As promised earlier, I have some announcements to make about my future blogging. My new blogging platform is mostly up and running at www.ecosophia.net, and I plan on starting regular posts there around the summer solstice. I’ve also established an account on the social media site Dreamwidth at ecosophia.dreamwidth.org. The main site will get substantial essays, at least one of them a month; the Dreamwidth account will feature book reviews, announcements of new publications, wry commentary on fatuous media articles, and other shorter bits.
While my blogs always tend to have a mind of their own, and head off in directions I don’t expect, my intention is to focus from here on out on a theme I’ve discussed only in passing here and on The Archdruid Report: the emergence of a new fusion of ecology and religion in our time, not simply as an abstract worldview but as a way of life and a system, or system-of-systems, of spiritual and esoteric practice.
I make no apologies for that change of focus, though I know some of my readers will not find it to their taste. Over the eleven years I spent writing weekly posts on The Archdruid Report, I said pretty much everything I can think of saying about the decline and fall of industrial civilization; over the few years that I’ve spent doing monthly posts on The Well of Galabes, I’ve sketched out some of the foundations on which I plan to build as we proceed—and now it’s time to move on.
I do have more to say about some of the topics touched, peripherally or otherwise, in the course of eleven years of blogging; among other things, I’m looking for a print or online periodical that would be interested in hosting further discussions of politics and culture in late imperial America from my jaundiced and idiosyncratic perspective—but we’ll see whether anything comes of that. In the meantime, there’s much to be said about getting out from under the crackpot fantasy of Man the Conqueror of Nature and relearning how to live as part of the Earth’s biotic community, and I propose to say some of it.
117 comments:
5/21/17, 12:11 PM
Anders said...
Sure time we get in Contact with nature and our selves and become stewards instead of destroyers. I love the pre christian attitude here in Sweden when you say "wath out, I,m going to pee" Before you let it out. With that attitude we would not be in the mess we are.
5/21/17, 12:18 PM
susan said...
All the best - and yes, I have bookmarked ecosophia.
5/21/17, 12:43 PM
Robert Gillett said...
5/21/17, 1:36 PM
James Gemmill said...
At least it prompted me to seriously pursue getting an escape pod ready, in the form of a sailboat.
That, and it provided exposure to Into The Ruins and Mythic, so I guess you could say it's had a pretty good life.
5/21/17, 2:09 PM
Katrin M said...
5/21/17, 2:16 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Anders, fascinating. Mind you, the plants are probably happy to get the extra nitrates!
Susan, glad to hear it.
Robert, thank you. To my mind that's where the rubber really meets the road at this point, if you'll pardon a distinctly un-ecological metaphor!
James, er, I announced that back in March! I hope you'll drop by the new blog from time to time, too. ;-)
Katrin, thank you.
5/21/17, 2:27 PM
Justin said...
In any case I will be glad to see you returning to blogworld.
5/21/17, 2:40 PM
Dandy said...
5/21/17, 2:44 PM
Ruben said...
This will break dozens of links just on my own website, let alone across the internet. Say it ain't so!
5/21/17, 2:55 PM
SaintS said...
5/21/17, 2:59 PM
Repent said...
I love the debate you had with Chris Martensen, Howard Kunstler, Dmitri Orlov, and others recently. Hopefully more live interview content and appearances will follow as well.
Good luck with your new beginning !
5/21/17, 5:50 PM
Third Chimp said...
5/21/17, 6:27 PM
foodnstuff said...
5/21/17, 7:08 PM
Avery said...
5/21/17, 7:15 PM
Mr. Sunshine said...
5/21/17, 8:37 PM
Art Deco said...
I am sorry to hear that TAR is officially over ... even though I think we all knew that it was coming. Thank you for ten years worth of "writing worth the reading".
While you have never indicated any desire to be "mainstream", I do hate to see your obvious talents disappear into the fetid swamp of alternative religious writings on the internet.
Earth centered spiritually will probably become rather "mainstream", but I don't think I or anyone alive today will be around long enough to see that. Perhaps in a century or so, unless the collapse of Western Civilization is much faster and bloodier than expected...
One thing that all dark ages seem to have in common is a loss of mass literacy and that can happen very fast - once Amazon kills the last independent bookseller and the ad supported internet dies and takes out Amazon, Facebook, and Google, literacy could easily disappear in a couple of generations. Perhaps not, perhaps one of my descendants will rediscover your work in the equivalent of an Irish monastery in the second Renaissance (around 2317 AD ?).
May whatever deities that still exist (Sky, Sea, and Stone at least) lend you inspiration, flexibility, and strength.
Art Deco
5/21/17, 9:22 PM
n00bmind said...
Isn't it possible to submit the content for archiving to the Internet Archive or something similar?
5/22/17, 1:03 AM
default options said...
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com
5/22/17, 1:20 AM
con-science said...
5/22/17, 1:40 AM
MXJ said...
5/22/17, 1:50 AM
Justin Patrick Moore said...
5/22/17, 5:33 AM
Hubertus Hauger said...
5/22/17, 11:51 AM
Shane W said...
JMG, for those of us who have religiously snatched up all your books b/c they provided an archive of the ADR (I often thought of this blog as an old-fashioned serial for your books), is there much in the ten volume work that isn't covered in your other books? Seems like you mentioned that Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush had a lot of posts that weren't in your other books. Don't get me wrong, I like getting your books, but it does seem like a ten volume printed archive would duplicate a lot of your published work starting with The Long Descent.
5/22/17, 5:01 PM
Shane W said...
5/22/17, 5:04 PM
Shane W said...
5/22/17, 5:05 PM
LunarApprentice said...
For your restarting blog, there is, of course, still a whole mess of topics to be examined…
Off the git go, I am absolutely floored that this whole Russia-did-it meme, and Trump-is-virtually-a-Russian-stooge has any traction. This is a transparently manufactured crisis, and I can’t see why this isn’t obvious to all. While I understand that opinion polls do in fact show the public mostly isn’t buying it, every one in my circle swallows this stuff hook, line and sinker. My circle consists wholly of Hillary supporters, so it would be the “deplorables” who haven’t drank the kool-aid. What can this demonization campaign on Russia, Putin and even Trump by the US establishment possibly signify? How confident were the PTB that this media campaign wouldn’t backfire and undermine the public’s (or at least the Hillary Muppets’) faith in the credibility of the MSM? Are they attempting fill the public mind space with a red herring that distracts the public with any excuse to avoid examining the Hillary fail, which might lead to basic questions about whose interests she really represents, or what? Somehow I get the sense the PTB must have known they were taking a gamble, but felt panicked or desperate, and that some big disruption of some sort or another might be at hand.
A year or two ago, you posted a piece on “Bracing for impact”, noting that decline can be punctuated by events or crises of the Black Swan variety that basically reveal to anyone with eyes that the status quo just went up in smoke. Your take seemed to be that some “impact” was lurking out there. Much later, I inferred from something you wrote (can’t recall what) that your thinking has walked back from this view. Personally, I feel like there is something big in the asteroid belt, on some eccentric orbit crossing ours, but I can’t imagine what’s going to happen… I can’t help but recall the Orlovian (as in Dmitry) economic/social collapse in Argentina, 2001. Precious little has been written about that, and I wonder if you think that event suggests anything about our possible future.
5/22/17, 5:14 PM
LunarApprentice said...
On another topic, I’m getting the feeling that personal physical security is becoming more and more relevant. Several years ago, as I was walked from my clinic to my car, a group of 3 or 4 young men (same race as me, caucasian) about 100 feet away, noticed me and began shouting some menacing epithets. They didn’t actually accost me, they just hurled some verbal abuse and that was the end of it. My sense was this was class-based hostility, and the experience made a big impression on me. I felt they would have strung me up on a lamp-post if they had a rope and thought they could get away with it. My response has been to dress down (redneck lite) as a form of social camouflage, while, I hope, also not marking myself as a potential target for law-enforcement, who can be even more dangerous. I have given thought to firearms, but haven’t really taken action on this; I do have a 22 cal rifle which I obtained back when to hunt small game. I haven’t gone so far as to obtain a concealed/carry permit and pack iron. I’m far from certain that would be an optimal form of self-defense anyway, as it is only an option to use/threaten deadly force, which would be hard to justify in most situations. So maybe a “walking stick” or “trek pole” that is in reality a fighting staff might be more practical. Many traditional martial arts cover the staff; Systema, the indigenous martial art of Russia, looks particularly interesting. Still, studying/practicing any martial art is no small thing. The sling is a potentially useful weapon should one need defense-at-a-distance as in 2001 Argentina; the book “The Sling For Sport and Survival” by Cliff Savage is an intriguing read, as it appears that with the sling, you develop instinctive aim, which can be extremely accurate, and reportedly, can be developed rapidly by just about anybody. My wife, like all good liberals it seems, views the topic of self defense as suspect at best. To her, it seems the only legitimate self defense is a cell-phone and maybe a good pair of running shoes.
So JMG, do your muses incline you to meditate and write upon self-defense? I recall you’ve mentioned that you will never discuss personal firearms on your blog for the understandable reason that you don’t want to launch fireworks indoors. But maybe you might reconsider a way to approach this?… I thought your Retrotopia piece on the drone shooting competition, and related scholarly remarks, e.g. the MASER, were deft ways of handling one very dicey topic.
5/22/17, 5:14 PM
Justin said...
I'm not quite sure whether the medical bicarbonate is taken orally or intravenously, but one hopes that someone hooks those patients up with say, laboratory grade bicarbonate - and failing that, Arm and Hammer.
5/22/17, 6:24 PM
peakfuture said...
Quidnon (quidnon.blogspot.com), or something more traditional?
JMG, you've been a beacon of calm comment and reflection (with a good dose of humor!) in a crazy world. Looking forward to whatever comes.
5/22/17, 8:12 PM
Wendy Crim said...
5/22/17, 8:42 PM
Cathy McGuire said...
5/22/17, 8:58 PM
Rhisiart Gwilym said...
5/23/17, 5:13 AM
Trmist said...
Thank you for so much wonderful writing. Your weekly essays were one of the highlights to my week for many years. Its only been a couple months but I miss your weekly essays. I cherished the original perspective you gave analyzing the events of the day and the historical wisdom you provided addressing the larger problems and predicaments we face as a civilization. I'm grateful that I stumbled on to you work all those years ago.
All the best,
TRMIST
5/23/17, 8:26 AM
Birdie said...
I look forward again to reading. the thoughtful comments that have been an integral part of your blog. Very uncommon on most blogs!
5/23/17, 8:44 AM
Macando said...
5/23/17, 9:41 AM
Patricia Mathews said...
A side note of interest and amusement - 30 years ago, David Brin predicted the rise of new ecological-based religions among the youth of 2038, as well as a shifting focus in the mainstream. One quote (from memory, but this is the gist of it) "These days the Virgin Mary takes a serious interest in planetary health."
Alas, the alternative religions were done rather badly, though I can see his female-run Gaian faith becoming your priestesshood somewhere down the road.
Also alas, he averted crisis by pulling a techno-rabbit out of the hat, being unable to envision any other outcome - even though the people in his novel had all, by and large, done exactly what Brin thought should be done. A quote from much younger columnist/author Rebecca Solnit seems appropriate here, "It isn't a fact universally acknowledged that a person who mistakes his opinion for truth may also mistake himself for God." Which in my private correspondence with a close friend I now call "Brin's Disease."
Anyway, I'll be hitting your new blogs with some regularity.
Hasta la vista! Pat
5/23/17, 10:41 AM
Brian Cady said...
5/23/17, 12:00 PM
Mr. Bystander said...
All the best.
5/23/17, 1:35 PM
Jonathan Eells said...
I'm good for a couple cases of tequila and the relevant accessories. If nobody else wants to do this, then I'm just gonna drink it all on my own. Add some bellowing. No pressure.
Fair Winds and Following Seas on your new adventure, good sirrah! I'll be following you over, of course. See you soon.
5/23/17, 2:22 PM
Christophe said...
Congratulations on having meticulously laid the groundwork necessary for us to stand in the void left by the crumbling philosophies and religions of our age in order to build and strengthen the nascent value systems of the future we have so foolishly ordered up. I can think of no richer goal than guiding people out of the distorting hall of mirrors of progressive humanism, where our grandiose man-made reflections cast us always as gods or demons, out into the clarity of the natural world, where our rare reflections in the eyes of a predator or as a tiny dot on the vast blue surface of a still lake invariably remind us how puny we must appear to the demons and gods surrounding us.
I hope you will complete the analysis you started of philosophy, as a way of placing ecosophy in an historic context. Laying down cherished but antiquated values so that we can embrace ones better adapted to our current environment will surely be more successful if we are aware how regularly that has happened throughout human history and how resistant the passing culture has been to that needed change. Despite that resistance, I bet you will bring the term ecosophy into much broader use, as you already have done with archdruid, dissensus, catabolysis, thaumaturgy, and so many other terms.
The cover art of An Archdruid's Tales is a beautiful piece of ecosophic iconography. The discarded cars are no longer central symbols of decline and collapse, but merely balanced sacramental offerings in the cathedral of the natural world. Long live the world tree; may her roots grow deep and strong!
5/23/17, 5:25 PM
Nancy Sutton said...
:) Glad to 'have' you back ... ox
5/23/17, 9:38 PM
Spanish fly said...
5/24/17, 1:09 AM
Mister Roboto said...
Beyond that, I agree with Shane W that we have recently entered into an Age of Special Crapulence (seriously, that is how I plan on remembering 2016 and 2017 in the future) in which anything I have to say to what passes for the social, political, and economic conversation these days is best said with my extended middle finger.
5/24/17, 3:28 AM
Luckymortal said...
5/24/17, 5:13 AM
Esn said...
5/24/17, 5:35 AM
Jon from Virginia said...
I wonder if there is a "rule of three" here, a third book to go with your Mystery Teachings and Salatin's book that I should know of.
5/24/17, 7:37 AM
Sisko Hirvi said...
5/24/17, 8:55 AM
Mike said...
Thank you for these eleven years of thought provoking essays. That is a quite a lot of work you've done and shared with us. Your unusual perspective on things helped me greatly in broadening my thinking and expanding my understanding of the world we live in. It spurred my own reading on related subjects by others that of which and whom I was unaware. For that I am indebted to you. In your new pursuits will you be revisiting what a future ecotechnic society might be like? I'm not sure how that fits into your plans.
Thanks again,
Michael Velik
5/24/17, 8:58 AM
Wendy said...
5/24/17, 9:57 AM
ViewFromHere said...
5/24/17, 11:03 AM
AGL said...
5/24/17, 1:03 PM
AGL said...
5/24/17, 1:06 PM
Nestorian said...
So did you move, or are you still in Cumberland?
With respect, I think there is more to be said still about collapse, if only because constantly changing current events continuously alter the context within which collapse is occurring - often in ways that create doubt about its reality.
Thanks to the stock market, ginned-up economic numbers that are pervasively broadcast, certain important mistakes made by the Peak Oil movement in prediction, and persistent enclaves of relatively stable affluence, it remains possible for many people to continue believing that collapse isn't real, that Peak Oil isn't real, that system-threatening fiscal instability isn't real, that growth really will return to 3% so as to enable a long-term resolution of the US federal debt crisis, etc.
With all that being true, I hope your future endeavors will continue to retain a significant place for sheer collapse-related commentary and discussion.
5/25/17, 6:21 AM
john john said...
Bioregional Animism, the website created by Little Lightning Bolt was also a favourite haunt of mine, however it has since gone off line without an archive.
I look forward to your hardcopy collection.
Thank for your work
all our relations
john john
5/25/17, 1:31 PM
Shane W said...
5/25/17, 1:42 PM
Clay Dennis said...
I too have been a reader of your blog for most of its history, I think I first began following you when I picked up your book " The Long Descent" when it first came out and was on the shelf of Borders ( seems like ions ago such things were availible in actual book stores). I am the same age as you and a native of the Northwest. I can't speculate on your reasons for changing your focus and format, but like you I can feel a change in the air. We are on the cusp of a turning that has been a long time coming but seems very near now, and it is probably time for all of us to make become more focused.
5/25/17, 4:41 PM
Little Al said...
5/26/17, 9:17 AM
Jasmine said...
I am glad to hear that the arch druid blog is to appear in print, a format which will be for more durable than the internet. However I want to make an urgent plea for you to keep the arch druid blog on the internet, even it this is in a read only archive. I am sorry if what follows is too long but I thinks its important.
I first became aware of peak oil in 2008 and since then I have followed the thinking and fortunes of the peak oil movement closely. I have read much that is of value in writers such as Mr Kunstler, Mr Heinberg and Mr Orlov, but you are different from them because you have a background in history, philosophy and religion, which has given you a deeper insight into the cultural, psychological and spiritual forces that have driven our civilisation into this crisis and prevented it from backing away from it. To paraphrase an old Heineken advert, you reach the parts which other writers cannot reach and you have had an invaluable influence on the peak oil movement. It was your writing that helped to steer it away from the notion of an apocalyptic fast collapse and to see that collapse is likely to be a slow drawn out process of crisis followed by period of partial recovery and then another crisis. The events that followed 2008 have proved you correct.
The peak oil movement has taken a real knocking since the shale boom, but it is still going. You can see that in my country in the continued existence of the dark mountain project and the Transition movement. It is likely that there will be another oil crisis and financial crash in the next few years, which will spark another surge oil interest in peak oil and the limits to growth. I think this surge of interest will be much greater than 2008 because the old political order is collapsing and millions will be looking on the internet to find out the reason why we are in this dilemma and I am sure that many will will find references to the arch druid report and when they try to find it, it won’t be there. I know you will have a new web site, but I understand it isn't going to be dealing with peak oil and the collapse of industrial civilisation. All that great wisdom you have accumulated on the internet over 10 year will be lost and you will have lost the chance to influence the new generation of peak oilers.
5/26/17, 9:20 AM
Jasmine said...
Because our political consensus has been broken I think that the next few years are going to be vital in determining the course our civilisation takes in the ongoing collapse. Our society has suddenly become malleable as millions have started looking for a new way of thinking. It is vital that you do all you can to strike while the iron is hot and influence as many people as you can. This is why it is vital that the arch druid report stays on the internet so that its wisdom can influence anyone who goes in search of it. Of course I’m aware that the internet will one day go and that it is too late to save out industrial civilisation. But there is still a hell of a lot we can do to cushion the descent and save a lot of things and ideas that will be of value to future generation and keeping the Arch Druid Blog on the internet will play a vital part in it. So please, I implore you to do your karmic duty and keep your blog on the net.
PS: The collapse of the old political order is well under way in this country. We had Brexit last year and I hear today that Corbyn is only 5% behind Teresa May in the election. When the election started Corbyn was 20% behind May and all the commentators were convinced that the Labour would be wiped out. And this poll was taken after the Manchester terrorist attack which you would think benefit the conservatives. I still think May is likely to win, but the fact that Corbyn is only 5% behind is astounding. The way in which the press have lambasted him as a left wing nutcase is incredible, but people don't seem to be listening any more
5/26/17, 9:22 AM
Jennie said...
Standing by and excited to read anything you care to write. I've got my small vegetable farm, with a loose group of pagan-ish/gaia-worshipers. We're struggling to coalesce as a community though. And we're not the only group struggling to make it to the other side of that bridge.
It will be odd to not have my Thursday Archdruid date. But I've adjusted ok this spring. :-D
Maybe I'll buy the box set to appease the urge. :-D
As always, take care, and if you find yourself in Iowa, I've got food and shelter to share.
-Jennie
5/26/17, 9:24 AM
Darren said...
5/26/17, 2:51 PM
Mike Warot said...
5/26/17, 10:07 PM
Setik said...
You took me to places I had no idea existed. I started to read your blog around 2010 I think, I was a corporate IT technician back then, a city dweller, and now I live on my coutnry border under a shabby but debt-free roof with garden blossming arround it. Im learning seedkeeping and beekeeping to make living. Im half way there. No car, no telly, just sun, rain and bees. Loneliness, but completely differnet loneliness then in a city. Manageable lonelinesa for a man is at least a bit useful here.
The push I needed came from you and Nicole Foss mostly. And for that I am forever thankful.
So thank you for writing this amazing blog. With the exception of retrotopia Ive red great most of. I started it from begining.
I wish you very best luck, I will try to keep up. Religiosity is not my thing though. Spirituality maybe, but .. when it gets stuff nailed to it.. well, not so much.
Jan
5/26/17, 10:51 PM
JoHio said...
5/27/17, 4:36 AM
Mister Roboto said...
Men's rights activists (MRAs) have appropriated the term "red-pilled" from the movie The Matrix for converts to their particular point of view. But I say forget about third-wave feminism or men's rights activism, The Archdruid Report was the real red pill!
5/27/17, 5:33 AM
Iuval Clejan said...
5/27/17, 1:16 PM
Adrian Smith said...
5/28/17, 3:54 AM
Shane W said...
5/28/17, 5:25 AM
susan said...
I want to make one more appeal to you regarding your intention to remove the ADR from its current place on the internet - a purely selfish one on my part, but likely a circumstance that doesn't just affect me. As a retired person who depends on a fixed income for my living here in Canada it will be difficult, if not impossible, to both purchase and shelve ten volumes of the printed total of the ADR blog posts.
Your work here has made a big difference to the lives of so many people in how we interpret the culture at large. The comment sections have blossomed as your readers have met to discuss the issues and their own solutions to the practicalities of dealing with the altered circumstances we face. Losing all that seems a terrible waste.
Despite the fact there will be a printed version of ADR for those who will be able to maintain copies in the future, I hope you will reconsider keeping the current Report online either here or as an archive at your new website.
Once again, I offer my thanks for all you've done,
Susan
5/28/17, 5:44 AM
Jasmine said...
I hope you don’t mind if I add a couple more reasons for keeping the arch druid report on the internet, even if it is a read only archive.
I understand that your new blog will be looking at the emergence of a new fusion of ecology and religion as a way of life and a spiritual practice. The emphasis of the new blog will be different from the arch druid blog. However you will often have to refer to ideas and themes from arch druid blog. and that might mean going back to basics and repeating things that you have already gone into detail about on the arch druid blog. Surely it would make your life as a writer much easier if you could avoid this and just refer to the relevant post from the arch druid. Why would you want to waste time rewriting what you have already written. It would also make your life easier when having to reply to commentators if you can just put a link to a relevant post not he arch druid blog.
In order to understand the need of a new fusion between ecology and religion it is first necessary to understand all the ideas and themes that you have so extensively covered in the arch druid report. The arch druid blog is the school you have go to before you can go to the university of your new blog. Those of us who have been reading the arch druid blog for years or have a good knowledge of this stuff from other sources, probably have no need of if any more. But there are thousands who may come across the arch druid blog in the future and be influenced by it and then move onto your new blog. Of course if the arch druid blog in no longer there, then this will not happen.
5/28/17, 9:31 AM
NZ said...
Coming to terms with what sustainability and spirituality mean in the world is where we are at. Spiritual strength will be the primary means of survival and health. It is the light that shines in the endless darkness. It cannot be a spirituality based on conquest.
The written word is so very important. Artifacts and art that give meaning and understanding to the world are also important. The architects of modern industrial society have lost control of their creations, and their promises for the future have fallen short. Their promises are illusions.
Finding a spiritual home is what humanity seeks. Finding being more important than endlessly seeking. Phase changes happen in jumps. Understanding and wisdom happen in jumps. Evolution is a beautiful phenomenon. Moving thru time from one form to another. How very beautiful.
All the best.
5/28/17, 9:38 AM
Nestorian said...
Even though I am sadly compelled to part ways with you, JMG, on matters of ultimate religious import, I too have found your blog - with its comments section - an immensely valuable resource over the years, and it would be a great pity to have it vanish abruptly.
It also pains me greatly that my Judeo-Christian religious confreres are for the most part unwilling to take your ideas seriously, now that the economic non-recovery that has unfolded since 2008 has successfully been sold as such to too many people eager to believe that particular falsehood.
But that will change eventually, and, as was said by other posters, it would be immensely valuable to have your original blog available as an electronic archive - with comments - once that day comes to pass, possibly even in the near future.
I know that you are trying to influence unfolding developments for the better by propogating your ideas; please do not underestimate the long-term effect you could have in this way merely by leaving up thearchdruidreport as an electronic archive. Indeed, in the long run, merely leaving thearchdruidreport on the web could prove to be the single most potent step you could take to ensure your ideas are widely circulated when it really counts - during the next coming phase of precipitous, and therefore undeniable, rapid decline.
Eventually, of course, the internet will go dark anyhow; however, this is likely to happen as a result and in the wake of the next severe crisis of global civilization, and not in advance of it. So your archived blog is very likely to remain widely available while it really counts, if you leave it up.
5/29/17, 8:13 AM
Martin B said...
I don't know if it's the sort of thing you'll be discussing in your ecology and religion posts, but as a recent gardener I've been struck by the fact that plants try really hard to grow. Give them the right conditions and they'll flourish; but even if you don't or can't give them exactly what they need, they'll still battle against adversity to reach maturity. It's been a bit of a lesson for me in my own conduct.
5/29/17, 1:55 PM
Maxine Rogers said...
I am a bit surprised by the direction JMG has taken as I thought we were already doing just that. At least, I certainly was. It all just seemed obvious and logical after reading TADR for a while.
I just built my first hay box this morning out of a cardboard box, quite a lot of sheep's wool, a cotton liner and a pillow filled with more sheep's wool. I have also reduced the time I have my washing machine operating for from 54 to 28 minutes and am getting my clothes cleaner. The trick in this case is to soak the clothes overnight in a tub of hot soapy water with a bit of borax in it. The clothes get wrung out and popped into the washing machine and the soak water goes on the grass in my Sacred Grove.
Looking forward to the journey to the heart of Hobbiton with the TADR gang.
Yours under the red cedars,
Max Rogers
5/29/17, 3:21 PM
casamurphy said...
5/29/17, 4:24 PM
James Baxendale said...
I would like to add my voice to those requesting that you keep a read-only copy of the Archdruid Report on line for many of the same reasons. Like so many others it was through the results of a google search (in my case about any association between Stoicism, cardinal values and Fritz Schumacher) that led me quite by accident to a post of yours http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/the-rock-by-lake-silvaplana.html and your writing immediately drew me in.
No one else was tackling the mix of the questions of faith and values as bound inside the history of ideas, mixed with philosophy amid a discussion of a future of constrained resources in the way that particular post was. I was immediately hooked and have read back through all the posts over the years.
I look forward to being able to purchase the book version of the Archdruid Report once it is available and yet still think it will be a great shame if others loose the chance to stumble upon the wisdom embodied in your blog posts coupled with the comments sections where you have done a great job of clarifying any confusion your readers may have encountered in the same way I was fortunate enough to do.
5/29/17, 5:50 PM
Ien in the Kootenays said...
5/29/17, 9:15 PM
Donald Hargraves said...
One thing I've noticed recently is that a lot of news sites have started fundraising and/or walling content off. While I'm of the mind that that should have happened much earlier, that it's beginning to develop in earnest shows the old internet ideal is become threadbare – and weaknesses may show sooner, not later.
5/30/17, 6:29 AM
John Michael Greer said...
I understand that a lot of people would rather have this blog stay up; it would undoubtedly be more convenient for many. For a variety of reasons, though, that's not workable from my end, and sometime in the second half of June -- date not yet certain, but quite possibly as early as the solstice -- down it goes. I'd encourage those of you who are upset by this to consider it as a dry run for the much broader loss of access to resources of all kinds you can expect in the years ahead.
We've all gotten used to the idea that big impersonal institutions will take care of the job of providing us with the things we need and want. That's a strategy with an increasingly short shelf life these days. As we proceed further down the slope of decline, more and more often, if you want to be sure that something is going to stay around, you will have to see to that yourself, individually or as part of a group of people. Nobody else is going to do it for you.
I've already noted that I have no objection to people copying the material on this blog elsewhere on the web. I'll take that another step. If one or more of you are willing to go to the trouble of copying all 543 posts plus comments and posting them somewhere else on the internet, drop me a comment marked "not for posting" and we'll see what we can arrange. Fair enough? If those who want to see this content remain online are willing to put in the sweat involved, we can probably work something out. If not? Well, them's the breaks.
5/30/17, 7:30 AM
Matt said...
looking forward to the new venture(s), my shoulder-atheist is getting the collywobbles at the mention of religion. Bring it on!
On the Not For Publication bit: I would happily host the pages on my Amazon account. I can't promise it would last forever, but hey...
Do you have a dump of ADR that would be easier to work with, or would it involve pulling it page by page off blogspot?
Matt
5/30/17, 7:56 AM
xilo said...
My thanks to you Mr. Greer.
Sincerely X
P. D. Have you read R. D. Laing´s Knots?, many of your exposition remind me of that book.
5/30/17, 1:18 PM
Shane W said...
5/30/17, 4:31 PM
Librarian of Hillman said...
5/30/17, 4:43 PM
temporaryreality (Wendy) said...
Regarding my comment on Galabes, in which I suggested the relatively simple fix of deleting each post's text, substituting a "this content can be found at ____" line, disabling further comments yet leaving all comment-threads intact would allow folks to find the posts (and support you by purchasing them) AND read the existing comments without any need for further moderation or effort on your part -- this would be something worthy of delegation if you have someone you trust with your password/login credentials.
This could reduce the sweat of potential helpers who would otherwise need to copy each thread individually.
You're absolutely right, JMG, that your time is better spent elsewhere, but perhaps you have a trusted comrade who could do this for you?
Sorry if this appears to be re-hashing something that you've already decided against.
5/30/17, 8:16 PM
Greenseeker36 said...
5/30/17, 10:23 PM
Peter Wilson said...
For those wanting to download this archive and comments before it sadly disappears, the nice folks that made up the basic set of Linux utilities provided a way, using the venerable wget application. JMG might appreciate that simplicity. There are instructions here in case people want to have a play:
http://www.dheinemann.com/2011/how-to-use-wget-to-archive-a-blogspot-blog/
I hope JMG doesn't mind people who want to retain the comments having a crack to do so.
5/31/17, 3:51 AM
Pavel said...
Since you have no objection to people putting material from your blog elsewhere on the web, would you also agree if I translated some of your narratives and put them on web? With the appropriate credits, of course.
Pavel
5/31/17, 4:12 AM
Adrian Smith said...
5/31/17, 5:40 AM
MCB said...
This command downloads a copy of the site to your local disk by following all the links from the parent on that site. The little '&' sign at the end runs that task non interactively - which is important if you want to stop the download from becoming massive.
wget -r --no-parent http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ &
The next command deletes multiple copies of each page that are created due to following comments links. You should keep running this every 10 minutes or so whilst the site is downloading to clear out the spurious pages, or if you have many GB of free disk space, then you can run it once at the end.
find thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ -type f -name '*showComment*' -delete
Finally you can then archive it all up into a single compressed file using:
tar cvzf thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.tar.gz thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
You can repeat the process using galabes.blogspot.com/ for the Well of Galabes site.
MCB
5/31/17, 5:42 AM
Peter Wilson said...
5/31/17, 6:46 AM
Unknown said...
Would you consider writing for The Baffler or Current Affairs? They might be great hosts to your jaundiced and idiosyncratic perspective.
5/31/17, 7:32 AM
TeeCee said...
It seems that line of discussion / inquiry has halted mid stream - at least here.
Will you / have you continued that elsewhere? I truly value your insight on all that you have shared through the years.
Best wishes in you future endeavors! I will be following ( and supporting ! ).
5/31/17, 8:29 AM
Chris Smith said...
5/31/17, 8:44 AM
Anna said...
5/31/17, 12:33 PM
Esn said...
Over the past week, I spent some time manually submitting every page that wasn't already there (including yearly and monthly pages, and all of the comment pages) to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (they have a form that allows people to manually archive online pages). Although their system seems to be buggy and it wasn't always clear that something was actually archived after I submitted the form, I did some checking just now and I think they're finally all there.
I then realized that it may not be a good idea to rely on other institutions still being around in the future (as you say), and tried to make an archive of the site on my own computer using WinHTTrack. I stopped it partway through because it was getting pretty big - a whole gigabyte, while I only have 2GB left on my hard drive. Perhaps there's something I can change in the settings to have it take up less space... I suspect that it's either duplicating a lot of image data or following some links too deeply.
@Adrian Smith
How did you get your archive to take up just 222mb?
One good option for keeping the Report accessible in the future might be to create a lean archive of the site and then turn it into a public torrent/magnet link. That way, it should be accessible as long as the internet is around and at least one person who has the archive on their computer is still online.
6/1/17, 6:09 PM
frozenthunderbolt said...
I will endeavor to add you ADR volumes to my not-inconsiderable library to be perused along side many of your other theosophical and philosophical works, though I shudder to think what it may cost to purchase them and have them shipped to NZ.
Maybe I can recommend them as a purchase for my (not so local) public library.
@ all commentators - I have updated JMG's Wikipedia page to warn that the ADR will be removed imminently, and have added the link to EcoSophia.
If anyone successfully hosts a mirror/archive of TADR and/or TWOG please update the Wikki page to reflect this: I think we all agree that these writings are too valuable to loose.
6/2/17, 3:25 PM
Adrian Smith said...
I dunno about bittorrent, it seems to be a bit of a shadow of its former, what with so many hosting sites going offline.
6/2/17, 11:27 PM
John Michael Greer said...
6/4/17, 5:11 PM
Keith Huddleston said...
http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.com/
It currently has all of the posts. I have two projects I willing be working on over the summer: 1) building an index by year the article was posted (ie not when I copied it over . . . that all happened this month). 2) making it so the links from one article to another don't end up as busted links.
6/4/17, 11:07 PM
Ruben said...
And, if somebody has the technical know-how, please let us know quickly, or I am going to need to get downloading my reference columns right quick!
6/5/17, 7:07 PM
John Michael Greer said...
BTW, I've been asked about whether I can email around a download of the whole site, plus comments; the Well of Galabes, which has about a twentieth of the volume of posts and comments, came to 14.8 MB as a download, so I'm assuming that the Archdruid Report would work out to something around 300 MB as an xml file -- in other words, much larger than any email program I know of will handle, and also enough to lock up my poor outdated computer for a very, very long time. Given everything else I have to do between now and the beginning of July, that's not really going to be an option.
6/6/17, 11:19 AM
Raymond Duckling said...
I will be offering a libation of strong, local stout for the good times together, my brothers and sisters. May the Force be with you and yours.
See you on the other blog.
6/6/17, 1:02 PM
Keith Huddleston said...
http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.com/
Posts have been copied and there is now an index by year the post was written.
I hope this saves some of the other hard-core fans some time.
If anyone else has a mirror or preservation project, drop me a line and I'll be happy to link to it on my mirror site. Also, e-mail me if you want to get the posts sent to you in a text format (when I can get around to it -- starting tomorrow I'm out for a wedding and will fast from the internet the whole time). One great thing about JMG's decision to close up shop here is that it forces us to find ways to make the Archdruid Report canon more resilient. I plan to buy the paper copy and see it one day gifted to the next generation.
[email protected]
6/6/17, 3:44 PM
Sister Crow said...
I'm another who found so much to mull over in every post that I seldom had a coherent response before the next post was up, but I certainly enjoyed taking this journey with such a knowledgeable and wry guide. I am eagerly anticipating this new direction--over the hills and far away?
Gratitude and good luck to everyone working on mirror sites and archives! Your efforts are appreciated by many.
Yours under the Norway pines, Sister Crow
6/7/17, 2:30 PM
Diane Melen said...
I will follow your other blogs there too. Mr. Greer it's been a long time at the computer screen with you and I look forward to exploring the path ahead.
6/7/17, 9:47 PM
flute said...
I must sincerely thank you for what for me has been the most important blog on the web, and I am glad that someone has taken to archiving it in a place which will be accessible for as long as the Internet structure permits. Now and then I feel a need to look up some old post of yours to refresh my memory.
Your blogging has really inspired my thinking about the recently commenced downhill walk of industrial civilisation, and you have provoked many thoughts and introduced me to so many new and old ideas and concepts.
I count you as one of the great thinkers of our time, and I am glad that hopefully your work will survive for longer than the World Wide Web in printed form.
Good Luck to you from a Swedish flute player!
6/8/17, 2:01 AM
Urban said...
Files are inside a .7z container to reduce space. 7-Zip or WinRAR can be used to extract the pages from them.
The mobile page versions were saved to allow each post with all comments to be stored on a single file. Nested replies will appear properly. And the mobile version is more printer friendly.
The .mht format was used to store each post on its own single file. Internet Explorer on Windows will open these files without need to install other software. Users of other browsers should know their way to do this.
For reference, the pages were saved with the Pale Moon Browser with MozArchiver add-on.
Remember, these links are temporary. They can disappear any time. You must save them as soon as possible.
The Archdruid Report (60MB):
https://my.mixtape.moe/uoxpxj.7z
The Well of Galabes (4MB):
https://my.mixtape.moe/yshnmd.7z
6/8/17, 3:29 PM
jlpicard2 said...
https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/41387?hl=en
Zipping it should make it quite a bit smaller, and zip is supported everywhere. There are other programs that can make it quite a bit smaller. In my testing, 7-Zip had the best compression for this type of file. http://www.7-zip.org/download.html
The files will still likely be too large for email. To get an idea, I compressed the HTML only of "How Should We Then Live?". With the old zip format (Using 7-Zip, compression level Ultra), the archive was reduced to 20.5% of the original size. With 7-Zip's native 7z format (Ultra again), I was able to reduce the article and comments down to 17%. More savings will come with more articles though. With the last full month of Archdruid postings, we can reduce the size to 14.7% with 7z, and 21.3% with zip. If the xml file is monolithic (one huge file), zip will have a somewhat better compression ratio. Still, if the original was 300MB, then even 7z is not enough compression to fit in an email. It would be a much smaller size for up and downloading though, at about 44.1MB.
Uploading the file to Google Drive would be a much better idea than trying to email the XML archive. You could email out links to it as you see fit. You could also put the link anywhere you want, such as in a comment, etc. You can also delete the file or remove sharing in Google Drive whenever you want to stop sharing it.
I would be glad to help with step by step instructions on how to do this.
6/10/17, 7:38 AM
Lynn Klug said...
No longer Imbrium.
6/10/17, 7:22 PM
Unknown said...
I have been following The Archdruid Report since 2006 when I was living in Barcelona, you have been a huge influence on my life ever since.
I have recently started a fulltime job, in rural SW Victoria, Australia, so for the first time in many years, I can afford to buy more than the occasional book, and I can apply some actions from a more secure base than what has been the case for the last 12 years. I look forward to having your collected works on acid-free and bound paper.
The name for your new forums will be easy enough for me to remember - EcoSophia in its Greek meaning is something that I will always aspire to!
best regards,
Sophia MacRae
6/11/17, 11:14 PM
Ruben said...
6/12/17, 10:47 AM
pygmycory said...
I'll check the new sites again after the solstice to get a better idea of the direction you will be heading off in, and whether I want to come along on the trek.
6/12/17, 5:34 PM
NaRong said...
goldenslot
บาคาร่า online
6/13/17, 3:40 AM
rudyspeaks said...
6/15/17, 6:18 PM
Ryan said...
I took a stab at archiving the blog. I wrote a script that downloads the existing Blogger site. It cleans the pages up, removing things like sharing buttons and fixing links from one post to another. It also (re)compresses image files and rewrites some of the blog's HTML/JS code, reducing the archive's size and keeping the "Blog Archive" sidebar widget working. The result looks similar to the current desktop site, with one page per post (with all of the post's comments) and one page per month (no comments).
As mentioned above, the desktop site doesn't do nested replies correctly, and so far, this archive also doesn't. I might fix that at some point, perhaps by including a mobile version of the archive.
I placed the archive in this Google Drive folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B8Qtw5WNgYf8X2JLckdIUmcxUTg
The file is thearchdruidreport-archive-20170616-2.7z (34MB).
It's a 7-Zip archive, so as with the 7-Zip archives above, extracting them requires an archiver program like 7-Zip, WinZIP, WinRAR, Keka, p7zip, etc.
I also hosted the archive online at https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz. The site is hosted via GitHub Pages, which provides free hosting for small sites. The archive's files are hosted in this GitHub repository, https://www.github.com/squirrel2038/thearchdruidreport-archive. The domain, 200605.xyz, is from the very new 1.111B xyz domain class, which I chose because it costs only $2/year.
In principle, anyone with enough technical know-how can also run my script. See the README in the GitHub repo. Once this Blogger site goes down, the script can instead use a "web_cache" archive containing raw HTTP responses. web_cache is located in the Google Drive folder above. Aside from the desktop site, web_cache also contains mobile pages, as well as Atom XML and Blogger JSON files for each post and for all comments.
I also briefly looked at copying posts+comments into a new Blogger blog. A Blogger mirror would presumably be easier to maintain than a static site. On the other hand, the archive I have now doesn't rely on Blogger or even on the Internet, and it preserves the #c<COMMENT-ID> URL fragments in comment permalinks. Given an old hyperlink to a blog comment, it's possible to find the comment in the new archive by merely changing the URL's domain. When I imported XML into Blogger, all the comment IDs changed.
Maybe it'd be nice to have a better domain name, but it would cost more. As far as I know, the thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz site can stay up indefinitely.
If anyone wants to discuss the archive, I can be reached at [email protected].
6/16/17, 5:05 PM
Nick said...
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
6/19/17, 5:11 PM