Friday, March 4, 2011

A Man for all Seasons.

A man for all seasons is a man who follows the path that he knows is the right path, he is a man of integrity and character, and usually gives mankind more that he takes. He does what a good friend of mine says about helping your fellow man, in any way you can. He calls it “paying your dues for the life that you get”. Another friend of mine says, “It's a good feeling to go outside on a beautiful spring day, when it is great to be alive, and know that you deserve it”. He is saying it jokingly, but I know that in his heart he really does try to deserve the life that he has.
I have another friend (Pssssst... Olmanriver) who has that spark about him as a “real person”. If a person were to label him, they would probably call him a “Hippie”. He has long hair, he is very conscious of eating good food and mostly a vegetarian. He doesn't openly discuss why he's a vegetarian, but you know that he is sincere about it. He might try a little weed ever now and then, (I don't know) If he had a choice, he would probably save a redwood tree. He doesn't like being labeled as a “Hippie”, probably because it's just too confining for him. But, if you put his fingers in a vice and tightened the handle until he chose “Hippie” or “Redneck” he would probably go with Hippie, and he would make that a proud label. Most of us don't like labels, including myself, but if I had my fingers in a vice, I'd probably go with “Redneck”. So right off, you would think that we wouldn't get along. But that would be another mistake.

This man has established a library of local history for various Indian tribes, and has done more for the real knowledge of local history, recently, than any other person that I know. He has taught us all about local history and he tries hard to sort out the Bullshistory from the real history. Those of us born here know that is an almost impossible task, but being one of those “adult arrivals”, he didn't know that you can't sort out the tall-tales. We always just thought of our history as “good stories” the more dramatic, the better. But he, for the most part, has been able to extract some truth, and has left my family and it's history greatly indebted to him. I have on numerous occasions invited him to our family gatherings. He has steadfastly, not refused, but always had something else to do, like that was the day he washed his hair. I really think that he feels that he wouldn't fit in, but I can assure you that he would be one of the more classy of my family, especially myself.

Recently, we haven't heard a lot from him on this blog, and the posting that he had done had a serious side to it. He has been out “following his path, and helping his fellow man” ”I could go on to tell you much more, but I will leave it with; part of mankind is much better-off today because of his concern. He has several times labeled me as a “hero” on this blog. As I discussed before, labels don't really fit well, and to call somebody a hero for doing what they love, pumping adrenalin through my veins and racing around in firetrucks is not “Hero” folks, it's “adrenalin junkie”. It is, however, very rewarding to know that sometimes life and property are saved as a side result of my junkiness.

I have contacted Olmanriver several times lately, and I can tell you that he has been quite busy, and the world is a much better place because of him. All that I can say is he is the kind of person that we need more of.

From now on he will be “Saint Olmanriver” to me. He is the kind of person that doesn't seek acknowlegement. I just want him to know that some people notice the sneaky good that he does for mankind.

44 comments:

\ said...

Olmanriver, left this blog for good a while back. He said he was a mystic and that it was his way of viewing things, and that it just didn't click with the readers here. Something like that. But he was back, like I thought he'd be, in a couple of weeks. His love for the people here superseded his needing to be right, or to have his philosophy seriously considered. He mentioned having read many of Joseph Campbell's books. If things were different we might have a lot to hear from him on that subject as well as local history. I listened carefully to his reason for leaving and it hasn't been resolved. Except that he stopped sharing a lot of his more occult gleanings. I am sorry about that. But I am glad that in this world --OMR is.

campbell's hero's journey I think omr's maybe working on #9. I'd tell everyone what John Lennon thought about number 9 but --better to just go out saying, River Rocks!!!

olmanriver said...

gol dangnabbit... now I am gonna have to start worshing my clothes before I come to town.

Ernie B-- see if I ever tell you you left your truck lights on again.

suzy blah blah... thanks for noticing my superseedy love, more fer some than others.
suzy, were you watching sunsets in Thailand? working on a new line of riveted pink flip flops for the flying pig project? And what did the horned man in the sauna tell you??!!! We wanna hear about you!

I have been in a low space lately, what with Jane Russell passing. Bob Hope defined culture as the ability to describe Jane Russell without using your hands.

thanks, you folks feel about me the same way I feel about Gabby Haze. Now there was a hero.

Anonymous said...

I'm happy to hear omr is busy. That means he should be caught up enough by mid-August to show up in Laytontown. Ernie fries up some mighty good squash.
See you at our gathering OMR.

Oregon

\ said...

Riv, concerning my saunamic experience:
The Gospel of Philip states, "Truth did not come into the world naked, it came in types and images...one must enter through the image into The Truth. After you’ve entered through the image…you’ll simply find out you are just an image." Then the awe begins…

But most people I meet don't know this, they talk about a seemingly hard material reality that tells them that they are merely flawed humans, kin to apes, doomed to die after an insignificant life in an indifferant Universe, that's according to science. Or, according to the bible, ruled by a judgmental creator god who often does not know a fondness for people at all.

-but in the sacred sweat bath, you never know who might appear, and what they might be wearin'. And the light is increasing and spring equinox is just around the corner. The heart drum is beating a steady beat beat beat as spring, and heaven, approach. Yet Truth is only in the moment, and the moment is already gone.

Ernie Branscomb said...

"Snakes!, Why does it always hafta' to be snakes!". Indiana jones.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Don't look Robin!

Rose said...

Heroes you are, Ernie, and Olmanriver, and thank you.

(I know you're gonna say that's not what I was looking for with this post - and I understand - but... )

olmanriver said...

Landsnakes alive! Thank you Suzy, clearly I need to spend more time in sacred sweats.


I am a blog inflated balloon of a hero only. There are people who do what I did full time, and are better at it..a few months of caregiving and I am in awe of the people who caregive professionally as I could not do it.

Let's save hero for the real heroes.

charlie two crows said...

I new a man that talked a lot like all of you: But he drank zippo lighter fluid and 7-UP on ice. He talked of snakes and sweat huts all the time.

olmanriver said...

Yet Truth is only in the moment, and the moment is already gone.
suzy blah blah

&

seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here

ee cummings

\ said...

Could he light his breath, Charlie? But then maybe he couldn't afford any matches, I guess, or a Zippo.

\ said...

I wish I knew about easy cummings back when I met No Path at a Rainbow Gathering. I should've followed him but just like the moment, he slipped away. I was sad, but Angel Mama consoled Suzy, she told me, Don't seek Truth, be true.

spyrock said...

well i don't use capitals because people said i was shouting online and in honor of e e. which is really the case. but i do have a zippo lighter in ww2 vintage mint condition, because my dad never smoke or drank his entire life until we tricked him when he was 97and gave hime some cab he might have thought was grape juice. but he drank it down quick enough and commenced to continue his narration of why we are here to serve each other on this planet. so i'm just the son of a depression era dude who was one hell of a man. so cuse me for being incandesent.

Anonymous said...

She's baaaaack.

Ernie Branscomb said...

River and Suzy back! Ah, Good times!

charlie two crows said...

BERKLEY, Tattooed on the inside of the eye lids. Right!

Robin Shelley said...

Holy horseshit, Batman! What a difference a day (or a week) makes! I've been gone & come back to find that OMaR, although he denies it, has achieved hero status & that everyone here but me seems to know why. Give it up! Why?!!

Also, Suzy has returned (&, oh, how I missed you, Miss Suzy!) but is, through no fault of her own, spreading bullshistory that can be corrected to fact right here, right now by me. The "Don't Look, Robin" banner was not across the road in Whitethorn. It was across the Branscomb Rd. just east of Laytonville High School... or west of Boomer's Bar, depending on your perspective... sometime during the 1970s, I don't remember exactly when. The only thing I really know for sure is that it was not in Whitethorn.

I looked, Ernie, couldn't help it, & wish I hadn't. A snake all by itself is bad enough... now I can't get the image out of my mind! I don't like spiders & snakes, & that ain't what it takes... lalalalalala!

olmanriver said...

Robin, I did a good deed which went hyperbolically viral on Ernie's blog inflating me just like one of those flopsy inflatable gumbies used in advertising on the south end of Eureka. Once you turn the hot air off...pfffft, fame over.
Can I please just go back to my usual non-sequetorial, typo- infested, prepositionally-challenged blog commenting ways?

\ said...

depending on your perspective... sometime during the 1970s, I don't remember exactly when.

Sorry Robin, that's exactly right -thanks for the bang up editing job. You're the best.
Take care, and be careful, and whatever you do don't click on this.

Robin Shelley said...

I know!
(:

Anonymous said...

Lollipops and Dolly Parton! This blog is a lot like Chocolate Covered Xanax.

charlie two crows said...

Suzy.....I have a question about truth. Early on my wife and I lost a little girl. Then about 5yrs later I was passing a cemetery in a town I just moved to. I saw a woman kneeling at a head stone crying. And a thought said go talk to her see lost like you. But I waited to long when I went back she was gone. So I drove in to where she had been. The head stone was for a child. I couldn't relive the moment. That voice; was that your truth you always talk about?

Ernie Branscomb said...

Charlie, I'm not Suzy, but I'm moved to say something here. First, I'm sorry for your loss. From a very real standpoint, that is the kind of "truth" that only you can know. The rest of us are mere spectators, and we can only try to empathize with you, but it is only your reality and yours alone, as you probably already know from the pain.

Again,Sorry for your loss.

charlie two crows said...

Ernie.....You have it all wrong. I only referred to the loss to explain the second half of the story. This blog is all of you complimenting OMR on his humanitarian work. And I'm sure he responded in quick time to the need. So I asked about that split second when Truth talks to us and we as humans analyze the quest a hundred different ways. And then its to late the moment to respond is past. We can't relive it. Those are the memories that can be hard to live with. Suzy is always referring to her truth. I just wondered if that truth voice I here sometimes is the same as her truth? If not,OK. IF it is; more is none of my business. Just wondered. The Apache's don't have a word for tomorrow. Just NOW! No regrets! Ernie.... You said suzy was smarter than all of us. Ernie.... All of life's problems can't be solved with the Radio Shack Hand Book!LoL.Thanks for listening.

\ said...

Hi Charlie, Please except my deepest sympathy. That is the worst pain one can have, losing a child, I am so sorry.
Suzy is not wise enough to know what happened at the graveyard that day. But I will offer my opinion. I think that your pain takes you to a deep place of cognizance, or recognition. My belief is that because you were in that deep place of recognition, even if you were unconscious of being there, you were able to be receptive to the lady at the gravestone's thought-waves, (or something like that (: ) I think that you understood telepathically that she wanted you to come and share the pain of losing one's child. But it was so unusual, and seemingly crazy, following a voice in your head. You missed following the voice that day but you did find out that it was right, ie the grave was a child's grave. You learned that your intuition was right and you can (maybe, sometimes) depend on it. As for it being the Truth I was talking about -- I would say it's a way of knowing things irrationally. You just knew, it was the truth that she was grieving over a child's death, and your telepathic receiving of the truth by way of a voice in your head was an open door to receiving information that couldn't be received otherwise. I think the reason you were able to communicate telepathically with her thoughts was because of the deep deep grieving, the intense emotional energy that you both experienced. Sometimes when the truth of the moment slips away and we miss our chance, at least we learn something. I think you learned that telepathic communication is real when the thought waves are deep and intense, and when the receiver (you in this case) is in a place of being able, because of the similar incident of losing a child, to be empathetic.

Use your intuition dude. It's a special gift that you have, you can develope it.

blessings,
s

spyrock said...

we cry when we feel separate from the world. the physical beings and material objects some of which we identify with and are very attached too. when we lose people or things for whatever reason, especially a child it takes time to process the transmutation back to spirit which is always with us.
my mother and father are always with me in spirit. but when they were physically in this world, their bodies did their own thing for much of the time. they both belonged to over 50 community organizations. i rarely saw them as a child. now, they are with me all the time. yes, it is the spirit world i am talking about.
you too will leave this material realm and be with them in spirit. being in spirit is what we do most of the time. so enjoy your time here in the physical. you can't lose something or someone that is truely yours.

charlie two crows said...

Suzy....Thanks for the response. All of you have been giving OMR praise for a good deed he has done. And OMR was sure to have listened to what ever his (inspiration) was at the time to get the job done. Just like my failure to respond to the voice in my head, We as humans are so quick to analyze the picture a hundred different ways and loose that moment in time we can't relive. Visions without actions is dead. Apache's don't have a word for tomorrow. Just Today. No regrets! Suzy......I never thought about the fact that at that moment when I saw the head stone.
Truth was real.Thanks for that. No need for everyone to get so serious. This is OMR party. Are we having cake? Suzy may Truth shine on you! Spy.. I believe like you thanks. And Ernie all of the worlds problems can't be solved with the radioshack hand book.LOL Is it time for cake?

\ said...

-NOW is the time!

\ said...

We as humans are so quick to analyze the picture a hundred different ways and loose that moment in time we can't relive.

Oftentimes we reflect too much, trusting in what we've been taught about logic and analysis rather than believing in our visions and intuitions.

Apache's don't have a word for tomorrow. Just Today.

Have a good one.

Visions without actions is dead.

YES! right on! thanks for the wisdom Charlie, i'm inspired.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Charlie
I understood what you were asking Suzy, I was just swept away with the gravity of what you were experiencing.

I really feel that people pick up on signals that other people give off in a very real form. For example, if you saw a woman standing at a grave with her arms crossed, tears in her eyes and regret on her face, you would probaby guess that it was her husband in the grave. She would be reliving her life with him and thinking about all of the things that she wished she had done better for him. She would be missing all of the things that he used to do for her, and wishing that he was still around to praise her apple pie. Some people are strong readers of those signals. Native Americans feel them especially strongly, because their feelings weren't genetically beat out of them by a overpowering church.

Getting back to the “truth” that you and Suzy are talking about. A few years past, when we had all of the major earthquakes here on the north coast. I had a strong feeling that there was going to be a major earthquake. I kept it to myself, thinking that I was being foolish. After the earthquakes, I told my wife about my preconception. As predicted, she laughed at me, and said the next time that we are going to have an earthquake, tell me about it in advance. I did tell her in advance of a few other earthquakes after that. Her reply was, “Sure predicting earthquakes a few days in advance is easy, there's an earthquake somewhere every few minutes”. I saw that it was going nowhere and dropped it.

But a couple of days before those major quakes, I was working in the basement of the Benbow Inn. The basement is made of stacked and mortared stone. I got a strong feeling about an impending earthquake. I looked around me and it was such a strong palpable feeling that I could imagine the stones crumbling about me. I had an almost irresistible urge to run out of there. I haven't had that feeling in the basement before or since. Go figure! Believing in reality, I feel that there is something very perceptible about earthquakes. They give of some signal that can be perceived. Like a tree about to fall, you can hear popping and crackling, and know that the tree will fall. It's just that you really don't know when. So, how can you really predict with any degree of accuracy, as proof.

The woman that you saw kneeling at the grave wringing her hands with profound grief could only be reflection on the loss of a pure and innocent child, that feeling can only be pure grief. I understand what you said, I just want you to know that the “Truth” may simply be that you are ultra-perceptive of your surrounding. As I suspect that you are. Like me, you can probably always point to north without even checking a compass... Am I right? Is that your “Truth”?

charlie two crows said...

Ernie........Yes you have an extra perception of your surroundings.The earth's plates give off energy before an earth quake event. Now let's talk about how that (Truth) might be enhanced over time in a way everyone can understand. Note, we are both cancer survivors. My Dr. Says our cancer could have started 20yrs ago. The brain sends out home land security to rid the body of this terrorist. In this battle the body becomes Hyper Sensitive with out our concise mind knowing. Until you and I pass our brains will always be on RED ALERT! And we will feel more than others. On the other hand, the quake and north thing that's spirit truth. Its in the genes. And no she will never understand. If you can't feel it you will never get it. THE TRUTH!

\ said...

Only you can say what happened Charlie. But perception is not a vision. It's a shame that the word "vision" is about useless these days. You see it used in the context of someone who, reflected upon things, who used their imagination and projected the future, or the unknown past or present --based on experience and highly attuned perception. That's a good thing, but it's incorrect to call it a vision. It's a projection. A projection comes out of you, it may come swift, but it comes out of what you know and perceive. That is what people do who are often referenced as being visionary or having "a vision". Thier knowledge and perception may coalesce into a voice that they hear, or an image they see, but it's wrong to say it's a vision.

The difference is that a vision comes from outside, not from within you. Just like a bird may come and land in your yard, it came from without, you didn't conjure it up. Same with real visions, they come "out of the blue" so to speak. The one who experiences a vision knows the difference. The vision is real, a real phenomenon in itself, as real as a stone or an animal, the projection is a fantasy conjecture, (I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but that it's 180 degrees different)it's based on perception.

Only the one experiencing can know the difference. But it is unmistakable and real as rain. Visions don't come from within you, they come upon you from outside of your own personal mind. It's an awesome thing.

Anonymous said...

ppm = milligrams per liter.

Oregon

spyrock said...

hi charlie,
at 11:04 pm march 5th you wrote: That voice; was that your truth you always talk about?
at 11:37 suzie posted her reply and at 11:38, i posted my reply which means we were writing in answer to your question about the voice at the same time. i can tell you for sure that it was a voice that told me to respond and i did. suzie can speak for herself. but in my opinion she is connected to a voice or can actually hear a voice inside that tells her what to write, just like me. so you were answered dude. if you can't hear it. that's on you. and its ok with me if you normally tune things out and go merrily or unmerrily down the road. sometimes its not what we say that matters, its when we say it. but in reality, truth is what each individual thinks it is and thats perfectly ok with me. but it was fun to know that suzy and i were responding to you at exactly the same time even though we live over 200 miles from each other.

charlie two crows said...

Suzy.....It wasn't a vision. Just a voice in my head. I do know the difference. The vision quote comes from my father. We talked about people that were True visionarys and never acted on the message picture of there vision.Even if the vision was only for them. Sounds like visions are dear to you. Very intriguing. Its hard to get you to come out of the shadows. Peace to you and yours.

charlie two crows said...

To Olmanriver.....You were king for a day until I open my big mouth and I took everone off the subject of your good deeds. For that I apologize. Your friends say you've done a great service to man kind. Do you think they will throw you a party? I could really use some cake and ice cream.

olmanriver said...

No worries charlie2crows... I dethroned myself and am back to village dunce/researcher.
Blogs flow like water charlie... and talking about senses beyond the 5... is my favorite kind of party talk...you done me right by that.

I would have a cake if I could get that snake lady, or suzy (even better) to jump out of it...probably have to settle for a linked picture.

Here and gone again. omr

charlie two crows said...

Omr.......Does anyone know if suzy has ever jumped out of a cake? Are there pictures? Or video on U-tube? How much does she charge? I wonder what kind of cake it was? Chocolate I bet. I bet they had Ice Cream TOO!

Anonymous said...

Charlie, you should ask Suzy. I'm sure she would know if she ever jumped out of a cake.

Oregon

Robin Shelley said...

Hey, Oregon! Remember the time you jumped IN the cake? Ahahahahaha!

Unknown said...

I haven't had the honor of meeting olmanriver in person yet, but we have been emailing for a couple of months about local history. I have a feeling this is a really good thing! Thanks for confirming my sense that i was dealing with a truly good person who would only enrich my life, as he seems to for everyone he's met.

omr said...

Just my luck!

Ernie Branscomb said...

Laura
Olmanriver is truly a man for all seasons and gets along with everybody. He is so open minded that sometimes things leak out.

omr said...

Mental incontinence... another signpost of aging.