I had food on Wednesday but just a few small "blood oranges" and a grapefruit on Thursday. On Friday I had mainly birch tree sap and pine needles and one small "blood orange." On Saturday no orange. Just the birch sap and spruce needles. Oh I had a bit of spirulina on Thursday and Friday. So then it was a four day fast over five days of the trip.
So I saw a pair of large Trumpeter Swans fly low over the mini-forest, while honking (trumpeting) loudly.
Trumpeter Swans fly with rapid, shallow wingbeats, often traveling in
pairs or family groups and flying lower than other swan and duck
species.
By the 1880s, trumpeter swans disappeared from Minnesota.
The Minnesota flock of trumpeter swans now consists of more than 2000 individuals.
People who shoot swans in Minnesota face stiff fines, possible
confiscation of their shotguns, restitution charges of up to $1000 and
loss of hunting license.
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/eco/nongame/projects/trumpeterswan/index.html
These were way bigger than "snow geese" - had the much longer neck of the Trumpeter Swan!
the largest extant species of waterfowl with a wingspan that may exceed 10 ft
So first thing I did was "modify" the "wilderness lodge" tent I had set up. I lowered it back down halfway on its posts - and then I tied a rope to the center of that poly-silicone tarp - and pulled it over the nylon roof (that had already stretched out from previous rains). So the Poly-silicone tarp "breathes" but also does not "stretch" and also adds weight and stability to the tent. This Poly-silicone tarp also had tons of guy holes or whatever they're called.
an equal number of guy holes on each side so the tarp will not favor
So I tied up all of them - including the end center lines way up high on trees - to take some weight off the tent and also to support the tarp, free standing a bit.
We'll see if the tent survives the snow predicted for tonight!!
Someone comments on this vid - they really do sound like Trumpets! Trumpeter Swan vid
So last night the coyote pack was out again running through the fields while yapping. The local dogs had been barking in anticipation.
Here's more like what I heard - vid as the Trumpeter Swans flew overhead
So the trees I cut last winter - I realized on Saturday - that alas - they were NOT "Speckled Alder" - the species required for the Shiitake! Oops. I was just having "wishful thinking" that the speckled alder "bushes" or "groves" grew up into big trees also. Nope. I had overestimated or underestimated the size.
Anyway luckily I have plenty of actual Speckled Alder groves - and so I spent this morning going about cutting the 25 trees necessary. And I thought I was not getting the 4 inch diameter recommended - which was frustrating. But when I got home - I got out the tape measure. Sure enough I had overestimated what 4 inches was.
So I had cut the biggest alders I could find and they were indeed the necessary 4 inch diameter. Also required was that the "buds" are not green - and they were not green. Dormant still as required.
So before I realized that the trees I cut in the winter were the wrong trees - I had "tested" out my method of inoculation and waxing. So I had planned on using the generator to put a mini-crock pot to heat up the food-grade wax that covers up the shiitake sawdust spawn - after the "palm" held inoculator device pushes in an inch of sawdust spawn - after the hole is drilled with the special Shiitake 1 inch bit (from Japan)....via the cordless drill.
OK so I decided instead to try out the Solar Cooking oven - that I had not even assembled yet. I took awhile to figure it out but once I set it up - luckily I had TWO pieces of cookware that were recommended - one was a lid for the black 3 quart graniteware pot - and the other was the 9 inch Lodge cast iron pan. When I tried to switch back to the generator with mini-crockpot then the wax just hardened up and took way too long to melt - not even melting properly. So ONLY the Solar Oven worked! I was surprised!
That was a pleasant surprise as they (the black cookware I already had) was required to make the Solar or SOLCOOK oven "work." And I was supplied with the insulating bag to retain the heat - the "R" in the acronym "Collect, Absorb, Retain and - Direct or CARD. Sure enough I used the sundial device to slowly rotate the cooker, as I filled the logs with mycelium sawdust spawn and the took the wax dauber into the melted liquid wax. You have to be quick since the wax quickly cools.
And so also the Big Dipper was very bright - right straight above my tipi - at night when I went out to piss. And so that definitely proved I was "north." And then during the mornings and evenings I did some "sun gazing" and when I closed my eyes then I saw bright blue and green with red around it - from the pineal gland being activated.
Yes filtering water was at first not very easy. But first I did the Sawyer squeeze filter - which is kind of slow. But it does not take out bad taste. So then I put it in the Berkey Purifier - and this clogs up easily since it has such small pores. But sure enough it did filter the water - once pre-filtered. It was slow but it worked.
And the water did taste really good!
So I discovered that my mini-forest is more "diverse" than I thought - there's Poplar (quaking aspen) , Paper Birch, Tamarack, Speckled Alder, Black Spruce and Willow. That's what I know so far.
Since these newly cut Alders are now drying up off the ground - then they'll be ready in two weeks for inoculation. I think I'll call the mushroom spawn business - to see which shiitake spawn they recommend. Because I already opened the bag and used some of the current order. They say 25 tree logs per one bag. But I'm concerned my current bag will get too dried out and also will not be enough - and also might not be the best choice for that climate.
So by yesterday on the third day of the Fast - then I distinctly felt my Heart energy center open up with a warm loving qi energy. And then I got in a good full lotus meditation last night. Then this morning I started out very early - to make sure to cut the Alders before their sap went back into the trees. I have to review my research to remember the details.
DO cut the trees while dormant. This
is the period where water in the inner bark is low, insuring tight bark
retention for the life of the log, and the amount of carbohydrates is
high. Bud swell is a visual
indication of dormancy breaking. To the unpracticed eyes, dormancy means
no leaves, even itty bitty ones. In fact it means little green in the
buds at all; the buds being tight.
Anyway then I went off - and I decided to have a meal for the road to make sure I was not light headed while driving. But it did not kick in fast enough. I was so enthralled by the concept of food - completely lost in the ecstasy of eating that I had absolutely no concept of the speedometer. I got pulled over by an officer. He was the nicest "cop" I had ever met - and I truly think because I had my heart energy open, then he was more empathic to me. Also I showed him my "Pine Martin" tail that I keep in the car, as I gave him my license. And I explained I had been camping since Wednesday and I had "culture shock." haha. Then he asked me several more questions and I sincerely answered them and he brought back a warning to slow down. The rest of the trip I refused to speed and cars were constantly passing me - I would just pull into the shoulder a bit so they could get by easier. So what if the speeding drivers were pissed a bit? haha.
So clearly if I use a Solar Oven to heat up the wax and I have to rotate the oven to align with the Sun - and the tree logs are next to the Solar oven as I inoculate the logs and then cover the holes with wax - is this not the epitome of
Offgrid Sustainable Soltree Shiitake Shrooms?
Oh yes and after that big car meal - then when I got home I weighed myself and
I weighed FIVE POUNDS LESS than before the Spring Fast while preparing Soltree Shiitake Shrooms!
So once the fast kicked in then then tummo heat also got stronger as ketosis energy creates more heat. And I even felt a bit slimmer.
it's called "energy feasting" in Chinese meditation - aka "Bigu" -
Chemistry professor Rustum Roy held an academic conference documenting
Bigu to be very real. So some scientists speculate it's from gamma
radiation able to transform light into new matter. The Yogis call it
"Amrita" or Ambrosia - an Elixir that flows down from the pineal gland
out of the sinus cavity. That fluid is charged with the Etheric Energy
of reality (the Qi or Prana). You then Swallow this fluid - and it
creates great heat in the pit of the stomach (called tummo or boiling
energy as N/om, the original human culture word) - as it is absorbed
into the small intestines gut (the 2nd brain with more neurons than the
heart). You can then store up your energy this way - and by meditation
you directly access that Etheric energy. We have biophotons that
normally LEAVE our eyes when they are open. So by closing the eyes -
then we "turn the light around" and since light has zero rest mass - the
light still has "relativistic mass" of the Ether or spacetime field
itself (Emptiness, Cosmic Mother, God, etc.) So the powers are from
resonating more with the Emptiness and so the more you Embody the
Emptiness then the more powers manifest - but it's not you that has the
powers. You are just a channel for the Emptiness that is already inside
you.
yes you want to keep the tongue against the roof of the mouth as this
activates the vagus nerve that then causes the saliva to flow. The
"ambrosia" or amrita aka elixir is actually cerebrospinal fluid that has
been charged by the biophoton and piezoelectric energy (from the
standing exercises) - the collagen is aligned 90% vertically and it is
piezoelectric. So when we do standing qigong especially with barefeet on
Earth - since Earth is getting hit by lightning 40 times per second -
so that is the "yin qi" source through the feet. So the left side vagus
nerve goes down the front and is considered a cooling energy as is the
yin qi - the left eye is yin qi but it is also yang shen (spirit). The
right eye is yang qi (from the cerebrospinal fluid) but it is also yin
shen (spirit). So also you can rotate the eyes while meditating - and
this is like a prism that cross-modulates the different wavelengths of
light. So then you access a superluminal "sub-wavelength" (higher
frequency than visible light). So by rotating the eyes with the eyes
closed - that activates your pineal gland to then created the Ether
charge. I just finished a 4 day fast in the forest - so then the heart
energy opens up. That is the strongest source of the qi to the ether or
prana to the cosmic shakti. It is on the right side of the heart via the
right side vagus nerve that goes up to the right side of the brain and
then down to the back of the spine to the reproductive life force
energy. So at first the right side of the brain fills up with prana and
then it crosses over to the left side of the brain and goes down the
front. But since most modern people are left-brain dominant - the left
side of the brain, the left side brain vagus nerve does NOT connect to
the right side of the brain!! The right side brain vagus nerve DOES
connect to the left side of the brain. The fluid created in the center
of the brain is from the cosmic energy - and the skull will actually get
soft and pulsate and the "fontanelle" (the fissues in the skull) will
get soft and open up - just as a baby has. And when the baby is in the
womb then the baby naturally has the tongue against the roof of the
mouth.
A good book explaining the steps in the body and how it changes is
called "Tao and Longevity" by Master Nan, Huai-chin -
https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Tao-Longevity-by-Huai-Chin-Nan.pdf So
as Master Nan states - what commonly happens is a person achieves
"spiritual powers" but then "uses them" and so "falls back into
worldliness" as he states, "due to heroic overexuberance." He is a
best-seller in China but not known in the West. I finished my master's
degree at University of Minnesota through the African Studies
Department, with Professor Rose Brewer, as "self-designed research" into
nonwestern meditation via Chinese spiritual healer
http://springforestqigong.com and So they are both two other teachers with
the heart fully open enlightened. So essentially this is what Sri
Yukteswar calls "breathless ecstasy" - or in India it is also called
"nirvikalpa Samadhi." So in Chinese meditation it is called "immortal
breathing" or "fetus breathing" as in the womb before birth. So the
centers of your hands and feet and the top of your skull PULSATES with
the Prana or Qi. And so that energy can create any physical matter you
need - water flows down from the pineal gland created by some kind of
reverse electrolysis. Same with nutrition via the ambrosia that is
swallowed. Also you can smell as non-local. This is from our original
human culture - the San bushmen tribe. They have a book called "Healing
Makes Our Hearts Happy." So they describe how you can smell sickness in
people. Like cancer smells like a rotting dead flesh smell - and it can
even be smelled through the walls and the qigong masters can even smell
over the phone. All perceptions and sensations originate from the ether
which is not limited by distance nor time - it is the 5th dimension that
we can not see. We can listen to it in silence. So it is always
listening to us and guiding us from the future. You can also have
precognitive visions or what I call "Glitches in the Matrix." Also you
can see ghosts - as even the ghosts need healing as well and the ghosts
are healed by the qigong masters.
I still have more to go - as I ate a lot for more healing jing energy this winter.
sounds like a good diet:
Some of the plants swans are known to eat, according to Winston Banko,
include pondweed (Potamogeton), water milfoil (Myriophyllum), musk grass
(Chara), waterweed (Elodea canadensis), duckweed (Lemna trisculca),
spatterdocks (Nymphaea polysepala), bur- reeds (Sparganium
augustifolium), wapato Sagittaria cuneata), Carex rostrata.
I'll be planting my stinging nettles - next time I go up north - works well as a barrier fence but also an excellent food source and it's perennial!
https://www.trumpeterswansociety.org/swan-information/identification/
So I just remembered loving this book as a young boy. I feel very lucky to have finally seen Trumpeter Swans. But I felt like I had seen them before - because I read this book!!
Many years later, when Sam is about 20 years old, he is again camping
in Canada when he hears the sound of a trumpet playing across the lake
and knows it must be Louis. He writes in his journal:
"Tonight I heard Louis's horn. My father heard it, too. The wind was right, and I could hear the notes of taps, just as darkness fell. There is nothing in all the world I like better than the trumpet of the swan."
The book received a strongly positive review by John Updike in The New York Times, in which he said "While not quite so sprightly as Stuart Little, and less rich in personalities and incident than Charlotte's Web -- that paean to barnyard life by a city humorist turned farmer -- The Trumpet of the Swan
has superior qualities of its own; it is the most spacious and serene
of the three, the one most imbued with the author's sense of the
precious instinctual heritage represented by wild nature"[1]