Is the goal of rewilding realistic at all? When I'm honest with myself, when I look at where I am now - how very domesticated I am - and where I have yet to go, I'm inclined to say it isn't. There's been a discussion going on between Ted and Ran about this predicament - everyone talking the talk, but no one completely walking the walk. Civilization is a prison, and we've all been in it so long that no one knows how to really function outside of its walls. And we're too afraid to try.
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Thursday, August 24
hitching
I got back home a couple days ago from a rather spontaneous road trip I went on with a friend. The plan was to hitch to vancouver and back, with part of the journey covered by driving someone's car for them up to vancouver (gas paid). That was arranged through craigslist. That would have been great, except that we were refused entry at the border because we didn't have enough cash on us. In our determination, we attempted to go to another bordercrossing, four hours away. But apparently, that's called bordershopping, which violates their immigration act. So they could have technically thrown us in jail for the night. Instead, we just got chewed out and detained for a couple hours to try to make us sweat. We ended up just having to take the guy's car back to Denver and pay for the gas ourselves. Other than not quite making it to our destination, the trip was very fun. We made some really cool friends while we stayed in Denver for a few days before hitching back.
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The act of hitching itself was a rewarding experience, having faith in the kindness of strangers to get us home. Out of the many rides we got, only one even approached being questionable as far as safety. The guy was driving rather fast, and talking even faster. And let's just say that I think I got second hand smoke from something other than tobacco. He got us out of the middle of Kansas City though. We were very grateful for that. When we started back from Denver, we got a ride really quickly, and from a guy in a very luxurious RV, driving his daughter to college. He drove us for 8 hours from Denver. We watched two movies and had some lively political debate. Other than those two, the rest of our rides were relatively plain. It was always as exciting as hell to be picked up, to have someone actually pull off the road to open up a momentary relationship of mutual aid. Often, the people who picked us up had hitchhiked themselves in the past, or had a parent that used to pick up hitchhikers. One was motivated by his recent conversion to christianity. Others didn't seem to need any special motivation at all - they were just willing to help us out. I think everyone benefited from each ride/pickup in some way.
At any rate, it was a whole lot of fun to do something so spontaneous and supposedly risky. I want more of that in the future.
expand to read full post
The act of hitching itself was a rewarding experience, having faith in the kindness of strangers to get us home. Out of the many rides we got, only one even approached being questionable as far as safety. The guy was driving rather fast, and talking even faster. And let's just say that I think I got second hand smoke from something other than tobacco. He got us out of the middle of Kansas City though. We were very grateful for that. When we started back from Denver, we got a ride really quickly, and from a guy in a very luxurious RV, driving his daughter to college. He drove us for 8 hours from Denver. We watched two movies and had some lively political debate. Other than those two, the rest of our rides were relatively plain. It was always as exciting as hell to be picked up, to have someone actually pull off the road to open up a momentary relationship of mutual aid. Often, the people who picked us up had hitchhiked themselves in the past, or had a parent that used to pick up hitchhikers. One was motivated by his recent conversion to christianity. Others didn't seem to need any special motivation at all - they were just willing to help us out. I think everyone benefited from each ride/pickup in some way.
At any rate, it was a whole lot of fun to do something so spontaneous and supposedly risky. I want more of that in the future.
Saturday, August 19
rewild.org taken down
I was just asked by Griffin of the former rewild.org to take down my recreation of their site, so I have done that. I'll remind everyone that the articles can still be found in the internet archive and their zine (which includes most, if not all, of the content on the website) can be found here (unless they're being asked to take that down too). I had assumed that the website went offline from lack of funding because the group had indeed gone out to live their vision, but there was apparently other reasons I'm not aware of that they took it down. I apologize to them if I overstepped a boundary. I'll be removing the now dead link from my sidebar right after I post this. Sorry also to all who already linked to that site.
Wednesday, August 9
anima
Today, I tried to spend as much time as possible outside. It was a great day. I get lulled into a daze so easily when inside, in the air-conditioning, with the tv on. It's amazing how much more time I had today, how much more time I was aware of experiencing. I don't like being indoors. I look at the walls, and I see where they came from and what it cost in life and energy for them to be here and the life they inhibit the existence of. I do not see anima. I do not see movement, spirit, life. I know that it's just that I'm not looking deeply enough, that life is everywhere, that this home has a spirit of place, and that my family is contributing to it's evolution by inhabiting what used to be an abandoned board-up. But even so, in my weakened state, in the process of healing spiritually, emotionally, relationally, intellectually, and physically, I can draw more easily from the strength of life outside of these walls, even in this urban habitat. I found a place last night to sleep outside where none of the streetlights or porchlights reach me, leaving the AC units' buzzing as the last main nuisance. It's wonderful to wake up to the sun's warm rays heating my body, like a wierd alarm clock that is comforting yet gradually coaxes me out of my horizontal position. Later in the day, I bathed in the heavy rain of a thunderstorm. My shorts and I had been air-drying ever since. (I think the shorts are finally dry - and cleaner! And look!- no lint!)
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There's a relevant passage from the book I'm reading now, Island, by Aldous Huxley. The islanders are talking about how their particular religion/philosophy (which happens to be mahayana buddhism) causes them to relate to the world-
I do not believe in God. But I have faith in God. (I'm using a broader perception of "God" than people usually do, but I'm using it to be able to share the common terminology with other people and so connect with them better through that language. I could just as easily substitute in "the gods" or "the universe", and I would prefer to, actually, for my own benefit, since the word "God" comes with a lot of baggage, like in explaining what the hell I mean by what I just said...) By that I mean that belief is static, unchanging. It is something people cling to and defend and prove and push on other people. If belief is a holding on, faith is a letting go, a trusting. My understanding of these terms come from Alan Watts-
I'm attempting to explore the good that I can extract from my adolescent hyper-religiousness as a part of healing. I can't make the past disappear. Healing requires balance. I think I'm getting through my reactionary phase, and I'm hungry for some soulfood. Great timing, too, because I'm going to spend tomorrow (well, *today*, according to the clock) having fun in the meramec river with some friends.
expand to read full post
There's a relevant passage from the book I'm reading now, Island, by Aldous Huxley. The islanders are talking about how their particular religion/philosophy (which happens to be mahayana buddhism) causes them to relate to the world-
"If you're a Tantrik, you don't renounce the world or deny its value; you don't try to escape into a Nirvana apart from life... No, you accept the world, and you make use of it; you make use of everything you do, of everything that happens to you, of all the things you see and hear and taste and touch, as so many means to your liberation from the prison of yourself."It's the journey out of myself and into the world that I'm on. (Conversely, its just as much a journey of rediscovering who I am, going deeper into myself, through that journey deeper into the world)
I do not believe in God. But I have faith in God. (I'm using a broader perception of "God" than people usually do, but I'm using it to be able to share the common terminology with other people and so connect with them better through that language. I could just as easily substitute in "the gods" or "the universe", and I would prefer to, actually, for my own benefit, since the word "God" comes with a lot of baggage, like in explaining what the hell I mean by what I just said...) By that I mean that belief is static, unchanging. It is something people cling to and defend and prove and push on other people. If belief is a holding on, faith is a letting go, a trusting. My understanding of these terms come from Alan Watts-
"Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be."I made the seemingly contradictory statement at the beginning of this paragraph to try to get across the idea of where I am spiritually. Occasionally, I take to calling myself, again ironically, a religious atheist. It's because I truly don't believe in or perceive a sky father deity-type personal god, but I do perceive a spirit, a life-force, in everything around me, in the universe. And I entrust my existence to that life-force. I yearn to live in the hands of the gods. When I say I don't perceive a personal god, I'm not saying that the universe is impersonal, only that I personally feel silly talking to the universe in the dark alone at night (it doesn't mean the universe isn't listening). Any sort of sincere prayer that I could muster would be beyond words. And yet I also find myself searching for ritual. Fun, easy, spontaneous ritual, but ritual nonetheless.
I'm attempting to explore the good that I can extract from my adolescent hyper-religiousness as a part of healing. I can't make the past disappear. Healing requires balance. I think I'm getting through my reactionary phase, and I'm hungry for some soulfood. Great timing, too, because I'm going to spend tomorrow (well, *today*, according to the clock) having fun in the meramec river with some friends.
I just have a few random thoughts that I want to get out, so it might be jumbled.
I'm releasing myself from as many "shoulds" as possible. It has almost turned into something of a running joke among some of my friends that whenever one of us says that they should be doing something, someone else says, "should", in such a way as to make the person question where their motives are coming from. For me, if I can't replace the "should" with "want to", I'm going to find a way to not do it. I didn't vote in the primary election yesterday because I had no intrinsic motivation to do so. That's actually the first election I intentionally skipped. I remember how powerless I felt after each of the handful of times I've voted in the past - that the ritual I had just performed was on the whole meaningless and would effectively change nothing. Its only real effectiveness is in maintaining the illusion of democracy for those awake enough to care but still too myopic to see through the game.
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I want life to be easy and fun. (note that had this paragraph not come right after the first, I would have been inclined by habit to say "life should be easy and fun") It's amazing how much that wish goes against the unspoken assumptions of our culture and of civilization - the assumptions of life being a problem to be solved or a set of numbers to be earned, that most of one's life for most people just has to be hard and boring, and there's no way around it. I don't accept those assumptions, and I intend to be living proof that there is a way around, or out, rather. As I desire, I intend to be unapologetically lazy. And then I'll turn around and be just as unapologetically dilligent and creative in whatever project I'm inspired to pursue. It's so much easier when the motivation wells up from within.
That said, it seems that the process of rewilding is a monumental task, being without a tribe, without a culture, and already beyond the age of peak mental malleability. I intend, though, to build momentum and be persistent in learning as much as I can as thoroughly as I can, and to put that knowledge to good daily use. A lot of what I want to learn about is right in line with my desire for life to be easy and fun. The learning part may be slow and hard (although not boring), but once the knowledge of self/community-sufficiency is gained, it'll make life a lot more easy and stress-free. For one small example, take squatting to poop. Certainly, it's hard at first to fine tune your balance and figure out exactly what position to be in, but with practice, it actually becomes a much easier way to move your bowels. I didn't notice it at first, but once I got comfortable with the process, I could relax and actually move my bowels more quickly and in greater quantity. There was a threshold of difficulty to get past, but now that I'm on the other side, it's so much easier to behave as my body is adapted to behave.
I have more thoughts, but I'm tired of being on the computer, so I might be back later with more.
I'm releasing myself from as many "shoulds" as possible. It has almost turned into something of a running joke among some of my friends that whenever one of us says that they should be doing something, someone else says, "should", in such a way as to make the person question where their motives are coming from. For me, if I can't replace the "should" with "want to", I'm going to find a way to not do it. I didn't vote in the primary election yesterday because I had no intrinsic motivation to do so. That's actually the first election I intentionally skipped. I remember how powerless I felt after each of the handful of times I've voted in the past - that the ritual I had just performed was on the whole meaningless and would effectively change nothing. Its only real effectiveness is in maintaining the illusion of democracy for those awake enough to care but still too myopic to see through the game.
expand to read full post
I want life to be easy and fun. (note that had this paragraph not come right after the first, I would have been inclined by habit to say "life should be easy and fun") It's amazing how much that wish goes against the unspoken assumptions of our culture and of civilization - the assumptions of life being a problem to be solved or a set of numbers to be earned, that most of one's life for most people just has to be hard and boring, and there's no way around it. I don't accept those assumptions, and I intend to be living proof that there is a way around, or out, rather. As I desire, I intend to be unapologetically lazy. And then I'll turn around and be just as unapologetically dilligent and creative in whatever project I'm inspired to pursue. It's so much easier when the motivation wells up from within.
That said, it seems that the process of rewilding is a monumental task, being without a tribe, without a culture, and already beyond the age of peak mental malleability. I intend, though, to build momentum and be persistent in learning as much as I can as thoroughly as I can, and to put that knowledge to good daily use. A lot of what I want to learn about is right in line with my desire for life to be easy and fun. The learning part may be slow and hard (although not boring), but once the knowledge of self/community-sufficiency is gained, it'll make life a lot more easy and stress-free. For one small example, take squatting to poop. Certainly, it's hard at first to fine tune your balance and figure out exactly what position to be in, but with practice, it actually becomes a much easier way to move your bowels. I didn't notice it at first, but once I got comfortable with the process, I could relax and actually move my bowels more quickly and in greater quantity. There was a threshold of difficulty to get past, but now that I'm on the other side, it's so much easier to behave as my body is adapted to behave.
I have more thoughts, but I'm tired of being on the computer, so I might be back later with more.
Tuesday, August 8
bicycle fuel economy
My friend Annie sent me a link to a t-shirt design today that had a bike positioned above a sign on a gas pump that read "fuel economy information" and then had, City [infinity sign] and Highway [infinity sign] to the left and right of it.
I also have a sticker on my bike helmet that reads "I get 1000 miles/gallon and I don't pollute" (placed on the left side of the helmet so that it faces drivers and makes them mad/think, should they happen to read it).
I enjoy the sentiment in both of these designs, but neither of them are actually true. Certainly not the first one. But the second one is probably still pretty outrageous. Sure, there's absolutely zero gallons of fuel going directly towards powering the bike. But there's the fuel that went into manufacturing, shipping, and selling the bike, of course. And the oil that goes into maintaining the roads that the bike rolls so smoothly over. But more than that, oil still fuels that bike, just indirectly. Because oil fuels me.
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No, I'm not a robot. I eat regular old civilized human food like everyone else. But that's the stuff I'm talking about. Here's an article, the oil in your oatmeal, that explains what I'm getting at. More fossil fuels go into the growing, shipping, preserving, and preparing of your food than you would think. According to the article's sources, 7 calories of fossil fuel energy goes toward bringing you 1 calorie of food energy.
I'm certainly not knocking bikes. But unless they're eating organic food that they grew (or otherwise gathered) themselves and preserved and cooked it without fossil fuels, the environmentalists are fooling themselves to think that bikes are not powered by oil.
I wonder how far off the sticker I have on my helmet is. The article says that 8 ounces of oil go into the breakfast described, and that over 2 quarts are consumed with that breakfast routine over the course of a week. So let's keep the amount of oil per meal constant and triple it for a week to cover all my meals (6 quarts, which is already a gallon and a half, for 21 meals of fuel, er, I mean food). That means for my sticker to be true, I'd have to be able to ride an average of 71 miles after each of the 14 meals that add up to one gallon of fuel. I know my calculations miss the mark some in how the food is actually divvied up to power the bike, but 1000 miles per "gallon" is not going to happen. Oh well.
I also have a sticker on my bike helmet that reads "I get 1000 miles/gallon and I don't pollute" (placed on the left side of the helmet so that it faces drivers and makes them mad/think, should they happen to read it).
I enjoy the sentiment in both of these designs, but neither of them are actually true. Certainly not the first one. But the second one is probably still pretty outrageous. Sure, there's absolutely zero gallons of fuel going directly towards powering the bike. But there's the fuel that went into manufacturing, shipping, and selling the bike, of course. And the oil that goes into maintaining the roads that the bike rolls so smoothly over. But more than that, oil still fuels that bike, just indirectly. Because oil fuels me.
expand to read full post
No, I'm not a robot. I eat regular old civilized human food like everyone else. But that's the stuff I'm talking about. Here's an article, the oil in your oatmeal, that explains what I'm getting at. More fossil fuels go into the growing, shipping, preserving, and preparing of your food than you would think. According to the article's sources, 7 calories of fossil fuel energy goes toward bringing you 1 calorie of food energy.
I'm certainly not knocking bikes. But unless they're eating organic food that they grew (or otherwise gathered) themselves and preserved and cooked it without fossil fuels, the environmentalists are fooling themselves to think that bikes are not powered by oil.
I wonder how far off the sticker I have on my helmet is. The article says that 8 ounces of oil go into the breakfast described, and that over 2 quarts are consumed with that breakfast routine over the course of a week. So let's keep the amount of oil per meal constant and triple it for a week to cover all my meals (6 quarts, which is already a gallon and a half, for 21 meals of fuel, er, I mean food). That means for my sticker to be true, I'd have to be able to ride an average of 71 miles after each of the 14 meals that add up to one gallon of fuel. I know my calculations miss the mark some in how the food is actually divvied up to power the bike, but 1000 miles per "gallon" is not going to happen. Oh well.
I am a sponge
There are two verbs I am using to describe what I'm doing now that I've escaped with what's left of my spirit from school - unschool and rewild. They're interconnected, of course. In unschooling, I am primarily interested in learning the skills necessary to rewild- friction fires, shelter constructing, water purifying, hunting, herbal medicine wildcrafting. And more important than all of that is to first strengthen my trust in my own judgement and intuition. I have a lot of healing to do. It is part of both the unschooling and the rewilding process.
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I've already talked about my addiction to praise and ingrained habit of people pleasing. At this point in my journey, it's the biggest wound I need to heal. I have not only been trained - I have trained myself - to obey, but to be pleasing to those I hold up as figures of authority. I please them by molding myself into a person that is compatible with them and with their ideology. I soak up the characteristics of those I put in power over me like a sponge. I have seen this tendency play out most dramatically in my relationship to Devin. Before I met him in person, I was pretty gung ho on the idea of becoming a permaculturalist, starting my own garden, living on the edge of civilization. But only a very short time after I met him in person, I had reshaped my opinions on the subject to match his own - that permaculture is a dead-end and that becoming a hunter-gatherer was the way to go. Of course, Devin spoke of it solely in terms of the way that was right for him and was not pressuring me at all to change my thinking. I did that willingly, if a bit too quickly. It's not that, upon giving it more thought, that I even disagree with his opinions at all. It's that I took them upon myself as absolutes. In my mind, he was the teacher, and I was simply eating up the lessons like I've done for the past 13 years.
This trouble with blind acceptance of whatever I perceive as authority extends in an opposing way as well. Those that I hold up as authority have obviously changed a lot, and it's very hard for me to face those past authority figures who do not necessarily know how I've changed. I'm caught in an internal double bind of not wanting to pretend or wear a mask around them but also not wanting to deal with explaining and justifying myself to them and then feeling the psychic pain of their changed opinions about me, of my not pleasing them any more. So I end up just attempting to shut those former authority figures out of my life. It's true that I could just give up on maintaining the now false image that they have of me in order to begin relating to them more honestly, but honestly, without the motive of pleasing them, I have nothing drawing me to them, nothing that I feel I have in common with them to share in a friendship. I'm not talking about anyone in particular, just the general sense of weariness that I get when confronted with the conflict of my past and present selves. I really just want to walk away from that former life and have nothing more to do with it, but I don't know how that would work if I want to heal the wounds received during that time. I can never fully walk away from what made me who I am today, from what brought me to this point. But in another sense, I am always walking away from my former self as I change and evolve a little bit each day.
Fuck, I think I got off track. Let's try starting again at a different point.
I'm tempted to consider whether, since this habit of soaking up the opinions and goals of my authority is so ingrained, I could use it to my benefit by carefully choosing who it is that I put on that pedestal and so become the person I want to be... by... becoming other people? Shit, that's a really stupid way to behave. And it's what I've been doing. All my life. No, I need to kick this habit, and I need to do it by being an ass. Well, not necessarily being an ass, but I'll definitely be feeling like one. Instead of soaking authority figures up, I need to purposefully put them off. My mom describes my people pleasing behavior in terms of seeking peace at all costs. I avoid conflict by anticipating what those I would conflict with want and preemptively giving them that. So I simply need to get more comfortable with being in conflict with other people.
Simply. heh.
expand to read full post
I've already talked about my addiction to praise and ingrained habit of people pleasing. At this point in my journey, it's the biggest wound I need to heal. I have not only been trained - I have trained myself - to obey, but to be pleasing to those I hold up as figures of authority. I please them by molding myself into a person that is compatible with them and with their ideology. I soak up the characteristics of those I put in power over me like a sponge. I have seen this tendency play out most dramatically in my relationship to Devin. Before I met him in person, I was pretty gung ho on the idea of becoming a permaculturalist, starting my own garden, living on the edge of civilization. But only a very short time after I met him in person, I had reshaped my opinions on the subject to match his own - that permaculture is a dead-end and that becoming a hunter-gatherer was the way to go. Of course, Devin spoke of it solely in terms of the way that was right for him and was not pressuring me at all to change my thinking. I did that willingly, if a bit too quickly. It's not that, upon giving it more thought, that I even disagree with his opinions at all. It's that I took them upon myself as absolutes. In my mind, he was the teacher, and I was simply eating up the lessons like I've done for the past 13 years.
This trouble with blind acceptance of whatever I perceive as authority extends in an opposing way as well. Those that I hold up as authority have obviously changed a lot, and it's very hard for me to face those past authority figures who do not necessarily know how I've changed. I'm caught in an internal double bind of not wanting to pretend or wear a mask around them but also not wanting to deal with explaining and justifying myself to them and then feeling the psychic pain of their changed opinions about me, of my not pleasing them any more. So I end up just attempting to shut those former authority figures out of my life. It's true that I could just give up on maintaining the now false image that they have of me in order to begin relating to them more honestly, but honestly, without the motive of pleasing them, I have nothing drawing me to them, nothing that I feel I have in common with them to share in a friendship. I'm not talking about anyone in particular, just the general sense of weariness that I get when confronted with the conflict of my past and present selves. I really just want to walk away from that former life and have nothing more to do with it, but I don't know how that would work if I want to heal the wounds received during that time. I can never fully walk away from what made me who I am today, from what brought me to this point. But in another sense, I am always walking away from my former self as I change and evolve a little bit each day.
Fuck, I think I got off track. Let's try starting again at a different point.
I'm tempted to consider whether, since this habit of soaking up the opinions and goals of my authority is so ingrained, I could use it to my benefit by carefully choosing who it is that I put on that pedestal and so become the person I want to be... by... becoming other people? Shit, that's a really stupid way to behave. And it's what I've been doing. All my life. No, I need to kick this habit, and I need to do it by being an ass. Well, not necessarily being an ass, but I'll definitely be feeling like one. Instead of soaking authority figures up, I need to purposefully put them off. My mom describes my people pleasing behavior in terms of seeking peace at all costs. I avoid conflict by anticipating what those I would conflict with want and preemptively giving them that. So I simply need to get more comfortable with being in conflict with other people.
Simply. heh.
Friday, August 4
I've had a mental block against writing for a while which I think I'm about to come out of. I've been seeking an outlet lately, but I've not felt like I could say anything here. That seems to be a relatively common hurdle that I need to get over. I'm treating this blog as if it needs to be perfect. As much as I like to think so, I didn't leave behind my perfectionist side back in sophomore year. There's also the part about what I write here hurting people unintentionally. But I've got to remind myself, among others, that this blog is for my benefit primarily. It's a space I can use to sculpt my thoughts. I just happen to also find it useful to share those thoughts with everyone else, both as a broadcasting service and to receive feedback. I also tend to worry about whether I'm being too long-winded.
Well, I'm putting those concerns and worries aside because I have things to say and a place to say them, so I'm gonna. This post'll probably be mostly stream of consciousness-type stuff. I've got stuff I've got stored up from at least a month of writer's block. So here we go -
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We had a huge wind/thunderstorm here a little over two weeks ago. It knocked the electricity out for close to half a million people in the metro area for several days. That was lots of fun. Huge branches were downed in our backyard from a maple next door (the leaves from which jumpstarted the carbon portion of my compost pile), so it looked a little bit like a jungle. I loved having the air conditioning off and the lights off at night. I enjoyed time away from this addicting computer, spending more time than usual experiencing the world, unmediated by a screen. The one thing I did miss was free access to the refrigerator. We quickly got out and ate all the animal foods possible, so it's not like there was much in there that I was missing out on, but just not having that convenience of being able to look in the fridge whenever I wanted to became the biggest burden for me somehow. The one big loss from the storm personally was that the tent I had set up in the backyard broke. That was where I was sleeping most nights. The first two nights without power, I still slept outside, under the sky, on a full-length folded out lawn chair, where there was actually enough air movement that I was more comfortable than the people sleeping inside on beds. Nearly everyone cheered when the power finally came back on, 67 hours later. I didn't. I'll always cheer when the power goes out. It's good practice.
One of the weirdest things to come back to after Dancing Rabbit was indoor plumbing. Why shit in (somewhat) clean water when you could better use it to drink or to water a garden? And why flush away perfectly good shit when you could compost it and turn it into fertilizer? And then, when you go to squat on a toilet, there's the splash factor you have to worry about. And why is it necessary to pee inside? We train our dogs to go outside to do their business (actually, it's more like we train them to stay inside and then have to additionally train them to not mark the territory of where they've been trained to live), why can't humans?
At Dancing Rabbit, they have a humanure system set up, with composting toilets (buckets that you sprinkle sawdust in after you're done) and humey piles that cook in a compost pile for a year before they turn into usable soil. I really didn't want to turn the lever of any flush toilet ever again when I first got back, and with good reason. Within a week of returning home, a toilet I flushed overflowed, which was a big smelly mess. That toilet has since fallen into disrepair and my mom has spent many hours of frustration (with my help every once in a while)attempting to replace the innards of the tank contraption, and to no avail. I'd really rather shit in a bucket. Or even better, grab a shovel and head for some woods.
Just after I wrote the part about training dogs to go outside, our new family member, Emma, was let outside to poop. She's a 10 week old, six pound, beagle mix. She's the runt of the litter (the mom and dad live next door) and is very cute, soft, floppy. White with big brown blobs. So far, she's mostly been doing a good job of getting along with Lady, our 14 year old, 16 pound terrier. At first, I resisted getting attached to her because, generally, I don't like the idea of having pets. I love animals, but I don't want them domesticated when I'm trying to go feral myself. I've heard the philosophical argument made that humans keep pets to have someone to sympathize with their own cagedness. We generally treat pets as a lower caste of humans - keeping them locked up within boxes of various sizes, from the literal cage, to the backyard, to the leash around the neck. They're fed "food" that's even more bland and processed than human "food". They're trained with rewards and punishments exactly what's acceptable behavior, and when broken, lead even more tamed and boring lives than most of us live, looking forward only to the next opportunity to be rewarded or to get out of their most restrictive cage. Many, of course, grow to love their cages, finding them secure and comforting, just like every human I know. And of course, any animals that we take with us into the realm of civilization also have the corresponding population problems. And we sterilize many of them. I just finished reading Brave New World. I wonder if that's coming for humans. (And by coming, I mean coming back and expanding, because I'm aware that some humans have already been subjected to involuntary sterilizations. US citizens even. Before Hitler made eugenics unpopular. For a while anyway.)
I had another bubble of hope pop the other day. I was reading Ran's zine, Superweed 4. First, I should mention that Ran is still one of the people I've positioned as an authority figure to look up to, imitate, and please. In the zine, he's basically journaling during a wilderness bike trip, and by the end of it, he, someone who is strongly anti-civ, is sick of the wilderness and can't wait to get back to civilization. From there, he goes on to say that it'll be impossible for him to ever fully undomesticate himself. Civilization is his home, even as dysfunctional as it is, and he'll always be drawn back to it. The best he can hope for it to live on the fringes of civilization and try to get the best of both worlds. Since I put so much stock in what he says, this little part crushed my hopes of ever becoming a full-time hunter-gatherer. So without that naively cushioning hope beneath me anymore, I got pretty depressed and despairing for a little bit. I've got a quote from Radiohead as the "headline" for my myspace profile right now that fits the feeling - "your fantasies are unlikely. but beautiful." Despair is a hard emotion to feel, but in the end, it always ends up being more motivating than hope. Hope is passive; despair opens the door for action, since there's nothing to lose after all.
I watched a documentary ealier today, Modern Tribalism, which explores the sub-culture movement in modern society towards ritual practices very similar to those carried out by primitive cultures - primarily, tattooing, piercing, and festivals centered around a fire. When I was younger, I always said that I would never want to get a tattoo or a piercing. I wanted to keep my body "natural". Why would I want to improve upon what I was given by God? But as my friend George said, life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. Things like piercings and tattoos appeal to me now, not just as an act of rebellion. It's an act of belonging. It's an initiation rite, or a partial substitute for one, since there are no really good one's in this culture. The act of going through something painful can be a powerful tool for growing in strength and confidence as one transitions to a new stage in life. I'm certainly in such a transition right now.
Sara and I are in a really good place right now. I've realized that I don't really need to change the way I relate to her since she has always been my friend first and foremost and still is. And Sara has realized that the primary thing she was ending in our breakup was the use of labels - boyfriend and girlfriend. It's the status of being a couple that we gave up. And, really, I'm happier for it, and we're both healthier for it.
Well, healthier to a degree. I'm still very sick. Not physically, most of the time, but in every other way possible. Since I've begun this journey of healing, I've become very aware of exactly how I medicate and numb myself to protect me from reality. Lately, I've been eating more comfort food, which I don't even want to think about stopping since I'm underweight, but some of the food I eat still doesn't make me feel good afterwards. I rarely drink coffee (only when I go out with friends to a coffee shop like Mokabe's), but I want to cut it out completely. It certainly tastes good, but it makes me feel awful. And I definitely don't want to ever become dependent on that most used and abused drug in the world.
Speaking of coffee, the last day or so, I've been considering a job at a fancy coffee shop close to my neighborhood, called Belas Artes. I'd like to get a job in order to save up some money. I'd like to save up some money in order to travel to Europe with my friend Nathan in January. He's studying in Ireland for a semester, but he's visiting a friend in Bulgaria first and then has a month to get from one corner of Europe to the other, seeing as much of Europe in the meantime as possible. And I want to make that journey with him. I'm also planning to travel around to visit friends at college in Chicago and at Truman. And I'd like to go back up to Dancing Rabbit sometime this fall, maybe in conjunction with helping with the sorghum harvest at Sandhill Farm. When I'm at home, I'll be helping with house maintenance and renovations, possibly homeschooling/unschooling my brother, and unschooling myself - reading at will and learning some basic self-sufficiency skills. And I'll be continuing to heal. But that's a lifelong process.
Well, I'm putting those concerns and worries aside because I have things to say and a place to say them, so I'm gonna. This post'll probably be mostly stream of consciousness-type stuff. I've got stuff I've got stored up from at least a month of writer's block. So here we go -
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We had a huge wind/thunderstorm here a little over two weeks ago. It knocked the electricity out for close to half a million people in the metro area for several days. That was lots of fun. Huge branches were downed in our backyard from a maple next door (the leaves from which jumpstarted the carbon portion of my compost pile), so it looked a little bit like a jungle. I loved having the air conditioning off and the lights off at night. I enjoyed time away from this addicting computer, spending more time than usual experiencing the world, unmediated by a screen. The one thing I did miss was free access to the refrigerator. We quickly got out and ate all the animal foods possible, so it's not like there was much in there that I was missing out on, but just not having that convenience of being able to look in the fridge whenever I wanted to became the biggest burden for me somehow. The one big loss from the storm personally was that the tent I had set up in the backyard broke. That was where I was sleeping most nights. The first two nights without power, I still slept outside, under the sky, on a full-length folded out lawn chair, where there was actually enough air movement that I was more comfortable than the people sleeping inside on beds. Nearly everyone cheered when the power finally came back on, 67 hours later. I didn't. I'll always cheer when the power goes out. It's good practice.
One of the weirdest things to come back to after Dancing Rabbit was indoor plumbing. Why shit in (somewhat) clean water when you could better use it to drink or to water a garden? And why flush away perfectly good shit when you could compost it and turn it into fertilizer? And then, when you go to squat on a toilet, there's the splash factor you have to worry about. And why is it necessary to pee inside? We train our dogs to go outside to do their business (actually, it's more like we train them to stay inside and then have to additionally train them to not mark the territory of where they've been trained to live), why can't humans?
At Dancing Rabbit, they have a humanure system set up, with composting toilets (buckets that you sprinkle sawdust in after you're done) and humey piles that cook in a compost pile for a year before they turn into usable soil. I really didn't want to turn the lever of any flush toilet ever again when I first got back, and with good reason. Within a week of returning home, a toilet I flushed overflowed, which was a big smelly mess. That toilet has since fallen into disrepair and my mom has spent many hours of frustration (with my help every once in a while)attempting to replace the innards of the tank contraption, and to no avail. I'd really rather shit in a bucket. Or even better, grab a shovel and head for some woods.
Just after I wrote the part about training dogs to go outside, our new family member, Emma, was let outside to poop. She's a 10 week old, six pound, beagle mix. She's the runt of the litter (the mom and dad live next door) and is very cute, soft, floppy. White with big brown blobs. So far, she's mostly been doing a good job of getting along with Lady, our 14 year old, 16 pound terrier. At first, I resisted getting attached to her because, generally, I don't like the idea of having pets. I love animals, but I don't want them domesticated when I'm trying to go feral myself. I've heard the philosophical argument made that humans keep pets to have someone to sympathize with their own cagedness. We generally treat pets as a lower caste of humans - keeping them locked up within boxes of various sizes, from the literal cage, to the backyard, to the leash around the neck. They're fed "food" that's even more bland and processed than human "food". They're trained with rewards and punishments exactly what's acceptable behavior, and when broken, lead even more tamed and boring lives than most of us live, looking forward only to the next opportunity to be rewarded or to get out of their most restrictive cage. Many, of course, grow to love their cages, finding them secure and comforting, just like every human I know. And of course, any animals that we take with us into the realm of civilization also have the corresponding population problems. And we sterilize many of them. I just finished reading Brave New World. I wonder if that's coming for humans. (And by coming, I mean coming back and expanding, because I'm aware that some humans have already been subjected to involuntary sterilizations. US citizens even. Before Hitler made eugenics unpopular. For a while anyway.)
I had another bubble of hope pop the other day. I was reading Ran's zine, Superweed 4. First, I should mention that Ran is still one of the people I've positioned as an authority figure to look up to, imitate, and please. In the zine, he's basically journaling during a wilderness bike trip, and by the end of it, he, someone who is strongly anti-civ, is sick of the wilderness and can't wait to get back to civilization. From there, he goes on to say that it'll be impossible for him to ever fully undomesticate himself. Civilization is his home, even as dysfunctional as it is, and he'll always be drawn back to it. The best he can hope for it to live on the fringes of civilization and try to get the best of both worlds. Since I put so much stock in what he says, this little part crushed my hopes of ever becoming a full-time hunter-gatherer. So without that naively cushioning hope beneath me anymore, I got pretty depressed and despairing for a little bit. I've got a quote from Radiohead as the "headline" for my myspace profile right now that fits the feeling - "your fantasies are unlikely. but beautiful." Despair is a hard emotion to feel, but in the end, it always ends up being more motivating than hope. Hope is passive; despair opens the door for action, since there's nothing to lose after all.
I watched a documentary ealier today, Modern Tribalism, which explores the sub-culture movement in modern society towards ritual practices very similar to those carried out by primitive cultures - primarily, tattooing, piercing, and festivals centered around a fire. When I was younger, I always said that I would never want to get a tattoo or a piercing. I wanted to keep my body "natural". Why would I want to improve upon what I was given by God? But as my friend George said, life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. Things like piercings and tattoos appeal to me now, not just as an act of rebellion. It's an act of belonging. It's an initiation rite, or a partial substitute for one, since there are no really good one's in this culture. The act of going through something painful can be a powerful tool for growing in strength and confidence as one transitions to a new stage in life. I'm certainly in such a transition right now.
Sara and I are in a really good place right now. I've realized that I don't really need to change the way I relate to her since she has always been my friend first and foremost and still is. And Sara has realized that the primary thing she was ending in our breakup was the use of labels - boyfriend and girlfriend. It's the status of being a couple that we gave up. And, really, I'm happier for it, and we're both healthier for it.
Well, healthier to a degree. I'm still very sick. Not physically, most of the time, but in every other way possible. Since I've begun this journey of healing, I've become very aware of exactly how I medicate and numb myself to protect me from reality. Lately, I've been eating more comfort food, which I don't even want to think about stopping since I'm underweight, but some of the food I eat still doesn't make me feel good afterwards. I rarely drink coffee (only when I go out with friends to a coffee shop like Mokabe's), but I want to cut it out completely. It certainly tastes good, but it makes me feel awful. And I definitely don't want to ever become dependent on that most used and abused drug in the world.
Speaking of coffee, the last day or so, I've been considering a job at a fancy coffee shop close to my neighborhood, called Belas Artes. I'd like to get a job in order to save up some money. I'd like to save up some money in order to travel to Europe with my friend Nathan in January. He's studying in Ireland for a semester, but he's visiting a friend in Bulgaria first and then has a month to get from one corner of Europe to the other, seeing as much of Europe in the meantime as possible. And I want to make that journey with him. I'm also planning to travel around to visit friends at college in Chicago and at Truman. And I'd like to go back up to Dancing Rabbit sometime this fall, maybe in conjunction with helping with the sorghum harvest at Sandhill Farm. When I'm at home, I'll be helping with house maintenance and renovations, possibly homeschooling/unschooling my brother, and unschooling myself - reading at will and learning some basic self-sufficiency skills. And I'll be continuing to heal. But that's a lifelong process.
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So far I've mostly looked at rewilding from the perspective of needing to learn skills to be community-sufficient outside of the life support system of civilization, away from all the tubes and chemicals keeping us artificially alive. Skills are certainly very important. But they are really only a small part of rewilding. Beyond meeting the needs of survival, there is the problem of trying to regain a sense of sane community, both with one's fellow humans and with the rest of the world. Giuli at Anthropik quoted something by Tamarack at Teaching Drum that fits situation -
I don't know where all this leaves me with my own goals. Sure, I'll learn (and use) as many practical skills as possible, probably in both hunting and gathering and in permaculture. But how to become feral? Other animals can do it - cats, horses, goats, pigs. Why couldn't humans? There are stories of civilized humans getting stranded in the wilderness and becoming savage out of necessity, eventually integrating into the local indigenous culture (movies like Dances with Wolves and The Snow Walker), but alas, I doubt I'll be running into any sort of intact indigenous culture. Certainly those are two parts of what makes it difficult to rewild - we lack the necessity to do so (at the moment) and we have no one to teach us -- not only teach us but live with us and become our family.
That's the balance I'm trying to strike right now, I guess. I want to be within a family, and I want to become as wild as possible. I loved Ted's part in his post about truly wild being spear in hand, naked with body paint, and animist. I've at least gotten somewhere on the latter two. And I can't wait to get some experience with a spear. And then to recognize that that is still only the very beginning of the journey back home.