June 3, 2010
Guilford, Vermont
Dear friends and loved ones,
Transitions are tough. Wish I could say they weren’t and I just flowed through them with ease but sometimes that’s just not the case. There are days when everything just seems so grim while there are others when my disposition is sunny and bright and everything seems possible and it’s just fun to be alive. I spent some time this week watching an interview with Bill Ryan and David Icke and another which also included Jordan Maxwell and I have to tell you how inspiring it is for me to see the evolution of David Icke. I can’t think of another person who I agree with more in these changing times. While many of us may not even be aware that the times they are a changing (a great old Bob Dylan song) let me assure you, they are. Our children and grandchildren will not live in the same world we know. Throughout the course of history humanity has known times of great illumination, times such as the Golden Age, when peace and harmony ruled the day and other times of great suppression, for example in the Dark Ages; whole epochs with a different theme. This illusory nature of time is circular and while we spin through space on our planet, we move slowly through the changing epochs. This life we are currently living through is indeed a time of suppression and darkness with limited personal freedom and a sliver of awareness of what’s possible. Even our technology which seems so advanced is hundreds of years behind what’s known to be possible. I’m not really qualified to write about this stuff in an adequate way and I beseech you to find people to read and listen to who can do this justice, because we are living in the most amazing times! I suggest we have chosen to be here for this shift in consciousness to a new Golden Age. I loved the way Icke explained it being like a cusp between one epoch leaving and another coming. If any of you are familiar with astrology and know about cusps which are the few days between one sun sign leaving and another coming, you can begin to get a sense of how the cusp period has elements of both. For instance if your birthday happens to be on or around the 18th of January you would be on the cusp between Capricorn and Aquarius which starts usually around the 21st. Cusp people generally have many characteristics of the sign which follows or precedes theirs. Likewise we are now on the cusp of changing epochs and while the energy is beginning to change to the new ways of being, the old ways are fighting for dear life to hang onto what inevitably will be soon disappearing. It makes for a lot of confusion and uncertainty.
You know, I write a lot about the subject of consciousness and while it is only an interest of mine, as many of you know, Paul has a Ph.D. in the field of consciousness and spirituality. Even for him consciousness is a difficult subject to speak about with clarity, though he does a brilliant job of writing about it. By the way his book, The Postconventional Personality – Assessing, Researching and Theorizing Higher Development, edited by Angela H. Pfaffenberger, Paul W. Marko and Allan Combs, published by State University of New York Press is in the final stages and almost ready for print. But I digress…Some of our friends occasionally ask us what we mean when the topic of consciousness comes up and it is not always easy to engage in a comprehensive and easily understood conversation about it. I think that David Icke in his most recent interviews is doing a fantastic job of explaining the topic and I would encourage any of you who’d like a better understanding to listen to his interviews or read his most recent book. Here’s a link to the Project Avalon Interview with Bill Ryan: http://www.davidicke.com/
Speaking of confusion and uncertainty, I don’t know about any of you but lately I am sure having more than my fair share of it. Not sure what to attribute it, whether it’s my personal transition to Vermont from Brazil, the changing epochs, the chem-trails of which we are seeing a lot of these days. Oh that reminds me, here’s another link I want to pass along. Every now and then I refer to stuff like chem-trails and fluoride in the water. I got an email in my box the other day with a link to an updated but older segment of Max Igan’s The Calling part 5 of 8, focused on a description of the effects of fluoride in the drinking water, for those of you who like me have forgotten or maybe never knew….Here’s the link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?
I was on a roll this morning when Paul came down from his painting tent to grab his yoga mat and I dropped everything to go out front and do yoga with him, knowing that I’d not have the self discipline it would take to do it on my own later in the day. So all those things I had firmly in my mind I wanted to write about kind of drifted off into the ether.
When Charlie and I began this blog is was with the intention of regaling you with the adventures of our exploration through Brazil and many people expressed an interest in living vicariously through the tales of our journey. Now that we have returned to live again in Vermont, of course the focus is changing somewhat although the exploration continues. Since many of you reading this do not live in Vermont, perhaps this too might continue to be of interest if I describe life here in this part of the world. By the way, dear readers, your comments and feedback are always welcomed.
One of the things that distinguish this place from others I’ve lived in is the dramatic changes from moment to moment in the environment, particularly the weather. You do not get to plan your activities for the day as I grew up being accustomed to. Here, the weather dictates to you what activities can be done with any degree of pleasantry. I wrote last week in detail about a storm that shook the trailer, lit up the sky with lightening and took down the tent where Paul is making his painting studio. Could’ve sworn I posted it but now I can’t seem to even locate it. There’s that confusion creeping in again! I am working on two or three other projects now, writing a full length piece that I’d like to get published, creating a new blog about living without a mortgage and generally trying to get our new living arrangements sorted out, so maybe that might cut me some slack in the inability to keep my shit together? I used to pride myself on being able to multi-task, as if that were an admirable skill to have; I even used to look for it in a good employee. Paul always argued the merits of multi tasking with me and now I can see his point. Now I long for the ability to stay focused on one task. Or how about focused on being here in the moment, now! Every great spiritual master has tried to teach his disciples the art of being present. This is after all what it is to be enlightened.
Ahhhh, here it is, I’ve found it:
Thursday May 27, 2010
Guilford, Vermont
Storm
The day was heavenly, although temperatures were close to ninety, there was a crazy wind blowing that made it pleasant to be outside planting the final seeds in the garden. The corn I planted 6 days earlier had broken ground enough to see where to put the beans that will spiral their way up the stalks dangling on the climbing vines between the corn in a three sister’s guild. This is an old native American technique for growing three crops in the same space that complement and support each other, perhaps the origins of today’s permaculture? Later I’ll plant some squash or gourds between the rows which will sprawl on the ground between the plants, helping to keep the summer moisture in the soil nourishing the corn and beans instead of evaporating in the heat of the summer sun.
Gardening is such a source of pleasure for me. I thrill in the mystery of wonder whether the seeds that I place in the ground will germinate into a seedling and continue to grow into a living breathing plant that will eventually bud and produce some delicious food for me to eat. Each day after I plant the seeds, I water them watching for a sign of that first peak of green through the deep rich brown of newly watered soil. I almost catch my breath in delight to see the first ones and then each day watching for more, always with the feeling of magic. It puts me in mind of my teenage years when I got my first 35 mm camera and worked in the darkroom printing the pictures, rocking the tray of developer as an image magically appeared from a white piece of paper. Magic, I tell you, nothing less.
But I digress, back to the magic of this day…. When I was done planting and watering, satisfied at my latest purchase of sprinkler which solved my watering needs, I mowed a small yard around the trailer and continued delighting in the day, making a beautiful new space for our summer home. The days are long now and the evenings are the best part after the heat of the day when things begin to cool down and the sky takes on the softening hues of the sun set turning the clouds shades of pink and red. It’s the best part of the day for a campfire in the twilight hours before darkness. The winds which had kept up all day were less noticeably strong but still apparent in the movement of the branches. The campfire was just for a moment suspect of being in danger when the twigs resting to the side of the fire pit joined in with the rest, making one big bonfire that filled the four foot ring of stones and sparks flittered into the air but never high enough to be in danger of reaching the branches of the giant oak that stands above our bedroom and shades the corner of the yard. Any plans for the evenings these days get ousted by our preference for sitting by the fire, watching the sky change color and the birds catch flies from the air. When darkness fell we moved inside sitting for a few minutes by the window watching an occasional flash of lightening illuminate the sky. It was a pretty storm and I wanted to stay up for a while to watch it, though I was tired enough to climb in and drift off to sleep. Even when we knew that time had come and we made our way to the bed, I thought, I’ll just stay awake a while and watch it from the bed. We have such a cool bedroom. It’s only large enough to fit the queen size bed with a walking space around three sides that lets you shimmy sideways between the curving walls and the edges of the platform that holds the bed. You can’t be in too much of a hurry or you could get hurt on the corners. The windows on each of the three sides are those old fashioned three tiered roll out windows that get turned with a round crank (painfully, I might add.) I said to Paul, “this is just like sleeping in a tent” and he agreed it is while we listen to the mice dragging things across the roof. “It sounds like they’re inside,” we both say as we shine the flashlight to the screen tilt out vent that serves as a skylight. The flies and spiders are walking around upside down on the wire mesh screen both inside and out, amplifying the sound till you think there’s something way more substantial than that. “Well you’re the one who wants to live in nature,” Paul tells me again and again. “Mice are part of nature.”
I can hear that little sound he makes, like a puff of air that escapes closed lips just as he drifts off to sleep, but I’m too interested in watching the light show out the front and side window to join him in sleep. So I’m digging on the cool breeze coming through the windows that we’ve closed half way down since we know the rains are coming. I’m listening to the night time sounds of the wildlife. An owl was hooting, the cry of a coyote in the distance… I could feel myself slipping into sleep and welcomed it, content to stop watching the lightening, when suddenly the winds whipped into a frenzy. The oak tree which stands high above this end of the trailer became suddenly a huge threat in its violent movements. The lightening flashed brighter and closer and the thunder got louder. Paul awoke as I lay next to him saying, “Oh wow, oh my god!” He opened his eyes to see what I was seeing and hear the storm’s crashing thunder. The trailer started to rock and I thought my god, we’re not in Kansas anymore as we simultaneously got out of bed, going from window to window cranking them closed when we could see the storm swirling around us from every direction and there was no way to keep it from blowing in.
This part of Vermont isn’t prone to tornados or hurricanes; those are generally confined to flat places and coastlines. We just get those bad snow and ice storms when the power goes out for days on end. But this was a weather event as severe as a winter storm and completely out of character.
I didn’t think the trailer would survive the storm and I walked about in my pajamas gathering raincoats, shoes and umbrella. “Are you crazy?” Paul asked me, seeing the futility of going outside the door in the storm. I knew he was right but thought we might have to make a quick escape if the trailer blew onto its side and the computer and desk started crashing in on us or the window shattered. “Come here, sit down with me,” he said and I pulled my new favorite swivel rocking chair right up next to him at the couch, keeping my eyes on the window and the storm outside it. A loud bang and the power went out, but I had just that afternoon gone to the store to buy the flashlight we needed to fix a leak under a cabinet. In the light of our brand new 19 LED, 6 inch flashlight I found the 2 candles I’d purchased at the dollar store. And we sat by candlelight watching the sky light up, just a little on edge in the intensity, wondering as the calm eventually slid in if it was just the eye of the hurricane, or whatever the quiet space in the middle of a tornado is, before the other side of it comes crashing back through. But it didn’t and after a while it felt safe to climb back into bed, get some sleep before daybreak would reveal the damage done.
It was what we call a cloverfield moment and one that’s right up there with the other crazy climatic events happening around the world these days. Lots of people will say its global warming, but I know about HAARP and I’m always skeptical these days at unusual weather events.
The power’s out all over southern Vermont this morning. We chose the day to change plans from trailer maintenance (fixing a leak) and yoga class to driving around to look at more land for sale. We still had a couple in our price range we hadn’t yet gone to see and the other day came across a lead on another possibility. As fun at it always seems it’s going to be, it almost inevitably turns into an all day affair, exhausting us and rendering us useless for anything else after which we agree not to do it anymore and just sit back, let time pass and enjoy being here. Funny, but Paul vacillates as much if not more than I do on this point.
Back to June 3, 2010……
I am enjoying the day. It’s kind of murky in a hazy, cloudy, but not dark kind of way. The rain is just now starting to drizzle, tingling against the aluminum roof and sides of the trailer and leaving little dots of moisture on the windows. Rocket is napping on the sofa next to me and Paul’s gone off to town to have work done on the truck so it can pass inspection. I have a building project stacked on the table behind me waiting for my attention. Trailer living is full of building projects, especially old ones that haven’t been lived in for long periods of time. This one has a slider with a table and two benches, basically a dining nook, and since the day we moved in we noticed it felt like it was dangling a bit lower than the rest of the trailer. As days passed we were seeing a greater gap between the trim revealing daylight from the outside as it became more and more apparent that it was not our imagination that we were sloping. New to trailer living it took our friend Steve to explain the necessary measures involved in repairing this and one day some time later he brought me a jack and a 4 x 4 post, instructing me to jack the slider up until it was level again. With a sense of accomplishment at this small task, I patted myself on the back for having done this seemingly impossible and monumental project by myself. Goofy, I know, but I used to be a city girl! Now I have to replace the trim- that’s easy because I have experience at finish carpentry.
This isn’t a bad segway into what’s coming next. As I believe I’ve mentioned, we are embarking on a building project of much greater proportion. We’ve found a group of local people who call themselves “natural builders.” Now we are in the process of learning new skills and techniques from which to construct our own home. Absolutely committed to not borrowing and incurring un-repayable loans and all that entails (like needing steady employment or a larger source of income) we knew we needed a way to construct a home by alternative means. As artists, well let me speak only for myself, I am always drawn to creating beautiful things, it’s what I do. Life is an art project for me and though I cant say with any sense of credibility to someone that I am an artist, because then I can not produce what to them would be considered a work of art, everything I do all day long, everyday is make things beautiful around me. I do it with my environment, inside and out. Well I try.
Now the rain is getting harder, the sky is darkening and Rocket is looking up from his nap with a little concern, wondering what’s going on. The air temperature has dropped several degrees. Need to go check windows…..All’s well….., where was I?
Many people around here are building with straw bale. This was something new to us but sounded intriguing. I did some fascinating reading on building with cobb (basically mud, a clay, dirt and straw mixture made into an adobe like building material, not placed into bricks, but loaves, used for free form sculpting) We are also seeing the use of Mongolian style yurts (a round style house) These things are a great source of interest to us for many reasons, not just their inexpensive nature or insulating properties but the possibilities of designing a much more beautiful home with our own skills and the limitations of older bodies and weak backs. We can do this and if we can, than we say, anyone can learn to do this. So these are the things I’m concerning myself with, learning new skills, gathering information and resources and the ever present ongoing search for the right piece of land that also falls close to our price range.
The land search is tiring but fun. Vermont is a state almost completely full of mountains and valleys and rivers. It is stunningly beautiful. Even on the highways, one can enjoy spectacular vistas. But Vermont unlike many states I’ve visited has many unpaved roads, winding and dipping and climbing, straddling small creeks and streams and rivers, and sometimes cliffs with daunting views. Each time we set out with two or three properties in mind (I detest that term for parcels of land – as if one could really own something that will be here long after we discard these old tired bodies of ours- rather than just reside on them and pay taxes for that privilege!) to see, in a particular locale, we estimate we’ll spend three or four hours and find we’ve miscalculated by at least four hours. In our price range which I don’t mind telling you is around $25,000, they generally fall short of meeting our criteria. Our criteria in addition to cost, requires a minimum of one half acre of farmable land. That means that it must be able to have sun exposure from 8 to 10 hours per day from mid May through September. We’d prefer good soil but know that with enough left over money we can bring in soil amendments for the size garden we require to feed the two of us. In ideal conditions we prefer a full acre for this purpose. In the best of conditions, especially here in Vermont in a colder climate, a south facing slope is the most desirable and even if we can’t find one we will need at least to have some southern exposure as we will use solar energy to power our off the grid independent house.
As we get further along in this process, I will share with you our business model which will provide us with a way to live independent of the current system on a relatively small income and no debt. More and more of us will be finding this life style choice if not only desirable, perhaps imperative when our current economy collapses. But more on that at another time; enough for today. Until the next time, stay happy.