Late end to high summer

The past week has seen settled weather over Poland, hot days with maximum temperatures over 30C, just a few wispy clouds – exactly the kind of weather you'd want to enjoy on a summer holiday. Evening after evening of gorgeous sunsets, the red sun descending cleanly over the horizon. Summer weather, to be enjoyed (even though it was too hot for a walk before the evening cooled the air outside). The leaves are just starting to turn yellow from green; it still feels a long, long time before leaves fall.

All this will come to an end overnight, as rain sweeps in from the west. Rain is expected for five of the next seven days (which farmers will welcome as August and early September have been unseasonably dry). An end to the spell of sunset walks.

Below: the new way (described in this post from last week), and on it, a roe deer (Capreolus capreolus, sarna europejska). It darted off to the right, and then a second deer emerged from the left to follow the first one. Two mistakes, the first forgivable (I didn't have time to swap my 18-55mm for my 70-300mm telephoto zoom), the second less so – I looked down the check I'd captured the image below rather than staying alert to see what happens next, and so I missed the second deer. So wonderful to share an ecosystem with these shy and elusive creatures. Hunting them for sport is for the psychopathic.

Below: fields and forest, between Chynów and Krężel. I recognise this view, though not from this life.

Below: the setting sun shines through trees at the edge of the forest between Węszelówka and Chynów. 

Below: ulica Spokojna (lit. 'Peaceful Street'), Chynów, between where the asphalt ends and the forest begins.

Below: the sun dips towards the orchard treeline; ul. Ogrodowa (lit. Garden St), Chynów.

Below: sunset the day earlier, ul. Torowa (lit. Tracks St.). I have yet to experience what the Japanese call mono no aware, the sensation of transience as the first hints of autumn arrive in the air.

Below: double-decker Koleje Mazowieckie train on its way to Warsaw, pushed by the loco from the rear. These limited-stop services link Chynów to W-wa Służewiec in a mere 22 minutes. 

Below: Robinson R44 Raven, registration SP-WWW, catching the rays of the setting sun over Chynów. A shutter speed of 1/1250 sec almost freezes the whirling rotor blades.

As I prepare to press the 'publish' button at 2pm, the clouds have obscured the sun, but my digital thermometer tells me it's still 28.7C outside. No doubt cloudless days will return, but they will become less frequent and the heat will be dialled down. Last year, I didn't have to start heating up the house until 22 October; the bricks hold the heat well. Will that record fall this autumn?

This time six years ago:
Ulica Zatorze gets civilised

This time 12 years ago:
S2/S7 junction, Hołubcowa viaduct, under construction

This time 13 years ago:
To Stara Praga, and back

This time 14 years ago:
Late summer scenes, Warsaw

This time 17 years ago:
Roadworks and detours on ul. Puławska in Mysiadło

To ease the soul

Unexplainable moments of euphoria, followed by a bit of a downer – nothing to worry about, once you accept the cyclical nature of reality as we subjectively experience it. Take it easy! Mood is to personality as weather is to climate. Things change. The key is to understand that, and keep those worse days in check. They will pass.

In my youth I was rather taken with the pseudoscience of biorhythms; though debunked long ago, I remain of the opinion that we do undergo short-term and long-term waves of physical (and mental) ups and downs that are of internal, biological, origin. The biorhythm theory posited exact time periods of around one month (which kind of makes sense given the menstrual cycle), though tracking this back to birth is ridiculous. Yet biological cycles are there, for men as well as for women, it's just that  the frequency and amplitude of these, however, too subjective for science to concern itself with. A purely biological low ebb and high tide is something experienced by all; overlay that with psychological lows and highs and something definite clicks into place.

So we all have better days and worse days, we cycle through them. But taking this onto the metaphysical plane, have I an obligation to myself and to the Cosmos to be happy? Regardless of external factors that add or subtract to the sum of personal happiness, there's also the issue of satisfaction. Satisfaction from a job well done. Dissatisfaction from putting off a task until tomorrow. Has the biological container that hosts my soul have an obligation to the Cosmos to do more? 

Moni suggested that I suffer from 'productivity anxiety' and recommended me a YouTube video to watch. Productivity (which I mentioned recently here) is one issue, but the other is consistency, especially professional consistency. Good days and bad days at work. Sometimes I think to myself that professionally, I'm rocking it. Speaking at seminars or conferences, I take a theme and offer brilliant new insights that clearly impress the audience. At other times, however, I find myself mumbling inane cliches; I'm not taking the audience with me. I leave the stage disheartened. Again, the ups and downs, cyclical in nature – or rather spiral in nature, as one lives and learns, each low is still higher (in terms of lessons taken in) than the previous low last time round.

Reality is far more complex than the way it's portrayed both by physicalists (who claim that there's nothing more to reality than physical matter) and by organised religions with their overarching God that they'd place somewhere outside of reality. Subtleties are too nuanced to portray easily.

Often I'd ask on this blog – how much spirituality do I need? And now, having written those words, I feel back in the groove. Wu wei – effortless effort, no forcing, actionless action. If I'm having a downer, let it be, it will pass. Like a cloudy day, it makes one appreciative of sunshine. 

But hold on tight to the Cosmic Purpose and stay aligned with it. I feel the need to open up and channel, let my fingers pour out over the keyboard and forget the humdrum routine, the calls to do this and that; stay connected with the Ineffable. Stay in awe of the Infinite & Eternal, and stay grateful. Shun complacency, and rise. Spiritual evolution. 

Letting go and wandering off is not a good idea. There are many things one can let go of, one should let go of – but faith is not one of them.

This time last year:
Retrocausality and Goneself

This time two years ago:
Many Machcins

This time five years ago:
The Long Dark Half-Hour of the Consumerist Soul

This time six years ago:

Early-September travel news

This time seven years ago:
Fields filling up with houses

This time 14 years ago:
Battle of Britain: Poland's contribution

This time 15 years ago:
Sewer under ul. Karczunkowska

Sunset's Trip Revisited

The past few weeks have been superb – weather associated with southerly climes, now available in Mazovia. The sun now sets earlier and earlier; today at 19:19. In just over three weeks, it will be Equilux (exactly 12 hours of day, 12 hours of night). And then, on 25 September, the sun will rise over Chynów (seat of a third-order administrative division) at 06:26 and set at 18:26. The days are shortening rapidly.

While the evenings are clear, a walk at sunset is in order. Watching the earth spin and the sun disappearing is a moment of connection with the Cosmos; that sudden sense of, "YES! I am on a planet within a solar system!" comes into sharp focus.

At this time of year, the sun no longer sets over Sułkowice, but over Wola Pieczyska. A mystical, magical moment awaits. "Slow-burning star sinking low/Heaven knows where you go"

"Horizon's appoint you'll keep" – "as the world turns at the edge of night"... The magic effect lasts for about half an hour, maybe a bit longer; as I return home, I pass neighbours out for an evening walk; life is indeed good and happy and carefree; but tempered with an awareness of the shortening days. 

In the distance, a hot-air balloon. Sunset flight. Soon.

This time last year:
The Unbearable Pleasance of Flashedback Familiarity

This time last year:
The imperceptible end of summer

This time two years ago:

Another new bus stop for ul. Karczunkowska

This time three years ago:
Energy, focus and state of mind

This time four years ago:

50 years on - Gunnersbury Grammar school reunion

This time six years ago:
All things visible and invisible

This time eight years ago:
Work starts on Warsaw-Radom rail modernisation

This time nine years ago:
Won't be long 'til summertime is through

This time 11 years ago:
It was a good year for the apples

This time 13 years ago:
Early-September moan about the commuting

It's the New Way

Three years ago, I wrote about no-entry signs that had suddenly popped up on either ends of a thoroughfare between Machcin II and Adamów Rososki. The situation is as is; though the new signage suggests the old ones were defaced or torn down. Below: the farm track in question. Note the sign to the right, in the shadows... Question – has this any legal status? (My take is no – it doesn't.) But does it stop people from using it? Yes and no.

Although the unasphalted farm track is shown on local authority maps as a public right of way, according to the same maps, the actual land is privately owned. Below: as official as maps go, that yellow line is pretty unambiguous. All entirely transparent; check it out online. The light-blue lines demarcate individual plots of land, and further drilling down gives ownership details.

And yet although the road is clearly marked as being 'private, no through-road' at both ends (below); the land between the house halfway down the road and the lower end of the map is indeed shown to be privately owned; but the top end is not part of that same land. This sign, however, suggests otherwise.

Talking to local people, this unilateral decision by "new people from town" to close off the road to farm traffic has been controversial, to say the least. On today's walk, I have seen that a compromise work-around has been reached. Approaching the track heading north from Machcin II, I noticed a new way (below) carved out through bushes, running parallel to the disputed road. There's nothing like a new path to explore!

Below: I go. Further down the path; see the tape-topped staves marking the left-hand edge of the path.

This is important at this time of year, when wagon-trains of apples are hauled by tractors from the orchards to the collection points (punkty skupu – thanks Roman P for the correct translation). The unilateral closure of the road had meant a two-kilometre detour for the apples, bumping over unmade tracks (bumping means bruising, means lower prices for the crop). Interesting to see whether the new way acquires a proper surface.

Below: I have drawn in this new way in yellow and the location of the no-entry signs. Comparing the Google Maps satellite image with the local authority map (top), you can see on the latter that there is actually a space demarcated between existing land-holdings, presumably for access purposes.

A difficult issue to judge. The people in the house keep two large dogs that are allowed to run free outside the enclosure. Now, while pedestrians are not explicitly prohibited, knowledge that those dogs can rush up to you barking puts people off. I take a big stick with me when using this route. Now, local walkers have an alternative.

September begins as hot as August ended. Temperature outside at half past four in the afternoon is over 27C.

This time three years ago:
September (and Jupiter)

This time five years ago:
Fiftieth anniversary of me starting grammar school

This time six years ago:
Two films about the legendary Polish 303 Sqn

This time eight years ago:
Kępno's intriguing station

This time ten years ago:
Thoughts occasioned by the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of WW2

This time 11 years ago:
A green light for consumer spending

This time 13 years ago:
Procrastination - is it the same as laziness?

This time 15 years ago:
Remembering the outbreak of WW2

Imminent? I don't think so.

Launched on 20 August, Luis Elizondo's Imminent is already No. 1 in Amazon's Astrophysics and Space Science category, and No. 2 across all book categories. Lue Elizondo is currently busy on the podcast and video circuit; for those aspiring to have a well-visited channel in the UFO category, he is a must-have guest. Or at least Imminent must feature as this week's lead topic.

The blurb: "Former head of the Pentagon program investigating UFOs—now known as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)—reveals long-hidden truths with profound implications for not only national security but our understanding of the universe."

Is his story true? What's convincing about it, and what isn't? These are not the deluded ramblings of a New Ager wanting to sell some healing merch off the back of the book sales. Lue Elizondo, who came to the public's attention after the New York Times bombshell article in December 2017, is a serious man from the US national security establishment, as are Garry Nolan, Christopher Mellon, Hal Putoff, Eric Davies, Jay Stratton, James Lacatski, David Fravor, David Grusch.

Mr Elizondo's message to the US government is – "you owe it to humanity to come into the open about what you know of the presence of non-human intelligence among us". 

But could we cope with this knowledge? 

I think not. 

As I have been watching the interviews and reading the reviews, I have been thinking long and hard about the unintended consequences of mankind suddenly learning – officially, and in an unfalsifiable matter – that we are not the apex predator on this planet. That we are not the apex technological species on our planet. That non-human intelligences with superior technologies come and go as they wish. That they abduct humans. That they are interested in our nuclear programmes. That we have no clues as to their motives or purpose here.

Coincidentally, while watching the latest in the Rest is History series about the fate of the Plains Indians in 19th century America, the following quote by Dominic Sandbrook leapt out as relevant: "When Columbus landed on Hispaniola and the Spaniards started arriving, the Taíno – the indigenous people – were wiped out by disease and cruelty. There were descriptions of them just sitting down, staring into space, baffled that everything they had taken for granted, the rhythm of their life, their faith, their sense of what the world was, what the human condition was, had just been utterly destroyed." 

I could imagine that such a fate befalling mankind upon suddenly coming receiving indubitable proof that we are not alone. Ontological shock. Are the visitors benevolent – or are they an existential threat to our species? How would our spiritual views be affected by the knowledge that a higher intelligence has mastered, say, time travel, or faster-than-light travel, or inter-dimensional travel? That has harnessed energy sources beyond our understanding of physics? We would grasp the truth: we have been living in Plato's cave all along.

So – is there a disclosure agenda? Is there one faction within the Washington establishment pushing for UFO disclosure, competing with rival factions that want to continue the cover-up for as long as possible?

Acclimatisation – the steady drip-drip-drip of insinuation, rumours, ambiguous footage, pop-culture tropes – means that as a species, as a civilisation, we are more ready today to accept that we are not alone in the universe, not alone as an intelligent species on our planet that 100 years ago. UFOs-as-entertainment is here. The History Channel with its shows that leave viewers wondering whether there isn't a grain of truth among the bullshit.

I would suggest that it will still take many generations, and that Disclosure will happen within eight billion minds one by one. Each mind will be prepared, and changed, at their own pace, as quickly or as slowly as it takes for them to accept as much, or as little, as they can cope with.

So many questions. Mine focus on the spiritual, on the hierarchy of spiritual evolution and where our  consciousnesses, the souls of which our bodies are containers, lie on the continuum from zero to one. And where on that spiritual continuum those extraterrestrial – or extradimensional, or extratemporal – beings are to be found. My greatest fear would be to discover that we are more spiritually developed than these beings, even though they are greatly advanced technologically.

This time last year:
Dawn tourism – the sights without the crowds

This time two years ago:
Bike-ride to the past

This time four years ago:

Muscle memory

This time six years ago:
The journey there, and the journey back again

This time seven years ago:
Sandomierz - another outstanding Polish town to see

This time nine years ago:
Food hygiene and lies as Russian foreign policy tools

This time ten years ago:
Asphalt for ul. Poloneza (to Krasnowolska at least)

This time 11 years ago:
A welcome splash of colour to a drab car park 

This time 12 years ago:
To Hel and back in 36 hours

This time 14 years ago:
Honing the Art of the Written Word

This time 15 years ago:
Of castles, dams and brass bands

Cider-making lessons as the season moves on

One lives and learns. My orchard bears fruit every other year, as it is gloriously untended, unsprayed and otherwise untouched by chemicals or machinery. This year, the bumper crop needs to be brought in and turned to cider quickly. Key takeaways:

● Use smaller demijohns. I've just bought another six of the five-litre sort. They can be filled up to the cork more quickly, so there's less time for the juice to oxidise and go sour. The smaller demijohns can also allow for customised batches (I intend to make one of perry and one of grape wine).

● Picked vs gathered apples. The ones I pick up off the ground (freshly fallen overnight) are ripe. The ones picked off the trees are not quite ripe. There is a difference. The ripe ones have higher sugar content, but produce less juice and more mousse when forced through the juicer.  They have yellow skins.The picked apples are juicier, tarter and crisper – you get that satisfying krahhh sound as the juicer mills them. They have green skins. Getting the balance right between the two is critical. Below: off the tree – crisp, tart and juicy, or off the ground – sweet, ripe and sludgy? Bit of both.

● The constant battle with sediment cannot be underestimated. I am running the juice extracted from the juicer through two sieves before it goes into the demijohn, producing a kilo of mousse for each litre of juice. Even so, the bottom 8% to 10% of what ends up at the bottom of the demijohn is sediment. This year, I have been cutting out the apple cores. Last time, I left them in; not only do they add to the sludginess, but they also introduce tannins that are not necessarily beneficial to the taste. And at the end of primary fermentation, the content of the demijohns will need to be sieved yet again. Below: in my cellar, the last dozen bottles of the 2022 production (to the right) – note the sediment at the bottom of the bottles. And this is after they have been decanted for a second time.

● Rather than leaving them in the cellar, this time I am storing the demijohns in my bedroom so I can keep an eye on them. Two years ago, I had one large demijohn fermenting in such a lively manner that it popped the cork and spilled the froth that rises to the top all over the cellar floor, something I discovered a few days later. Now, when I see a build-up of said froth, I can immediately take out the cork and remove the froth with a straw, lowering the level (and at the same time checking the alcohol content).

Below: this is how many apples go to make five litres of cider. Last time, the cores went in as well; this time they stay out. And count them – I make it at least 75 (or 15 apples to the litre). The ratio of green, picked apples to the yellow, gathered apples is evident.

This year's cider season has started much earlier than in 2022, at least a month earlier. Different apple varieties ripen at different times, but this year's apple harvest is unusual in that in started in July.

This time last year:
Getting to Sandomierz by bus and train

This time two years ago:
Inspiration

This time ten years ago:
Food shopping and dietary update

This time 11 years ago:
Photos from the Radom Air Show, part 1

This time 12 years ago:
Offloading PKP's risk at W-wa Jeziorki

This time 14 years ago:
Time to be stuffing yourself with fresh fruit

This time 15 years ago:
First notes of autumn in the air
[Still highest summer now in 2024! No sense of autumn yet!]

This time 17 years ago:
Large spider catches fly

Consciousness everywhere

I'm sipping my morning coffee in the kitchen, the rising sun glinting though gaps in the thick green curtain that is the forest next door, when a long-legged spider makes a dash across the table.

As I watch it, the first thought that comes to my mind is a quote from Alan Watts; "Every living being feels that they're in the middle of the world"; I sense the spider's sense of consciousness. It is clearly troubled by me. Reaching the edge of the table, the spider abseils down to the floor and makes a break for the fridge, rushes to safety underneath it (at least until Saturday morning when I vacuum-clean the kitchen floor). 

[This particular spider, Phalangium opilio, harvestman or daddy longlegs (kosarz pospolity) is one of several in the house; they perform a useful function in dealing with insect pests (such as fruit flies) which they catch in their webs and eat. I tolerate them and when cleaning, I will strive to deport them outside rather than suck them up into the vacuum cleaner.]

Since childhood I have had that sense that insects – as well as larger animals – are conscious. Now, here we must distinguish between intelligence and consciousness. A spider, like every creature great and small, is driven by the survival instinct, and finding itself in a situation of danger (in the immediate presence of a living creature a million times more massive), it works out the optimal route to safety. That's intelligence at work. Attention and instinct. But consciousness, that awareness of being, is something else; in a world in which science claims to have all the answers* an understanding of consciousness remains a great unknown. Or even, the great unknowable.

Whether it's those eye-to-eye contact moments with a cat or a dog, or even that shared sense of presence between a human and a spider, there are those flashes of recognition that suggest that we are not alone in seeing the universe with ourselves in its very epicentre, we are not alone in that. 

I recall walking along the beach at Międzyzdroje on a wet and overcast summer's day, watching the seagulls. Momentarily a gap in the clouds appeared, and brilliant sunshine swept the scene, turning a dull seascape into one that sparkled joyously. The gulls' behaviour changed. At once, they became animated, filled with an uplifting energy. The clouds rolled over, extinguishing the sun's rays. That moment had passed, but I had recognised it. The gulls had recognised it. I had become aware of their joy.

Today, 21 August is (I decided last year) International Awareness Awareness Day, when we should be aware that we are aware, we should be conscious of being conscious, if only just for one brief moment.

* All the answers except for what are dark energy and dark matter, why is the universe fine-tuned for life, what happened before Big Bang, and how to reconcile Einsteinian relativity with quantum mechanics. Etc.

This time last year:
International Awareness Awareness Day

This time four years ago:
Reflections on late-August

This time six years ago:
Conscious of a waning summer

This time ten years ago:
Plans for modernising the Warsaw-Radom railway line

This time 11 years ago:
World's largest ship calls in at Gdańsk

This time 13 years ago:
Raymond's Treasure - a short story

This time 14 years ago:
Now an urban legend: Kebab factory under W-wa Centralna

This time 15 years ago:
It was twenty years ago today

This time 17 years ago:
By bike to Czachówek again

Between idleness and stress

Getting the balance right in life, setting the sliders – so important. I tend to beat myself up if I catch my output flagging, if I'm not getting on with it – but then on the other hand, I hate getting myself into a state of stress. Stress happens when there's too much on my plate, when I'm failing to get done all the things that need to be done within the allocated time. And here, the Eisenhower Matrix comes into play. Sift away the task that are neither urgent nor important from those that are either urgent or important, whilst placing a top priority on those tasks that are both.

Today I start the day with jotting down my to-do list. I have to pay the annual insurance premium on my motorbikes (physically, at my local insurance office – three times cheaper than doing so online); do the weekly shop, have one online meeting with the UK, compose several emails, make a few work-related phone calls and juggle all this around a courier expected today bringing me another demijohn, stopper and bubbler airlock. Then there are my seven sets of exercises (ambition: beat last year!) and 90 minutes of brisk walking around the manor. And writing this blog.

The day starts well; the sun in shining – it's another cloudless morning – this is incredibly motivating.

One by one the tasks are accomplished. Parcel received, insurance paid, shopping done, several emails sent. The call takes half an hour longer than scheduled and requires couple of a follow-up phone calls.

All in all, this day is in hand, it's all fitted in. There has to be some action, some external factors that push me along – but not too much. 

This is called eustress, "moderate psychological stress, interpreted as being beneficial". Knowing where the boundary lies between eustress and stress (the sort that releases the hormone cortisol in harmful amounts) is crucial. Of course, this will differ from individual to individual, and with training, you can push that boundary. But most important is what drives you to put together that daily to-do list, what's on it, what's not on it, what stresses you, what you are in control of. 

And so I intend to go on working, so long as I can work at my own pace, and keep stress out of my professional life. That means knowing when to say 'no'. 

How much of the balance between avoiding all stress and being stressed out lies in the hands of fate? If you believe in the metaphysical powers of quantum will, you can somehow influence the outcome. And if you don't believe in that, well, good luck anyway.

I get it all done, and end the day listening to Martyn Jansen's most excellent soul and R&B show on West Wilts Radio. I retire in a state of gratitude.

Too much stress – bad; no stress at all – also bad.

This time eight years ago:
Ulica Karczunkowska, about to be bisected

This time nine years ago:
What I read each week.

This time ten years ago:
Defending Poland, contributing to NATO

This time 12 years ago:
Balloon over Warsaw

This time 14 years ago:
Happiness, Polish-style

This time 15 years ago:
And watch the river flow...