2013

Last year around this time I was living with Sarah, Hunter, and mr Steven Kent Davis

Then Case and I moved in together with a few other dinderbeckers

 

We had a good old fashioned BUTT JAm

 

We harvested tons and tons of mullberries with friends jumping up in trees and bouncing around like monkeys, i made jam and pie

 nancy got herself stuck in a tree on one of the hottest days summer

 i saved her, i think she made me a little late for work

 

Case and I had the awesome opportunity and experience of co-managing a small CSA

 

We had lots of friends who joined and came out to help

 Josie and I switched it up this year and decided to go to the Great Lakes Traditional Arts Gathering instead of hiking the smokies

 I made Case take me up to the UP

 He jumped off a cliff, I didn't

   

shy

A few years ago I hiked up to Andrew’s Glacier.  A quiet pool rests beneath it, I sat there for a while contemplating my existence while simultaneously wondering how long he would be here.  I wonder how long before it recedes from our view, before it vanishes and dissipates into the air.  Maybe someday I will look to the clouds and say “there goes Andrew” and “wonder if he’s watching over us.”  Or will he become a part of a storm that produces a tornado that drills through Tennessee.  Or will he be rushing like a waterfall, stammering in a rage, protesting like a newborn.  Now he just trickles and drips little by little, disappearing in such small integers’ that it’s barely noticed.  Some scientist predicts that Andrew could be gone in as little as 20 years. 

repost; Tasmania

Courage reveals itself in times of need, walks in front as the last streaks of sunset dissolve into the night sky. I was at the end of my rope, money had dried up and I had nowhere to go when Peter kicked me off of his farm in Derby, Tasmania. I worked there in exchange for food and stay. I had spent the week leading up to it pick-axing potato trenches through clay and the roots of a large tree nearby. I didn’t mind the work; it was more the lack of appreciation that led to me scorning his name behind his back and polluting the energy of the crew. The bad energy got back to him and with one week left before my return home, I was kicked out. I remember that morning; I knew it was coming. I helped my friend Sara, a German girl with electric orange hair, hike her belongings up to the bus stop. It was a 4 kilometer walk along the Cascade River. There was an excitement in my stomach as I hugged her goodbye. Walking back along that gravel road I had a premonition, that things were about to change. “Take care of yourself,” she advised as we sent each other off with a hug. I knew he was going to kick me out. What was I going to do? Looking down I kicked up a stone, smooth and white yet powerful in its shape as if it were an arrowhead in one life, before the river softened is edges and spit it out just for me. It fit into my palm comfortably, as if it were a missing digit, a part of me. It warmed itself in my hand as if we were feeding each other life. I felt my pupils wide as I walked slowly back to the little log cabin. I could smell the fire of the woodstove and thought of the others gathering around for hot oatmeal with flax meal and a homemade quince syrup. Maybe Peter would be scratching at his white beard discussing the matter of banishing me from his magical forest. I clasped on to the stone as I drew nearer. My pupils grew wide, the trees and rays of sun that burst through them seemed vibrant and exaggerated. The moss of the trees starkly contrasting the deep brown bark as if I was on some sort of psychotropic mushroom. The sun infiltrating every misty drop in its path making them light up like fireflies. The stone, an umbilical cord, reconnecting me with the whimsical and omniscient spirit of the earth. I got back to the house steam rolling from the sink as Peter frantically finished some dishes. He turned to me, his head shaking and his face red and pupils narrow.
“You can’t stay here,” he sizzled off.
“I know.”
“You need to pack your things and… and… leave right away.”
“Okay.”
“Well… Okay then,” he finished seeming surprised of my complacency.
I was sent packing. It was so simple. I could tell that he prepared himself for a fight. I thought to beg for his mercy. Nearly recoiling in the fear of my uncertain future, my hand reached for the stone, it was hot, and pulsing in my pocket, like a fetus hoping its host will not abort, encouraging a more dignified leaving. His heart softened as I packed my things. I could hear him contemplatively cranking the flour mill, where eventually he came to asking me to stay for his famous pancake lunch.
With my pride still in tact and my belly full of pancakes I walked away with a new sense of freedom. As I walked the path, contemplating the adventure that has just unleashed itself, that natural instinct to seek comfort kicked in. I thought of the option of staying with an acquaintance in town. But clasping the stone I knew that would be a ‘cop out’ to a real adventure. Regardless I approached the door, making a deal with myself, rubbing the stone for support hoping for a genie to grant me a more certain future. I told myself that if these people were home when I went to the door I would stay with them, and if they weren't I would continue on. I knocked, and there wasn’t an answer. I took a deep breath and clenched to the stone harder than ever. So I started out of town with my thumb out, looking for a ride anywhere the wind would take me. As evening approached I started to lose hope, but I comforted myself with the thought of the wild blackberries and the fresh water streams. I picked up an old water bottle from the side of the road. I went to the river to fill it, considering retiring for the evening when I felt the stone almost burning a hole in my pocket, a tug on my heart to give the old Tasman Highway one more shot. A big white van pulled up. The kind one could imagine from a bad horror movie. A skinny scruffy middle aged man and a sweater wearing wishbone kind of pup rolled down his window and asked where I was going. I told him where ever he was going. I clasped onto my stone and jumped into his van.

Bamboo is grass

'There are two kinds of men, that seems quite clear. One sees bamboo as grass and one a spear.

Bamboo is grass. How is bamboo a knife? The grasses give us seed, and seed is life.

One thinks of ownership and one of earth. One shapes the forms of death, and one, rebirth.

And what is fear?

It is the eye that sees bamboo as spear.

And one makes war with wheat and one makes bread. One signs of hope, the other arms in dread.

Let others labor, we shall own the land. They'll work for bread, and place it in my hand.'

-from 'three voices' by bill mollison

Greatness

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its people are treated.” 

 

 

 

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
― Gandhi 

-

“Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go.

Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.”

―wendell berry