Next Iteration

Plant Seeds and Sing Songs

2011-04-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

Yep,
I'm still here.
The world is still out there, getting more fucked up by the day.

Maybe when I'm not playing in the garden I'll have some time to really update this....I live in a school bus now so I can be closer to The Garden.

All this bad news just messes with my head.
I'd rather just mostly avoid media exposure.
I've got my hands full here, making my life a better life.

Reading about no-till agriculture, planting perennial food crops, and dreaming of the time the rain finally stops for the summer and I can go barefoot and swim in the creek.

Good luck y'all. Looks like more and more doo doo in the fan out there.
I'm just gonna enjoy life while I have the opportunity.

The Red Pill

2011-02-17T23:24:00.000-08:00

The longer I'm away from mad mainstream culture, the more horrified I am about what We the Sheeple continue to endure.
That pot looks pretty close to boiling from where I sit, but the frog sits still.

Sigh.

Gotta leave this EMF box alone for a while and reconnect with Faerieland.

Monopoly Money

2011-02-17T23:03:00.000-08:00

One day an old Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson. He said, "There are two wolves fighting inside all of us:

The wolf of fear and hate, and the wolf of love and peace."

The grandson listened, then looked up at his grandfather and asked, "Which one will win?"

The grandfather replied, "The one we feed."

From a cool new blog I found while searching sheeple images.

Visitors

2011-02-15T22:06:00.000-08:00

This place is a trip.

The Farm has always had an open visitor policy.
It's pretty far out to meet the 300 or so people who come through in a season. They are all unique. Each one learns something here, and we learn something from them.

One thing they have in common is that they are all searching for something.

There do seem to be a few broad categories they fall into though;

The Idealist says "Hi, I just became a vegetarian, and I've decided your lifestyle is perfect for me. I want to be a member and live there forever."
People in this category seem to think we have all the answers, that we are spiritually evolved beyond the ego that Humanity mind-fucks itself with, and that we dance in the flowers with the unicorns all day.
They are typically crushed when they figure out that we work, we do stupid selfish things like all the other humans, and that ultimately they need to take responsibility for creating their own perfect reality. Bummer, man.

I used to fall into this category, and I STILL haven't seen a unicorn. WTF?

The Last Option says "Hi, I just lost my job, my house, my family hates me and I've burned all the rest of my bridges. Can I come live with you?"
These people are desperate. They usually have drug, alcohol, or mental problems (or all of the above) It is hard to get them to leave. Even telling them directly that their visit is over doesn't work well. They find a way to weasel a few more days out of us "I'm waiting for my disability check to be sent here. It's in the mail."
They seem to believe that if they just hang around long enough we'll let them stay.
We're not Nazis, but eventually they get escorted to a new location (kinda like pesky 'coons)

The Privileged have never had to cook anything more complex than a Hot Pocket. They don't understand that Mommy isn't here to pick up after them. They get miffed when expected to sleep on a mattress on the floor *gasp* or ride bitch in a pickup truck, or do any sort of manual labor.
They usually leave kinda pissed after a couple days because we make them wash dishes (using hot water and soap, of all things)and the Farm doesn't stock Hot Pockets.
We don't have a microwave either.

The Wary but Interested generally have their shit together. They know society is fucked up and are tired of it. They are looking for a better way to be. They come with resources and an open mind. They are considerate of others. They gather information and make an educated decision about whether community is right for them. They don't often stay, but it's usually a good thing when they do.

The Drifters usually come unannounced or last minute. They are an eclectic mix of homeless, eco-terrorists, Deadheads, Rainbow Family, hitchhiking weed trimming hippies. A very few of them are total wack-jobs, but they're generally cool, always have interesting stories, are usually very willing to work, and grateful for whatever food and shelter we provide. I have a lot more respect now for homeless hitchhiking gutter punks. Say what you will, but they are resourceful and don't ask for much.
They hang out for a while, then drift off to the next Rainbow gathering/harvest season/music festival.

The Tourists take lots of pictures. They have a passing interest in community, but mostly just wanna see flowers and naked hippies. If asked to work, they stand there and take pictures of us working. Field trips and media articles/documentaries fall into this category too.
They don't usually stay long, but I feel like an exotic zoo animal while they're here.

The Disenchanted Gen-Xers are out there, but I'd like to see more of them. They have skills and a burning hatred for the system that ass-raped them repeatedly and left them for dead. They will work their butts off because they believe so strongly in building a better system. Sometimes they have anger issues, and can be very judgmental. My buddy Demon falls into this category, and so do I. "Zach" just showed up from this category too.
Sometimes they try so hard they burn themselves out. That's what happened to Chef, and is happening to Demon.

I better watch that one. It'll be fine. "Relax and have fun" is at the top of my 'to do' list.

Visitors of any type are often scheduled to work in the Garden, since that is one of the few supervised areas that always has work to do. Trial by pitchfork is a decent way to test their mettle, but I gotta watch 'em pretty close, and give very specific instructions. (Twist the cucumber and gently pull at a 90 degree angle to the vine...don't just PULL)
Sometimes it's wildly amusing to watch homeless anarchists have conversations with momma's boys fresh out of the basement.
Sometimes visitors have amazing insights about society in general and the human condition.

Sometimes I need to confirm the identity of a lemon for them.
But at least they leave the farm with the ability to correctly identify citrus.

Always I learn again that I am very judgmental (and often anti-social). I'm working on that.

Oh humanity.
You're such a beautiful mess.

Gardening Season Kicks Off

2011-02-12T19:37:00.000-08:00

*The "Back 40" Beds*

Now that I have (with help)mostly managed to get about 50 fruit trees pruned (they were neglected for about 3 years after a drunken chainsaw pruning incident !:-0) it's nearly time to start planting veggies.
Of all the planning going on last month, the most interesting and important (to me) was Garden Planning.
We had good record keeping from 2005-2009 to consult, which helped a lot.

Each year we keep a Garden Journal to record what we grew, how much inputs cost {soil, hose parts, organic fertilizer}, how much labor per day, what was done when, how much we harvested.....etc. We also make a Garden Map to keep track of where everything was planted.

2010 was a fucked up garden year at the Farm. In Oct. 2009, the previous Garden manager of 10 years(who I will henceforth refer to as "Soil Sister") was in a terrible car accident and barely survived. She was severely brain damaged, the doctors almost amputated her arm, and she was in hospice because they didn't expect her to survive her coma.
Either true love or Faeries brought her back from the brink, but that incident left The Garden without an experienced manager. The People did what they could, but between inexperience, power struggles, and the fact it didn't quit raining until the middle of June, The Garden was in sorry shape when I arrived shortly before summer at the beginning of June.
My learning curve was pretty steep.
I had some collaboration but little direction from Dready, the interim Garden manager.
She left just before harvest time, and suddenly I was effectively in charge of the garden.

Now, I have lots of experience with container grown ornamental plants, but less with field grown organic veggies. It was a scramble, but we still had a relatively successful year in spite of the fact that our Garden interns mostly bailed.
Well, they didn't leave the farm, but (wet)Dream and Jealous were having relationship problems, so she didn't want to be in The Garden with him
(which left me in the Garden with him....heh...)
And "Alkie" had a baby, which really interferes with laboring in the Garden.

So my labor force for working an acre and a half of garden consisted of Dream, myself, Dready for part of the season, and random visitors who may or may not have touched a shovel before.

We're in a lot better shape this year. Soil Sister has healed a lot (she had to re-learn how to talk) and she remembers stuff about the garden when she is doing garden stuff. She is a great resource, and we have a pretty good relationship. We both deeply love The Garden, and I think we'll make a good team.

Dream is staying at the Farm, and excited about the upcoming season.

Jealous and I decided it was stupid to fight over a man when we both had so many other important things to worry about, so we have a pretty good relationship now, and she's a strong sister who's been very supportive.

I s'pose I should find a nicer name for her.
Let's call her "Flowers" since she's in charge of the flower beds now.

We've also had some new additions. "Treesitter" is a long term visitor (ex-stonemason) who busts ass helping out at the farm, and wants to work in the garden. He has lots of experience growing garlic, and likes hard physical labor.

Sheesh. Enough with the personal background you say! Where is the nitty-gritty?
Here is the garden plan for 2011;

We have a blank map of the garden that we make copies of for planning. This is really helpful with crop rotation. We can study the maps from previous years to avoid planting tomatoes in the same place, or to grow peas after a heavy feeder like corn, or to figure out where to squeeze in an extra cover crop of fava beans, crimson clover, or buckwheat.
The garden is big enough that we can have a five year rotation for most crops, which is pretty good.

*looking west from Apple Ring toward "Shorty" and "Fatty" Beds*

The next step is to figure how many row-feet of each crop:
(8 beds of broccoli X 70' X 2 rows per bed = 1120 row-feet)
how many plants we need
(broccoli are spaced at 18", so 1120 divided by 1.5 = 746 plants)
how many seeds to start
(assuming 95% germination and 5% loss we want to plant 10% more than we need=820)
how many seeds to order
(if there are 300 seeds per gram and a "packet" is 4 grams or 1200 seeds)
that should do it.

Some additional figuring for the rest of the crops and we can put a spring seed order together; onions, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, peas, spinach, lettuce, carrots, and beets. The order arrived Thursday of last week.

Starting next week we will be washing pots and planting seeds in cell trays. We are using "Black Gold" organic seed starting soil mix. I'd like to mix our own but...all in good time. Our greenhouse has a wood stove, and we will take turns sleeping out there to keep it above 50 degrees.

*Garlic growing in the Rainbow Bed with the greenhouse in the background*

Yay! Plants make me happy. Especially tasty plants.

Get Your Evolution On

2011-02-11T10:54:00.000-08:00

I know we came here to get our good times on,
Hold the whole world in our hand and greet the dawn with open arms.
So make a contribution if you have been amused

But before we depart my brothers and sisters I have some heavy news.

Oh how it breaks my heart this photograph.

Several in the ministry practice some fuzzy math.

And some of us wear the robes of the righteous
Are a little more next of kin
To the Sleestak, the wicked one who makes a meal of our sins.

Ain’t no telling how much longer but we will never be moved.
Ain’t no telling how much longer but we will never be moved.

Woe be the architect of our city, cruel leveler, the hillock strangler.

Bold pusher of the cold bone index
Through the knotted bowels of the old alleyways.
Read the future a false haruspex.
Recall how he coaxed us out of the green plains.
All of us, dumb eyed at the sheer number. So long ago it does not matter.

Woe be architect in his slumber, for the Watcher never sleeps.

And on that day there will be rejoicing and dancing in the streets.

Ain’t no telling how much longer but we will never be moved.
Ain’t no telling how much longer but we will never be moved.

Get your evolution on.

Good St. Charles Darwin wrote his gospel down

So keep your eyes turned to the sky and your ears down to the ground.

Get your evolution on.

Hydraulic Ram Pump

2011-02-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

One of the things I've been doing is researching grid-down options.
I find good plans for DIY projects and print them out so I have a hard copy.

One project of the food preservation team is building a large solar dehydrator.
This one relies on radiant heat more than convective heat, and is supposed to be more effective in cooler climates (like Oregon).
We probably have enough random crap laying around that I can mostly build it out of salvaged materials. If I can figure a way to have it do triple duty as a cold frame in early spring, and a thermosyphon hot water heater/food dehydrator in summer, that would be SWEET. The details are still percolating through my subconscious.

I also had the opportunity today to visit Chef at his new diggs, and check out the hydraulic ram pump that supplies his water.

Not much to it. A seep from the hillside fills plastic 50 gal drum, which runs through 1" HDPE pipe to the the ram pump sitting about 15 feet below the drum. The ram pump sounds like a heartbeat, using the power of the water to pump 150 feet vertically to a 1300 gallon poly tank just above the house.

Here's Chef in front of the makeshift dam and the intake barrel;

No electricity required.

Supposedly the pump at Chef's house costs about $180.00. I did some digging around and found this information.

Build it yourself for about $60, not counting the intake/outlet pipe or poly tank.
Some cash found its way to me yesterday, so whenever I can get to town I'm gonna pick up parts for this baby.
Once I win the Powerball jackpot tonight, I'll be able to afford a 1450 gal. poly tank and the 600 feet or so of HDPE pipe to hook this sucker up and pump irrigation water from the Big Creek to the garden.

Planning and Pruning

2011-02-05T14:23:00.000-08:00

These guys like to hang out in my front yard about 8am.....

Sorry I disappeared for a while there.
I didn't get hauled off by USDA jackbooted thugs or attacked by the black helicopters.

I've been busy.

January is planning season at the farm, so I've been having lots of meetings.
The Farm is (loosely) organized into committees (teams) who are responsible for the various duties in that area.
This is a great idea, but we have more teams than members, which seems to be somewhat demoralizing for The People.

Each team meets and plans projects for the year, and comes up with a labor budget, and a costs/income budget.

I am on the Garden team, Autos team, Livestock team, Pet team, Food Preservation team, Long Term Planning team, Correspondence Team, and often act as a consultant to some other teams (like Orchard, Firewood, Forestry, Flowers and Herbs).

Don't get get me wrong, I think this is an awesome way to organize about 50 people, especially if you have strong crew leaders organizing each team's activities. That would likely be very effective. In some communities the "team leader" (or whatever you want to call it) is elected by The People for 6 month terms, which seems fair.

But having 23 budget meetings when you only have about 17 active participants, eats up lots of valuable time that could be spent actually DOING something to take care of responsibilities on the farm. It's also difficult to motivate hippies to fill out paperwork.

However, identifying goals is great. A lot more good things are likely to get done if we know what outcome we desire, and can work together as a group to manifest that vision. Spending time with people planning our collective future is a fantastic community building activity.

I've been busier 'cause we lost some people, too.

Billy Bob (good ole' boy firewood intern) and Loopy (female "guest" taken in as a favor to a neighbor) went MIA for a week, and eventually we heard thru the grapevine that they went to Cally. No great loss, except of 2 warm bodies and one strong back.

Chef and K the photographer leaving is a great loss. They're moving up-valley a ways to a ramshackle cabin off the grid. It will be a good experience for them, and holds learning opportunities for me, but together they 'held down the fort' at the Farm for a while.
I've taken over K's correspondence responsibilities (the farm gets lots of visitors) and since Chef did the bulk order for the Farm and store, and facilitated weekly scheduling meetings, (among other things) I've taken that on as well.

In fact, I sorta had a panic attack for a while when I realized how much of a power vacuum arose with Chef and K leaving.

Nobody else was stepping up, and I realized....

I care more about this place, about this idea WORKING, than I've ever cared about anything in my life.

So I'm stepping up.

I don't want to be a leader. But I guess the best kind of leader to have is one who doesn't want it.

All of this added responsibility has resulted in me carrying a clipboard around with "to do" list and weekly planner. I try to explain to people that the clipboard doesn't mean I'm important or anything; it just means I have a lot to remember and a lack of short term memory.

Anyhoo, in between planning and organizing, I've been pruning the orchard, working in the garden, cooking dinner once a week, and helping with "Friday Night Dinner" at our cafe.

Whew.

So I apologize again for neglecting the blog. It's easy to get sucked into this reality, and forget about all y'all out there in consensus reality/internet land.

This shit is just so REAL.

FUSDA

2011-01-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago the farm got a call from someone at the USDA.

They wanted to know how many goats we had.

How many kids born?
How many deaths?
Raised for milk or meat?
How many breeding females?

Non-violent communication is all well and good when dealing with groups or individuals face to face, but when some faceless corpgov entity comes snooping around my food, I've just got one thing to say;

FUCK OFF!

My food is MY business.
Too bad I didn't take that phone call.

Surf That Wave

2011-01-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

The basic principle of surfing is to gain a little momentum just before being hit with a lot of momentum.
When you are already flowing with the direction things are headed, potentially destructive change becomes a powerful and useful force.

That is the underlying thought behind what I am trying to accomplish here.
It is abundantly clear to me that our current 'business as usual' model has a very limited life expectancy, for the simple reason that a society based on consumption will consume itself.

I see a huge transition ahead for us. How well we survive it will depend on how well we "learn to surf".

Learning how to live as a tribe, learning how to produce our own food and energy locally without depleting our resources, and creating new local economies are critical skills we need to figure out fast if we don't want to be pounded into oblivion by the massive wave coming at us.

When the current economy fails to meet the needs of the people it is supposed to serve, alternative economies will arise to meet those needs.
So here are some tips on starting your own underground economy;

1. Identify your needs.
Look for ways to meet them that do not involve the almighty dollar changing hands.

2. Focus on being a producer, rather than a consumer.

3. Know your neighbors.
What do they have that you need? What do you have that they need?
Can you trade skills for your needs? Do you produce anything you can trade?

4. Pay it forward.
Help a neighbor in need. Cultivate useful relationships.
Network and identify ways to meet community needs.

5. Resources are everywhere. Practice seeing them.
Where most people see a trashy junked car, I see a new generator, a new chimney top, plumbing repair parts, a solar dehydrator or cooker...the list goes on. Use your imagination, and procure the tools you need to work with those resources.

6. Don't overlook government programs as a resource.
They might not be around for long, but while they are you can use them to gain capital to increase your efficiency or trade for your needs. I paid into this system my whole life, so I may as well try to get something out of it before the whole thing takes a shit.

Community "free markets" are being organized as a way to exchange goods, cultivate a gift economy, re-purpose useful items that would otherwise go to landfills, and network with neighbors.

Some progressive towns are going so far as to come up with their own local currency, called "scrip" which is accepted by most independent local businesses. Using scrip helps support the local economy since it changes hands among residents and small business, and discourages shopping at chain stores which drain local economies by sending capital to "corporate".
From the "local currencies" page at The E.F. Schumacher Society Website;

The local and decentralized banking systems of a hundred and fifty years ago had the advantage of diversity. The failure of a local bank-even a New York bank-was still a local failure, and its costs were internalized. But today we are facing the failure of an entire system. Consider the billions of tax dollars spent by the national deposit insurance system to bail out the Savings and Loan industry. And recall that billions were added to the national debt in order to bail out large banks when developing countries defaulted on their loans. These systemic failures are bound to occur if local economic control of banking customs and money supply is compromised by centralization and sacrificed to serve the heedless demands of growth.

Underground economies already exist wherever something is illegal. I'm not saying you should cook meth for a living, but I have observed a vast migrant workforce that hitchhikes up and down Hwy. 101 in the PNW following harvest season with their own tiny scissors to trim the best kind bud the US has to offer. Regional hardware stores realize this and stock up on small pointy trim tools and turkey roaster bags just before harvest season. Look for ways to take advantage of existing underground economies, or organize your own.

Lots of us don't have jobs anymore, so we should have plenty of time to do something useful.

Underground Economy

2011-01-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

After much thought and meditation on my recent challenging situation, I realized that most of what I do, and much of what makes me who I am (in an egoic sense) arises from never feeling safe.
I can find/grow/butcher my own food, I can build shelter, I can invent and assemble contraptions to meet my needs. I have made it my business to learn these things because I know I can never count on anyone to take care of me.
When I went ballistic over my sex life being thwarted, it was because I was trying to protect an experience that afforded me a few moments of illusory security.

After a few days I realized how ridiculous it was to expend so much energy to protect an illusion, and decided to get busy protecting something that gives me a very practical feeling of security; this land and community.

This decision was partly catalyzed by the announcement that my friend K and her partner, Chef, are leaving the community. Both K and Chef are highly functional people who fulfilled many critical responsibilities here on the farm.

A couple days after their announcement, it began to sink into my brain. I started to see how much there was to do, and how I would have to take the lead if I wanted it to get done. I thought about the world out there falling to bits, and realized I might be the only thing between chaos and sanity.
All that fear, that unsafe feeling, that knowing that it was ultimately up to me to protect what I care about, came rushing in.
I was shaking, and felt like I was watching myself from a point outside my body.
The only times I've felt that way before is in severe grief or severe adrenalin rush.
My whole being was screaming;
"A STORM IS COMING! GET WITH IT! BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES!"

One of the big questions I had in exploring egalitarian community is the fairly obvious fact that we are not all created equal.
There are leaders among us and there are followers. There are self-starters and there are slackers.
Each of us is a unique individual with characteristics that fall somewhere on a spectrum of human experience on many, many different levels.
So how can we be equal?
How do we distribute responsibility fairly?
How do we ensure that that the leaders and self starters don't take on too much and burn themselves out while the slackers coast along in pipe dreams of rainbows and unicorns?

I wish I had the answer.

But I do know that this is the best thing I've ever found.
I am happier than I've ever been, and even in times of stress I am thrilled to realize that my life no longer consists of fading into a gray haze of wage slavery, mind controlling media, and poisonous subsidized food.

So hell yes I'm gonna fight to protect this.

Any way I can.

Even if I have to suddenly take on a management role (ugh).
Even if I have to make little(slacker)girls cry, or tell our founder and matriarch that she needs to release financial control because the farm is slowly going broke while she is slowly going crazy.
Even if I have to start an underground economy here because MommaHen just can't bring herself to hand over the checkbook to someone with a little fiscal responsibility.

The People support me in this. The financial situation is the main reason people leave this community. Everyone agrees something needs to happen, but everyone is too scared to make it happen. And they are too grateful to MommaHen for manifesting this place 40 years ago to tell it like it is to her face.

Am I scared and grateful?

Hell yes.

Has that ever stopped me before?

Hell NO.

There's a big storm coming. We don't have time to waste.

I love my People and I love my Land.

I will do what I need to do to protect this security.

Reality Bites Back

2010-12-24T07:29:00.000-08:00

So I seem to have manifested some pretty challenging personal circumstances for myself.

I should know by now that nature always seeks a balance, and no highly positive experience exists in this life of drama that doesn't have its equal and opposite negative experience.

What was developing into a very interesting romantic relationship has now been derailed by the residual possessiveness of a jealous ex-girlfriend and the lack of backbone on the part of the male involved.
Since I am involved in this situation, I am not without fault, and I need to examine my motivations very closely and learn the lessons this has to teach.

The more removed I am from mainstream reality, the more I realize how much we are still animals, and how much of our behavior comes from biological programming we are mostly unaware of.
It is easy, with all the distractions, over stimulation and separation of our culture to deny this side of us.
If I found myself in this situation back in the "real world" I would think to myself "Oh, he has baggage" and I would disassociate with the male and the jealous ex, pursue other relationships if I felt so inclined, and generally ignore him until he either kicks her to the curb and chooses me after all (a previously effective strategy) or until he just goes away.

But part of why I'm here is to stop running away from difficult situations, and since I live and work with both of these people, ignoring it until it goes away is not an option.
One of the patterns of our culture that I would like to change is possessiveness and codependency in sexual/romantic relationships. The depth of anger I felt when my opportunity to copulate during ovulation was thwarted by manipulative tactics of another female was quite astonishing to me. Obviously I need to evaluate possessiveness and attachment within myself.

I just finished reading a book called The Female Animal by Irene Elia. The book goes into lengthy discussions about the evolution of the genders and sexual reproduction, from amoeba to primate, with many comparisons of animal gender roles to those of humans. The effect that hormones can have on animals, including humans, is pretty astounding. From suppression of ovulation in weaker females by the presence of stronger females, to resulting in individuals who are genetically male but physically female and a range of other results, hormones play a much larger part in our experience than I was previously aware of.
So perhaps the extremely dominant and aggressive behavior the situation inspired in me was due in no small part to the hormones of ovulation, which have always affected me much more strongly than the so called PMS portion of the cycle.

Recognizing that I felt threatened, angry and dominant, I looked for a productive way to express my intensity of emotion and spent most of the day splitting and hauling firewood while listening to some good, angry metal on my Ipod.

I am a firewood splitting machine when I'm pissed.

Damn it feels good to swing that axe.

Not only did I fill the woodshed, I managed to completely exhaust any energy I had to be angry. I highly recommend chopping wood to anyone who needs to burn off some aggressive feelings in a productive way.

We have a process for resolving interpersonal conflicts here. The first step is for the disagreeing parties to talk to each other and try in good faith to work things out.
I have talked with him, I've talked with her, and she has talked to him. So far this doesn't seem to be getting us anything except more frustration and hurt feelings. We could all three get together and talk about it, but despite my best efforts at nonviolent communication I feel like she is not hearing me or him accurately. I think the three of us talking together would just make the situation worse.
The second step in the process is called a Third Person meeting, where the conflicted people choose an arbitrator or neutral third person to try to help them hear each other.
This can be challenging, since no one within the community is ever completely neutral. Fortunately, I might have a good option in K, who has been friends with the male and the jilted ex for a long time, and who I also consider a friend.
K happens to be one of the better communicators and peacemakers we have on the farm, so as weird as it seems to drag someone else into my messy relationship issues, I think I will talk to her about being a moderator for us.
Of course, the moderator must be acceptable to all parties involved, so I first need to talk to the other two involved in this dispute to see if a Third Person meeting with K is OK with them.

So what is causing me to react this way? What issues do I have that could be blinding me in this situation?

I am used to being an Alpha female. I am usually the strongest, most independent woman in any situation I encounter. I have a large skill set, which includes most of the tasks that are normally reserved for males. I think this comes from deep security issues.
I hate being dependent upon anyone, because in my experience being dependent = getting screwed over. I have a strong need in my life for security, both for myself and for the people I care about. The only time I can pretend for a little while that I am safe and everything will be OK is when I am in the arms of a (usually submissive) male. Even while feeling secure I realize that it's a complete illusion, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it for the hour or so it lasts.

Yep. Pretty sad.
And difficult for me to admit.

But a big part of the reason I came here was to face the ugly truths about myself, so here it is;

Rule 1: Don't threaten my security. I will defend myself.

Rule 2: Don't mess with my friends. They are part of my security. See Rule #1.

Rule 3: Don't engage in manipulative behavior. I can see right through it and I will call it out.

Rule 4: Don't undermine my sex life, especially when I'm ovulating. I am an animal as much as any other creature, and I get very aggressive when my opportunity to breed is thwarted.

So much anger over a male and a few minutes of illusory security. I guess if this land is threatened I can expect my attitude to go thermo-nuclear pretty quickly, since the land affords me a strong sense of practical security.

Hippie peace and love is all well and good, and generally a fun way to live, but it only works so long as the inner animal isn't threatened, and the flow of wacky tobaccy isn't interrupted.

Humanity ain't pretty when the animal comes out.

And the animal is only sleeping lightly under the thin veneer of being "civilized".

The up side to all this mess is that my buddy Demon is gonna make a shirt that says "Alpha Bitch" for me.

Sweet.

Seed Corn

2010-12-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

This year in The Garden we grew a variety of corn called "Painted Mountain".
It was described as one of the most genetically diverse corn varieties available, and seeing is believing.

It was difficult to plant this corn without admiring every kernel, for each was a different hue or a different pattern.

This corn crop overcame some serious challenges. Crows watched as we planted, and waited for a moment when our backs were turned to sneak seeds.
We covered the crop with Reemay floating crop cover to protect it from the crows; they especially love it just after it germinates. It stayed covered until almost 6" tall, since they just wouldn't leave it alone.

When we uncovered it, we discovered that a visitor planted the seeds too close, so we transplanted the thinnings (carefully, they had brittle roots) from 2" apart to 6" apart, which planted 2 1/2 more 100' rows in addition to the 3 100 footers we were transplanting from.

It grew fast. With our late spring it was not quite "knee high by the 4th of July" but it grew to its expected 4-5' height.
When it set tassels some of them were deformed. It looked like little white threads coming out, and the little male flower pods that hang down and make pollen were deformed and shrunken. After consulting the almighty Google oracle, we determined it was likely smut, a fungus that can infect the ear or the tassel of the corn.
Probably because of the increased heat and humidity under the Reemay at the beginning of its life the fungus was able to gain a hold.
Fortunately not many plants were affected (maybe 1% of the crop) and we pulled a few of the worst affected, but they mostly seemed to pull out of it when drier weather finally set in.

The garden was happy through the summer, and with orange tape, I tagged the most vigorous corn plants and the ones with the most ears per stalk to save those seeds.

The description of this variety said it could be eaten as sweet corn when young, but it was rather fibrous so we let it mature to a flour corn.
We harvested three times about a week apart to get the corn as they started to dry and before the coons ate any more. We wheel barrowed loads of corn into the greenhouse, stripped the husks and silk, snapped off the stems. and set the corn to dry on the top tier of the greenhouse.
As more corn came in, the greenhouse ears were rotated to my trailer. A shelf runs around the top of the living room, all the way around. It stays very warm because the wood stove is in here. I kept track of those orange tagged ears, and set them aside to keep seed for next year. I added some of the biggest, fullest ears to the seed corn stash.

It was pretty easy to remove the kernels from the cob once the ears were nice and dry. By firmly but gently twisting and applying friction the kernels loosened up and fell off. Some ears were difficult, and the bottle opener on my leatherman was good to loosen an initial row before twisting.

The gallon jar is the seed corn, the quart is a blues and purples mix, and the big sack is for flour/meal. My cat is looking annoyed in the background.

It makes your hands hurt after a while, but its a nice thing to do by the fire in cold rainy weather.
And hey, I gotta do something to keep my pitchfork callouses in shape through the winter.

The Pattern

2010-12-13T12:06:00.000-08:00

A like minded spirit over at the Tinfoil Hat society has written a fantastic piece on how fractal geometry is changing our paradigm of understanding;

"Mandelbrot brought back the sense of the whole, the old time Pagan sensibility that the part is more than a piece of the whole, even if you don’t understand quite how, and that what affects one part affects the whole in ways you probably won’t understand for quite a while. It reminds us that we are a part of the whole, and reflect the whole in our being, from cell up to organism."
Read the complete entry here:

http://thetinfoilhatsociety.com/2010/10/18/as-above-so-below/

I've loved fractals for a long time. Not just because they're fun to look at, but because I sense they are an important metaphor for understanding how this amazing experience called life is actually structured.
When I watched a PBS special on fractals, some 15 years ago now, a seed crystal of awareness started growing within my subconscious.
I started to learn more about 'sacred geometry', Fibonacci spirals, the golden mean.
I found myself fascinated by the idea that there are mathematical formulas to describe erosion patterns, or the self organizing principle of a sunflower.
The patterns within patterns, always repeating but never exactly the same, seem descriptive of the processes of life itself.

Perhaps there is a Grand Pattern, which always exists yet we are necessarily unable to perceive with our limited human senses. If we did fully perceive it, we wouldn't BE human.

We would just be the Pattern.

The point of our human existence, I reasoned, was for the Pattern to perceive itself.

If I am the pattern, and the pattern is me, everything I do or think or feel sends ripples of change out into the larger pattern.

That is the Next Iteration.

It is happening NOW.

This is why taking ultimate personal responsibility for my own life is so critically important.
If I want a future that includes a fruitful, balanced ecosystem I need to make personal choices that reflect and support that.

If I want a future filled with love and respect and understanding, I need to start loving and respecting all of my fellow beings, be they human or non-human.

It is vital that I make these choices with my whole Being and intent, and not to just "buy green" or drive a hybrid car so I can feel less guilty about all of the other destructive choices I am making.

Any difficult situations that arise in my life have something to teach me. Challenging circumstances when interacting with other humans invite me to take a closer look within myself for areas that need attention.

Real change starts from within.

We must live ourselves into the future we seek.

Separation Anxiety

2010-12-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

Who would've thought being part of a tribe could be so challenging?
It's amazing to me that we as humans lived in small tribes or communities for most of our history, and yet when you stick a bunch of us "modern Americans" together, you realize we no longer know how to act in community.

It took such a short time to culturalize us as the ultimate individuals. Even just 50 years ago we lived with extended family, or at least larger nuclear family. Many families lived in small communities, where much of what was consumed was locally produced. The Grocer, the Postmaster, the Butcher, were still friendly faces on a first name basis.

Now, thanks to the miracle of plastic currency, self check out, texting, cell phones, computers....
we can go through our entire day without having a face to face conversation with another human being.

So what?

We are losing something vital.

It is much easier to dehumanize everyone when you have few honest human connections. Its much easier to care only about yourself; to numb yourself to the fear and depression and anger all these other poor trapped rats are feeling, when you never look someone in the eye long enough to see their soul.

I got tired of numbing myself, of killing my soul just to survive in "consensus reality". So I left consensus reality behind.

But once I got out here I realize just how broken we are.
Just how enslaved we are.

We don't know how to communicate. We are used to being hurt and scared and trampled upon and talked down to and brainwashed into liking it. It's quite a novel experience to communicate honestly with people who are trying to cooperate, not to conquer.

We have been trained in divisiveness our entire lives, so it's almost funny when we wind up arguing a point, only to find that we are making the same point.
"I'm an individual!"
"No, I am!"
"You don't know what I want!"
"You don't speak for me!"
"You don't understand my needs!"

All negative emotions; fear, anger, resentment, guilt, happen because our needs are not being met. We have learned very poor ways to communicate our needs, and in many instances we are not even aware we have an unmet need. So we get frustrated, confused, and angry. We attack or defend. We send out these angry, confused vibrations, and they are reflected back at us by nearly everyone we contact. So we have a confused, angry, hurting world.

I think I found a piece of the solution.
Last week I read Non Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.
"Nonviolent Communication contains nothing new. It is based on historical principles of nonviolence-- the natural state of compassion when no violence is present in the heart.

NVC reminds us what we already instinctively know about how good it feels to authentically connect to another human being.

With NVC we learn to hear our own deeper needs and those of others. Through its emphasis on deep listening—to ourselves as well as others—NVC helps us discover the depth of our own compassion. This language reveals the awareness that all human beings are only trying to honor universal values and needs, every minute, every day.

NVC can be seen as both a spiritual practice that helps us see our common humanity, using our power in a way that honors everyone's needs, and a concrete set of skills which help us create life-serving families and communities.

The form is simple, yet powerfully transformative.

Through the practice of NVC, we can learn to clarify what we are observing, what emotions we are feeling, what values we want to live by, and what we want to ask of ourselves and others. We will no longer need to use the language of blame, judgment or domination. We can experience the deep pleasure of contributing to each others' well being."

This description was taken from the NVC website;
http://www.cnvc.org/

This might sound like a bunch of hippy dippy happy speak, but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.
I have experienced good results so far with the minimal efforts I have made to apply this style of communication.

In community we have two choices:

We can choose to communicate honestly and with thoughtful compassion to create a beautiful, loving reality.
Or we can choose to keep our old patterns and create so much stupid painful drama for ourselves that we decide community is too difficult; too real.
So we go crawling back to our comfortable little cage.

There may soon come a day when we no longer have the second option.
Might as well be ahead of the curve.

My New Reality

2010-12-11T21:37:00.000-08:00

Thinking I can manifest my reality might sound like a bunch of happy horseshit.

Billy Bob down at the bait-n-tackle store would probably consider me to be well and truly off my rocker if I told him he could manifest his own reality. But hey, I like my reality. Its fabulous.

I live in a cozy double wide trailer with my mom and our three cats. The only neighbors I can see are the herd of elk who hang out in the south hay field, and the bald eagle who perches on an alder snag outside my window to eyeball the creek in my front yard for returning salmon.
The trailer has an efficient wood stove, and *gasp* gravity feed spring water.

Just up the road is the main farm. Somehow after only being here 6 months, I am team leader of a 2 acre vegetable garden with the most beautiful soil I have ever laid eyes on. Irrigation for The Garden is also gravity feed.
I am blessed with a mild climate that can grow everything from artichokes to zucchinis. I have two market towns within an hours drive; in cities that value local organic food more than most other places in the country.

If I get too hot while working in the garden, I can walk 200 feet to the swimming hole in the clear, rocky creek and cool off with the trout and crawdads.

I have fantastic conversations about the human condition, the future of our species, the nature of love, breaking old conditioning, and the meaning of life with intelligent, awakened individuals.

Every day is a new day, with new adventures. Time seems odd here. I often think something that happened two days ago took place last week. I rarely know the date or the time. No cell phones work here.

This valley is desperately beautiful and unspoiled.
From here I cannot see the rape of clear cuts across this land.
Our creek still runs clean enough to drink out of.

I can buy raw milk and grass fed beef raised by my neighbor 2 miles away. Or if I don't have money I can do a work trade for it.
This morning on my way to the farm, firewood had fallen across the road, so I hopped out, sawed it up and put it in the truck.

Every time I think my reality just can't get any better, it does.
And yeah, mind blowing orgasams from a walking wet dream of a young tasty hippie are fun too.
Hold on, wait, he's intelligent and deep!

Holy shit.

I really love my reality.

I'm gonna go eat a gluten free ganja cookie and braid my armpit hair.

'Tis a gift to be simple

2010-11-17T14:39:00.000-08:00

Before we sit down to our communal meal at dinner time, we form a circle and hold hands. There is a moment of silence, in which I am truly and deeply grateful. Sometimes we sing this song.

It is beautiful.

The Green Valley

2010-11-17T13:17:00.000-08:00

I could go on and on about how beautiful this land is, or how it has everything I need, but The Land doesn't want that.
She is humble.
It is much more important that I share some of the valuable things I have learned in these past few months.
I called this blog Next Iteration because I wanted to stop feeding the fear energy that The Beast thrives on, and begin spreading the Love energy that will bring down this Beast.
I can start by taking personal responsibility for my thoughts and emotions. It is still easy to get drawn into fearful thoughts. These are frightening times we live in. But now I know I can choose where I put my energy. I can CHANGE that train of thought, and in doing so I can CHANGE my reality.

Just realizing that I am ultimately responsible for my reality was scary. I have started to confront and accept that I have an ego that subconsciously manifests challenging circumstances. I am sometimes afraid that I am not strong enough, not good enough, not AWARE enough, to manifest positive realities.
But then I realize I am feeling fearful again.

Ego is one slippery fish.

I have started to view difficult situations in a new light. My old thought pattern was that of the victim; "Why is this happening to me?"
My new thought pattern is "What did I do to manifest this?" and "What can I learn from this so I don't do it again?" This is a much more productive thought pattern, and leads to other thoughts like "What can I do to make this right?"

I'm tired of talking about the problems. We have plenty of problems.
Lets talk about the solutions. We could sure use a few more of those.

I am blessed to be part of an amazing social experiment. I live in a community of about 25 people ranging from age 1 to 88. Most of my 'family' are between ages 23 and 35. We were all drawn to this place because we are searching for a better way of being. We govern ourselves through consensus. I'm not convinced that full consensus is the way to go, but it has (more or less)worked for almost 40 years now, so I consider it worthwhile to learn more about the process.

In one of our founding documents are these words;
"The renewal of the social order, we now see, must begin with ourselves. We seek to change our basic assumptions and patterns of daily living. To do this we must alter our patterns of thought.
We must live ourselves into the future we seek."

I give thanks every day for my life and the people who now surround me.
My people are not perfect. They are in fact broken.
As i am broken.
As we all are.

The important thing is that we REALIZE we are broken, and are actively trying to change and evolve. Everybody has their issues, and issues cannot hide in a small community. But we help each other. We really do love each other, even when we drive each other crazy.

To talk openly about how we can fix ourselves, and to see my brothers and sisters get a little more whole is the most rewarding experience I have ever had.

It makes a fierce, strong Love well up within my chest, and with this inner fire I send vibrations of Loving Kindness outward into the Universe.

Will I save the world?
Maybe, maybe not.

But I am sure having a fantastic time trying.
I love my life.

Crawling out from under my new rock....

2010-11-15T18:46:00.000-08:00

Gee, sorry guys, what a teaser.
I would have posted more often if I hadn't been concentrating so much on rejecting sexual advances from my local cult leader.
What a weird place.
As I mentioned, there were some issues with the people.
But hey, I learned how to butcher chickens and sheep, and remodel a trailer, and how not to do lots of other projects.
It was an experience.

Yep, I was convinced that the best survival scenario for me was to join a hippie commune. It sounds so much more romantic than living in a shitty trailer park in the armpit of the middle of nowhere and eating sprouted wheat.

So I joined an "intentional community" in Washington State near the Columbia River Gorge.

It was not, however, a hippie commune.

I wound up remodeling a shitty trailer in the armpit of next to nowhere, and feeding sprouted wheat to the chickens.
Initially it seemed like a good deal; prepper minded community members, wheat by the ton, alternative energy generation projects in the works. Then I realized that I was valued more for my semi-aggressive sexuality and my euro-centric good looks than for any skills or knowledge or great ideas I might contribute.
I was really not looking to be wife number three (or four?) to an egomaniac old enough to be my father.
So after replacing the water pump in the community backhoe that had been broken down since I arrived 6 months prior, I packed my van and headed for greener pastures.
Fate still had her twisted sense of humor and she granted me safe passage to southern Oregon.

I spent the most blissed-out summer of my life in this green valley. I really do live in a hippie commune now. It's fantastic.

I even have internet access in my new, not-as-shitty trailer, so y'all will be hearing more about my latest adventures.....I promise.

The site

2009-12-20T16:57:00.000-08:00

So this place ain't bad. I've definitely improved my circumstances over Louisiana.
I'm about 1 1/2 hours from the closest big city, and about 25 minutes from the nearest small town.
About 1800 feet elevation, I no longer have dreams of tidal waves.
There is some pretty good infrastructure here.
Adequate roads are in place, 4 wells on the 140 acres, bordered by private forest land.
We're still working on water storage, but a 3K gal steel tank is our main potable cistern, with a 1500 gal tank for non-potable/garden water.
There is quite a lot of collected junk in the form of cars, trucks, refrigerators, old generators, and plenty of unidentifiable farm equipment/gears/machine parts.
Someone wise once said "All that's needed for invention is a creative mind and a pile of junk."
The tools are an asset too. Carpentry tools, metal working tools, a forge, and a couple backhoe/loader machines that need some TLC.
The place definitely has potential.
Curiously enough, the people are mostly of the prepper mindset.
A wise prepper never tells how much she has stashed away.
Lets just say I feel pretty good about it.

The housing leaves something to be desired. I spent the last 3 months remodeling a rotting singlewide circa 1973. Even with my badass wood stove, 2" of insulation and 2 degrees F makes for a pretty cold night.

I'm seriously considering converting a shipping container into housing. They're sturdy, you can bury them in the ground to meet your post-apocalyptic fantasy needs, and until fossil fuels become ridiculously expensive, they are portable.

Cause I'm not convinced I'm gonna stay here.
The site?
Acceptable.
The junk?
Fabulous.
The people?
Let's just say there are issues to work out.
And the people who surround you are probably the most critical factor.

Inaction

2009-12-16T17:28:00.001-08:00

We need to find the courage, overcome.
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction.

2009-12-16T16:40:00.000-08:00

So I decided a while ago that mainstream society sucks ass.
There are many reasons for this. I probably don't need to explain them to you.
But, here goes.
It always bothered me that we are fucking up our world.
Poisoning our oceans, our air, ourselves.
Enforcing dominion over the beasts of the earth, the fruits of the vine.
Sticking our germy little fingers into the very pattern of life itself.

It can only end badly for us, so we'd better get our shit straight FAST.
Otherwise, Ma Nature's gonna bitch slap us pretty soon here.

But I'm only one person. What can I do?

I believe the only meaningful change comes from within.
We must live the future we seek.

So I bought a beast of a diesel van to live in, quit my job, traveled across the country and joined a commune.
I finally escaped mainstream society.

What now?

This blog is intended to chronicle my adventures living in an intentional community.
Certainly various rants and ramblings will creep in, but hey, this is my blog, so if you don't like my rants, read somebody else's blog.

Life is all about personal choice and taking responsibility for those choices.

My life is at least never boring.
Wanna come along for the ride?