Blog - Michael GJ Arts

March 22, 2024March 22, 2024

From Ducks to Dinner:

A few months back, I incubated a small number of duck eggs hatched from my personal flock, and dispersed them between two of my friends.

Ducklings are notoriously difficult to sex, and even after consulting many educational sources, Joe and I were ultimately incorrect with two and so he ended up with three drakes and one female.

When they grew up a little and molted, and our mistake became apparent, we decided to ‘dress’ the extra drakes and make dinner out of one and freeze the other.

Joe, who was a sous chef earlier in life, did a fantastic job of butchering and cooking up the duck! He made a broth from the duck neck, and cooked up the legs and breasts and served them with pasta and white sauce!

It’s quite remarkable the amount of food one duck provides, and even more remarkable is the innate ability we possess to reduce the principal to oneself. From incubating the eggs, raising the ducklings, dressing, and then culminating into a gourmet home-cooked meal, and that it can be done all in your backyard by yourself, or better yet, with the help of a friend!

This is the kind of activity and skill we as a civilized society ought to cultivate. The natural world is our birthright, and our stewardship over it is realized by integrating our motion into its natural harmony.

July 18, 2023August 8, 2023

Self-Sufficiency, and the ‘Good’: Permaculture as the Highest Practical Science

The minimum requirement for a permanent civilization or a culture, is a permanent system which can provide the external means necessary for human life. This is the ‘end’ or ‘essential nature realized,’ of permaculture.

So what exactly is the essence or definition of permaculture?

Well, according to wikipedia:

“Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking.”

And the difference between agriculture and permaculture:

“Agriculture is the practice of cultivating food for human consumption. Permaculture is “permanent agriculture” and integrates ecosystem patterns to improve the ethics and sustainability of farming practices.”

redemptionpermaculture.com/permaculture-vs-agriculture-how-do-they-differ/

If the work of God is the cosmos, and the result of his organizational activity, then the question if you’re God becomes that of how to best orchestrate and place the ‘springs’ of natural motions, the intelligences, into the best possible arrangement within the medium of intelligent expression, whereby its essential nature may become as fully realized as possible. Like in Nature, this whole-system approach utilizes seemingly contrary natural motions [natures] in ways conducive to the whole ecosystem. This, we observe in the natural world and its many distinct ecosystems.

So what is an ecosystem exactly? I think that the essential definition of ecosystem is: an arrangement of distinct and differing natural motions emanating from intelligences, tailored in such a way that each distinct intelligence’s essential nature is utilized through its own realization towards the good and sustainability of the whole system.

This is also the goal of the Perma-culturlist. To guide, arrange, or otherwise enact into reality the practical actions necessary to promote the harmony of a whole-system approach which encompasses the fullest utilization of each unique nature in its role towards its own natural end as well as towards the end of the whole. So what is the end of the whole? The end good is that it provides the necessary means for human life, and is sustainable, or self sufficient. This is the ‘good.’

The particular good, is that which is conducive to the essential nature of a particular thing. The universal good is that which is conducive to all intelligent natures. Happiness is the term for the highest human good. The end towards which all we do are means towards; but is not itself a means towards anything beyond itself.

‘We call the self sufficient, that which, taken even by itself, makes life desirable and wanting nothing at all; and this is what we mean by happiness.” – Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

The evils of monoculture. In monoculture, every nature is the same and this renders the system as a whole unsustainable. In a nut-shell this encapsulates the Devil’s plan. With no difference in the kind of natures present, being all the same, you cannot create anything above or transcend the natural motion present in the system.

Imagine this thought example:

Imagine you have a set of magic marbles. Within this set, there are 6 distinct colors and each different color has differing properties. What makes these marbles magic is that each one is an infinite power source; although each color has its own sequence of motion that it takes, and will infinitely take. For example:

Blue Marbles go in a perpetual circle

Red Marbles motion tends upwards indefinitely

Yellow Marbles tends downwards indefinitely

Green Marbles move in a square sequence of four right angles

Purple Marbles move back and forth along a line

Pink Marbles move is a triangle sequence

Now, if your system was made up of only one of these kinds of marbles, the system would not be capable of anything more than the natural motion of that color marble. But, if you were to combine several of these marble’s motions, you could make, say a clock, or any number of more complex system or, form [motion] which transcends the motion of any of each of the marbles, but is the product of the full realization of several distinct natures.

You cannot create a clock without an opposing motion.

On Earth we may study Nature and the miraculous harmony of complex ecosystems that we may grow in our personal as well as societal understanding of the true principles pertaining to life.

July 7, 2023July 7, 2023

Hatching Quail Eggs I Received Through The Mail

I recently made the decision to add quail into my daily husbandry repertoire. I researched them extensively and decided that on top of my daily and enjoyable chicken and duck care regime, adding quail would not require a substantial increase in my daily effort.

I purchased a $75 second hand large metal bird enclosure, a $50 incubator on ebay, and a few dozen hatching eggs of the Coturnix variety which cost me just under another $50 I believe, with shipping.

When it all came together and I had picked up my hatching eggs from the post office, I realized that my incubator could not hold them all. This I addressed by creating another home-made incubator with egg trays in a box with a thermometer and heat lamp to hold the remaining eggs.

I allowed the eggs to warm to room temperature and followed the instructions for incubating closely. I had to manually turn the incubating eggs in the over-flow region. As the days went by, I genuinely started doubting that any should hatch. They came in the mail and could have been subjugated to temperature and humidity shifts, or perhaps that my state’s low humidity and dryness might come into play with a negative effect over the course of 16-17 days needed to properly incubate.

Needless to say, I was honestly surprised and in awe when I entered the room to check the eggs and lo and behold there was my first chick hatched!

Now you are not supposed to take the first chick out immediately. Opening the incubator can cause a drop in temperature and humidity that can essentially shrink-wrap the remaining chicks. So you are supposed to wait 24 hours before removing the first batch of hatchies.

It is such a beautiful animal right out of the egg. They are so happy to be alive and out and about from the egg. It was difficult waiting while the one chick chirped from within the incubator alone.

The next hatch was in the make-shift incubator which I started a day later and so was expecting them to hatch after the ones in the real incubator, but one hatched and fell right into the humidity water pool so I pulled it out early and placed it under the heat plate in the enclosure.

The next morning, there is an orchestra of chirps coming from the incubator room and when I check the incubator there are over ten hatches! It has been 24 hours so I remove and place the first batch into the enclosure. More may still hatch within the next 4 days.

June 17, 2023June 17, 2023

The Obscured Science of Metaphysics

More than any other science over the centuries, Metaphysics was allowed to undergo dilution, corruption, and entanglement, beyond that of any of its particular branches. I will help illuminate the direct causation that this awful truth has upon virtually all aspects within the state of our world today, through a free and excellent education of Metaphysics, Philosophy, and practical [or moral] Ethics. Classically based, this website seeks to serve as the metaphorical ‘Socratic midwife’ in assisting and fostering of the individual’s innate nature and ability to do the thinking for themselves.

Metaphysics is the science of being qua being. Each science studies the universal principles behind only some certain aspect or aspects of being. For example:

Biology is the science of ‘being’ qua functions of living things
Physics is the science of ‘being’ qua natural forces and mechanics
Psychology is the science of ‘being’ qua mental states
Astronomy is the science of ‘being’ qua the motions of heavenly bodies, etc.
All sciences presuppose being, and thus are unable to ‘prove it.’

“Because the first principles proper to a science “are primary among all [the truths contained within it],” they cannot be demonstrated within that science. They can however, be defended by dialectic.”- Substantial Knowledge, C.D.C Reeve – 2.2 Dialectic and First Principals

Metaphysics is the study of first principles, and of ‘being as a whole’ or ‘being qua being.’ This seemingly two-fold focus is because that to understand the nature and relationship of the first principles is the same as understanding ‘being,’ and our essential nature, itself. For being alive is the natural motion of intelligence [aether] realized in that which may potentially receive it, the intelligent medium of expression [temporal matter].

The nature of a thing is its ‘natural motion.’

Time is simply the numerical measurement of [relative] motion

Man’s essential nature is ‘Happiness’ or motion of the soul [the whole being] in accordance with true reason. Or the good. Or that which is ultimately conducive to its essential nature.
The essential nature realized in the intelligent medium of expression is the ‘end’ or purpose of an intelligent being. ‘Good’ means that which is conducive to the essential nature of a thing. “Bad’ is that which is antagonistic to the essential nature or ‘ natural motion’ of a thing. The ‘moral good’ is simply the good which lies within our essential nature’s power to achieve. Namely action or motion of our whole being in accordance with true reason. Metaphysical truths are truths about being as a whole. Simple examples would be those commonly held beliefs amongst many such as that it is good [conducive to our essential nature] to be honest, be healthy, be wise, be prudent etc. Virtue Ethics as enumerated upon by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethic.

Your essential nature (primary state of ‘being’) is divine and eternal, having always existed, and composed of the ‘cosmic element;’ you are an entity made of the eternal substance of aether, or “that which is always going.” Aether has all potential motion present in it, being the principal or starting point of all potential actualities realzied, even temporal matter. Temporal matter [matter in and of time or the aether] is a potential state and can be actualized or in motion but is not itself a principal or starting point of motion. Gravity is caused by matter acting as a conduit of aether’s eternal motion, channeling it. The faculty of the intellect is conversant with actualized states, or motions, relations of motions etc. Intelligence being a native to it. Language is composed of particular symbols of which the logic stems from their correct understood correlation to the motion in relation to an entity. (Think subject predicate theory) Otherwise called a sentence or unit of thought. Our physical or temporal material body, senses particulars (potential states), as it is of this material and “like knows like”; but with our intellect, motions [actualized states] and the soul [whole being] the relation of the two to one another. Within that relation is the the truth. Motions are themselves immaterial, and so is the principal (where motion is imparted in the first instance) of the intellect. This is not to say it is not composed of a substance, only that it is not of temporal matter or sensible matter, which is why we cannot sense it. Because senses are only conversant with things of that medium which is liable to change. But the nature or natural motion of Aether is eternal, and so are the intelligences therein. The nature or natural motions of temporal matter or the elements, are not eternal and can change into its respective contrary. This is a complex subject but a simple example of this is water, of the temporal medium, of which the natural motion is towards the center of gravity, but can be converted into a gaseous state whereupon the natural motion of which no longer tends towards the center of gravity, but outwards and even upwards. Eternal things are not sensed by our five senses, because their essential nature never changes, as there is no contrary to an infinite motion. And all qualitative changes are changes to the contrary.This is why space is the most eternal and invisible, seemingly unchanging “thing.” Temporal Matter is only a dimension of it. A derivative of it. It is a medium that intelligence might be realized or expressed in, a potential state, realized by being imparted motion by intelligence [aether] which may potentially impart motion by virtue of its eternal nature of always being in motion. Or “being” eternal. Matter is a potential state generated [organized] from something already actual [in motion.] Matter is a derivative or extension of aether. Space [Aether] is the medium of intelligence itself, the Spirit which quickens and gives life to all things.

June 16, 2023July 18, 2023

Endings and Beginnings

The end result of plant life is the source of the beginning of animal life, in the sense that the necessary chemical compounds animals need to grow are derived exclusively in their first instance from the end chemical processes of plants. Namely the molecular compounds necessary for blood which form all organs and parts of the animal body.

And so if animal life originates or begins from the final cause of plant life, (the necessary compounds of animal blood which ultimately constructs all parts of the body is derived solely from the compound plants form) from then there must be a way of life that begins or starts at the final cause of human life. Which is to say an entirely different and a fuller way of being begins or starts at happiness, man’s final cause. Or that happiness (activity of the mind in accordance with true reason) is the metaphorical blood of a different and arguably divine way of being, as in nitrogen enriched elements from plants originate the means of animal blood and bodies, the end cause of man (happiness) forms the necessary compounds that originate an entirely distinct form of being.

The end of plant life, which provides the necessary origination to all animal life, Is what the end of man’s life, is to the next fuller iteration of being. The end, happiness, being the origin and sustaining point of that fuller being.