15 December 2023

I need to channel strength of a nation that will conquer for 1,000 ages, Leto’s peace. The worm. I’m thinking now of the fourth book in the Dune series. The whole reason I wanted to consume the material was that the ideas were so outlandish that it would expand my consciousness, and there’s no way to know what’s in them without experiencing them. The next Dune movie is likely to make a cultural splash. My speculation on the West’s future is a return to religion. There was some wild stuff that happened when people divided themselves into countless groups and I think people are looking to sit out from that. Roots for a new generation are being planted. There’s pain associated with moving as it is a literal uprooting. In my experience it takes three years before a replanted tree starts to really grow. When I lived in Texas about 10 years ago I wrote a bucket list and one item was to keep a plant alive for 5 years. That plant was a pecan tree I started from seed, there was a Texas tree seed pack with maybe 100 seeds for $10. Trees are exponentially more expensive and cheaper on the extremes of age. With the pecan seed it has to be roughed up to trigger the growth process, that comes in the form of boiling the seed a short time or scratching with sandpaper. Then the seed must be overwintered as a critter might do, I put the abrasive seeds in a ziplock bag filled with moist soil. Those bags sat in my refrigerator for a couple months, then I planted the new saplings in pots. One of those pecan trees was planted at my current house and another at my last place. There’s nothing left in pots for me to take, I’m starting fresh.