tom campbell

2008-11-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

I killed a rabbit two days ago. It was a farmed rabbit, male, darkly furred, and very cute. I clubbed it at the base of its head while Shaun, an instructer with Trackers, held it caringly but firmly by the hips. Before we slaughtered the rabbits, Shaun led us through a small Thanksgiving address, making sure everyone present was of one mind in gratitude for the world surrounding us and for the rabbits we were to eat. That bit right there is the most ceremony-like ritual that we do at Trackers. I really appreciate it. We stroked and petted the rabbits before killing them, and as they died. It took me a couple minutes it seemed to work up the courage to move on from taking aim with the club to taking that massive swing. I struck, and I immediately pulled back, pulled my hand to my mouth, almost in surprise or shock at what had just happened. I looked to Shaun to see if that one thump had been enough. Thankfully, it had. The rabbit's eyes were wide as it died. His tongue was sticking out of his mouth, bright red with blood. A small thick puddle of red also formed below his mouth. He kicked a bit, but his spirit left pretty quickly. Shaun felt deep in his chest to make sure his heart had stopped. After my friend 'matt! killed the other rabbit, we skinned and gutted them. Shaun showed me how to gut the one I killed, and then I showed 'matt! and Gabe how to do theirs. We washed the carcases in the stream and then they were made into stew. I ate my portion without spice, so I could really taste the meat. It was a solemn meal for me. I had a bit of trouble falling asleep that night.

I told Stephanie, a fellow student who happens to be vegetarian (and who was not present for the slaughter), as the time drew near for the slaughter, that I didn't want to kill the rabbit, but I did want to experience killing the rabbit, if that makes any sense.

I've eaten meat almost all of my life, and this was only the second time I've been present for the death of the animal that would go to feed me, first time that the animal died at my hands. So much of how I live my life leads directly to the death of life far away from me where I never see it directly, and so I never have the opportunity to feel empathy for that life, to feel the effect of my actions or my choices, to act and to choose with full knowledge and intent. Never have I had that opportunity until now. And in the future, I never want to proceed without that opportunity. I am very grateful to that rabbit for giving me its life and I feel blessed to have been moving towards the competency to raise my own domesticated animals and to hunt the wild ones.

Here's 'matt!'s account and take on all this.

2008-10-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

Tumblr has a super easy user interface, so I've been using that more than blogger lately. Check it. You'll have to email me directly to comment, if you care to do so.

Mostly, it seems people use tumblr as a space to copy and paste data, gather links and organize thoughts, and then move to their main blogs for a more polished post. I just know I want to wire into my body a habit of generating, and right now I need to use the easiest tools available.

(rest assured, I realize pen and paper is easier, and talking and singing even easier still. maybe once my voice is strong enough that my family back home can hear, I'll abandon this silly thing.)

2008-10-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

I have a tattoo. I finally went through with getting one at the beginning of this past summer, just a few days before I went on my bike trip. I wanted to get it then as a kind of rite of initiation to help usher me into the next phase of my story. My friend Mary gave it to me, stick 'n' poke style (that is, a never-before used sewing needle that has been sterilized by flame is stuck into the eraser end of a pencil, floss wrapped around down the length of it, and dipped in black india ink. and then it's just a lot of poking. she went over it five times. my skin took it really well, she said). It didn't hurt nearly as bad as I was expecting, but it still hurt a lot. It was interesting to feel the difference in the sensitivity of skin as she got closer to the (apparently very delicate) crook of my arm.

The tattoo is of the word "beast". It is placed on the inside of my right forearm, right where I can see it all the time, if I'm not wearing long sleeves. I didn't decide on what to get indellibly marked on my body until right before I had it done, but of course, I had been brainstorming for a while. I wanted to have something that would remind me that I am alive and that I will die eventually, so I need to live it up in this moment. I was thinking about several options- "memento mori" (remember that you are mortal), "memento vivere" (remember that you must live), simply the words in english "you will die" (which is a bit grim), and the word "animal". I finally decided on beast via looking up the etymology of the word animal, because I knew that animal was a latin-based word, and there must have been another word for animal in the english language before latin invaded it. And beast was that word!

I really like it.

It does what it is intended to do for me. And it has the connotation of referring to someone who is powerful and a force to be reckoned with, which is something for me to aspire towards, haha! And something I didn't consider at the time but is kind of cool is that I have the mark of the beast on me. Hah!, I've left myself behind. Thanks but no thanks, heaven. This world is good enough for me. I'm having too much fun doing my beasty thing.

2008-09-15T04:27:00.000-07:00

So, here's an overview of some of the things I did during the Nature of the Village open space:

bird language sits (I now know what a wren tit and a stellar jay sound like, but more importantly I understand that songbirds are either content (referred to as baseline) or alarmed, that they only sing when content, and they use more simple chirping for both other contented activities and alarms, that it's the intensity of those more simple chirps to listen for that will tell you if they are alarming. Oh, and that's all important because bird alarms can be used while hunting both to let you know what other animals are in the area, and conversely, whether or not those animals know that you are in the area or not. Songbirds are the security systems of nature. You've got to be careful, or you'll trip the alarm and every deer or rabbit or whoever will immediately sprint away.)
We slaughtered a sheep, which provided the meat for most of our dinners for the week. I witnessed the kill, and I helped in the skinning and quartering parts of the processing (I also helped render fat). So strange to have eaten meat for 20 years and to have this be the first time I've directly witnessed the death of the animal that goes to feed me. I look forward to taking an even more direct role as time goes on.
I made progress on the carving of my first bow. It'll be shootable in the next couple days, hopefully.
I picked and ate a lot of evergreen huckleberries for pemmican making (they're everywhere at Cedar Grove!), with the occasional salal berry found and thrown in for good measure.
I assembled a bow drill fire kit and got sore trying to start a fire. I think I'll get it down pretty quick as I find more refined materials. I need a wider drill and a smoother bow (I'll probably just carve down the one I have). I also need to find the best position for my gangly self to hold the drill steady so it won't wobble and so I can put as much pressure as is necessary to get that coveted black smoking powder (if the powder is grey or brown, it's not enough pressure)
I learned the very basics of flintknapping- stone breaks at a 45 degree angle from the direction of impact. also, you need to strike on a face of the stone angled towards you- it doesn't take much force, just the right angles. Also, obsidian shards are really really sharp, the dust from knapping can give you silicosis, and improper technique can give you tendonitis and/or carpal tunnel.
We looked at some tracks and scat- deer, fox, elk, bobcat, and bear
Went out on the umiak, and paddled a kayak for the first time, both of the skin on wood frame design.
played bamboo swordthrowing games, and spolin games - very good medicine for me. both work on building one-mindedness and sensory awareness. cut the pauses, and magic happens in the space between you and the people around you.
harvested mussels from the beach; played giddily in the freezing cold surf of the pacific ocean
ate and helped cook amazing delicious meals.
ate ripe figs right off the tree (yet another first; certainly not the last first . . .)

Also, our group will be keeping a blog where we will be documenting what we are doing. I might end up cross posting either from there to here or vice versa. The name we chose for our group is Earth Ninjas.

2008-09-15T03:13:00.000-07:00

I got back saturday from the first week of the TrackersTEAMS adult immersion program, during which we travelled to Cedar Grove Farm, a working permaculture homestead (with lots of goats and chickens and fruit trees, tons of huckleberries, a big garden, and thousands of disease-resistant cedars that have been planted out) just outside the small town of Port Orford on the southern Oregon coast.

We camped for 6 nights there during our Nature of the Village open space.

Open space gatherings (I'm using Mythic Cartography as a reference here) are based on four principles-

Whoever comes are the right people,
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have,
When it starts, it starts, and
When it ends, it ends

and one law, the Law of Two Feet-

If you are neither learning nor contributing where you're at, use your two feet to move somewhere that you can

and an assortment of understandings-

be prepared to be surprised
open space needs passion and responsibility to work

The law of two feet leads to a couple phenomena, labeled butterflies and bumblebees- different styles of participation in the gathering beyond the standard of active and steady- butterflies can just sit and observe intently, and bumblebees may bounce around from one group to another, pollinating along the way.

Basically, there's a big board set up in a central location with time slots and locations delineated, and anyone at the gathering can plant the seed of intent for an activity or a workshop or a discussion, whatever. So there's all sorts of things going on during each time period, and you have to choose. It's beautiful and chaotic, but also not very coherent.

And that's where another piece of the puzzle comes in- agile retrospectives. The agile retrospective is a social technology that aims to allow a group of people to work together as efficiently as possible. At regularly scheduled meetings, you evaluate how things have gone so far and what needs to change/happen next. The model we followed this week was using sticky notes to contribute on a board, optionally announcing what the notes say verbally, first just observations, then feelings, and finally needs or next actions. Then, all of the needs are read by the facilitator and each one is asked to have a volunteer (who feels passion and responsibility for it) take on making sure the next step towards fulfilling that need is taken. We did slightly different variations on this theme three times each day.

I enjoyed the open space format because I got to tailor each moment to what I wanted to do, but it became exhausting by mid-week as I didn't make taking down-time (and thereby missing something) a priority. For me, I think it would work best for just two consecutive days. Maybe three. Seven was a bit much.

And the retrospectives are going to grow into an amazing tool. It's still very unfamiliar territory to me, being constantly asked how I'm feeling and what I need, so I'm glad that we'll continue with this model throughout the program.

As Tony (our facilitator) reminded us all week, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

2008-09-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

Oh! One more thing. A quote from a zine by Ran that has put the weight of my fear of failure into a new perspective:

Cynics say that people like me are foolish idealists, because we're fighting according to our values and not according to what seems possible. But these cynics are the real idealists, so fixated on the ideal of "success" that they become paralyzed, unable to act without the appearance of likely success. And anyone who controls the appearance of what is possible and what is impossible controls these people utterly. That's how a lion "tamer" is able to abuse and humiliate an animal that could kill him in seconds, by giving it the illusion that it can't win. And people who have been given the illusion that they are powerless in what they really care about, like the lion, become depressed and lethargic, and stop caring, and just go through the motions waiting to die.

In our culture this is called "growing up," and these mature and sensible people are always telling us that we're "wasting" this or that because we can't succeed. Even if we can't, what's more of waste, a trapped animal that fights to the death, or one that dies without a fight?

I'm totally tamed right now. But I think I'm finding my way to the cage's door.

2008-09-05T01:02:00.000-07:00

Holy shit, I live in a different city now.

Over 2000 miles away from all of my family and most of my friends. (Did you know that Google maps now offers walking directions? It's pretty humorous to scan through, especially the strings of nameless left and right turns. It looks like if I walked 24/7, it would only take 30 days and 21 hours to get home. . .)

I miss 'em. Quite a bit. I'd be missing 'em a heck of a lot more if it weren't for my brain-cancer causing cell phone. Maintaining connection over vast distance. Despite vast distance. While simultaneously figuring out how to become evermore present in what's going on right here. It seems to be a funny dance I'm doing now, a balancing act, on my toes, on the run. I'm very busy these days, and it's all interesting.

What's the plan? Become a competent human in nine months time, take what I've gathered back home and share the love? How nomadic of me.

In a big way, I'm moving directly towards everything I want for myself and for everyone around me, but in another way, I left everything I want behind. Cut myself off and away. Transplanted. Putting down roots here now, but not too deep! In limbo.

Or maybe I'm just akimbo, an elbow temporarily jutting out away from the body of my family. On a walkabout. A rite of passage. A coming into my own.

Whatever, I'm excited.

I'm amazed and so grateful to my family for making this adventure possible to me. I definitely recognize how blessed I am to not have to take a job to pay my way through this. I can give it the kind of focus that I used to give high school, but even more so, because this is not compulsory. Or, more aptly, it's less like high school and more like the immersive learning that children in indigenous cultures experience(d).

Actually, that leads in to the literal rejuvenation I am intentionally trying to cultivate- behaving more as a child, shedding the rigid seriousness of civilized adulthood in favor of light-hearted curiosity, playfulness, joy. I want to be adaptable- flexible, again. My current rattail hairdo harks back to my seven year old self for inspiration (I had a rattail in first grade as well). Now I like it when people call me Thomas, for the same reason.

I suppose it seems kind of contradictory to be rejuvenating and rite-of-passaging at the same time. I guess I need to move backward before I can move forward. If I must move linearly at all, that is.

Tis late. My sheepskins beckon.

2008-08-24T12:35:00.002-07:00

6-Year-Old Stares Down Bottomless Abyss Of Formal Schooling

Via cryptogon; via The Onion:

"It might be The Onion, but it’s not funny.

Local first-grader Connor Bolduc, 6, experienced the first inkling of a coming lifetime of existential dread Monday upon recognizing his cruel destiny to participate in compulsory education for the better part of the next two decades, sources reported.

“I don’t want to go to school,” Bolduc told his parents, the crushing reality of his situation having yet to fully dawn on his naïve consciousness. “I want to play outside with my friends.”

While Bolduc stood waiting for the bus to pick him up on his first day of elementary school, his parents reportedly were able to “see the wheels turning in his little brain” as the child, for the first time in his life, began to understand how dire and hopeless his situation had actually become.

Basic math—which the child has blissfully yet to learn—clearly demonstrates that the number of years before he will be released from the horrifying prison of formal schooling, is more than twice the length of time he has yet existed. According to a conservative estimate of six hours of school five days a week for nine months of the year, Bolduc faces an estimated 14,400 hours trapped in an endless succession of nearly identical, suffocating classrooms.

This nightmarish but undeniably real scenario does not take into account additional time spent on homework, extracurricular responsibilities, or college, sources said.

“I can’t wait until school is over,” said the 3-foot-tall tragic figure, who would not have been able, if asked, to contemplate the amount of time between now and summer, let alone the years and years of tedium to follow.

The concept of wasting a majority of daylight hours sitting still in a classroom when he could be riding his bicycle, playing in his tree fort, or lying in the grass looking at bugs—especially considering that he had already wasted two years of his life attending preschool and kindergarten—seemed impossibly unfair to Bolduc. Moreover, sources said, he had no idea how much worse the inescapable truth will turn out to be."

Also, here's a non-satirical article that explains part of why I dropped out of college.

2008-08-08T18:22:00.003-07:00

At long last, pictures from an amble through Pruitt-Igoe! I took these earlier today.

AND, a video tour(!) (in three parts): Pruitt Igoe, urban forest of weeds.

Follow along as tom learns to use his digital camera. The audio quality is atrocious and annoying in parts one and two, but luckily, I didn't start saying much of interest until part three.

Pruitt-Igoe is beautiful. Hopefully the whole city will look something like this in fifty year's time.

2008-08-07T19:26:00.002-07:00

Fox Park Farm, the community garden in my parents' neighborhood where I tend a bed, was featured in a piece by ABC about community gardens in general. Some of the people interviewed are also shareholders in the New Roots Urban Farm CSA.

I uploaded some photos that I've taken of my plot, since I didn't see it at all in the video (it's kind of tucked away in a corner, and it's rather weedy). Some were taken sometime in May, and some are from earlier today. (btw, most photos that I upload come with more interesting commentary in the captions than the sparse statements I've been making here about the photos. Also, I'm linking to web albums instead of posting photos here so that you can choose, based on your internet speed, what you want to spend time loading). Yay for growing things; l'chiam!

2008-08-06T22:01:00.003-07:00

I can't remember what keyword search led me to The Open Mind, by Dawna Markova (only the feeling that it was a moment of inspiration, like I had caught a scent on a trail). It describes not personality types but thinking patterns. People learn and express themselves in wide ranging ways. Hence the phrase "multiple intelligences". Hence the industrial education system only working for a select portion of the population. Markova explains what is actually happening differently for different people.

Our brains can receive input in three primary ways- through our eyes, through our ears, and through (the rest of) our bodies. Markova's theory is that as we learn or express things, we move through different levels of consciousness while processing and integrating, and at each level of consciousness (conscious, subconscious, unconscious) we use a different language or modality. Overall, then, there are six possible patterns of intelligence.

For a long time, I've recognized that I am "primarily" a visual learner. Now I understand that "primarily" actually means consciously. From what I have gathered, I believe my thinking pattern to be VKA (that is, visually conscious, kinesthetically subconscious, and auditorially unconsious).

The conscious level is a very focused and narrow level of attention. It operates linearly and is in the mode of making decisions, judging things, feeling certain. The unconscious level of attention is very unfocused, "spacey", broad, nonlinear. It is daydreaming mode, where you are completely receptive, open, and also rather sensitive or vulnerable. It is the source of creativity. The subconscious functions as a kind of bridge between the conscious and unconscious, where you can look at both sides of an issue and see clearly the benefits or the truth of both sides.

I see the VKA pattern at work in me in that I am primarily visual- that is, I learn, understand, remember most easily via the written word or by looking at maps, and I communicate most easily and thoroughly via the written word as well. My unconscious seems to be primarily auditory because auditory stimulation puts me in a very receptive space- so much so that when in a conversation, I will become so engrossed in the other person's words that if they ask a question, or if there is a natural space in the conversation where I would perhaps be expected to say something, I often find myself spaced out, far away from being able to come up with a conscious response. Speaking takes a lot of energy for me, so it is a rather special, sometimes sacred thing. I really enjoy music that has human voices harmonizing, and I enjoy playing with singing, but mostly when I am alone. The kinesthetic subconscious kind of just fell where it fell for me, at least so far. I don't need to move to think, and I don't necessarily need to physically do something to learn how to do it (it's not my conscious modality), but I'm also not super-sensitive to touch- it's not something I shy away from or don't like to share freely (so it's not my unconscious modality either). Well, I do kind of bridge kinesthetically from unconscious to conscious by talking with my hands before I speak. I think Markova describes the phenomenon (which I hadn't paid attention to before) as painting a picture with my hands (kinesthetic/visual) as I fish for the right words (auditory).

Beyond the personal, there are more interesting implications for understanding the thinking patterns of the people that you relate with. It can give you an understanding of why they perhaps come off so strongly with one mode of communication, or why they seem so overly sensitive about a certain way you want to connect with them. That understanding can afford you some measure of compassion and patience and can allow you to tailor your interaction with them so you meet them where they can meet you back.

----

I really enjoy using these typing systems as tools to understand more how I tick. I retook the Myers Briggs and was surprised to find myself being called an ISFJ. I used to think I was an INFP, but I think now that that is what I wanted to be (or what I thought other people wanted me to be). It is also the kind of person I am attracted to. Hopefully, these letters keep changing. I'd like to intentionally get more balanced, especially towards E and N.

2008-08-05T22:58:00.004-07:00

I just put a few photos up. You get to see the bike I used for my bike trip (all decked out with kitty litter buckets), and some sweet shots of red earth farms.

2008-08-01T11:00:00.003-07:00

I first heard of the Emotional Freedom Techniques from Dan (whose site is under construction right now), started reading the free manual, and stashed the idea way down on my to-do list when the description became too complicated to follow. Then, Aaron brought it up again, and with more urging. So, I finally took another look, and watching videos of people doing it makes it look as simple as it really is.

Basically, you tap on various "energy meridians" (via Traditional Chinese Medicine) while calling to mind some specific ailment. The most important part, it seems to me, is the setup statement at the beginning, where you state (whether you believe it or not) that even though you have whatever ailment you have, you love and completely accept yourself (while tapping the "karate chop" side of your hand).

I've used it successfully so far just to get rid of a headache. I've been getting rid of headaches through non-resistance to them for a while (I usually wallow in the pain for a while before I remember the trick), but this technique seems to speed up the process quite a bit.

There's all sorts of things I want to try it on, though. A lot of these things run a lot deeper than a headache- social anxiety, fear of conflict and disapproval, lethargy, depression, the tightness of my muscles and ligaments, and my inability to gain weight.

There's definitely a lot of hype in the videos, which excites me with the potential here for this to become real folk medicine magic, so I'll report back if I am able to use it to heal more deeply.

2008-07-27T02:08:00.002-07:00

Humans innately possess vast powers of intelligence, meaning the ability to respond to each new situation, not with instinct or habit, but with a new, unique action adapted and tailored to that situation.

As children, we possess and use this intelligence with great glee, but we are only able to do so when secure in our connection with our family. That connection breaks very easily when we are children. We make a lot of mistakes. We get hurt. A lot. And it breaks our fragile connection, our sense of security, and while we are in that state, we can no longer function intelligently. But, we instinctively know how to heal from the hurts we experience. Then, we can regain the connection to and safety in our family, and with it, our intelligence. This healing work takes the form of some sort of physical/emotional release (crying, shaking, tantruming, talking, laughing, and even yawning) while within the loving and totally accepting presence of a care-giver (most likely mom or dad). With the healing work done, the child can integrate the experience as wisdom and return to playing intelligently with zestful and genuine enthusiasm, just as before whatever hurt it was occurred.

The problems arise when that healing process is interrupted or disallowed by the care-giver. When children are told to stop crying, to stop tantruming, in short, to behave, and are then often forced into some form of isolation as punishment for not complying (time-out, going to your room), they cannot restore their broken connection and cannot begin acting intelligently again. The vastness of the child's intelligence is reduced in some small measure as the hurt emotions remain unresolved and in essence jam up some portion of their intelligence. It then becomes a positive feedback loop as any future event that is similar in some way to a past, unhealed hurt will trigger the same response. And so, instead of being able to respond to that new situation uniquely (intelligently), we become more like robots that perform a particular habit when a button is pushed, enslaved to unresolved emotions. And all the little unresolved hurts accumulate, tying up more and more of the child's vast innate intelligence, and he or she grows into the all-too-common adult who is completely ruled by habit and burdened by a childhood's worth of emotional baggage.

This is my paraphrasing of the basic theory behind Re-evaluation counseling, otherwise known as Co-counseling. So, the whole deal of co-counseling is to spend the time to work through and discharge those old jammed up emotions, with the loving, accepting presence of a counseling peer as a stand-in for the connection you needed with mom and pop. Peers take turns as client and counselor, sharing equal time, making this a largely non-hierarchical, low/no-cost form of mental health care.

Certainly, there's a lot of potential in that kind of work, but of more pressing interest to me is the ramifications it has for how we as physically mature, but emotionally wounded, adults tend to those who are children right now. When caretakers of this culture interfere with the healing process in children, it is most often because the adults' buttons are being pushed - their past unresolved hurts are triggered by the crying they were not allowed to do. But with an understanding of the healing process, it becomes possible to look beyond the push button responses and sit with and listen to your child's grief, and allow them to heal themselves.

I think it becomes possible to do that because this theory is a myth, a story we can tell to make sense of these situations where two-year-olds are behaving terribly for seemingly no good reason. We need a story like this to guide us towards the right action because "babies don't come with instruction manuals", at least not in our fragmented culture, and a theory like this begins to restore that kind of very necessary instruction manual that is woven seamlessly into a healthy culture.

I've only poked around the website I linked to above a little, but it seems pretty extensive. I've read The Human Side of Human Beings, by Harvey Jackins, which is a short but thorough introduction to these ideas. I'm participating in a co-counseling group while I'm still here in st. louis. The facilitator says there's a thriving co-counseling community in portland, but I think I'll be pretty well immersed in other things while I'm there.

2008-07-26T21:24:00.002-07:00

World Naked Bike Ride is coming to St. Louis this year for the first time!

Next saturday, August 2nd, Tower Grove Park (pool pavilion), gather at 7pm, ride starts at 9.

Two of my favorite things put together in one event! Let's just hope the st. louis police play nice like police have in other cities. . .

2008-06-18T02:50:00.002-07:00

I recently returned home from my first ever long distance bike trip!

I road 260 some odd miles, first west along the katy trail (a converted old railroad bed) and then north through Columbia to dancing rabbit ecovillage (my third summer in a row visiting there) and neighboring red earth farms, making it there in four days.

I lent a hand to my friend Brian (aka Ziggy), who is building his cob house, while I was at dancing rabbit.

Then I headed on over to red earth for a short introductory visit. REF is intending to grow into a collection of homesteads (more spread out than the village model of DR). The people there are really great and knowledgable, and one homestead, called Dandelion, aspires to grow into a tightly knit group of 6-8 adults, focusing on attaining sufficiency through permaculture. I'm thinking maybe I'll intern with them at some point after portland.

The bike ride back was more direct, 150 miles, rerouted slightly due to flooding, which I made in three days. I experienced many kindnesses from strangers as a touring bicyclist.

I'm amazed at the absense of residual soreness from this adventure. Certainly, my butt and hands and back got sore and tired as each day went on, but off the bike, after each leg of the journey - just fine. Exhausted, but fine. The whole of the trip was very intense physically, and I do want to note that I cried a lot (well, at least for me - I rarely cry, unfortunately. In fact, before this trip, the last time I cried was last december when I was in the midst of a stomach bug - another physically exhausted moment). I really enjoyed inhabiting my body in this way, going to bed tired - and early! At red earth, with people retreating to separate quarters after dinner, I started sleeping with the sun! Finally! It was amazing.

Of course, ever since I've gotten back, I swung violently in the opposite direction to staying up all night and sleeping through the morning. Life is a lot simpler on the road and in the country. When there are so few distractions, it is a lot easier to apply the self discipline to get done what needs to get done. When biking, I used every ounce of self discipline that I have towards biking, so whenever I rolled into a gas station, or a cafe, I ate a whole lot of ice cream and pizza. But now that I'm back and not biking, I'm still eating a lot of ice cream.

Also now that I'm back, my next goal - getting ready to move to portland, is a lot less physically demanding, and there are so many other more interesting things to be doing than sorting through and getting rid of a childhood's worth of shit. I have to shift to applying all that physical self discipline into mental self discipline.

Ohp, sunrise - that's my signal to finally succomb to that heavy pull of weariness and cut off the endless flow of reddit and brainfood and youtube videos.

2008-05-17T20:07:00.003-07:00

I've got a handful of pictures up of pruitt-igoe forest, the grassy fields to the north, new roots urban farm, their small cramped orchard, and random lots throughout the neighborhood. More to come as I have time.

2008-05-15T23:43:00.004-07:00

Here's google's satellite image of my neighborhood, including the mystical forest formerly known as Pruitt-Igoe. Ground level pictures that I've been taking to come shortly.

2008-05-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

Ran links to a story about a town in Ohio razing abandoned buildings AND tearing up the roads around them.

If only St. Louis could be so cool. It's really rather frustrating because where I live now (north city, near downtown) has already had blocks and blocks of buildings razed, but it's just in preparation for new ticky tacky development, some of which has already been built.

My apartment is just a few blocks away from where Pruitt-Igoe (housing projects built in the 50s and demolished only 18 years later) once stood. They haven't taken out the roads, but they have put a fence around it and simply refrained from mowing it, and after just 35 years it has grown into an amazing beautiful forest of weeds. I'll take and post pictures around the neighborhood soon.

I just hope this depression depresses any more injections of suburbia into my neighborhood so that saplings and seedballs have a chance to take hold.

2008-02-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago, I became acutely aware that I was circumcised without my consent and that a foreskin might have been something I would have liked to have. I felt anger towards a culture that takes away natural pleasure, destroys intact working systems, and violates bodies, as I so often have, but perhaps never so personally. And I felt frustrated because couldn't see anything I could do to resolve my loss, except to resolve to never circumcise any future son of my own. But then, I read an article about circumcision that mentioned the possibility of foreskin restoration, with a link to a website providing a device to such an end. Hope! Or rather, if hope wishes for something over which I have no agency, what word can I use to describe the seizing of that agency?!

Circumcision became a popular practice among christians in the 1800s as a means to "cure" masturbation. Circumcision strips away the most sensitive nerve endings in the penis (in the ridge of the foreskin) and exposes the glans, a naturally soft, moist mucous membrane (just like the inside of your mouth), to the abrasion of the outside world, with the effect of making it dry, hard, and largely desensitized. While this really sucks for men, it does not, in fact, "cure" masturbation, not that I need to assure anyone of that. But it almost sucks even more for women who end up on the receiving end of a desensitized penis trying to still get off. From what I hear, when a man is intact, the rolling back and forth of the foreskin over the glans, which requires only a very subtle movement, provides so much pleasure that pounding never becomes necessary, and the two pelvises stay closer together for a much greater amount of time, with much increased pleasure for the woman.

None of the health or hygiene claims in support of circumcision hold any merit, according to both common sense and current medical opinion. The intact penis actually produces its own anti-bacterial cream (and lubricant), smegma (scroll 2/3 of the way down to reach the relevant section).

So, I am restoring my foreskin, as much as I can. Techniques for doing so work on the basis of skin under tension creating more skin to relieve the tension, just as in the bellies of pregnant women and the earlobes of people stretching their piercings.

Aside from the primary sensory benefits, I feel like I am getting a chance to physically revoke my membership to the Judeo-Christian tradition, and even to this American culture. I am rejoining the the 3/4 majority of the rest of the world as an "unchosen" pagan. yippee!

In a similar vein, but on a different subject, I recently learned that the use of hops in ales was brought on and enforced top-down during the Protestant Reformation, replacing a wide variety of herbs that were often medicinal, and also highly inebriating, and that such was done so expressly because hops is an anaphrodisiac for men (that is, it decreases sexual desire), as well as it being not nearly as conducive to altering one's state of consciousness (it actually just puts you to sleep and makes you need to pee). Hops is filled with phyto-estrogens, so it could be beneficial for a woman in menopause to consume, but not very good at all for men. So now I am wondering if anyone knows of a commercially available ale that does not contain hops? And if not, that's cool - I'm way excited about brewing my own gruit, anyway.

I am amazed by the hidden, subtle ways in which this culture negates sexuality, and with it, life.
Get your knife off my penis. Get your hops off my libido. You can't control me anymore.

2007-10-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

"My efforts won't matter to the world. It's best to keep the peace."

Holy shit, is that really my world view? How did I ever come to that conclusion? What could my family have done to me (or not done to me) to make me that resigned to my lack of value to this world?

The books tell me I must have been neglected when I was young, but I don't remember feeling neglected. My mom tells me I was breastfed for a year, at which point I had almost completely self-weaned (I still wanted to nurse before bed at night), and then I was weaned the rest of the way. I may be wrong about this (and my mom will definitely let me know if I am), but I get the impression that I did not sleep in a family bed but in a crib. But I definitely have fond memories of snuggling in the family bed as a toddler and small child before going off to my own room. Could I simply have followed in my dad's footsteps, imitated his personality? Maybe he was neglected. Maybe his dad was neglected. . .

The words "enneagram" and "nine" took waaaay less time to become cliche for me than the phrase "people-pleaser", so I'm using them as little as possible these days. Honestly, I've grown tired of focusing so much attention on baring light on all the ways I am not integrated and whole. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've ended up enacting the "law of attraction" and have manifested some more bad habits by reading about what "nines" do. So, since I have no clue what the real secret is (how to succeed without positive thinking), I'm focusing on the positive.

I've found a book by Riso that provides mantras to aid in focusing in on integrating and letting the rest go:

I now affirm...

that I am confident, strong, and independent.
that I develop my mind and think things through.
that I am awake and alert to the world around me.
that I am proud of myself and my abilities.
that I am steadfast and dependable in difficult times.
that I look deeply into myself without fear.
that I am excited about my future.
that I am a powerful, healing force in my world.
that I actively embrace all that life brings.

(text pulled from this site)

Basically, I can transform myself with right action and self-love. And both of those things lead to practical application in the form of developing a personal agenda - what my opinions, beliefs, and passions are, separate from everyone else.

So, step one: separate myself from everyone else (momentarily - after my agenda is set, I want to be able to hold onto that while still communing with others)
Step two: declare my opinions, beliefs, passions. I don't want to get into all of my opinions and beliefs and passions right now, but I'll use one as an example. I am currently very passionate about learning how to stalk, hunt, kill, and dress animals, both as a way to grow in community-sufficiency and as a spiritual practice.
Step three: set up a structure of some kind to either express or make my opinion, belief, or passion a reality. So, for hunting, I need to create a ritual for myself of waking early in the morning and going on a walk first thing with the intention of watching the animals and their behaviors and habits, starting to build a relationship with and deep knowledge of them. At the same time, I need to be reading about the technical aspects of tracking, making a kill, and dressing, or seek out an elder who can share that knowledge with me, as well as the wisdom that comes with being so intimately involved in the life and death of another animal. As I gain more knowledge, I will need to incorporate practice of more skills during those daily morning walks - how to walk, how to read tracks, how to construct, handle, and use whatever kind of weapon I learn will work.

It sounds like a great plan. If you're familiar with threes at all (that's what I integrate towards), you could see that this is looking like something a three would come up with. Unfortunately, there's no way I'm possibly going to get up tomorrow morning at or before dawn to take that walk. And there's absolutely no way that it would happen every day that way. BUT, what I will do is commit to going on that walk every day, just not necessarily at dawn. Some days I'll make it at dawn, and gradually, it will become a routine thing. And that's what I need - life-giving routines.

I do want to say that there are positive things about being *ahem* that number that I already have down. I'm great at listening to people, receiving them exactly as they are, holding them without any judgement, and really feeling what they're feeling along with them. I'm good at that. And I love doing it. That, and in the midst of lighter conversation among a group of people, when one person misunderstands what another has said, I can usually jump in and clarify what was meant more easily and quickly than the original speaker. I also probably have vast powers of intuition that I've got mostly locked up right now. I think, when I unlock them, they could express themselves in the form of telepathy, maybe even psychokinesis. Now that's cause for excitement about my future!

2007-08-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

Since moving to New Roots, I've gotten really into the Enneagram. It was something I had heard of in the past but never really looked into. But everyone up here was referencing it, so I figured I better educate myself.

It has turned out to be a very useful tool, broadening both my understanding of myself and of the people around me (more so than any other personality type system has).

In my reading, I recognized myself in the ninth personality type, sometimes called the peacemaker. I am calm and serene; I desire for everyone and everything to be united and without conflict; I am lazy and lack self-direction, allowing myself to be guided by the people around me. I accommodate other people, giving in to their wishes without giving credence to my own needs or desires (I people-please). I invest my identity in other people. I am an introvert to the extent that I shut out outside stimuli so that my inner calm is not disturbed, which leaves me living for the most part in my own fantasy world. I avoid conflict at any cost. These characteristics make me a nine.

I have a one wing, which I used to express a lot more when I was Catholic. Ones are idealistic and driven by a strongly defined morality. Perfectionistic. Judgmental. I've let a lot of that go, I think.

Nines integrate towards the three, which for me means that for me to become more healthy and whole as a person, I would need to develop self-direction, initiative (which I mentioned in my last post), and self-confidence. I'm not there yet, but it helps to have clearly stated what I'm moving towards.

Nines disintegrate towards the six by becoming overwhelmed with anxiety over the fear of being separated. It's this anxiety and fear that drive me to people please, so it is also this anxiety and fear I need to let go of, accepting the possibility that people may not react well to me not giving them what I think they want, but also learning to trust that they will still love the real me (although I'm still in the process of figuring out who that is).

I don't know if this also falls under the three integration, but the other big thing the enneagram has shown me I need to work on is my avoidance of conflict. This is the other big thing I am working on right now - being able to sacrifice my short-term peace of mind in order to involve myself with situations and people where conflict is likely that, in the past, I would have simply avoided.

I've felt pretty stagnant since I stopped going to school (that place that trained me to follow the authority figure's directions), but I'm starting to feel stirred up.

The enneagram has also helped me understand other people better, seeing clearly that everyone is not motivated by the same basic desire that I am. Which sure is a good thing, else the human world would be a very calm, lazy, boring place.

So, here's to self-discovery and integration!

2007-07-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

I love watching things grow. I didn't really notice that about myself until this year. I think maybe that's why I ended up growing my hair out so long. I enjoy witnessing slow, gradual change.

Gardening requires two virtues, initiative and patience. I've got patience down pat. Initiative on the other hand . . . Regardless, for a first attempt, my garden is doing relatively well. Many of the seedlings I started indoors either didn't get watered enough and dried up or were eaten by mice; half the seeds I sowed outdoors apparently did not sprout at all, but half did. And a few of the plants I started inside did make it. It's been a learning experience to say the least. I tried square-foot gardening (or my version of it), Grow Biointensive (R) spacing, and some cobbled together wisdom of companion planting. And since it's my first year, I can't really compare all of that to anything else, but it seems to be working!

I have an annual vegetable bed in a community garden (about 15'x5') where I am growing (or have grown) radishes, peas, okra, watermelon, bok choi, arugula, swiss chard, beets, onions, leeks, carrots, basil, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and borage. I also attempted to grow broccoli, artichoke, collards, spinach, and squash but they either didn't even sprout or were nibbled to death by bunnies.

In the backyard, I've got mostly fruit (which I realize is the reverse of permaculture zones - having the annual veggies, which need more attention, farther away. oh well.): blueberry bushes, blackberry, strawberries, grapes, a peach tree, two apple trees (Cox's Orange Pippin and Ashmead's Kernel), and an almond tree. I've also got garlic, cucumbers, and cantaloupe growing in the backyard. The sunflowers I planted either didn't come up or were too tasty for someone to pass up. Oh!, but I spread shitty city compost over the whole garden area in the backyard, and I've got amazing volunteer tomatoes and lamb's quarters as a result!

That initiative thing I mentioned earlier. . . I haven't started any herbs growing yet. I've got the seeds. I just need to go out and plant 'em.

I will. Soon.

So, to update since my last post, I found a place, a community, to move into: New Roots Urban Farm. It's in north city, about a mile north of downtown, and a twenty minute bike ride from my parent's house. It's a CSA, growing all kinds of veggies. Their overall mission is food security - more specifically, providing quality food to a neighborhood who's only "supermarket" is a glorified candy store, and doing so on a sliding scale, meaning everyone pays what they can. That's all fine and good - it's not what I'm interested in doing in the long term (which is a more personal version of food security), but it's fine and good, for now. I fit very well, culturally, there, and that's the most important thing. This past month or so that I've been there has probably been the most socially stimulating month I've ever experienced. It's thrilling and exhausting at the same time. Also, as the farm acquires more land in the future, they'd like me to start up a forest garden!

I'm continuing to homeschool with my brother in some capacity. Right now, we're set up for me to be at my parent's house with the express purpose of learning with my bro two days out of the week, which has turned into a great balance for me because where ever I'm headed next is someplace I want to be.

I'll see what I can do about making posts here more regular and interesting. No promises, though.

2007-05-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

I'm lonely, sad, and anxious enough of the time that I'm looking for a change. I'm in the process of looking for an open bed (or -- even better -- an open spot in a bed) in some communal living situation. I love my family and am very grateful to them for everything they've done for me, but I need to get away from the suck of the tv. My original impetus for thinking in this direction was realizing how much I didn't want to spend this summer living in a refrigerator (A/C).

I'll let you know how my quest turns out.

2007-04-01T04:17:00.000-07:00

I've continued to buy useful tools. I feel rather shameless about it now, as they are useful, enduring things- many of which, I expect, will come in handy during the magnificently great(er) depression that I feel brewing just around the corner. I'll list some of them for you:

a (blemished) country living grain mill,
food grade buckets with gamma seal lids,
a nightstar flashlight,
a petzl tikka headlamp,
a hori hori,
a rain barrel,
whetstones,
a global sun oven,
canning jars,
a REI sub kilo long down sleeping bag (and thermarest pad),
a minimalist bivy sack,
a granfors bruks small forest axe,
a 32 oz thermos (for passive cooking),
a compost fork,
a push reel mower (my parents actually bought that for me, since they're the one's that want the grass cut and all)
encyclopedia of country living (I know, I'm in the city, but did you see the green space around me?!)
4 replacement Berkey black filter elements (which supposedly covers my filtration needs until january of '10)

And so the wishlist evolves.

I've also been buying garden materials. I've already listed some tools above, but even more interesting are the living things. I've been scouring books and the internet for good local fruit tree and shrub nurseries and have had little luck. Right now, my best bet looks to be Stark Brothers, which is probably about an hour away by car. The next best selection in the midwest that I've found is in Michigan- Southmeadow. I'd love to find one with a really good selection in or just outside St. Louis city. I'll keep looking. In the mean time, I've gotten a little impatient and have already gotten some fruit bushes and vines from Lowe's. Specifically, a blackberry bush, blueberry bush, red raspberry, black raspberry, green grape, concord grape, and strawberries. So far I've held off on getting any trees from them. I'm also planning to grow some annual veggies and perennial herbs. In fact, I've just joined that community garden that's on the corner of my block, Fox Park Farm, and have a 5 by 16 foot raised bed to plant with whatever I want. I've picked up a lot of free seeds from Gateway Greening. Rotating seedstarting trays in my bedroom windows has now become a daily ritual. I can't wait to plant them out (april 15th is the area's last average frost date, but I don't know if I'll wait that long). Tomatos, sweet peppers, carrots, onions, spinach, broccoli, chard, beets, cabbage,collards, arugula, artichokes, peas, cucumbers, borage, corn, sunflowers, squash, melons . . . I won't have room for it all! Not in that one bed at least.

I've mail-ordered 2 pounds of red wriggler worms to unleash upon the garden and compost piles, as I'm planning to do no-till gardening. And with a combination of square foot gardening, companion interplanting, and mulching, I'm hoping to do no-weedpulling gardening. After studying up what I can find, my companion groupings, or guilds (to use a permaculture term for annual veggies), are

tomato, pepper, carrot, basil, onion, borage
cabbage, beets, spinach, chard, broccoli, onion (?- I've gotten mixed reports on whether to plant cabbage and alliums together), borage
corn, sunflower, squash, melon, peas, cucumber, borage (borage is everything's and everyone's best friend)

I'm still mapping out my perennial herb and fruit garden. Not knowing what trees I'm going to get is partially holding that process up. I want to get two apples, and then an almond tree. And then peaches and plums and pears. And hazels and chestnuts and (black) walnuts. As long as I'm dreaming of a forest, I might as well add some paw paws, tart cherries, apricots, and nectarines. If there's a temperate fruit tree out there, it's on my wish list.

Also, I've recently joined a local food co-op, so now I can order bulk organic food and pick it up a couple blocks away instead of driving out to the county. They also supply local "clean" meat (uncertified but organic-ish, grass-fed) for cheap. I pay cost+15%, and then just work a 4 hour shift each month. It's a pretty sweet deal. My primary impetus to join was to find a cost effective way to buy a 50 pound bag of wheat berries, for grinding flour. I didn't want to do it over the internet because the shipping charges were nearly doubling the price. But now that I'm in, I'm excited about more fully utilizing this resource.

In the fermentation department, I'm experimenting with making ginger beer. I've started a batch of dandelion mead that'll be ready to drink by the end of the summer. And I just got the raw materials today to try to make my first batch of saurkraut (practice running for harvest time later in the year) and to pickle cucumbers. Once I get the hang of it, I'd like to move on to making kim chee. I'm staying away from the soy ferments for now, though. While I'm in love with yeast at this point, and I'm warming up to fungi, the idea of eating mold still freaks me out.

One final bit of random news before I end this nonsense. My computer is over four years old now and is kind of slowly dying. But I'm trying to breath new life into it by stripping down my uses of it (namely, no longer using it as my stationary ipod - putting that music on cds). And I'm playing around with linux puppy. Now, I thought that I needed an external modem to be able to get on the internet, but it turns out that after a bit of setup, my wireless works fine! So this post is being written while running puppy. And it's running veeerry quickly. If running your entire OS on your RAM sounds appealing to you, I suggest you give it a looksee.