Are We Moving Into A Dystopian World?

It has come to my attention that the British government as well as other works government's are talking about something which has been dubbed the "Vaccine Passport.

To put it into a nutshell this passport is proof that you have been vaccinated against Covid 19 and possibly it's variants. If you can show the paperwork to show that you have "had the jab" you will be allowed to travel outside of your area.

The government (when I use the term government I am mainly referring to the British prime minister Boris Johnson and the Health secretary Mat Hancock). The government has said that you may be able to leave your area and even the country if you can show up to date paper work showing that you have been vaccinated.

You will not need to show proof of vaccination to enter pubs, clubs and shops, instead it will be left to the discretion of that business owner as to whether they will need to se your vaccination paperwork before they allow you on their premises.

On the subject of businesses, some employers are already saying that it will be mandatory for their employees to be vaccinated, failure to do so could cause them to loose their jobs, they are also saying that prospective employees, will be asked if they have has the jab and be required to provide evidence that they have before they are even interviewed. This obviously does not take into consideration those who for one reason or another can not be vaccinated, people who are pregnant or who might be allergic to one or more of the ingredients.

When I first heard about this the first thing that came to mind was the movie Demolition Man, with Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock. Thinking about it, it's quite apt that this movie was the first thing I thought of.

The premise of the movie is Stallone has to go to the future to catch a criminal (Wesley Snipes) who has already gone there.

On his arrival he finds himself in a Dystopian World where everything seems to be peaceful, no violence, everyone is happy and content, the police and law enforcement are there just in case but, there is a second group of people who live underground, in the sewer systems and tunnels who are fighting for survival. The future that Stallone has gone to is a future of those with and those without.

The world in this movie is split into two societies, those who have the freedom to do what they want, go where they want and, well you get the picture.

Don't get me wrong, when it comes to the vaccine I am for it, in fact I had a call just this week asking if I would like to have it, my appointment to get my first dose is next week. My reasoning behind this is, I am asthmatic, my wife is diabetic and I have two kids DT 3 and DT 4 who are asthmatic. If I get corvid 19 then it sucks to be me but the last thing I want is to pass it on to anyone else, especially my family.

My point here is that with this "passport" as well as movement control and a database that is being created in Spain I believe, to show those who have not been vaccinated, well we are moving into an Orwellian world.

I was talking about this last night with a few people I work with and it was pointed out that, although taking the Covid 19 vaccine is not mandatory, it does look like the powers that be are putting plans into place to make life very difficult for those who do not or can not take the vaccine.

There are those who say that we have been heading to a dystopian future for a while now and this virus is just what the powers that be needed to push this agenda forward. Some even say that this virus is man made and was "accidentally" leaked from the labs in Wuhan, just a couple of mines away from the wet market where the first case was found. 

If I am honest I have to agree with the idea that we are entering a new Dystopian World as for the virus originating from a lab in Wuhan. I will hold my own council on that one.

To end I would like to leave you with this thought.

At the moment there is a huge push to get "everyone" vaccinated, no it's not mandatory but if you don't have the paperwork to show that you have had the jab, well life could be getting.. interesting..

But, when this outbreak first started the British prime minister was wanting to go with the Herd immunity strategy, with that in mind, if 80-90% of the UK population is vaccinated, surely the other 10-20% will become immune due to herd immunity.. yes?

I'd that is the case then the idea if a vaccine passport has just been rendered void as the virus as well as any variants would soon fade due to the lack of viable hosts.

Just a thought.

Until next time

Stay safe

Jim

10 Things About Me

On the 8th of March 2006 I logged into Google Blogger for the first time and created my first blog, since then my blog has had many names, starting with Noscere's World to today with Jim's World.

I still can't believe that it was nearly 15 years ago. It didn't take long, a couple of years or so, before I came up with the idea of adding audio to my posts so that people could listen to my blogs instead of just reading them, at the time technology didn't have the means for me to do this, the only possibly was old school podcasting and I didn't have the funds or knowledge to use this avenue.

Good or bad the only place where I could do make my idea reality was on YouTube, so I created my first channel and forgot all about my plans to add my voice to my blog, falling head over heals in love with the idea of video blogging.

Fast forward nearly 15 years and countless YouTube channels later, the need to blog hit me again and once again the idea of adding audio to my blog posts is at the forefront of my mind. This time I have the means and the knowledge to add to videos and audio via YouTube and my podcast.

With that in mind, there are a few old posts that I have made that really need to be brought up to date with one of the above. Some posts are about paganism, some about emergency preparedness, others could be about bushcraft or even the paranormal, but they all have one thing in common. They all play a big part in my world.

To start the ball rolling on my new, or old venture, which ever you want to see it, I thought it would be a good idea to tell you a little bit more about me, the me outside of being a Norse pagan.

And what better way to do this than in the age old YouTube 10 things about me format.

Starting at number 1

1. I am a huge horror movie fan. (In case you didn't already know).

When it comes to horror movies I admit it, I am very anal. I hate it when movie writers and producers change a character's lore and history just so that it fits in with their movie idea.

Example, vampires burn, they explode and die if they are exposed to sunlight, no they can not have this magical ring passed down through the ages that allows then to walk in day light and no, they do not sparkle a bit.

They explode and die. In gaming circles this is called God modding and is frowned on, what's more I don't like it at all, it's just lazy.

2. When it comes to horrors, I like post apocalyptic and zombie movies, I don't like the gore for the sake if gore movies, There has to be a story line preferably one which doesn't involve 5 or more teenagers on a spring break who go off to their uncles cabins in the woods, you know what I mean.

The only exception to this would have to be Evil Dead which is a classic

3. Ok, in the late 1990’s I was diagnosed with depression and what is now known as Generalised anxiety disorder. I am managing to keep both under control now by  spending less time around technology and more time out doors.

4. Now this one might come as a bit of a surprise to some of you but my all time favourite movie isn't a horror it's not even slightly apocalyptic. My favourite movie and book is The original Wuthering heights.

5. My first name is not Jim or James, my first name is actually Jodie. I started using James because in their wisdom either my Mom or my Dad spelled my name the girls way. Probably my Dad as he was the one who registered my birth.

Thanks Dad.. or Mom.

6. I am partially colour blind. I can see primary and secondary colours but after that, any other colour just looks like the dark or light version of a primary or secondary colour.

Some colours just look confusing, I just don't know what it is.

When we are decorating at home my wife picks the colour scheme and has to write on the paint tin lid where she wants that colour putting, you know.. walls, ceiling.

7. I work in a waist recycling plant, basically I stand by a conveyor belt and sort through all the recycled stuff you have thrown away. The job is dirty, fast paced and at times heavy. It's not unusual to have dead rats come down the line, which of course need to be put in the container for none recyclable, not all the rats that come down the line are dead though.

Even though my job is dirty and at times hard, I love my job and at the moment, I wouldn't change it.

8. I am married and have been for over 22 years, I have 7 children, though most you could not call children now, my eldest has 5 kids of her own and her eldest has recently became a Dad to his own daughter, making me a Great Grandfather.

Thanks George, totally appreciate that one.

9. Faith wise as well as being a Norse Pagan I am also an animist. Meaning that I believe that everything has a consciousness and a spirit attached to it, even rocks, plants and in time tables and, well everything.

I have had this belief since I was a small kid.

I remember times when I would accidentally knock into a table or chair and apologise to what ever it was. It's just something I do.

10. When I was in my early 20's I appeared in a movie with Sean Bean and Melanie Griffiths as an extra. 

That's me in the middle with Rob on my left and Andrea on my right. Damn but I look so young, it's hard to believe that I was in my 20's when that picture was taken.

We were paid £20 a day and had to sign a disclosure saying that we accept that our names were not going to be shown in the credits.

I have a few tales to tell about that day but I'm going to save those for another time.

11. This is a bonus one for those of you who have stuck around until the end.

So number 11. I don't watch TV, with the exception of a few movies I like to loose myself in from time to time, I don't like TV and avoid it. 

If I was given the choice I wouldn't have one in the house. But that's just me..

So there you have it, 10 things about me, and a bonus thing. Now that you know me a little bit better how about you tell me something about you..

Go on, I dare you.

Reconnecting with nature

I want to go more into the the practical parts of being a pagan, rather than just the lore and knowledge of the gods and their adventures.

I was listening to a podcast by Oaks and Oaths a couple of days ago, in this podcast he mentioned that having knowing all the lore and things about the gods is one thing, but putting this knowledge into practice in your day to day life is another thing entirely.

Have to admit I do agree with this.

With that in mind I want to answer a couple of questions some people new to paganism regularly ask.

First I want to throw some numbers out there

In the 2001 a faith census held in the UK, reported that around 2,000 people in the UK identified as either Norse pagan, Asatru, heathen or Norse reconstructionist.

This is just one of the pagan paths, there are many more paths that do not follow the Norse God's..

The thing is over the last few years it is estimated that around 18,000 - 24, 000 have either turned to paganism as their faith, or have came out as Pagans.

This is an estimate

Last year 2020 saw a huge spike in people returning to the old ways, wanting to know more about their ancestors and reconnect with nature.

Whether it was the pandemic or being in lockdown, I don't know but something clicked inside of a lot of people, making them want and in some cases need to step away from the daily grind and return to nature.

In the pagan communities I haunt, we have had an influx of new members join us. Most of our new members say that they have converted to paganism recently from another faith or even from atheism.

That being said one of the most common questions asked is

"How do I connect with the gods, my ancestors and nature?"

Luckily I love the outdoors and being in the wilds, I could talk about this for hours but, I'm not going to, not today anyway.

Ok, let's cut out the crap and get straight to the point.

We as humans are meant to be hunter gatherers, it is in our evolutionary biology and hard coded into our DNA, we are supposed to be out there in the wilds, in nature foraging, not sat Infront of the TV watching Reality TV while munching on crisps or that take away that was just delivered while drinking soda.

We are not built to be sat Infront of a computer 12 hours a day, whether it is work or playing games or stuck in a cubicle with artificial light for 8 or more hours a day, hating our jobs and wondering how many hours it will be until we can pop our next dose of anti depressants.

We are built to be out in the rain and wind and sun

Nature is a great healer and we all, each and everyone of us, pagan or not need to spend at least a few hours a week at the very least out there, surrounded by nature, if for nothing else, for the sake of our mental health.

Leaving all our social media accounts and the internet behind and getting out there with only the essential things we need.

Nothing more, nothing less and no distractions.

I should say that wanting to reconnect with nature is all well and good and everything, but to really connect to nature we must learn how to live with nature and within nature.

I'm not a reconstructionist pagan, but I do believe that one of the best ways to reconnect with nature is to get into the mindset of our ancestors, realising that nature is a living, breathing being, not just a bunch of trees, bushes and a few wild animals

We are part of nature and nature is a part of you and me.

To connect with nature is to connect with our selves.

Nature and the spirits of the land will be only too happy to accept you but there are conditions attached.

Respect for nature and everything that is in it is an absolute, a must. You need to understand the nature lives by a different set of rules, once you understand these rules and can live within them.

Only then will we start to connect.

Until next time.

Stay safe

Blogging Is Therapeutic?

The year is 2021. It has been over a year since I made a post here, unfortunately I can make no excuses this time. I just didn't post anything.

At one point I even considered calling it a day with blogging.

I am so glad that I didn't do it, looking back I have so many memories sat right here, like the time I phoned a radio station in the hope of finding my daughter and the time my wife and I thought it would be a good idea to get two pet rats.. and how we ended up with around 12 of the little fuzz balls

Right now I feel the need to take iJim.co.uk back to its roots as a personal blog, a place where I can get things off my chest, a place to vent about, well things and people.

At the time of writing this I am also thinking about starting a second YouTube channel, where I can make video blogs about well, things and people again, I might even post some of them here.

If I do start a second channel, one thing I am thinking about doing is uploading some of my old video blogs, not all of them but there are some that I would like to see here.

So much has changed over the last year, some of the changes I don't need to tell you about because you already know them, you're living through the same changes.

But other things have changed as well, some are good changes, some are not so good, and I need somewhere were I can write these things down.

A few days ago I was listening to a podcast and the host said that one thing people should do in 2021 is start writing a journal, it's therapeutic he said..

So why not. I doubt I will have a lot of people stopping by to read these posts and I am ok with that.

Ultimately, I am going to write any future posts for me, but you never know, I might post something which people will find if use.

But, why am I doing this on a public blog on the internet of all places and not on a notebook i could hide away from the eyes of the world?

I am always buying notebooks and loosing them or they get damaged in some way and at heart, I am a blogger, I was a writer of blog posts before anything else. In truth I only started making YouTube videos and podcasts for my blog, so I could add a little something special to my posts.

It makes perfect sense to me to go back to what I think I do best with this.

Magick has not disappeared

Magick didn't disappear from the earth

Somewhere down the line, somewhere in our history we became disconnected, we lost our way

At some point in our past we forgot that everything is connected

We startes to think that we were the masters.
everything was ours for the taking,

Everything on and in the Earth was ours
the world was ours to conquer.

At some point in our past we stopped taking only what we needed
And started taking what we wanted
And we took, and we took it all
we wanted it and want it all.

Now we live in a disconnected, disjointed and broken world as a consequence for our actions

Honour has disappeared
Along with our connection to the planet, it's Gods, Goddesses our ancestors, the spirits of the land and our values.

We are becoming more and more distant, not only from the planet but from eachother.

We work, go home and switch on our TVs, computers and gaming consoles

We plug ourselves into the grid.
and we sit and watch and disconnect even more from a world we have created.

Seeking escape in media and multi media.

Trapped in a mindset that things matter.
I need that... Thing

Health related issues are rising just as fast as mental health issues.

It's 2020
The year the Earth hit back
And we felt it.
Boy did it hit us hard

Now We live in a disjointed and shattered world.

Yet.. Somewhere, deep inside of each of us, a switch is being flicked.

That part of our DNA which was once our ancestors,

That part, which is in each of us has been turned on

More and more people are once again turning to the old ways, the forgotten ways.

Seeking to reconnect with the old gods, with nature, the spirits and our ancestors.

The entire earth is filled with magick.
If we just took the time to relearn the ways of our ancestors we would know that we are one and the same.

But, it is not enough to connect with nature and her spirits, we must learn to live with and within her.
Outside of the social confines of need and wanting

my name is Jim, welcome to my world.

I am documenting my journey as I reconnect with nature and relearn the ways of my ancestors

I would love it if you would join me.

The Norse Pagan Awakening

Every journey starts with the first step and my journey along the path of the Norse Pagan is no different. Yes, at the time of writing this I am not ashamed to admit, I am relatively new to the Norse Pagan faith, though I am lucky in the respect that I have walked the pagan path for upwards of 30 years (saying that, I am by no means an expert in any of this).

How did I end up on the path I am on now?

Well, every year for the past 15 years or so, around the middle of September I feel a pull back to the old ways, it's like the Gods, the ancestors and the spirits of the lands become that bit more active, I like to call it "The Awakening".

This year (2020) was no different, well except for one thing, this year the pull I was feeling was coming from a different direction. Try as I might I could not figure out what was going on.

I could feel the old ones but I didn't recognise those who were reaching out to me, they just felt different.

Then, one day after a particularly hard night shift, I came home and went to bed as usual. I don't think I slept for any more to an an hour when I woke and sat, bolt upright in my bed.

The pull, I knew where it was coming from. It was Odin who was calling me and I could hear and feel the call.

After a couple of days of reading up on the Norse path I went outside and asked Odin to show me some kind of sign so that I knew I was right in my thinking. A couple of days later while sitting in the shed in my back garden I noticed a rune on the roof of a house a few doors away from me. (Pictured below).

I Quickly looked up the rune to find out that but was Ansuz, Odin's rune.

Honestly I could not believe it. I had the sign I asked for. 

This was not the only sign I have had, a few days earlier I, without reason became filled with joy while walking into town, I could feel the gods around me as I walked passed a lone of trees.

The last sign I had was at about 5 in the afternoon, sometime in October 2020, I was just going out side on my break while at work and a raven flew down and landed in the back of a large pick-up truck, not 10 feet away from me, it just stood there, eyeing me, then flew away to be joined by a second raven.

I haven't had any signs since then but I'm good with that, in my opinion I was given more than my fair share of signs.

Today, well now I am reading as much as I can about Norse Paganism, no books, not yet. I am getting my information from the Poetic Edda, the Havamal and from the mouths of other Norse pagans as well as the experiences I am having.

To end, this is a whole new journey for me and for the first time in years, I am excited. 

That Sound Hurts

I am in actual, physical pain right now. I havnt had an accident or anything like that, I am in pain because of the noise that is going on at the moment, not the amount of noise but its pitch.

I lost about 80% of the hearing in my left ear in spring of this year, no idea how or why but I have. The thing is, the pitch of some sounds can cause me actual physical pain, kids screaming is a good one, shouting is another.

When there is a lot of noise going on at the same time I get what I can only describe as an audio over load, as my good ear tries to pick out and prioritise what I need to hear over the background hustle and bustle, sometimes my right ear just overloads and throws everything at me which basically deafens me, I am hearing almost nothing except white noise in my left ear and I am hearing every sound available in my other.

Anyway, we have workmen round at the moment removing the cavity wall insulation so we can get new (better) put in, its part of some kind of government scheme which we have qualified for, replacement insulation and a new boiler..

As you can imagine, there is lots of noise, there is a pump going, lots of drilling and banging and then there is Gizmo, our little Jack Russel who is barking, constantly barking, for the last hour.

Thing is, little Gizmo`s bark is one of those sounds which has a pitch that hurts, especially when he rolls out half a dozen barks, one after the other... Ouch..

I`m hoping that the workmen manage to get all the insulation out and the new back in today, better still, this morning, otherwise they say that they will have to come back tomorrow to put the new stuff in, which means, chances are that they will be here with their noise when I finish work.

On top of that, deep down I know that I am stressing out a bit about the damage that they will do to the new lawn I planted earlier this year. I am rather proud of it, but it is still in its infancy so is easily damaged.

Hang on, they have turned their pump down, they might be finished.

That`s it for this one, I`m going to make coffee and get some pain killers into me.