A Visit to the Grand Freemasonic Lodge of Philadelphia

This was definitely the high point of our day trip to Philadelphia. We read that the Grand Lodge gives tours, so we showed up, paid our fee, and were led about by the most tedious little man who looked quite a bit like the father on the original Addams family. More on him in a moment.

This lodge is heavily involved in the founding of the United States as most of the founding fathers were freemasons. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and probably Thomas J. performed secret rituals there.

Any time you have a chance to see inside a freemasonic temple you should take it, because even if you know nothing about freemasonry you will see some of the most beautiful imagery ever conceived by the mind of man. If you DO know something about freemasonry it becomes even more interesting to glimpse into this bizarre male religion and to watch your host dodge challenging questions.

A little about freemasonry...on the surface freemasonry is a men's club for socializing and charitable activities. Men are attracted to it for networking and to gain advantages by belonging to “the brotherhood”. Members are initiated up through levels or “degrees” by way of rituals, most members never rise higher than the third level, and most freemasons are just as clueless about their organization as any other doofus. Here is one of them undergoing the "hanged man" ritual, for one of the lower degrees.

The fact is, freemasonry derives from ancient roots, dating from at least as far back as the great Egyptian era, and to the high initiates it is a religion where as one rises through the levels one becomes more and more “illuminated”. As one of the most prominent secret societies, freemasonry plays an important role in world history, though the official story maintains this as pure crap. But one can find evidence of freemasonic activity nearly everywhere something important is happening.

Freemasonic symbols are embedded in the layout of the world's great cities. Important and symbolic edifices like the Pentagon are given a freemasonic ceremony at their ground breaking. The Pentagagon's ground breaking ceremony occurred on September 11...ahem...uh...anyway...Look at a dollar bill and you will find freemasonic symbols all over it. A nation's currency is not designed based on someone's whim and fancy—only the most credulous would believe this—everything on it conveys a message and on the dollar bill one can see almost thirty masonic symbols, the most famous being the all-seeing eye of Horus at the top of a pyramid of thirteen steps surrounded by desolation. Yes, there is a deep story to behind all this...

The Philadelphia lodge is huge, three stories at least, and we were led through six grand halls, each of which had a cultural theme. There was the medieval hall, the Celtic hall, the Greek hall, the Egyptian hall, and I can't remember the others. The geometry of each room was the same with thrones on each end, an altar (the “block”) in the center, and pews on the sides. Many of our common expressions derive from freemasonry, such as “he's a chip off the old block”, or “he's been around the block”, which means he is an initiate of freemasonry and has begun rising through the levels. Maybe he'll give you “a word from the wise”.

Everywhere we looked were symbols with rich historic significance. For example, here's an image of the cross and the crown, a motif that appears a lot on the articles worn by Her F—ing Majesty the Queen. Here hidden in plain sight we see a pairing of two institutions that have been used down through history to oppress people: the caste system of royalty (kings, queens, barons, lords, dukes, and such) and religion, Marx's so-called opiate of the masses.

The purpose of giving tours to the uninitiated (or “profane” as they like to call us) appears to be to disseminate disinfo and to mock us, which is awkward since the only people interested in touring a freemasonic temple are those who know a thing or two about it. Every question put to our host was responded to with the most inane babble, but with a perfectly straight face. For instance, I asked him how many degrees were in freemasonry, and he rapidly responded “three!”. Well, even mainstream newspapers will describe someone as a 32^nd or even 33^rd degree freemason, and yet this bozo tells us there are only three levels. A courageous young girl asked him why there were so many freemasonic symbols on our currency and he didn't even answer her question. Instead he gave an obvious dodge: “Oh, is that what you are studying on the internet?”, and moved on. What a creepy man! Even our children were becoming frustrated with him.

Our visit was an interesting experience and I highly encourage you to study freemasonry, learn to understand the symbology which surrounds you, and visit a freemasonic temple!

Education From the Road

The other day I was thinking what a great learning experience this has been so far for Connor and Alexis (and us!). Here are a few highlights...

My Uncle Joe and Aunt Beverly were nice enough to host us in Washington, D.C. which gave us the opportunity to go to some of the attractions there.

The Smithsonian
Forget seeing all of the Smithsonian in a day, but we took in a lot in. Here we are standing in front of a statue in the Japanese Art Museum.

Did you know Connor is fascinated with banzai?

My favorite is the Museum of Modern Art. You're not supposed to take pictures, but I couldn't resist this one. This was from a newspaper story on a war in Albania. Check out that badass guard with his finger is on the trigger itching to dust somebody. Someone needs to tell him this is not appropriate gun safety. Go ahead, make his day!

Civil War Battlegrounds
We went to Bull Run. The civil war, by the way, was NOT about ending slavery; it was about a federal government telling states what they can or can't do. Abraham Lincoln said this: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it..."

(The more I learn how bankrupt official history is, I'm pretty sure the Civil War was a contrivance of secret societies and European banking powers, but that's a story for another day.)

Mount Vernon
George Washington spent money like a drunken sailor! He was a military man who married a wealthy widow and spent her money like there was no tomorrow. Here are some of George's pigs.

Snapping Turtle
While we were driving near Washington D.C. we saw this turtle in the road. This thing was about as big as a football and our approaching it really pissed it off (well of course we poked things at its mouth, silly!) At one point we attempted to touch its tail and this creature spun around in a flash and almost had a finger meal. Who said turtles are slow?

Apparently, during the spring the females walk around on the land looking for a nesting spot and during this time they are particularly aggressive. Sorry for the weird color in this photo; I was still learning when not to use the flash.

Philadelphia
While in Amish country, we took a day trip to “Philly”. What a strange day that was! Because we have been in mostly rural places we had forgotten how truly scary and mean big cities can be. It was upsetting, actually. Tours of Independence Hall were all booked up, but we saw the Liberty Bell!

Freemasonry
A major highlight of the “philly” trip was our visit to the Grand Freemasonic Lodge of Philadelphia. If you ever get a chance to see the inside of a Masonic Lodge, take it! You will be confronted with a rich and beautiful symbolic language that few of us can interpret. “Mommy, why does that statue have a man's face, an Egyptian hat, a woman's boobs, and a lion's body?” Good question, sweet child o' mine. There's a big answer to that question which we'll go into later.

Cherry Picking
Somehow, in the process of buying a pint of cherries in New York state, we found ourselves in a cherry orchard filling up buckets of fat, juicy cherries. We picked a little more than a pint though. We ended up with about fifty pounds of cherries that we stuffed our fat, little faces with. The children recouped most of the cost of the cherries by selling them in the RV park.

Niagara Falls
We detoured from our community-seeking quest to see Niagara Falls National Park. I don't have any digital pictures because I forgot my camera, which is just as well because we got soaked! But Janet had her analog camera and the pictures are probably the finest ever created. Too bad you can't see them.

Anyway, the Falls are simply fantastic. We learned that the volume of water is heavily regulated to be just enough to enthrall the profane masses and no more as this erosion business might disrupt the commerce in the area. Is there no end to mankind's folly?

Upper Canada Village
While staying at Green Trust in upstate New York (more on that later) we went with our hosts to Upper Canada Village in Ontario. This is a 19^th century village preserved for our viewing pleasure. They have lots of buildings with water wheels that make possible all sorts of magic, like making wool, grinding grains, cutting wood, and so on. The ingenuity of these folks was impressive indeed.

There is no doubt we are all learning a lot of new things on this voyage!

Amish Country

From Virginia we headed north to Pennsylvania because we wanted to go to a community in New York (with a little side trip to Niagara Falls!). We stayed one night on the lovely Shenandoah river.

We ended up in an RV park near Lancaster Pennsylvania, "Amish Country". It was a strange experience when an Amish horse and buggy pulled out in front of us on the highway, prompting me to slow way down. Even though I was driving I pulled my video cam out and filmed the buggy through the windshield. It was only when I got closer that I realized there were two children in the back, facing to the rear, watching my rude behavior. Oops, sorry little Amish children. I was just surprised, that's all.

In Lancaster we visited an Amish farmhouse to learn how they live. In that area are mostly "Old Order Amish" who tend to be more traditional and not as "progressive". They have rules such as they can't connect to the electric grid, so they tend to use propane lamps for light. But you'll see good Amish folk shopping at WalMart or thrift stores like anybody else. I even have a video of an Amish girl in her dress and bonnet roller-blading expertly down the street.

At the farmhouse, the children enjoyed seeing all the farm animals. This cow never seemed to move even when Lexie tickled its udder. Imagine that!






The Amish are highly admirable in a lot of ways. They are hard workers and they keep their farms and homes in good shape. They came to the area to escape religious persecution in Europe, as the story goes. I suspect William Penn recruited them because he wanted to increase the economic value of his vast holdings and what better way to do it than turn loose a bunch of farming bots onto the landscape.

The Amish are farmers galore, master cultivators. If you believe that in dim history there was a conflict between the traditional hunter-gatherers and the cultivators and that the cultivators won, the Amish give you a clue as to why. They are tireless farmers and they apparently make a good living at it.

My fault with them is they are using pesticides and chemical fertilizers and their methods are traditonal monoculture grain farming. (There was nothing but corn as far as the eye could see.) Many might look at this landscape and call it "pastoral" or some other artsy fartsy word, but I saw a devastated lunar landscape where every wild thing had been destroyed, and all of this destruction deriving from the bizarre christian philosophy that the earth is put here for man to have "dominion" over.

Acorn

Acorn was the first community we lived in for an extended period of time. These good people let us park our trailer on their land and live and work with them. We learned a lot about tending to crops, things like how to plant corn, how to harvest onions and garlic, how to kill squash plants!

In fact, we learned that leaving a new person unsupervised around growing vegetables can be a dangerous thing. I killed the squash plant when I pulled it right out by the roots when weeding. I also stepped on a few bean plants because I couldn't tell them from weeds.

Overall, though, it seemed we were more help than hinder and we appreciate the Acorn family for their generosity and patience. Lunch and dinner were communal and we ate vegetables fresh from the garden! The water came straight from a well and tasted delicious. (We have been spending a lot of money buying bottled water on this trip and clean, pure water has become a must-have item for us wherever we land).

Acorn is an "egalitarian" community in that the income from their (successful) seed exchange business is distributed to all in the community equally. Most forms of contribution, even watching the village children, counts.

Here is Edmond, the farm manager, photographing a choice lettuce for the seed catalog.

Acorn is right next to another, very big and well-known community called "Twin Oaks". We went to Twin Oaks often, one night for dancing. This band of players was great.









We met wonderful people at Acorn and entertain the idea of helping them with their Fall harvest, the time when seed preparation and storage are in full swing. A seed business is a very good one for a community and Acorn should do very well. We were all sad to go, but felt we needed to keep moving as there is much more to see and do. Thanks, Acorn!

After we left Acorn we went to the Atlantic and hung out on the beach for a couple of days.

Then on to Amish country!

Earth Haven

The first community we visited was Earth Haven in North Carolina. This was a day tour, so it's not like we lived there. Earth Haven has been around for a while and over the years people have tried many different ways to build their houses, many of which didn't work very well.

For example, this house on the left sways in the wind so they've buttressed it with long poles. But many of the structures at Earth Haven are rustic and charming, like this building on the right.




As people get smarter about how to build their own homes they are producing some pretty impressive structures. On the left is a timber-frame home where the walls are being made of cob, a mixture of sand, clay, and straw. A picture being worth a thousand words, here is a little model someone made of this home. Pretty cool, eh? I think I could live in a place like this!





I was disappointed that Earth Haven produces less than 5% of their own food! Wassupwidat? It turns out they make nearly all their money by charging new members steep joining fees and they they are not financially self-sufficient. This is a situation we've chosen to watch from a distance.

When we were visiting Earth Haven we learned that my grandmother died, so we headed up to Virginia to attend her memorial. We stayed for two wonderful weeks with my Aunt Bev and Uncle Joe in Washington DC. Thanks Bev and Joe!

Next up, Acorn!

The Grose's Hit the Road!

The Beginning

In April of 2007 I left suburbia and took my family on a journey to find community.

What stuff we couldn't give away or sell we put in storage and we began traveling to the many tiny communities scattered across the landscape. I am referring to what are called "ecovillages" or "intentional communities".

Why would I do such a thing? TO START LIVING AN AUTHENTIC LIFE, that's why.

When you look with fresh eyes at the American lifestyle it's pathologies become obvious.

• Everyone is sick. We all know someone who has cancer, even little children are getting it. Autoimmune diseases, diabetes, and so on...are epidemic. Did you know the male sperm count is only 25% what it used to be a few decades ago? Something is very wrong here.
  
• We have all been taught to worship money but a tiny group of elites (The Fed) decide among themselves how much less it will be worth today.
  
• Our lives are spent constantly scurrying to keep up with an endless stream of obligations that leave us lonely and devoid of spirituality and love for nature.
• We've lost the time and interest for creative play with each other (but we sure know who's winning American Idol!)
  
• We put our children in "day care" and into goverment schools where they are indoctrinated and drugged into obedience to authority.
• We put our elders in "a home" where they are drugged, their savings are drained, and they waste away.
  
• We are milked like cows by a system DESIGNED to screw us, but we don't notice and we even defend it.
• Our so-called leaders do terror ops on us (9-11) and then demand our children to fight wars against the people they say did it, and we always fall for it! (Gulf of Tonkin, Pearl Harbor...what next?)
  
• Things are different this time though, as 9-11 signaled a change in The Plan. The police state has taken its gloves off (Patriot Acts, Military Commissions Act) and it looks like things are going to get ugly.
  

So what do we do about this? We can write letters to our congressman, we can vote, we can go out on the street and protest, but all of the solutions the system encourages are designed to be ineffective.

I think a good solution is to simply stop doing what we've been trained to do and do something magical instead: WITHDRAW from the system and start working with others to create a LOCAL situation that is healthy, nurturing, and independent.

And that is what WE are doing. We hope to find a community that is mutually acceptable to us--or form one--and then take up permanent residence there.

Our Trailer

Here is our new home, a 23 ft travel trailer. We had to learn a lot about load-leveling hitches and sway bars because my tough-guy jeep is really kind of a wuss. But we've learned to take our time and have gotten used to living in such a tiny space.





We'll keep you updated here on our progress.

Eric and Janet, Connor, and Alexis.