July 27, 2018 Kirk Merlin

God’s Top 10 Essential Life Hacks

  1. Love comes first. Stop worshiping all the materialistic gods and love your neighbor as yourself.
  2. Again with the materialism — all you really need is a garden and friends.
  3. Be excellent to each other.
  4. Find a consistent time to meditate. A little bit every day is best.
  5. Love & forgive your parents. They did their best.
  6. No killing. Start by not killing people. Then, as you progress with this skill, try killing fewer animals, too. You were almost certainly an animal in a prior life.
  7. Be honest with your partner about your desires. Discuss with an open heart. Heck, it seems polyamory is in again.
  8. Don’t steal, create. Create from your heart. Create from your soul. Create without fear.
  9. Don’t lie, not even to yourself. Notice the small lies you tell yourself every day.
  10. Love yourself. It can be hard, I know. Start by not comparing yourself to others.
July 18, 2018 Kirk Merlin

To all my ex-girlfriends,

 

This feels true to me so I share it here.

Here is my relationship style as accurately described in a book called, get this, Bad Boyfriends:

Type: Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment Style

Sorry about that.

It feels real to me. I look forward to healing and becoming a more loving being.

 

             - Kirk

 

 

July 17, 2018 Kirk Merlin

Middle age is our chance to know better,

to un-learn some olden ways.

 

After a hike in the mountains

I sit in a foothill meadow

staring softly into the low, evening sun.

The back-lit grasses are a wonder,

glowing like angels in the gentle light.

 

With the light in front I see sparkles and faeries

But when I look behind me

the meadow slumps into a stale green mat.

 

I sit down in silence.

I sit still so serenity may unveil

truths behind fears.

I withhold judgment,

and notice the river of thoughts and doubts and worries as they flow,

ceaselessly circuitous,

depressing as a skipping Smiths record.

 

Nearby,

Pine Creek gathers up my worries,

flushing them out with the tide.

My doubts are sucked up by the soil

while the wind wrangles stray thoughts,

the pesky ones that won't abide.

 

See those golden plains

beneath the

mountain passes?

Look into the light,

and shine

like back-lit grasses.

 

 --  Kirk Merlin

June 19, 2018 Kirk Merlin
Here's what happened:
Apes were cool.
Monkeys were fine.
Bonobos were happy (and doing a ton of fucking).
And then cro-magnon man happened.
And neanderthals.
And homo erectus (ha-ha).
Our ancestors bred like fucking was fun.
And then it got crowded.
Too many neighbors at the watering hole.
Too many homos fetching fruit and killing critters.
Some moved out of the tropics.
My kinfolk moved north and somehow ended up in
Norway.
There's no fetching fruit year 'round in Norway.
A kinfolk gotta learn to can.
But cans are difficult to make.
I'm just a gatherer, after all.
What's that, you say?
Your kin can make cans?
And jars?
Your great-grandmama is the
Queen of cans and jars?
Well get thefuckouttahere!
Let's say I trade you some of my berries
for some of your jars.
Now we can both eat in winter,
support our families,
so that more baby homos
can fill the land.
But wait a minute...
What just happened here?
Commerce, muthafucka!
And with commerce comes competition:
       My berries are bigger.
                    My berries are fruitier.
And so here we are.
Those equatorial peoples ain't so competitive in our competitive global economy, are they?
Huh.
Funny, that.
Tough shit for them.
Here's some guns and bombs.
Cuz we want your copper and silver and coffee and uranium and whateverthefuck it takes to keep our insecure machine running.
It just needs a little more.
And so here we are.
Nation states and corporations
fighting for power and money
all because
fucking is fun.
June 14, 2018 Kirk Merlin

Is it sad to think that it's taken me 48 years to really compose my first thoughtful food recipe?

Growing up in the '70s, my family ate a lot of the first wave of convenience foods: Microwaveable! Just add water! Comes in a box! Julia Child was the only celebrity chef and vegetables came in a can.

Sure, we always had tomato & rhubarb plants in the backyard, but we never went to a farmer's market. As a kid I wasn't much into tomatoes, but my Mom made a super killer rhubarb cake most years.

I never really learned to cook and have always preferred my food fast and easy.

But as I mature and learn more about how the world actually works, I'm feeling compelled to clean up my act. Last year I cut way back on my meat intake and today I'm very content eating meat maybe once a week. I made this change because I don't believe it is necessary for us to be killing so many animals to feed us in today's environment with year 'round global food distribution (at least for those of us in the rich countries who have the luxury of such a choice). But I'm not being militant about it. If I'm at a party and there's only pepperoni pizza, I'm not going to pull the pepperonis off. I still enjoy the taste of almost all beef, chicken, fish, guinea pig, sea urchin and whatever other animals people eat.

For me, I guess it's about finding a balance. When my body has the occasional meat craving, I'll go with it. But I've decided that my taste buds are not more important than the life of the animal that was torturously raised & killed to temporarily satisfy or please them.

And so this winter I set out to make myself a damn good vegan chili. Starting with a recipe online, I just kept tweaking it over five batches until I got super excited with the flavor and spiciness.

As Julia Child would say, bon appetit!

Saute in coconut oil to soften:

1 small-medium onion

3 bell peppers (orange, yellow, green)

4-5 habanero peppers

 

Stir into a crockpot with:

1 large can crushed tomatoes (28oz)

1 small can tomato paste

1 medium can spiced tomatoes

5 cans of beans (pinto, kidney, black) that have been rinsed first

some lentils (optional)

2 packages of tempeh, crumbled

1 cup water

Add spices: chili powder, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric

 

Slow cook in crockpot on low temp for 8 hours.

Serves 8.