Oh, one more thing. I don't know how many people who read this blog also read TaoGnostic, but if you didn't know yet, Dan has moved his blog and writings to a new domain: http://danbartlett.co.uk/. He's pretty awesome, so if you haven't been there yet, check him out.
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Friday, October 13
pushing through writer's block
Apparently, I haven't got anything interesting to say. Or at least I haven't for the past three weeks. Today's date being what it is, maybe my luck is changing.
maybe...
I've obviously got writer's block again, which I think stems from some sort of energy blockage in some other part of my life. It feels like a burden to be writing these few words. I can chalk that up to just being the result of an unhealthy rut I'm in with diet and sleep (which is certainly part of it), or I can look a little deeper at what's going on in me emotionally right now. And prose isn't the place to do that. Not at the moment.
expand to read full post
But while I have the mental momentum and my fingers going, I might as well try to make some sort of update on my stable, yet never boring life. Unschooling with my brother is going well. After so much schooling, I anticipated Mike to not really have any natural interest in "learning", but even with as much abuse as he was put through, he seems to be relatively unscathed and still has a very healthy and strong desire to learn. Of course, he doesn't enjoy book learning any more in this setting than he did in school, but he has a passion for building things, working with his hands, figuring out puzzles - in a word, tinkering. We've built a rather large torsion catapult (right now it's really just the arm. we're still refining our methods for actually hurling something...), played with sound-barrier breaking (homemade) whips, started an open fire with a magnifying glass, shoddily constructed a bow with which to shoot "arrows" (point-less, fletchless sticks), and just the other day we fashioned our first spear after being inspired by a book I recently picked up Tom Brown's Field Guide to Living with the Earth. (While I'm on that subject, I'll briefly mention my own unschooling pursuits. I'm reading a whole bunch of books in tandem at the moment (and very slowly): the above title, forest gardening, the book of the damned, the continuum concept, gaia's garden, and the teenage liberation handbook. That last one brings me back to what I was talking about before I most rudely interrupted myself) We've also gone on various field trips - to the zoo, to the magic house, to a food not bombs meeting... Planning on trips to the art museum and science center next. It's honestly a lot of fun. And it be even more fun if I didn't have to worry about complying with Missouri's even relatively lax homeschooling requirements (needing a 1000 hours of "instruction" and some form of evaluation of what "progress" is made).
In other news, I started experimenting with sprouting grains again today, now that I have the appropriate supplies (a mason jar and some cheese cloth). I've sprouted quinoa once a couple months ago but in the confusion of a three day power outage, I didn't get the chance to enjoy eating it. Now I'm attempting to sprout what I hope is viable whole grain berries. I'll let you know how it goes.
My mead has been officially finished fermenting for a week or so now. I drank some with some friends last sunday. It is sweet and yummy. It's so sweet that I'm not yet convinced that it's finished fermenting, but it certainly isn't bubbling very much at all anymore.
I'm wanting to build a rocket stove, but I still need to gather the necessary supplies. I was intending to use the supply list and instructions from Recipes for Disaster which calls for some rather large cans (two 1 gallon cans, one 26 oz. can, and two 16 oz. cans). If anyone in the area has these or other metal containers of comparable size that they wouldn't mind parting with, let me know.
Alright. That's enough prose. I need to go vent my emotions in some less abstract medium.
maybe...
I've obviously got writer's block again, which I think stems from some sort of energy blockage in some other part of my life. It feels like a burden to be writing these few words. I can chalk that up to just being the result of an unhealthy rut I'm in with diet and sleep (which is certainly part of it), or I can look a little deeper at what's going on in me emotionally right now. And prose isn't the place to do that. Not at the moment.
expand to read full post
But while I have the mental momentum and my fingers going, I might as well try to make some sort of update on my stable, yet never boring life. Unschooling with my brother is going well. After so much schooling, I anticipated Mike to not really have any natural interest in "learning", but even with as much abuse as he was put through, he seems to be relatively unscathed and still has a very healthy and strong desire to learn. Of course, he doesn't enjoy book learning any more in this setting than he did in school, but he has a passion for building things, working with his hands, figuring out puzzles - in a word, tinkering. We've built a rather large torsion catapult (right now it's really just the arm. we're still refining our methods for actually hurling something...), played with sound-barrier breaking (homemade) whips, started an open fire with a magnifying glass, shoddily constructed a bow with which to shoot "arrows" (point-less, fletchless sticks), and just the other day we fashioned our first spear after being inspired by a book I recently picked up Tom Brown's Field Guide to Living with the Earth. (While I'm on that subject, I'll briefly mention my own unschooling pursuits. I'm reading a whole bunch of books in tandem at the moment (and very slowly): the above title, forest gardening, the book of the damned, the continuum concept, gaia's garden, and the teenage liberation handbook. That last one brings me back to what I was talking about before I most rudely interrupted myself) We've also gone on various field trips - to the zoo, to the magic house, to a food not bombs meeting... Planning on trips to the art museum and science center next. It's honestly a lot of fun. And it be even more fun if I didn't have to worry about complying with Missouri's even relatively lax homeschooling requirements (needing a 1000 hours of "instruction" and some form of evaluation of what "progress" is made).
In other news, I started experimenting with sprouting grains again today, now that I have the appropriate supplies (a mason jar and some cheese cloth). I've sprouted quinoa once a couple months ago but in the confusion of a three day power outage, I didn't get the chance to enjoy eating it. Now I'm attempting to sprout what I hope is viable whole grain berries. I'll let you know how it goes.
My mead has been officially finished fermenting for a week or so now. I drank some with some friends last sunday. It is sweet and yummy. It's so sweet that I'm not yet convinced that it's finished fermenting, but it certainly isn't bubbling very much at all anymore.
I'm wanting to build a rocket stove, but I still need to gather the necessary supplies. I was intending to use the supply list and instructions from Recipes for Disaster which calls for some rather large cans (two 1 gallon cans, one 26 oz. can, and two 16 oz. cans). If anyone in the area has these or other metal containers of comparable size that they wouldn't mind parting with, let me know.
Alright. That's enough prose. I need to go vent my emotions in some less abstract medium.
Wednesday, September 20
funemployment
my friend sara sent me these comics today.
(from toothpaste for dinner)
(from natalie dee)
she knows me so well.
(from toothpaste for dinner)
(from natalie dee)
she knows me so well.
Tuesday, September 19
my body remembers fall
I was out and about a lot today, going to different places on my bike, so I had ample opportunity to soak in the newly chilled air of fall. It's amazing how closely the shift in weather is tied with the approaching equinox. Anyway, I realized that this crisp cool weather - the kind of weather that would be really refreshing after the heat of a summer season - had a bit of a negative effect on my mood. It felt like it was weighing me down somehow. I felt ill at ease. I quickly realized that in my mind, this kind of weather change is probably very closely associated with school picking up to full speed, with the heavy workload that entails. This is the first fall in at least 13 years that I am not being saddled with such a burden, but my body doesn't know that. It doesn't yet know that it no longer needs to brace itself for the stress of five hours of homework each night, staying up til 1 or 2, and waking up early and in a hurried panic each morning. This routine has been drilled into the memory of my body. It's going to take a while for me to heal from the abuse I've been through, deinstitutionalize, deschool, unlearn the pattern of expecting and enduring the stress from the daily trauma of school. I want my body to rejoice with delight at the feel of the changing seasons. In the past, I always got seasonal depression at the onslaught of winter, beginning in november when school is at its peak in inducing misery. I can look forward with joy, at least with my mind, to the potential of a stressless november, but I expect it will be years until my body can do the same.
coming back to my body
I mentioned my low energy level a little over a week ago, attributing it to my willful indulgence in the supposed benefits of civilization - computer, tv, high fructose corn syrup. These things numb me, insulate me from needing to be aware of my surroundings; they put me to sleep. Not even sleep, because sleep is an active time of rejuvenation and imaginative adventure. They steal my life from me. I am heavily addicted to this computer. It sucks me in and keeps me contained inside my head, or, more likely, someone else's head. I'm not going to forcefully limit my time using this contraption because that would never work. Instead I want to simply rediscover a wider diversity of activities to engage myself in that get me out in meatspace. "Teaching" my brother is already helping a lot with that. We spend hours outside playing and searching and discovering and building and being destructive, and every once in a while, we look up some info on the computer, and then go back outside. Now that is the appropriate use of this technology, not staring at the screen for hours, going through the routine of websites I visit on a daily basis, looking for something to catch my attention.
I love making magic happen.
I put up a few boards of plywood in the corner of our yard, throw in some yard "waste" and start collecting the scraps from the kitchen to throw in as well, add some readily available urine, and I've just mixed together the potion for next spring's rich humus-y mulch. It's come alive with the everpresent sound of chirping crickets, gathered around the warmth of active decomposition.
expand to read full post
I mix some honey with water, leave it out in the open stirring in my cauldron for a few days, and it starts to bubble. I transfer it to a jug where it continually bubbles for weeks. It will be ready to enjoy, complete with natural carbonation and vitamin rich yeasty sediment, sooner than seems possible.
I concentrate my attention on an idea for three days, gathering materials from around the house, and in the end, I have a book I just bound myself that will last me for years (probably both in the binding and in the filling of the pages).
This is all pretty awesome. But how much more could I be creating if I weren't drugged by the food I eat and self-imprisoned by the screen of my choosing? I have such a great opportunity to regain some of the childhood I mostly lost to school right now, within the safety and stability of my family's home, to discover and experiment and learn and heal.
I've been reading The Drama of the Gifted Child, by Alice Miller. I haven't gotten very far, but it is certainly striking a cord with me. She talks about the child behaving grandiosely in order to earn the pride and love of the parent, which basically amounts to my perfectionism. I only do or attempt things I am certain to do well at. If I think I might perform badly at something, I just don't do it, or at least avoid it as much as possible. So I'm thinking to heal this habitual inhibiting behavior, I'm trying to seek out things to do that I will not be good at. Right now, I'm learning to write with my left hand. I think I used to be ambidextrous when I was very young, but I broke my left thumb in kindergarten, and ever since, my right hand has been the supposed dominent one. My writing is very slow and awkward, but is actually more legible than the quick sloppy writing of my right hand. I anticipate good things to come out of learning to draw and paint with my left hand. With all my years of schooling, I know part of the reason I feel more comfortable staring at abstractions all day instead of engaging the real world is because of my over-developed left brain, only wanting to analyze and think about everything. I want to exercise my right brain, the hemisphere of creating, imagining, playing, doing. This could potentially lead to some sort of theme of antiperfectionist activities - learning to play an instrument, designing a miniature forest in the backyard, conversing more with strangers, opening up to what my emotions are more (and expressing them in some way), travelling by myself or with other inexperienced people to gain some experiental street smarts, rely on my intuition more in general. The great thing is that all of this goes right along with the journey of rewilding!
Not only do I want to shift from my left brain to my right, I also want to crawl out of my mind and come back into my body. I don't want to simply read about what foods I "should" be eating, I want to learn to feel what my body needs and provide myself with that (like this guy). I want to engage in more personally meaningful manual labor. I want to sleep with the sun. I know I've been saying this for as long as I've had this blog, but I want to give yoga a shot. I want to learn some form of self-defense. I want to learn to fight. I have an overdeveloped cerebrum and an underused body. I can hold my ground in an intellectual argument, but would I be able to still hold that ground if it actually was ground? I watched the movie Fight Club for the second time recently. It reminded me I have to learn over and over again. There's a great danger in living in your mind. You tend to forget that you are an animal, that, just like every other living thing, will die sooner or later. An integral part to being present in this body of mine is being ever aware that it will one day decompose and recompose as a multitude of more life. I need to give up everything, let go of control, let go of my fear of pain and of death, and have a near-life experience.
Today, we were building a torsion catapult in the backyard, and on two separate occasions, I let the arm of the catapult spring into either side of my head. I can only think that this happened because I was more present in my thoughts and my mind than in my body. It hurt. A lot. Both times. (I felt like I was a bad guy in a home alone movie) Later on, I got kind of freaked out because I was remembering an episode of some tv show (probably some csi) where a guy got suckerpunched in the back of the head and, though he walked away from the fight, died the next day from internal bleeding. So thinking about this, I'm basically saying to myself, "oh shit, I just got hit on the back/side of the head twice! am I internally bleeding? how could you tell?" Eventually, I confessed my fears to my mom, and after that, I just put my faith in the gods to take care of me. I tried to re-emerse myself in my body and focus my energy on the swollen part of my head, basically attempting to send healing vibes in my own amateur way. And I also came to be at peace with the remote possibility that today or tomorrow could be the day I die. So, my head is still sore, but I am now without any irrational fears, just peace and an excitment about the potential adventures of tomorrow.
I love making magic happen.
I put up a few boards of plywood in the corner of our yard, throw in some yard "waste" and start collecting the scraps from the kitchen to throw in as well, add some readily available urine, and I've just mixed together the potion for next spring's rich humus-y mulch. It's come alive with the everpresent sound of chirping crickets, gathered around the warmth of active decomposition.
expand to read full post
I mix some honey with water, leave it out in the open stirring in my cauldron for a few days, and it starts to bubble. I transfer it to a jug where it continually bubbles for weeks. It will be ready to enjoy, complete with natural carbonation and vitamin rich yeasty sediment, sooner than seems possible.
I concentrate my attention on an idea for three days, gathering materials from around the house, and in the end, I have a book I just bound myself that will last me for years (probably both in the binding and in the filling of the pages).
This is all pretty awesome. But how much more could I be creating if I weren't drugged by the food I eat and self-imprisoned by the screen of my choosing? I have such a great opportunity to regain some of the childhood I mostly lost to school right now, within the safety and stability of my family's home, to discover and experiment and learn and heal.
I've been reading The Drama of the Gifted Child, by Alice Miller. I haven't gotten very far, but it is certainly striking a cord with me. She talks about the child behaving grandiosely in order to earn the pride and love of the parent, which basically amounts to my perfectionism. I only do or attempt things I am certain to do well at. If I think I might perform badly at something, I just don't do it, or at least avoid it as much as possible. So I'm thinking to heal this habitual inhibiting behavior, I'm trying to seek out things to do that I will not be good at. Right now, I'm learning to write with my left hand. I think I used to be ambidextrous when I was very young, but I broke my left thumb in kindergarten, and ever since, my right hand has been the supposed dominent one. My writing is very slow and awkward, but is actually more legible than the quick sloppy writing of my right hand. I anticipate good things to come out of learning to draw and paint with my left hand. With all my years of schooling, I know part of the reason I feel more comfortable staring at abstractions all day instead of engaging the real world is because of my over-developed left brain, only wanting to analyze and think about everything. I want to exercise my right brain, the hemisphere of creating, imagining, playing, doing. This could potentially lead to some sort of theme of antiperfectionist activities - learning to play an instrument, designing a miniature forest in the backyard, conversing more with strangers, opening up to what my emotions are more (and expressing them in some way), travelling by myself or with other inexperienced people to gain some experiental street smarts, rely on my intuition more in general. The great thing is that all of this goes right along with the journey of rewilding!
Not only do I want to shift from my left brain to my right, I also want to crawl out of my mind and come back into my body. I don't want to simply read about what foods I "should" be eating, I want to learn to feel what my body needs and provide myself with that (like this guy). I want to engage in more personally meaningful manual labor. I want to sleep with the sun. I know I've been saying this for as long as I've had this blog, but I want to give yoga a shot. I want to learn some form of self-defense. I want to learn to fight. I have an overdeveloped cerebrum and an underused body. I can hold my ground in an intellectual argument, but would I be able to still hold that ground if it actually was ground? I watched the movie Fight Club for the second time recently. It reminded me I have to learn over and over again. There's a great danger in living in your mind. You tend to forget that you are an animal, that, just like every other living thing, will die sooner or later. An integral part to being present in this body of mine is being ever aware that it will one day decompose and recompose as a multitude of more life. I need to give up everything, let go of control, let go of my fear of pain and of death, and have a near-life experience.
Today, we were building a torsion catapult in the backyard, and on two separate occasions, I let the arm of the catapult spring into either side of my head. I can only think that this happened because I was more present in my thoughts and my mind than in my body. It hurt. A lot. Both times. (I felt like I was a bad guy in a home alone movie) Later on, I got kind of freaked out because I was remembering an episode of some tv show (probably some csi) where a guy got suckerpunched in the back of the head and, though he walked away from the fight, died the next day from internal bleeding. So thinking about this, I'm basically saying to myself, "oh shit, I just got hit on the back/side of the head twice! am I internally bleeding? how could you tell?" Eventually, I confessed my fears to my mom, and after that, I just put my faith in the gods to take care of me. I tried to re-emerse myself in my body and focus my energy on the swollen part of my head, basically attempting to send healing vibes in my own amateur way. And I also came to be at peace with the remote possibility that today or tomorrow could be the day I die. So, my head is still sore, but I am now without any irrational fears, just peace and an excitment about the potential adventures of tomorrow.
Saturday, September 9
a hodge podge of notes on the past few days
The mead I started is doing really well. I followed the instructions for making tej, or Ethiopian mead, except I put in blueberries instead of the "hops-like bittering agent" that they normally use, which means that my mead is actually called melomel. I just combined the water and honey (4:1 ratio) in a crock and kept it covered with a towel for nearly four days, stirring several times a day. I added the blueberries to the mix slowly over the four days. By day four (yesterday), it was bubbling, which meant it was time to transfer it to a gallon jug where it will stay for only two to four weeks, loosely capped, until its finished fermenting, amazingly. Everything I had heard about honey and mead was that it took forever to ferment (well, months at least). I guess I'll find out. I'm sure the blueberries helped a lot.
expand to read full post
I'm also in the middle of constructing a journal/notebook for myself, I created and sewed together the signatures last night and put the glue on the spine to dry, and now I'm attaching the covers. It's a lot of fun. I can't wait to finish my current journal so I can start using this one.
I've had a good bit of socializing the last two nights - after a dinner with friends, we went on a latenight bike ride in the full moon light thursday, and last night we had a dance party of sorts (I think I did the most dancing, until I wore myself out at least). I'll be enjoying a night in tonight, listening to the stack of music I picked up from the library this afternoon.
It's been at least (at least) two weeks since I've showered, and even though I've gotten used to my smell (and kind of like it), I'm afraid others have not, so I'll probably take a shower tonight or tomorrow too.
I'm very happy that I am not in college anymore. Dropping out was a very sound move. The only thing I miss is the greater freedom of living on my own (that is, away from my parents). The one thing I do not want to do is mooch. I need to talk with my parents to make sure they don't feel that I'm taking advantage of them. I'm certainly not trying to. I hope we get to a point very soon where my living here for the time being is a mutually beneficial situation. Ran has commented on the idea of mooching before -
expand to read full post
I'm also in the middle of constructing a journal/notebook for myself, I created and sewed together the signatures last night and put the glue on the spine to dry, and now I'm attaching the covers. It's a lot of fun. I can't wait to finish my current journal so I can start using this one.
I've had a good bit of socializing the last two nights - after a dinner with friends, we went on a latenight bike ride in the full moon light thursday, and last night we had a dance party of sorts (I think I did the most dancing, until I wore myself out at least). I'll be enjoying a night in tonight, listening to the stack of music I picked up from the library this afternoon.
It's been at least (at least) two weeks since I've showered, and even though I've gotten used to my smell (and kind of like it), I'm afraid others have not, so I'll probably take a shower tonight or tomorrow too.
I'm very happy that I am not in college anymore. Dropping out was a very sound move. The only thing I miss is the greater freedom of living on my own (that is, away from my parents). The one thing I do not want to do is mooch. I need to talk with my parents to make sure they don't feel that I'm taking advantage of them. I'm certainly not trying to. I hope we get to a point very soon where my living here for the time being is a mutually beneficial situation. Ran has commented on the idea of mooching before -
Isn't living with somebody without paying them anything called "mooching"?Even though I feel my freedom slightly restricted here, it's the best place I could be at this stage, being a safe place to challenge myself to build cooperative community and (in so doing) to heal. I love my family, and I love my friends. I may not have a tribe, but I do have community. If I'm smart about how I use this expanded freedom from dropping out, I expect things to only get better.
Yes it is called that, because we live in a slave culture with a slave language! Our ancestors "owned" only small personal items, but now we think we can "own" information and physical space. This idea is a social construction that serves to concentrate power: if I already have power (represented as "property"), those with less power/property have to give me more. If I "own" a space, you have to pay me just to live there, and if you don't, you are taking advantage of me. We have it backwards! It is the alleged "owner" who is mooching, benefiting from the legal right to deny someone their natural right to occupy space in this world, to build a shelter and gather food and live in a cooperative community. (Not that rent-chargers are bad people. Many of them have been forced into a situation where they have to charge rent so they can make payments to still more powerful people.)
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Dan had a splash page up while he was busy getting the blog set up, and it was a passage from Wilhelm Reich that I really liked. Since the splash page is gone now, I'll put the passage here -