain with each inbreath, and blessing it with each outbreath.  I could hear the rain pounding and experience the energy of the storm.  I imagine this blessed rain flowing into the groundwater, and on downstream, enhancing everything it touched, and could feel my connection with all life.

            Does it matter?  Who knows.  Objective proof is impossible.  But I feel better, perhaps helping heal the planet, if just a tiny bit.  Imagine if we all did this?

 

 

            

Crispin B. Hollinshead lives in Ukiah.  This and previous articles can be found at cbhollinshead.blogspot.com. 

 

Antifa

                                                                                    written 2 November, 2025

                                                                                published 9 November, 2025

  

            My father was antifa (anti-fascist) years before my birth.  He was one of 50 million Americans trained and armed to fight against the previous malignant narcissistic authoritarian, who was then stomping around the globe.  They were victorious.  While my father survived the war and procreated our family, he died from consequences of his fight 10 years later, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.  He would be sad to see authoritarianism now waving the American flag.   

            But capitalism and fascism share the same illusion of exclusive gain and control.  Hitler rose to power in 1933, and many US companies profited doing business with him, ignoring the morality of his social activities.  Even after Pearl Harbor, a few still did business in Germany.  

            Exclusive gain is an illusion because the world is fundamentally whole.  It is significant that every spiritual tradition on the planet has some form of the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have done unto you.  This is not about morality, but describes the appropriate actions to take in a unity reality.  

            The quantum mechanics of western science has come to the same conclusion, understanding material reality is not just particles, but has a wave form manifesting from energetic unity.  This is validated by technologies like nuclear weapons, computers, and solar panels.  

            Since everything is constantly arising from the same energy field, how I treat the so-called other, affects me as well.  The pursuit of exclusive gain requires ignoring that fundamental unity.  The resulting adverse impact eventually corrodes the entire society. 

            In our country, the stock market reaches new heights each week, but most of the value accrues to the few at the very top.  Meanwhile, more people are out of work or underpaid, food and energy prices are rising, and health care is becoming unaffordable, if it even exists.  When essentials become more expensive, all other consumption decreases, and the economy becomes unstable.  This is further driven by the changing global energy and climate realities.

            At the individual level, the illusion of exclusivity is the foundation of our ego.  The stronger the ego, the more detached we become, disconnecting from others, our community, and the natural world we depend upon.  This has been a human challenge for thousands of years, having the inertia of a life time of programming from families, cultures, and religions.  

            We can see a cautionary example at the very top of the federal government, a man driven so exclusively by his ego, moment to moment, that he has no constancy, no enduring commitment to an ideal or any other person or group, taking credit for everything, but responsibility for nothing.  The destructive consequences are already apparent, and are growing worse with time.

            Hitler died when he was 56, still physically and mentally in his prime.  But he was so identified with his ego, that he believed his personal defeat should be reflected in the whole country.  Shortly before he killed himself, he ordered his generals to destroy all the remaining civil infrastructure, essentially killing what was left of Germany.  His generals, motivated by compassion for the future of their people, disobeyed.

            Our leader is older, nowhere near good physical or mental health.  In his deterioration, rather than accepting his failure, he might also decide to destroy the country.  Unfortunately, technology has advanced, and he has unimaginable destructive power at his disposal.  Perhaps our military leaders will have enough compassion to avoid this fate.

            Despite our efforts and desires, we can't insure a positive outcome on the national scale.  But in unity, we are each a reflection of our leader, affected by our personal ego.  Although this disconnects us from the larger reality, each individual has the power to choose how to respond in every moment.  For however much time we might have left, we can choose to follow a different path.  By choosing to intentionally practice kindness, compassion, and respect, we cultivate a conscious connection to not only other people, but to all living beings, even the inanimate physical world.  

            Despite the apparent chaos we see today, there is an evolution of human consciousness already in process, as people increasingly experience the wholeness of reality.  As more people know this, experience this, and align their lives to practice this, the world changes.  It may be easier for some than others, but we can all do this.  Without such a cultural change, nothing else really matters.

Valuing Power Resilience

                                                                                      written 26 October, 2025

                                                                                published 2 November, 2025

    

            When day to day life seems to be working, it is tempting to assume it will always be like this, with no need to make any significant changes.  But this is a false assumption.  Change may be the only constant.  But preparing for change takes effort and expense.  Furthermore, the frequency and magnitude of an event we are preparing for are essentially unknowable.  At best we have probabilities, and emerging trends.

            Yet we have examples where society has changed behavior toward preparedness.  Every car now has seatbelts, and laws require their usage.  In earthquake areas, building codes demand more expensive construction methods to survive the expected shaking.  Fire resilient construction methods were the beginning of the building codes. 

            However, these all resulted from repeated experience of how expensive car crashes, earthquakes, and fires are for the individuals and the community at large.  Preparing is more difficult when the event we imagine hasn't happened yet, especially when the preparations are expensive.  In risk/reward terminology, Black Swan events are very low probability with very significant consequences.  It is easy to dismiss these, since they seem not very likely, but when they happen, the entire system can be destroyed.

            For example, nobody thought the housing market could collapse, so the financial world was unprepared when trillions of dollars were lost in 2007.  Only a few saw it coming, though in retrospect it was obvious, given the fundamentals of highly levered funds, poor loan quality control, combined with financial herd mentality thinking.  The challenge is to see what might be coming before the fact, and taking steps to change the situation, or at least minimize the impact.

            So far, Ukiah has never had a prolonged electrical power blackout.  The 2019 PSPS event lasted only four days.  Based on history, why should we worry about power resilience?  But in a rapidly changing world, history is an inadequate guide.

            People are becoming aware the transmission grid is antiquated and operating close to capacity, but grid system changes are expensive and slow.  Climate related events are increasing, adding stress to the system, but the federal stance violently denies reality, leaving us unprepared.  The AI building frenzy is creating huge pressures for increased power demand and delivery from a system already at the brink.  In the face of these growing trends, the likelihood of grid failure is increasing.

            Since electricity is essential to everyday life, when is goes away everything is disrupted for the duration.  Studies of electrical power resilience estimate 10 percent of our normal power consumption is designated critical, without which people die.  Another 15 percent is designated priority, supporting core community economic functions.  In Ukiah this level of basic power resilience requires 75 megawatt hours per day.

            Almost none of the power used in Ukiah is produced locally.  Fewer than 3 percent of the homes have roof top solar, and fewer still have any battery storage.  The dam at Lake Mendocino has two generators, but they aren't able to stand on their own without a grid signal for stability, even if there is water flow available.  Many individuals and businesses, as well as some essential community functions such as the sewer and water plants, have emergency generators.  These are all fossil fueled, with finite capacity which must be replenished if the blackout lasts more than a few weeks.  Combined, they represent only a fraction of the power needed for complete community power resilience.

            Building local power production and storage is possible, but will take investment and the will to make it happen.  The good news is hardware prices continue to drop, even with the current tariff insanity, and the cost is on the same order as the $60M purple pipe sewer project Ukiah recently completed.  Furthermore, the electricity produced is fixed cost, without inflation for the next 25 years, an increasingly attractive economic value.  

            Investor-owned power systems are dominated by short term profit above all else.  In contrast, our municipal system is primarily focused on service, providing reliable, affordable power to everyone.  The point of power resilience is the heart quality of keeping people alive and keeping our community economically functioning, essential values that are difficult to quantify.  Combining these subjective values with the beneficial hardware cost perspective makes power resilience economically and socially sensible, and therefore more likely to happen.

            No other community in the county has this opportunity.  Let's work to keep the lights on!