Gypsy Mama
In Defense of Nature: Pressing the Societal Reset Button
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on September 2, 2016
Discuss this article at the SUN Table inside the Diner
Tonight I have had an overwhelming need to protect Nature. To shorten a lengthy tale, let me get right to it: the state that I live in, South Carolina, recently sprayed a poison from the sky via planes, and killed millions of bees. MILLIONS.
Sometimes I feel as if the human species has become a plague upon the planet. If you stop to think about that for statement for awhile, you won’t need me to list all the reasons why I believe this.
As a species, I believe we need to grow…back into basic mammals of the Earth. I believe that we need to start learning from our past– and PRESS THE BIG RED RESET BUTTON.
Think of how terrifying that would be– a complete and total reset of the way you have learned to live. A way of life that was passed down to you from your parents and their parents. A life where everything comes packaged and easily accessible. A life where you don’t even have to grow your own food anymore– you just buy it in plastic containment.
Many “what if” theories come to mind, here. What if there were no more petroleum? What if the transfer trucks stopped driving? What if all things electronic ceased to operate?— forever!?!?. Panic would merge with the streets. I imagine that the sky in this fictitious setting would turn red and purple with the collective human rage. Imagine the energy of such a world– where we actually have to “do for ourselves.” Where we aren’t taken care of by the society we have built for ourselves. Where we have returned to nature, as mammals of the Earth.
This thought– of Humans being “of” the Earth again… intrigues me. I want this life. I think it is beautiful and simplistic– the way it should be. We have “went and got ourselves into a big ol’ Hurry.” ME ME ME!!!! NOW NOW NOW!!!! ZIP! ZAP! This is the energy of our current population. We seem to have forgotten how to just “be.” To be in the Now.
I daydream of living in an earthen home someday. I see myself walking around singing, sweeping the floors– all nice and witchy like. I envision sitting outside of our home, built entirely from the Earth, watching our boys experience nature. I most definitely see this man of mine roasting meat over the open flame of the firepit. This is a sort of goal of mine, to live this life. It is what I have set my heart and intention toward. It is going to happen.
I have written a lot, lately, on Ye Olde Facebook, about how I have hung my hope on a Non Profit organization that I’m working with called “The Sustaining Universal Needs Foundation” or, SUN☼ for short. I see this Non Profit as a way to work together with my community toward the greater good. The greater good being, in preserving a natural way of life. Of learning methods of farming that will soon be forgotten and replaced with styrofoam containers of chemically processed vegetables. Our elders are dying… and they are taking a lot of what many deem to be “useless” knowledge with them. Cobblers are scarce. Farming is foreign. This is a huge problem. HOW, as a human species, have we gotten to the point to where we don’t even know how to FEED OURSELVES anymore? Sheesh. It makes me shiver to think about.
We have become a processed product of the life our parents, our ancestors have built for us. They believed it was a better way. They believed it was right, the way we live on this Earth. “Burn fuel.” “Don’t worry about cooking dinner, buy one.” “Why make it when you can buy it?” “I don’t have to know when to plant vegetables so that I don’t go hungry– that’s what the store is for.” These are the messages we have received since our infancy. They’re wrong. They’re terribly wrong. We need a RESET. We need a Preservation. We need it now. NOW is the time to make the change. Blessed are they who still care this strongly about protecting the Earth. What if these important ones were no more? What if we just stopped caring about our Biosphere? Our Planet?
I fear that we have passed a critical point in our existence.
I feel a need to prepare myself and my family, our children, for how I believe the world will be for their generation: Lack of Fossil Fuel Energy. Unexplained Illnesses. Mass Chaos and Panic.
Something big is coming. I feel it in my soul. It is going to alter our society– quickly, and without due warning– yet, for the better.
What can I do about it? Well, that’s why I mentioned SUN. That’s where I’m going to hang my hat for awhile. I wear many hats, believe me. I work about 6 different types of jobs as a photographer, homemaker, artist wife and Mother. Some of these hats (roles/jobs), I will never fully take off. I’ll just stack a top hat over a beret if need be. The SUN hat, however, I have taken on and off for about 2 years now. Now, I see the value in the hat, and I’m going to proudly display it for the community around me.
SUN has plans to build what we’re calling a “Sustainability Theme Park” in my hometown of Inman, SC. I have compared it to Williamsburg, Virginia– where a Colonial Style Theme Park exists. Most people in this area have been to visit Williamsburg, so its a good way to set the tone for our idea. SUN employees will not be walking around in period style costumes (or will they?), but they will be there to educate and represent the common goal of building a resilient community for the City of Inman. We hope to a blacksmith you could visit at our Park. A cobbler too! Maybe there’s a petting zoo, or a little playground, or both. Perhaps you could take basket weaving lessons, or learn how to split bamboo…all in one day! There will be classes, clubs, courses, speakers, events, celebrations, and teachers.
SUN is not about SUN. It is about helping communities to come together to learn from and preserve (to sustain) the universal needs that are important for a thriving civilization. Food. Shelter. Water. Energy. There’s a few important things to learn about as a human– and learn we must.
On Saturday, September 24, 2016, SUN is going to set up a bright yellow tent in the middle of Main Street, Inman SC. We are going to display a bright yellow geodesic dome, and have photo examples of natural and alternate forms of housing. We’ll even have an electric scooter, heirloom seeds, balloons for the kids, handmade sandwich wraps and more. This year, we decided to go SUN or bust. We went all in and decided to help sponsor The Inman Harvest Day Festival. We are a “Tractor” sponsorship level 🙂 I suppose that means we are there to help get things moving– and that’s exactly what we plan to do.
We are going to attempt to raise money for SUN at our festival booth, so that we may hire a grant writer in the future. We are going to search for land in the Inman area and we are going to bring tourists to a fading town. A large majority of the buildings in downtown Inman, where the festival takes place, are vacant and falling into disrepair. We believe that SUN will bring in tourists, and provide a need for businesses to fill those old buildings. Sometimes I daydream that SUN Headquarters will form inside of one of those ancient beauties (they’re old– and I love them). Inman is just the beginning. The idea and method of SUN is designed to spread, much like awareness and positive change should.
We are going all in. It’s go time. We’re bringing in our big yellow moving truck. Now is the time for change.
I’m ready to protect the greater good. I’m ready to take a stand for Nature. Are you?
If you’d like to know more about SUN, visit our website at: www.SUN4Living.com
Godspeed, fellow humans. Protect yourselves. I am thankful that I have this Non-Profit to cling to in this time of change.
~*Wendy
A mental break…
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on September 3, 2015
Discuss this article at the Psychology Table inside the Diner
The Release of the Narcissistic Mother, Dyshidrotic Eczema, Aspbergers Syndrome and other tales of the Deep, Dark and Hollow
I’m sorry for being away so long.
Yes, I’ve been away.
I have awakened from a depression. A depression is something that no one else can help you with. You can become medicated, sure…but I chose not to. I made it. I survived. There were moments where I wanted to die. I wished someone would run me off the road. I hated myself.
I cut my own bangs on a whim the other day. I always wanted to do that. I cut them “Betty Page” style. Betty Page looks a lot like Morticia Addams. More about that later.
My husband HATES it.
Your hair can (and should) be used as a canvas to show others who you are. I didn’t cut my bangs because I hated myself, I just wanted something different. Something to “wake me up.” Something to force me to take better care of myself, because I wasn’t doing a very good job.
This is why “current hair fashion” and I never did get along very well. I adore a specific era of hair, but I don’t give a shit what is in style for 2015. I never really gave a shit what was in style my whole life, actually… and I like saying Shit every now and then. Shit! 🙂
I have always tried to be “me” I lost that part of myself for awhile. I became consumed with fear about what others thought about me. Now that part of me is back.
Does this mean I had some sort of mental break in my past? Yeah. Probably so. My Father did put the barrel of a 30-06 in his mouth and pull the trigger just before I graduated college.
I have JUST dealt with this, in my adulthood…11 years later. I’ll tell this dramatic, backwoods, real life story to you as time goes on.
My husband is an amazing man. He’s really hard to be married to sometimes, because he can be brutally honest. He was just trying to heal me, but I didn’t see it at the time. I thought he hated me and was just tolerating my presence. I didn’t believe that he really loved me. I didn’t think anyone loved me. I have been programmed, you see, to believe that no one cares about me. All thanks to the programming that my mother downloaded into me. It is sort of not her fault, though. I’m convinced, after talking to her older sister, that their Mother, or Father, perhaps both, had treated them this way their whole life.
“Fuck You! FUCK YOU, Bitch! I’m TIRED of the way you treat me!” – loving words from my Mother, two years ago.
Yeah, that’s just an exert from the story that has been my life during this depression. My Father (literally) blew his head off in our family’s detached garage. I watched the hazmat crew clean him up through my parent’s bedroom window. They told me not to, but I did. I have seen the contents of the inside of my father’s entire head stuck to buckets and our family bicycles. I watched two guys in white suits and face masks put him into trash bags.
He wanted to be cremated. 11 years later, he was still sitting on the shelf in my Mother’s living room. HER living room. I was sick of waiting. We were supposed to scatter his ashes off of the Green River bridge. But no one was talking about that. In fact, no one EVER talked about it. All that my Mother ever really said to me about the fact that her husband (whom I doubt she really loved— she just got “KNOCKED UP”(her words–that’s how I’m here) had blown his head off was that his entire head was gone and that there was a piece of his scalp with long grey hair attached to it sitting on the shoulder of his corpse. This is how she found him.
Granted…yeah, I am glad I didn’t find him. I know she is still in some state of grief, shock… but no one is helping her. I tried, but she wouldn’t listen. We weren’t supposed to talk about our FEELINGS. She was tired of me trying to get her to deal with it. To FORCE her to deal with it. To talk about it. No one ever really talked to me about it…checked in on me, asked me how I was dealing with it. No one.
I was tired of waiting for her to be a good mother and talk to her daughters about it. It is a Horrible situation, eh?
I did take drastic measures, however, to bring the fact that he was still in the urn and that no one was dealing with it into (literally) my own hands. My family and I drove to my childhood home, took the key, opened up the house, picked up the yellow urn with a Robin sitting on a branch, walked out of the house, locked it, and buckled it up in a seatbelt in my car’s back seat. I took it home. Without permission. Without saying anything.
As soon as we were home, I called my sister’s cell phone. She didn’t answer, so I left a message. She began furiously texting me. I told her that this was not a conversation to be had via text, and that we needed to talk over the phone. She replied, “Fine then, Don’t talk to me.” (She was 22 yrs. old @ the time) Now, she’s a Mother.
My sister said (through texts) that it was disrespectful of me to take the urn without asking our “Mama” for it. I felt that I didn’t need to ask permission. Those were the ashes of my Father. I didn’t view “him” as a possession.
Next I called my Mother’s cell phone. She was at work, so she didn’t answer. Yes, I did plan to go to the house to take the urn while she wasn’t there. DUH. A vein might have popped in her head and she could have dropped dead over that. Seriously, she has some major Anger/Anxiety issues. (More horrible issues which she also programmed into me, and I have been trying to rid myself of).
Being a Mother, if you’re a good Mother, makes you take a look at yourself. I don’t mean in the mirror… I mean REALLY take a look at yourself. Watching how you react to things. Taking note when you get angry and asking yourself, “Why? Why Did I react that way?” Being HONEST with yourself. To NOT be defensive about your REAL issues. TO DEAL WITH THEM AND FIX THEM.
I took the urn, because I wanted to deal with my Father’s Suicide. I NEEDED to deal with it. It had been too long. I needed to move on. I needed to let it go, before I could really live.
This is what I’ve been doing over the past two years. I feel I have healed. I mean REALLY healed myself this time…but then again, my Father did Have Bi-Polar Disorder. I could be on one of my Happy benders. My husband has called me crazy, but that’s okay, because I’ve called myself that. I have been crazy. I don’t want to be crazy. I don’t take pride in being crazy. I have been purging a HELL of a lot of CRAZY out of this mind of mine over the past two years, and it has been a boat ride through the swamp without a paddle. I have worked HARD on my mind, and it needed it.
Damn. What a ride I’ve been on.
Anyhow, to continue my story, I called my Mother’s Cell phone after I had brought my Father’s ashes into our house. I intentionally called her when I knew she was working, so that I wouldn’t have to listen to whatever her reaction was. I let her keep that anger to herself. I predicted she’d be angry, and BOY OH BOY was I ever right about that.
“Hey. I’m just calling to let you know that I have Daddy’s ashes. Don’t worry, don’t freak out, I’m taking good care of them. I just wanted to let you know where they were and that I have them.”
No, I did not scatter the ashes without my family. Not all of them 😉
What I did do, before my Mother arrived, was to take a portion of the ashes that I felt was my right as his daughter. I didn’t need permission to take them. I still feel that way. I’m not sorry that I took them.
In fact, it appeared as if someone had already had the same idea. The lid had been popped off. It had once been glued on. The ashes were inside the little yellow ceramic urn (an urn that belonged to my Dad’s Mother). They were not quite as I expected them to appear, however. They were inside a thick mil plastic bag. They had been stapled shut with some industrial stapler. Yet, someone had poked a hole in the top of the bag, next to the staple. GASP! Someone had ALREADY “disturbed” the ashes. Heal yeah. (spelling intended), It didn’t have to be me.
SOMEONE had already poked around in the ashes. Someone had made a silver dollar sized hole in the bag of ashes. But it wasn’t me. I felt even more justified in my next action: I took some of the ashes (by shaking the urn). I put them in an old metal coffee tin that I’d found at a thrift store. Someone offered to buy that tin from me, long ago, when I was selling all kinds of things online. I couldn’t take less than $10 for it, and no one wanted to pay that, so I had kept it.
My husband, who is a HUGE Big Lebowski fan, found it quite hilarious that I had chosen a coffee can. I seriously did not connect my actions with the movie, but it may have been programmed into me to put ashes into a coffee container after seeing/hearing “The Big Lebowski” over and over during one of his repetitive aspie (and endearing term) benders.
Aaron, my husband, likes to listen to things that he likes over…and over…and OVER…AND OVER again. It gets to me sometimes, because one of my biggest pet peeves in life is repetition. I can’t stand it, mostly. An example of some really great musical artists that he has played over and over are: U2, Pearl Jam, Rebelution, and most currently Heartless Bastards.
Aaron, we’re about 99.9 percent certain, has Aspberger’s Syndrome. He has not been formally diagnosed by a team of doctors, but he did befriend a doctor online who claimed that if he were his patient, he would say that he was on the high functioning end of the “disorder.” He may not be “formally” diagnosed, but as his wife, I can say with CERTAINTY that he DOES have it. There’s no question in my mind. This is something that I’ll have to study more, so that I can be a better wife. I’m working on understanding it daily.
Here is a quick description of Aspbergers, from someone with Aspbergers:
Asperger’s can not be cured, it is a genetic condition that can be worked on and mitigated, but can not be cured. Each person has it differently and reacts to the world differently, but here are some basics.
Asperger’s syndrome is, in it’s most basic form, Autism. Autism is broken into two types, Kanner’s and Asperger’s, with the break at the 70 IQ level. If your IQ is 70 or below you have Kanner’s Autism, if your IQ is 71 or above, you have Asperger’s autism. (it is a little more complicated than that in it’s break up, but for a beginner this is good)
The easiest way to describe Asperger’s syndrome to someone who has never heard of it is to describe it as a Social Autism. The person who has Asperger’s grew up not learning the social cues around him/her. The person does not, usually, understand subtle social cues that the normal person takes for granted. Things such as sarcasm, and body language that change the meaning of a statement, are not understood by the asperger person, and taken literally.
Asperger syndrome is also called “the little professor syndrome”
The Asperger type is usually very literal in what is stated, and what is understood. The normal person usually sees the asperger person as being emotion-less, though this is not true. Emotions are just kept very deep inside and not brought to the surface. The aspie also does not know what to do with another person who is experiencing emotions, and needs to be told what to do in these instances. Phrases like “I need you to hold me now” are very helpful” in a relationship, for the normal (NT) person to say to the aspie.
Aspies tend to like routines. Change is very difficult, and they will be slow to accept it.
Aspies will appear to lack empathy. As stated above, this is not due to lack of empathy, but a lack of knowledge of how to show it.
Aspies tend to have more of a formal use of words than the NT wold or have a formal style of speaking that is advanced for his or her age. For example, the aspie may use the word “beckon” instead of “call” or the word “return” instead of “come back.”
ASPIES TEND TO AVOID EYE CONTACT. This is not due to lying or being self conscious. The eyes are very difficult to look at, and cause mental anguish and pain in many aspies. They are unable to think of what they want to say, and look another in the eyes at the same time.
Aspies may have unusual facial expressions or body postures. They may be more formal in the way they stand, or just look out of place. Their facial features may not express the emotions that they are experiencing. They may not frown when they are sad, smile when happy, etc…
Many Aspies are pre-occupied with one or a few subjects of interest and learn everything there is to know about those subjects to the exclusion of all others. They may not want to discuss anything other than those subjects with anyone. When brought into a conversation, they will immediately take the conversation to their chosen subject of interest, and then talk about it non-stop. They will not notice that nobody else wants to discuss that subject.
Aspies tend to have heightened sensitivity and become overstimulated by loud noises, lights, or strong tastes or textures. They may only eat certain things, or order foods certain ways. They may not be able to work in rooms with florescent lighting due to the buzz or the flicker, even when nobody else notices. Many different things, for many different people.
http://www.healingselfesteem.com/
http://www.adultchildofalcoholiclifecoach.com/
*Not all of what this lady says in the above video applies directly to my Mother. My Mother is the “Ignoring” Narcissist. But the “I don’t want to talk about that” portion of the conversation DID strongly apply to my situation. She could call and complain about her miserable life and all of the negative things going on in her life for hours. One time, during a cell phone “conversation” I timed how long she talked without a response from me. The entire 20 minutes, she was complaining. I connect with the video that I’ve shared here because I DID tell my Mother, “I am a WOMAN. ” She also bought me many things so that I could “Owe her.” Classic Narcissist. The whole, “Adult Children of Alcoholics” plug of her’s at the end? Yeah, my Dad was an alcoholic too.
My mind seems to have plenty to choose from in its array of crazy .
When my husband met me, he knew that I had issues. He knew that I had not dealt with my Father’s Suicide…at all. He knew that I was a barrel of monkeys, per-say…that more issues might keep on rolling out of me, holding furry knuckled phalanges together. He knew, but he didn’t know. Neither did I. (the little professor syndrome) He was a bartender when I met him. He enjoyed psychoanalyzing people over the bar. He had a set of regulars who would come in and tell him their problems. He actually is pretty damn good at helping people solve their issues…but he will PISS YOU OFF, because he’ll be brutally honest. He is NOT always right, though, in his diagnosis of what your mind may be thinking at the time. He just uses logic to deduce where your mind might be, and what it might be thinking. It’s sort of a mind cuss, actually, because he’s mostly right…so even if you think he’s wrong, you’ll have to ask yourself if he’s right. There were moments where I would be mad at him for being so smart. There were moments where I just could not convince him that he was wrong, and that his deduction of where my mind was and what I was thinking was wrong. Aaron has a very hard time reading emotions and feelings. He just could not understand why I looked so miserable while I was depressed. He had no empathy for me, either. Well, almost none.
Because of all of this, I was left thinking, at times, that I was just an overall shit-bag. He kept telling me that I liked wallowing in my own misery, just like my Mother. That I didn’t want to be happy. I kept asking myself if that was true. If I was just “Acting out a script” that was programmed into me by my Mother. Was I just acting like her? As I reflect on it now, I can say that there were times when I was, and times when I wasn’t. There were times when I was only depressed and not even thinking about her…but then Aaron would say that I was acting like her.
I was overwhelmed with being a Mother to two. I was overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to be a good mother to them. I had no strong female role model in my life to mold myself after when it came to being a Mother. I often envy other Mothers who have an awesome, supportive and loving Mother of their own. I don’t know what that is like. I can imagine it, sure, but I have not lived it. I am mad about that, off and on. My Mother (I usually refer to her as Sarah these days) is absent from my life because of my choice to keep her out of it. That’s my fault, sure. I told her that I never wanted to talk to her again, and I meant it. She hurt me to my core. No Mother should do that to her daughter. Especially without a breath of regret.
Sometimes Aaron says I’m just like her when I mope and complain. I try not to complain, I really do. I’m not writing this blog to feel sorry for myself. I’m just telling my story. I’m sharing my feelings.
My Mother once said to Aaron, “I’ve had a shitty life.” Sometimes he brings up that statement when I start complaining about the negative things in my life. It pisses me off when he does it, but I must say that a much better approach to correcting my focus on the negative might be to say something with more empathy like, “Wendy, please just try to focus on the good.” instead of “Wendy, you sound just like your Mother.”
“When you don’t know what it is you’re fighting, you can’t possibly know how to deal with it. I wrestled for years with some unknown presence that seemed to affect every aspect of our relationship. Those years in the dark, left me with feelings of self-doubt, insecurity, and total worthlessness. I cried many nights, thinking it was something awful about me that caused my husband’s rejection, when in reality, it was AS.” Source
Aspies. They’re the smartest, deepest people you’ll ever meet. When I met Aaron, I was smitten by how completely different he was. One of the first things he told me on our first date was that women told him he was “too deep.” My response to him at the time was, “How can you be TOO deep?” Aaron didn’t give a SHIT about what anyone thought about him(and still doesn’t), and he knew himself better than anyone I had ever met in my life. He was eons ahead of me when it came to knowing myself, and I knew it. I didn’t care, though…he was taller than me, he was intriguing, he was weird and dark and handsome and had a U2 tattoo on his chest. There was no stopping our romance. From the moment I met Aaron, things continue to happen in my life that are synchronistic about our relationship. Actually, the night I met Aaron, U2 came on the jukebox at the pool hall/bar where we met. I can’t recall whether or not I played that song, but chances were good that I had. I used to pump that machine full of quarters so that it would play songs that I liked so that I could dance and sing and play pool. When I met Aaron, I was wearing a little red, 100% cotton, ruffled mini skirt. My “shirt” of choice was a lace, black, spaghetti strapped midriff that was see through on the back and at the waist. I was out shopping, I suppose 😉 I find it worth mentioning that the bar in which I met Aaron had a corner room display of Betty Page prints hanging on the wall 😉
I was a virgin when I met Aaron. Yeah, that’s right. I was a 22 year old virgin. This was mostly because my Mother had terrified me about sex. She made it sound disgusting and degrading. There was never any “Making love” to be had. It was all nasty, nasty intercourse. You were a whore if you had sex. This caused me MANY *almost* relationships of past. I didn’t understand why I never had a boyfriend before Aaron, either. I sure do see why now, though. I was afraid of sex because of my Mother. This made me VERY sexually awkward. VERY.
My soulmate found me at just the right time in my life. I learned how to make love. 🙂
Anyhow, I’m tired of writing for today. I just started typing out my story this evening. It came almost out of nowhere, but I’m finding as I write it that it is very therapeutic for me. I am telling the story of my struggles. I am writing the story to help myself, and to help others too. One of the characteristics that I know about myself is that I “like to help.” Sometimes I can try to help to the point of hurting. I hope I don’t hurt you, dear reader. 😉
In my next blog, I will continue the story about what happened after my Mother received my voice mail message about the urn. Her reaction convinced me that she is indeed a Narcissist.
Later, I’ll tell you about my hands. My oozing, weeping, cracking bleeding hands. The hands I wielded during my time of turmoil. If you’d like a little background to that tale, go ahead and read my first blog entry about it at: https://thebutterchurn.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/dyshidrotic-eczema-a-malady-of-concerning-cause-and-effect/
Later, I’ll ramble some more. I’ll share some more about the hurtful words that my own Mother said to me that continue to circulate around in my mind. I’ll talk a bit more about what it is like to be the wife of a husband with Aspbergers. I’ll reminisce about what it has been like to be a Mother who can’t use her hands. I’ll heal some more, through writing.
I’ll heal that hurt, but I won’t deal it back.
LOL.
Environmental Control Drones: A True Tale from South Carolina
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on August 30, 2014
Discuss this article at the Environment Table inside the Diner
A white truck with a decal on the side pulls into the driveway. The decal itself is unreadable from afar. A man wearing tan pants and a white shirt with a circular decal on the shoulder comes to the front door. As the man approaches, the decal on his shirt is easily readable “Environmental Department.”
The door is answered.
“Hello?” Says the homeowner.
“What’s going on in your backyard?” the agent asks.
“Just a little bit of permaculture” the homeowner responds.
“Put on some shoes and lets go back there and take a look”
“Bamboo???” The agent asks once they are both in the backyard.
“Yeah…it is planted all around the yard.”
“You know… it (the bamboo) is really devaluing your property. I could show you pictures of some overgrown bamboo that has taken over properties. It is bad to have. It gets out of control. Go back in the house. I’m going to take a few pictures and then I’m going to leave. It is not illegal to have a garden, but you have to keep your weeds trimmed to below 16 inches. They have to be cut. This property is considered overgrown.”
The homeowner goes back into the house, frazzled, with a citation in hand from Environmental Control. The words “Magistrate Court appearance”, “$500 fine”, “Jail time” dance across the piece of paper. The more the homeowner reads, the sicker she gets…She is terrified and upset.
The neighborhood surrounding the homeowner communicates. The homeowner finds out that her neighbor was also issued a citation to remove weeds from his property. He refused to comply and was fined $500. The same neighbor just happens to know someone who works for Environmental Control. He calls, asking what is happening. He discovers through his conversation with the employee of Environmental Control that the agency is down to only 2 individual, in person agents/officers and that the department had been sending out drones, hunting marijuana. Apparently people are hiding marijuana plants in their gardens. Our garden, one full of experimental growth and learning, was targeted.
Since the citation was issued to us here at our home in Boiling Springs, SC… we have contacted The American Bamboo Society’s Southeast chapter representative and Provitro Biosciences in Mount Vernon, WA. Both of the people we spoke with said that something was fishy about the agent’s comment about Bamboo.
“You can keep your bamboo, but it has to be trimmed to 16 inches maximum height or you have to get rid of it.” – Environmental Control Agent
Any lover of bamboo can instantly relate to how ridiculous this statement is. We are involved with our bamboo plants. We love them. We care for them. We have studied bamboo itself as well as bamboo management. How could we remove our beloved plants?
As far as the rest of the “weeds” in the garden go… since we are living with my Aunt (the homeowner) who was scared out of her wits, we decided to comply with removing the horse weed that we allowed to grow down through the chicken run of our garden. The horse weed grew there naturally. All we did was NOT CUT the grass. The horse weed provided a natural, free habitat for our chickens…providing shade, cover and hawk/predator protection. Not acceptable by Environmental Control standards.
The native weed (Horse weed) also provided us with a free, natural privacy screen from our neighboring trailer park. Our weedy hedge is now gone. Our chickens are exposed…our garden is still in need of weed removal and I suppose we will have to follow up with measuring tape (marked at 16 inches) in hand.
We have often called the state of our garden “Wild” because we have chosen to allow the native weeds to grow. We study them. We learn from them. We have found, through our un-traditional gardening methods that by allowing the native weeds to grow, we have few issues with garden pests. It is as if our annual garden plants are protected by a type of shield. The weeds, mixed in with our planted food producers, form some sort of alliance with each other. Garden pests seem to fly right over the food producing plants.
As for the bamboo… we will fight for our right to keep it. We are currently researching the South Carolina State as well as Spartanburg County rules and regulations for growing bamboo.
The interesting part about all of this? ALL of the bamboo that we have planted in our backyard came from areas/bamboo groves within Spartanburg County!!!! How are we NOT allowed to have it if it is growing all around our County???
In a few weeks, the Southeast Chapter representative of the American Bamboo Society will be visiting us and our bamboo. Our fellow bamboo lovers are actively researching the laws and regulations within our county/region about bamboo ownership/growing.
We will fight for you, bamboo! We will not sit in our house, shoeless, and allow you to force us into our house and out of our own backyard, Environmental Control. Others will hear our tale, including the local news and the wide wide world of Facebook. We will share our story. We will speak out.
Beware the garden weeds! Prepare for the thumb of repression. Look to the skies for a drone near you, South Carolina residents. This is real. This is happening.
DRONES are flying over our residence, for cryin’ out loud!!!!! Environmental Control Agents are telling us to stay in our homes and are TELLING us (not asking) that they are going to take pictures of our yard.
What say you?
More to come about all of this, including a video of the Agent’s return to our yard at the end of September. We’re ready.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sustaining Universal Needs, Inc. is a 501c3 Nonprofit corporation developing Systems for Living in a low per capita energy world. Our goal is to assist people and the society in general in transitioning off the Fossil Fuel based economy that currently is winding down around us.
Although not acknowledged in our current Political environment or in the Mainstream Media, the world as a whole is currently faced with serious resource depletion and population overshoot problems, which manifest themselves in the economic problems all countries in the world now face, along with the severe Political problems evident in the Middle East.
Individuals have little control over this great global reset that is underway, but individuals do have choices they can make with respect to their own lives and that of their surrounding communities. Here at SUN, we hope to provide the information and expertise necessary for you and your community to negotiate the difficult times ahead.
SUN evolved from discussions among numerous people who have been following the problems associated with Resource Depletion for the last few years. Amongst the principles involved in this project are Teachers, Doctors, Dentists, Lawyers, Builders and Laborers of all sorts. Each of us has our own individual ideas about preparing for the future world, not all are exactly the same either. In common though we see the need for greater Community development, more localized Economic systems, and a more equitable and fair Political system to govern ourselves.
We urge anyone concerned about the future to read through our website, read our Prospectus and join with us in the effort to build a Better Tomorrow.
https://www.facebook.com/SustainingUniversalNeeds
Dyshidrotic Eczema: Natural remedies and management for your dishpan hands
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on August 22, 2014
I have forgotten what it feels like to have healthy hands like these.
Discuss this article at the Kitchen Sink inside the Diner
Like most fellow sufferers, I have spent A LOT of money, thought and time searching for that “miracle cure.” A cure that I’m afraid just doesn’t seem to exist. Using conversations, interactions and correspondences with others who have eczema as a reference, it seems that there is no universal cure. There is no miracle cream… even a prescription one. I have found topical solutions that help, but they are not a cure.
Having eczema makes you question many, many things. If you’re on a real mission to heal then you have most likely paid much closer attention to what goes into your body and what goes on your body. You probably have quite the collection of health and beauty products. You’ve become an expert in bandaging. You know which lotions make your skin crawl and then explode. You become paranoid about most things that you come into contact with.
“Am I allergic to…. WATER?” “What’s in this lotion?” “Are the baby wipes eating my fingers?”
You’ll even look at the public restroom bathroom’s soap dispenser differently…
Maybe it is your dog. Maybe it is dust mites. Maybe you should lay off the chocolate. Maybe you should visit an allergist and get tested. Maybe the dermatologist won’t lump you into the masses of others who suffer the same ailment (Eczema)…but in a different way?
I’m having another outbreak. I have worn cotton gloves all day. Just looking at my fingers makes me somewhat angry…but that emotion, of course, makes them worse. After pouring over a year of thought into the cause of what makes my knuckles, my fingertips get this way, I am convinced that no topical solution (alone) will heal them. No prescription medication will make this condition go away forever. No lotion, soap or mass produced miracle cream, gel, spray or ointment will give me relief, because my hands are so sensitive. There’s something about the chemicals in those “health” and beauty products that makes my fingers puff up like kielbasa sausages in a cast iron skillet. They feel like they’re on fire, too…those fingers. Fingers that ooze out some seemingly endless supply of itchy tonic. Ooozey clear (water??) that weeps from your pores…pores that have busted open to allow the itch to escape.
How can I describe to you what this feels like (unless you are a fellow sufferer, of course)? Let me give you a scenario:
Just as embarrassing as acne to a teenager, you now feel like a Biblical Leper. You’re ashamed to go to the grocery store because you don’t want the cashier to gawk at your hands while you delicately fumble for your debit card in your wallet… hoping that you don’t make a mistake and bump those sausages into the side of your purse—causing excruciating pain. You’re hoping your fingers don’t start bleeding onto the steering wheel on the drive home. You’re hoping you can manage to get the key into the doorknob of your home without dropping it. You’re going slow, because your skin will split open if you use too much force. You sigh once inside, thankful that you can now return to your room to slime your hands up again…if you can get your pants down to use the bathroom first.
This above description is not one that I have imagined. Simple things are a struggle. You are forced to slow down and be delicate…mindful…patient.
As a non-sufferer, you might look at my hands at times and think, “Woah girl. Get yourself some lotion, ASAP!” I probably would if I were you. I might also think (if I were you) “Ewwwww. What is wrong with her fingers? I think she must not be taking very good care of herself.”
Better yet, if you saw my fingers today or most recently, you’d probably think that I never washed my hands or that I was just out digging in some dirt because they are scabbed up in the colors of the Earth. My medicine gets under my fingernails and is always turns a pleasant shade of brown once dried.
It seems, through my reading and interactions, that other sufferers seem to have it all figured out for themselves. The most common solution, they write, is either a gluten free or dairy free diet. Celiac Disease keeps popping up as an answer too. I tried the dairy free diet myself after being told by my allergist that I’m allergic to cow’s milk. Heck, I even stayed away from ALL of the foods that came back positive as an allergen. It did not work. Was it a placebo affect? How do I know?
As I was showering tonight, it dawned on me how much having eczema, specifically Dyshidrotic Eczema has changed me. I kind of giggled at the thought that eczema has made me a “dirty hippie.” That thought, of course, arose from my fears of judgement from others. People probably do see me that way. I don’t conform well. I don’t use shampoo. I don’t dye my hair. It is grey. I am 33 years old. Sadly that’s enough to put an American woman like me out on the far reaching branches of what is socially acceptable.
Then I realized that most of the things I do that could generalize me as a “hippie” began because of the eczema! I don’t use shampoo because I became paranoid about the chemicals that I couldn’t pronounce that were in MOST commercially produced bottles of hair cleanser. I use “all natural” toothpaste and deodorant. I learned about medicinal herbs. I began making my own bread and eating more whole foods. My consciousness shifted.
The first in my collection of dermatologists confirmed that I tested positive for an allergy to Quaternium-10 and Caine (Betaine) which are found in many shampoos, soaps and lotions. I remember, when I was first aware of these allergies, standing in the grocery store reading the ingredients of shampoo after shampoo… they ALL had these chemicals as an ingredient. What was I to do? Well… you can see what happened. I went “pooless.” I now do not use shampoo at all. I use water. (Apparently there is a “No poo” movement going on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_poo)
All of this thinking led me to feel the need to write to YOU, my fellow sufferer. What have you found works in your life to manage your eczema? What daily habits and methods have you adapted because of it? I’d like to share a few of mine with you. I truly do hope that they will also help you. Please comment with your successes and failures. My hope here is that we can help each other!
So… here are a few things that I do to manage “The Beast”:
LIMITED, SHORT SHOWERS
Alas, the dreaded shower!!!! SCARY WATER!!!!! What to do, what to do??? Well… I was recently asked this question by a writer in the UK who interviewed me about my eczema. After sharing my story with her, she asked “How do you manage a shower when your hands are in the middle of an outbreak?” My answer was: ” First, I limit the number of showers I take!” Do you really need to bathe every day? Maybe you do. Maybe you’re an artist covered in paint (oh…the thought of paint on my fingers makes me squirm!). Maybe you work a job that causes you to sweat profusely. Maybe you are constantly in the public eye, working a job that requires you to be presentable at all times…In my case, I’m a stay at home Mom with dishpan hands. I do not shower every day. I’m a pretty natural person (Earth Mama) so this does not really bother me. Our boys don’t seem to mind either.
When I DO shower (lol!) I have a few methods to my madness. If I am in the middle of one of my cotton gloved routines (Wearing gloves inside and outside to keep medicine/moisture on my fingers and potential nasties out of my open wounds), I will wear my gloves in the shower. It works out pretty well, because I’m in there washing off the gloves from the day’s journey first (of course) and because it allows me to pretend that the gloves are a second skin of sorts… a protective layer. Wearing the gloves in the shower allows me to imagine that my hands are flawless and that I don’t need to worry about how the water will feel when it hits my wounded skin.
Another method I have found works well for me, when I do not wear my gloves in the shower, is to put on my coconut oil gloves. Before the shower, I drench…I mean DRENCH my hands in coconut oil. This wondrous creation (I. LOVE. COCONUT OIL!) acts as a sort of water repellant… allowing the water that my hands come into contact with to bead up and roll off. Many of you who are fellow sufferers will understand why water on your wounds can be so scary. First of all, it can actually HURT. Then, there is the crappy after affect that can happen if you don’t immediately moisturize after you get out of the shower: AKA- Your skin instantly dries out as the water evaporates.
I have also found that taking a comb with a pointy end into the shower helps to scrape my scalp and move my hair around, when my fingers can’t do it. (Note: my no poo hair loves the coconut oil, and so far we have no problems with our shower drains or plumbing because of it)
PLANTAIN
Oh sweet, sweet plantain. A few months back I took a class on tinctures, salves and herbs. It was through this class that I discovered the wonders of a plant that is probably growing in your back yard RIGHT NOW! And they call it a weed!
Here’s an article I recently came across about Plantain:
http://www.lifeadvancer.com/this-little-weed-is-one-of-the-most-useful-medicines-on-the-planet
“Because it draws toxins from the body with its astringent nature, plantain may be crushed (or chewed) and placed as a poultice directly over the site of bee stings, bug bites, acne, slivers, glass splinters, or rashes. Bandage the area and allow the plantain to work its magic for 4-12 hours. Plantain may also be used to create a balm for emergency kits, or an infusion used as a skin or general wash.” The coconut oil I now use is an infusion of plantain and coconut oil. It is green 🙂
I have used Plantain several ways, and the best way that I have found to utilize it to help heal my eczema is most definitely a SPIT POULTICE. To make the poultice, first I find a young, tender leaf (the older leaves are fibrous, fuzzy and harder to chew). I then wash the leaf and chop it up finely with my teeth like a rabbit. I do not swish it all around my mouth, but instead keep it just behind my front teeth. Then, when I feel like I have enough chewed to cover the area I plan to apply it to, I spit it directly onto the wound.
Because I do not have the luxury of sitting (covered in my own spit) in a chair like a Plantain Princess while it works its plant magic… I have adapted to several ways of covering the poultice to allow it to heal. My favorite way is to use MORE PLANTAIN to wrap my fingers (which is where my eczema exists). I spit my poultice and then take the other half of the leaf that I didn’t chew and wrap it around the poultice and my finger. Then, I pull a Plantain seed head up by the stalk and wrap it around the leaf and my finger, tying it within itself at the end.
Note: the end of the second video is a bit awry because while I was filming, a woman fell asleep at the wheel and ran into a telephone pole on our road. She came out of it okay. I was mid-sentence when the wreck happened, so the last sentence of this video should say “Leave it on for about four hours.” 🙂
Plantain is edible. You can put it into salads and make a tea out of the steeped leaves– and more. Don’t fear it!
After about four hours, when you remove the poultice and any bandaging you have created, you will find that the Plantain has turned your red lesions BROWN. This is good news. It is not pretty, of course. It will look as if you have been digging in the Earth. The Plantain, if you have put it onto your fingertips, will most likely have gotten under your fingernails too. So what, really? Do you want to heal? Then live on with dirty looking fingers!
I have found that the brown color that the Plantain turns your eczema patch is proof of healing. Congratulations! You now have SCABS! When the brown scabs fall off (lovely) you will see an improvement in the condition of the skin below. No more ooze. Still some redness and inflammation…but MUCH better! Try it. Seriously. It is much cheaper than a prescription medication, that’s for sure! ; In fact, Nature has gifted it to you for FREE! There are a few different varieties of Plantain out there. I use Narrowleaf Plantain, because it is growing in our yard.
SLOW DOWN!
I am convinced (at this time) that the particular cause of my eczema is not a food or an allergen… it is anxiety. Stress. Low self confidence. Since the ends of my fingertips make typing uncomfortable, I often write my thoughts down in a journal. It is random notes, ideas, thoughts, things I want to remember, things I want to think more about…write about. It is chaos and disarray. I often pick it up and flip through to the nearest empty white page. It is a fine example of what I feel represents my mind at times.
I am very confident in what I have spent much time and thought thinking about when it comes to my specific case of Dyshidrotic Eczema. You see… there is no one cure. I am sorry to have to believe that, but I think it is the truth. The “Cure” is different for everyone, because we all have separate minds. What causes your mind chaos? Are you regularly stressed out?
I want to share with you my thoughts about myself and my particular case of DE. I would be delusional to think that these thoughts would resonate with every one of you. I will confidently say that in my case, the CAUSE of DE on my fingers and fingertips is most certainly a physical response to mental distress. Specifically one of anxiety and lack of confidence.
I am the daughter of a narcissistic mother. I recently read a book entitled, “You’re not Crazy, It’s your Mother.” This book describes my past. Shortly, this book and my discovery of Narcissistic Personality Disorder helped to change my life. I’ve been on a winding path of self-discovery.
I have learned that it is very common for daughters of narcissistic Mothers to have Narcissistic tendencies. Imposed and programmed into them by their Mothers. This explains so much about me. I am working each day to make sure that the last statement no longer applies. This discovery, among many other life altering events has caused my anxiety and stress levels to skyrocket. I am working each day to shed off a new layer…and that is what I see when my fingers start to peel… I’m shedding off an old layer and I will grow stronger. My skin will heal. This will not last forever.
“Take Care of Yourself.
Heal Yourself.
Set your self F R E E”
“Treat your body and your mind as one.”
“You have to heal your MIND to heal your BODY”
The above quotes are notes to self from my notebook of chaos. I have recently realized that I have to be sure to take care of my body while working so hard to take care of my mind. I can’t take care of JUST my mind. If I do that, my body suffers.
EAT (and grow!) WHOLE FOODS
The food you put into your body is so, SO important. What is your diet like? Do you cook at home? Do you eat out all the time? Are you a processed foods junkie? Surely you have noticed how people are “waking up” to discover all of the toxic crap that is placed into the commercially produced, machine spat food that we have the fantastic luxury of easy access to? I think there’s something to that. So, my family and I have adopted a “whole foods” system of eating. Whole foods=real foods. Foods that have minimal ingredients are best, of course. Foods that come from our garden, where we know that no GMO’s or pesticides have been sprayed, are our favorites. Foods that do not come processed in boxes or plastic are important for your body. Nature’s gift. Feed yourself wisely.
DRINK MORE (filtered) WATER
This is a message that my body sent me. I received the message after I put it together that I had made a routine out of drinking everything in our house EXCEPT for water. I was regularly waking up, drinking coffee all morning. Beer in the Afternoon. Wine at night. Not much water mixed in there unless I had regimented myself a bit too much stimulant. Great. Thank goodness I caught that one. How could I miss it, though? Isn’t that the question I should be asking myself? I should have been treating my body better.
Then I realized that I should have been treating MYSELF better. I have been holding on to way too much. I’ve been focusing on the bad instead of the good… holding myself down with pessimism and negativity.
You’re why you’re suffering. — A song I really connected with. (This is a great live band, too!)
I was causing my own personal Hell by allowing my focus to shift into the deep, dark hollows of that depressive state of mind. I have to refocus. I have to be strong. I cannot be afraid. I must give myself confidence. I must let my past worries go, and not dwell on them.
I must not scratch when my pores fill with itching fluid. I must watch the fluid rise, but never burst it. I must not scratch the itch. I must not wring my hands in misery. I must be strong. I must take care of myself. I must value my own self worth.
Don’t get too angry at your hands. Try, instead, to send them love and healing. In my own experience it has helped me to imagine that the ooze pouring out of my hands is the negativity itself escaping my body. I then imagine that the flaking layers of my skin is actually a shedding process. I am shedding my old, downtrodden self. My skin is getting uglier only to become more beautiful– I’m like an ugly duckling 🙂
Find your own inner peace and try your best to focus on something more positive than what you’re going through, fellow sufferers. I know ALL too well how hard it is to stay upbeat and positive when everyday life has become a struggle for you. Your hands are what connect you to the world in many ways. Through touch we connect with others. It is certainly depressing to feel as if your body has taken that away from you. Peace and an upbeat perspective have certainly helped me to overcome those feelings of sorrow and disappointment. Find what works best for you, dear sufferer, to relieve those negative emotions, thoughts and feelings. Your mind plays an important role in your health. Fellow sufferers, Take care of yourself. Heal yourself. Love yourself. Set your Self free.
I would be remiss not to mention the EXTREME love and support that my soul mate and husband has provided to me during my multiple outbreaks (and psychological traumas). When my hands were at their worst, he did the dishes, cooked our meals, fed and clothed our children, did the laundry, did the vacuuming and STILL managed to maintain our garden and farm. I am so thankful that I was playing pool that night at the bar 😉 You are a magical soul, my love.
I would also like to thank my friends over at The Doomstead Diner forum for their caring support and plethora of resources during my time of self discovery and healing. One day, I hope, there will be a chance for us to transition our online community into a thriving, real life community.
For more links, articles and resources about natural remedies to everyday ailments, natural living and more, please visit the non-profit organization that I fully support and contribute to: The SUN Project: Sustaining Universal Needs. Furthermore, if you like what you’re reading here at The Butterchurn and want to show your support, a donation to The SUN would be greatly recognized and appreciated. (We are a newly birthed non profit, so hang in there as we continue to develop our website)
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Afloat in a Boat of Misery
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on May 4, 2014
Discuss this article at the Psychology Table inside the Diner
My Dad, in an attempt to put a comedic slant on an otherwise difficult and somber occasion, is currently sitting inside a circa 1990 Egg Nog carton. Painted in red to match the room, he sits there, on tilt, rowing his egg nog boat toward a statue of the Buddha sitting in front of two gold family trees.
A favorite memory on my end, and a seemingly upbeat Up of the Bipolar, the egg nog boat was created for a middle school science project. The project was to make a moving boat out of a paper drink/milk carton. My science partner, Jeanna (a former Mrs. South Carolina) and I crafted the egg nog portion of the boat inside of the home she shared with her parents. Jeanna was absolutely stunning. Her personality matched her beauty. We painted the boat red.
Jeanna and I won the “race” that was held to see whose boat could go the fastest. We were on the news. We’d won the great carton race. My Dad and I had outfitted the boat for speed. He, the boat and I went to a local bike shop in Spartanburg, SC named “The Great Escape.” We sized the boat for a propeller and put a battery operated motor toward the back of the boat for perfect weight.
Other kids showed up with boats with rubber band motors and a penny passenger. Our boat ruled.
11 years ago my Dad, who was manic depressive, bipolar, and married to a woman incapable of expressing love, put a high powered rifle into his mouth in our family garage and pulled the trigger. The word on the small town streets among all of the volunteer firefighters I’d went to high school with was that it was the worst suicide they’d ever seen.
Side note: Ironically, Jeanna’s Mother had committed suicide years before my Dad. Her Mother was in constant stomach pain. Her Mother placed her weapon there.
Painfully I regret that I did not speak to anyone about my Father’s suicide. My Mother never spoke to me about it. 11 years later, she had barely spoken any different. I am unsure if she ever talked to my sister, who is ten years younger than me, about the subject. I have held back the need to deal with my father’s suicide for so long. This year, in a period of warp speed self-transformation and healing, I could bear it no longer to NOT deal at all, which is pretty much how I was able to cope with it on my own. It bred misery. I had to heal this wound for myself and my family.
On May 1st of this year, I woke up, ready to face the misery. Ready to cleanse myself of all things related to the pain and frustration that I’d felt over my Father’s death. How no one talked about it. How my Mother had been sitting for years with her back to the Ashes of him on “her” bookshelf.
My Mother is a Narcissist. She can be posionous. I do not respect her as the good daughter should, because I don’t feel that she has anything else to offer me as a “Mother.” I feel her exuding misery and downright, at times, wickedness wrap around me and the things I love. I mourned for her. I have moved on. When she showed up full of rage to our house hours after I’d left her this message on her cell phone:
“Hey. I just wanted you to know that I have Daddy’s Ashes. So don’t worry. Don’t freak out. They are in good hands.”
I had to look my Mother in the Eye and say to her:
“I have already let you go.”
“You cannot hurt me anymore.”
I have not yet fully mourned for my Father. The time, I thought , had come. I had decided that I was going to move the ashes of my cremated Father from my Mother’s house to our house within the urn (our house is now the house we share with Aunt Bee). I planned to spend time with him there, outside the confines of the house I’d grown up in. Much to my surprise, much less than the gift of healing and understanding was handed to me from my “family.”
My movement was not well received.
My sister became angry. I had to text her to let her know I’d moved the ashes. This is the only way to communicate with her directly, since she’s all plugged in, because it’s normal.
Supposedly she cooked up that I was going to go off and spread the ashes on my own, without anyone. She said that if I did anything with those ashes that she would never forgive me (a threat). Her further communication included belittling me as if she had more family control than I did (attempted to hold authority over me), and then trying to make me feel like a bad daughter to our Mother, who I apparently disrespected by not asking permission to heal myself in my own way, in my own time. “It was not my decision to make” was her final jolt.
I eventually had to tell her that I was no longer going to have a conversation with her through text messaging. She took this as that I didn’t want to talk to her, when ironically, that was all I wanted to do: To talk to her and not text her.
I told her, just before ending the text responses on my end, that if she wasn’t ready to deal with the subject or the topic of spreading the ashes, that it was okay. I wasn’t trying to push her. I just needed time to heal. To deal.
I had stirred the shit pot.
Now the issue was ALIVE, which had not been my intent. I simply thought that if I had a caring and loving family (a bit unrealistic) that they would understand that I just needed time to be with the ashes on my own. I held onto hope that they would trust me to have the ashes in my care. I dreamed that I’d receive family support and understanding as I tried to deal with my Father’s suicide. A dream crushed.
After my sister had fired off a few more hurtful text messages, my Mother showed up to our house. “Where’s my house key?” she said while nostril breathing like a dragon. “Yep, I thought you’d ask for it” I said, because I’d already had the vision that she’d show up to our home angry and ask for it. I shook my head, full of sorrow that my vision/assumptions about her reaction would be right, and returned from our bedroom with the key. “Who do you think you are going into MY house to steal MY HUBAND???!!!!” she yelled. For a moment, the reflection of her psychotic rage leapt out of me through my own angry nostrils, “He’s MY FATHER!” She seemed a bit taken aback to see that I had the power to retaliate her way if needed. Just after I had yelled my retort with crazy eyes wide opened, her physical response spoke to me. She looked down and to the right.
As you can read allll about in The Whoville Chronicles, there is a certain form of crazy disfunction that is evident in my Mother’s side of the family. This crazy had entered our house once before, through my Mother’s brother. My Mother and her brother grew up in a house of dark shadows. They were whipped with a cat of sixteen tails. They were the remaining children in a house ran by a brain damaged World War II Vetran with a metal plate in his head, and a woman who had once lied to her husband so that she could witness her daughter being punished.
After repeated threats to call the cops and tell them that I had stolen the urn from her house, and after numerous repetitive responses of “I had a key” I ended up outside with her. Her yelling volume did not decrease once outside. Nor did it decrease once she realized that she was having an angry fit in front of both of her grandsons.
The short version of the remainder of the attack:
I was called a bitch.
My Mother made it very clear to me that she does not like or care for my husband, the father of her grandchildren.
My Mother looked me in the eyes and yelled “FUCK YOU”
…all in front of her grandchildren.
And the most shocking: “Well guess what? He’s not even your Father.”
I thought I was going to be shedding off one huge issue related to my Father. Instead I had seemed to have gained yet another.
I regret nothing. Amazingly, moving the ashes from one family house to another family house had caused this eruption. This hidden secret? This misery my Mother had been carrying around with her for the past 33 years.
Had my Father (Daddy), been told the truth?
Had his reaction to this truth been suicide?
Was this the truth? Was she just attempting to spread more misery? Was she just angry and saying hurtful things? Essentially, I’ve been mourning the loss of LACK OF family ties, family, love and support from your own blood. The renewed hope for that longing had rejuvenated me.
My Mother is miserable. The blog preceding this one is a letter that I wrote to attempt to heal myself of the pain she has caused me in my adulthood. Her pain, misery, secrets and suffering have tortured her. She has embedded the same self-loathing, torturous nature into both of her offspring. She is manipulative and cruel. She is a narcissist. She has never received the letter (until possibly now).
If she would just have opened up to me, just spoken to me…to SOMEONE about her internal struggles, I might understand her better. Whenever I am around her, I feel her misery drag me down. She doesn’t seem to do it intentionally, but the energy is surely there.
So here I am, age 33, on a fast winding drive toward self-discovery and awakening—Motherless and potentially fatherless.
I feel as if a trip that I took to Texas with a bunch of Diners adorned me with a new sense of freedom and strength. I was among others who cared about and took an interest in our children. There were no neighbors with bored eyes, awaiting stimulus. We felt safe together. I am not sure I could have passed through the first of May 2014 as flawlessly, calmly and effectively as I did without the Diner Convocation’s unseen gifts.
I continue along this strange path I find myself on. A cleansing path. As my family and I sat on the deck of the Toothstead, we learned the news of Michael Rupperts’ suicide. Again, the twinge of pain and sickness over not dealing with my Daddy’s death turned my eyes toward the earth. We returned to SC at the end of my Dad’s birth month. After this and a few other tangled unsolved mysteries of the inner workings of my mind, I began to deal with my Father’s suicide and how it had affected my life. I was tired of cringing each time I heard the word “Suicide.” I was tired of transferring my pain over to my husband and our children unintentionally. I was ready to take the time necessary to be confident and to care for myself.
The fire has been lit although the ashes have not been spread. I must be present and open and willing to listen. To learn. To change. To grow.
Homemade Bread and a Dying Infrastructure
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on February 16, 2014
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The more aware I become of our food system and how preservatively poisonous it is, the more I desire to cook at home where I can control the ingredients. Bread was chosen among the first of the foods I learned to produce homemade. When I began making bread, I chose a recipe for a homemade bread that consisted of four simple ingredients: Water. Flour. Salt. Yeast. You’d think that mixing together four ingredients into a bowl would provide the same results, consistently. Nope. I had the worst luck. I’d mixed those ingredients into a bowl over and over and OVER again. I’d followed the recipe to the mark. Many times.
After awhile, I went rogue. I tried kneading the dough against a “no-knead” recipe. I tried different oven temperatures. I tried different amounts of cooking time. I tried different depths and shapes of scoring. I mixed flours. I changed flours. I added more yeast. On and on it went, a slew of rock hard, gooey centered, bland tasting, fall apart failures. Every now and then, I’d get a decent loaf…but I wouldn’t know what I’d done differently to achieve it. The process became a science experiment. WHY was I failing? How could I cuss up such a simple recipe?
About four months ago, my husband researched water purification systems for our home. Up until that point, we’d used PUR and BRITA brand filters on our kitchen faucet. He wanted to make sure that we were getting the most for our money. A final decision was made that we should invest in a Berkey water filter system.
Water was not something I had considered as an inconsistent ingredient to my basic recipe. Each and every time I would make bread I’d pour water directly from our kitchen sink faucet. The recipe called for tepid to warm water, so I’d adapted to turning on the hot water knob until the water was at the desired temperature.
I guess that was a bad choice considering that I now live in a house that is connected to city water. Through one of many conversations with my husband, I learned that the water systems that are set in place for most cities are OLD. The water itself, as you should know, is treated with… well…
I heard a story once about a guy who used to work at a water treatment plant. He told a troublesome tale about how he’d just “spray whatever seemed enough” of the “treatment chemicals” into the water that was being distributed to all of the residents of the city he worked for.
Nice. Regardless of the fact that I can’t cite that source, that’s quite the slap in a trusting American’s face, now isn’t it? It sure straightened my eye sight a bit.
As I was pondering over how to write this blog and tell this story, I began thinking about my history of bread making. When we owned a house in Rock Hill, SC, we had a well. I loved that we were not connected to city water because I knew that Fluoride, among other “just enough” treatment chemicals couldn’t “get us.” The bread that I made in Rock Hill was more or less consistent, so long as I stuck to the recipe and didn’t mix in too much whole wheat flour, etc.
As I look back, I kick myself for not putting it together that the water itself could have been the culprit when it came to my inability to produce a successful loaf of bread. Thankfully, I finally came to my senses. During the in between, however, I was working well to convince myself that operator error must have been the cause… and I took that anger and frustration with myself out on a many innocent failed loaves of wasted time and energy= death by chicken.
Earlier this week, I was mixing together the four ingredients my bread recipe called for. (yields two loaves)
- 3 cups of tepid water
- 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt (we use sea salt)
- 1 1/2 tablespoons of quick rise bread machine yeast
- 6 1/2 cups of flour
To make room for the mixing bowl, I had to move the gallon sized glass jug of filtered, husband provided, Berkey water from my less than desirable kitchen counter work space. As I sat the mixing bowl down, something fired inside my brain that caused my simple mind to connect that, umm…maybe I should use THAT water in my recipe?
Needless to say, I baked two perfect, beautiful loaves of bread that day. They were both eaten in about two days. Could I succeed again, or was this just a fluke? A few days later, I had produced two more loaves of beautiful, edible bread.
I am pretty convinced that the city tap water was causing inconsistent results when it came to my bread making. Yeast, after all, is alive. It is frightening to believe that the very water provided to us in a system that we’ve been raised to trust could KILL my bread! But how can I question this belief after seeing the proof “pan out” in my oven? The variables (ingredients) in my experiment were consistent– or so I thought. Who knows what dose of what chemical (or worse) I’d been mixing into my dough? No wonder I was beginning to feel a bit insane.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein“
All of those times I’d repeated the steps.
All of those ingredients I’d measured delicately.
All my efforts wasted because of the inconsistent variable in my experiment: CITY WATER. A variable that I had the audacity to believe was CONTROLLED.
If you want to try this recipe yourself, just mix together all of the four ingredients(using filtered water, of course) in a large mixing bowl. Stir them together until the flour has been absorbed into the mixture. Cover the bowl and leave it somewhere it won’t be disturbed too much overnight. In the morning, mix all of the dough into a ball in your bowl. Grease two bread pans (coconut oil is THE BEST) and separate the large dough ball into two parts. Turn each of your two smaller bread balls into each other (like you’re folding socks together), put ‘em in the pan and bake them for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
If you’re into it, I’d be happy to spend some time writing a more detailed instruction to this recipe (with photos of preparation in between) so that you can try your hand at homemade bread of your own. My focus of this blog, of course, was to imbed into you, oh wise baker, that filtered water WILL create better bread. Always.
Also, if you’re wondering, we chose to purchase the “Big Berkey” with fluoride filters and have been very happy with that choice.
This amazing system reduces bacteria, viruses, volatile organic compounds (VOC’s) and trihalomethanes to purification standards and lasts thousands of gallons. – See more at: http://www.berkeyfilters.com/berkey-water-filters/big-berkey.html#sthash.oYr2Lqju.dpuf
As a side note, I want to make sure that I mention that I had the worst outbreak from eczema that I have ever had in my life after moving to a house that was hooked up to city water. Heavy metals (Copper, Zinc, mercury, lead, Arsenic, Cadmium) are commonly found in decaying water line infrastructures. Nickel is listed among the suspected causes of my particular form of eczema: Dyshidrotic Eczema. Suspicious. I’m obviously still on the hunt for some answers to this ailment. The cause may be different for each person, but I still don’t know exactly WHY I was a victim. I feel as if that question of “WHY” should have an answer by now. The medical community has not done enough research on this matter, I fear. As I continue my search for an answer, I’ll occasionally share my thoughts on the matter in this blog through posts and comments.
Exposure to some metals, such as mercury and lead, may also cause development of autoimmunity, in which a person’s immune system attacks its own cells. This can lead to joint diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and diseases of the kidneys, circulatory system, and nervous system.–http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/water-education/quality-water-heavymeatal.htm
Nickel toxicity, specifically, was evaluated by researcheres at Michigan State University who found it presented a multi-tiered toxic attack. First, nickel causes essential metal imbalances. It severely disrupts enzyme action and regulation. Finally, it causes and contributes to a high amount of oxidative stress.–http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/metal-toxicity-health-dangers-nickel/
Our Devolving Species
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on January 24, 2014
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Social Media’s psychological grasp
I’ve recently been accused of being “crotchety” when it comes to new technology. Over the past few months, I have had to relay to new acquaintances that I do not have internet on my cell phone and if they need to contact me while I’m out of the house, Facebook isn’t a place we can both visit to correspond. Apparently, I’m an oddity.
I have always felt a strong pull toward types of old. Old ways. Old things. Old people. I appreciate their beauty. I connect with their energy. I’ve often felt that I am an old soul. The older, the more natural, the better. History. Quality.
For my 33rd birthday, I decided that as a gift, I’d like minimal contact with a computer for one week. Aaron and I had noticed a decline in our demeanor and after much discussion, we realized that the internet was causing it. We were overworked in virtual world. We had numerous sites to “check” and many interactions to respond to.
“For my 33rd birthday, I will celebrate as a person. Not an avatar.” This was my final Facebook status before I gifted a hiatus to myself.
So, on my birthday, I did not log into Facebook to receive my virtual birthday wishes. I have 700 “friends” on Facebook. Five of them contacted me outside of Facebookland.
Two of them called me. The other three texted me.
Our species is changing…for the worst. This list is an overall view of what I see and feel about the age that I live in. An age that I am apparently out of sorts within. “We” may not include you, but I bet you’ll know a few (if not many) people who fit into these groupings.
1.We are tethered.
We strap our cell phones to our hip. We interrupt those precious, in person human interactions when we are notified by our gadget that a virtual avatar is trying to speak to us instead. We feel vulnerable and out of sorts without our handheld window into the internet world.
2.What is a true community?
Overall, I’d say that we (specifically Americans) communicate with other people VIRTUALLY much more than we do IN PERSON. We buy our goods at box stores, foregoing the power of supporting our fellow man locally. We lack, and sometimes avoid, actual human interaction. We text and type, we shy away from speech. We are solitary.
3.Viewing our elderly as a nuisance.
We place our elderly into enclosed housing and don’t care to hear the tales of what they’ve learned from their past. We are much more “advanced” than they are, so what could they possibly have to offer to our technological lives? Stories about being cold and hungry? Overall, I see a theme with people my age: we tolerate our elderly. We do not respect them. We do not view them as wise. We have an inflated sense of know-it-all youth… deepening much farther into middle age than I feel is acceptable.
4.Children molded through blindness.
Us 30-somethings watched our parents work all the time to pay the bills, pay the mortgage and have one or two days off on the weekend. We learned their behavior and carried it on into our own adult lives. There’s no other choice but to work hard, all the time, and put the kids into the care of another, right? That’s just the way it is, right? WRONG.
Television also fits into this category. Television molds behavior. In public school, your kid could NOT watch television and could STILL be affected by it…because of the other children who DO watch it. The ability to be involved with (or in control of) what your child watches is crucial at an early age. Speaking to them about what they’ve watched (preferably watching it with them?) We ain’t got time for that. We’re much too busy. The boob tube has become the nanny. Meanwhile, while their tiny tushes are parked in front of the moving screen pixels, they are being molded by their new teacher.
5. Escapism through Entertainment.
A few people that I know live to be entertained. All they ever talk about are movies, television, bar adventures, gaming and the like. I have never had a meaningful conversation with any of these folks. Their outlook is always happy happy, because their number one daily action is partaking in an agreeable occupation for the mind. A diversion away from reality. This, I fear, is becoming more and more common among those once considered to be at an ADULT age. A bunch of big babies are out there driving around in their metal bullets, running on auto pilot, on their way to the next thrill…turning all the bookstores black with the soot from their exhaust.
6. Medication for your weak mind.
I don’t have a specific statistic that I can list here, but I am of the belief that over half of the people you cross while in public are probably on some sort of mind bending pill. Illegal or naught…they’re medicated. It seems to me that folks are more willing to pop a pill than do a little mind work on themselves. You know, actually take the time to focus on why they are acting a certain way? Be responsible for it? Do the hard work it takes to change it? Naaaaah… that’s too much work! Get a prescription instead. That’ll fix your woes.
I could go on with the list, but I won’t. I’m sure reading the pessimistic ramblings of a person such as myself does not bode well with your happy internet time. But that’s what we want our internet time to be, right? HAPPY!!!! Happy happy, joy joy.
I am the girl who is on Facebook because I get paid to be on Facebook. You have to sign up for a personal profile to be able to run a business page, which is what I do for another company. I also choose to use the cop out that I’m on Facebook because we have family across the country who wants to see photos. That, of course, is something that an ole’ fashioned email can easily cure. It makes me feel better to be involved with the beast to say that I’m there because I want to share images with family. It does not make me feel better to realize that I’m still a victim of the psychological grasp that social media places on us. The feeling that we HAVE TO BE on Facebook because EVERYONE wants us to be there. So we can “Keep up with each other.” So we can “Stay in touch.” TOUCH? What a joke. That requires human interaction.
I try not to get sucked into the vortex (let’s face it, it is a DEEP vortex) that is my personal page’s NEWSfeed. What a laugh. News? The articles that pop up on my feed are supposed to be from reliable sources. Laughable. Just the other day I viewed an article who’s title had been twisted and contorted and designed to GRAB more viewers. To obtain more likes. To get people to view their page, even though the article attached to the title was completely unrelated. The name of this page? “Daily Mail.” *Sigh
Alas…back to the HAPPY!!!!
The majority of the things that I see posted on my personal page’s friend newsfeed are indeed HAPPY things. People are happy they’re on vacation. They share some images. They’re grateful for the things they have, they share an image to show you their newest thing. They’re out having a blast with their beautiful, large family. More pictures. They’re eating a great meal! Hey! Here’s a photo of my plate! Happy. Happy. Happy.
Here’s the deal: I have no qualms about happiness. Happiness is needed in this cussed up society. Our world is SO far away from the natural world that it makes me mourn the loss of simplicity. Why have we become so damned complicated? We can’t even poop in the woods without being prosecuted. We can’t even be ALIVE without being forced to “comply” with purchasing health care…and if we don’t comply, we’ll be fined. Shame on you for being alive without paying for it.
My problem with the happy that is all over Facebook, in particular, is that Facebook is a virtual world where you are in control of allowing your “friends” to see what you want them to see. You may be posting happy happy all over the place, but are you really happy? Are you in reality, fooling yourself and those who see your status updates?
I’ve seen people bitch on Facebook about all of the “negativity” that they see on their newsfeed coming from those painfully awkward “friends” who may feel a little less than happy every now and again. No worries, though: you can handle that by DELETING them. So then, they no longer exist in your happy virtual world. You can continue on. You’ve solved your dilemma.
Now, let’s compare this to actual human interaction. When you’re in the physical presence of a TRUE friend, do you stop them mid-conversation and say, “Oh…you’re unhappy? Too bad. I don’t want to hear about it. I’ve stopped listening. I don’t want to have you in my life anymore. Let’s not keep up with each other’s lives anymore, okay?”
Facebook is CUSSED UP!
People live in a VIRTUAL world that they have handcrafted for themselves. I’d say that is pretty delusional, SAD and worth putting some time and effort in to think about. How can we handle the REAL world with an attitude like that? The way I see it, you just don’t. You don’t handle it. You opt out. You don’t “like” it! Easy!
Is this interpretation extreme? Maybe. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Or…if you prefer, I could post a photo of a grumpy cat instead.
I’ll tell you what I long for after my description of how I see Facbook has affected our species. I long for a group of intelligent minds. A group of critical thinkers who see the old time value of actually, physically, being in each others’ presence. Friends. I miss catching up with my friends IN PERSON.
Why is this a problem for me? Why can’t we seem to get together? Because they’re all too busy working to pay their bills. To live as they’ve been taught to live. Because they’re all so damned tired from working 8 hours a day to do anything but plug into their computer at night. Because they spend their weekends with their families– the only time they can.
I have had many conversations that have began with, “Did you see my post on Facebook about…”
Granted, a much worse beginning to a conversation could be phrased as “Did you see the new episode of” or even WORSE, “Have you seen that funny commercial where..”
Am I completely lost within my own civilization? Am I some spacial being? What is WRONG with people????? Better yet, why can’t I just play, play along? http://wp.me/p2jbNu-3j
Yes, I’ve been a bit depressed about this lately. I feel as if we are devolving instead of evolving. We’re taking a big, fat stupid step backwards. And why? Because of technology? Because of a virtual world that was created? Because of our surrogate lives?
I recently read a post (also a line that is part of normal conversation, sadly) in which a friend (a true friend) wrote: “If you knew the world was ending, would you take time to update your Facebook status?” A number of people responded, broadly, “absolutely.”
Sometimes I wish I could just pull the power plug on social media. The multi-pronged, super extension cord that is wrapped around our necks and turning our faces blue. The wires wrapped in plastic coating, perfectly bundled together to link us in. To connect us.
Estrogen Testosterone Soup
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on January 13, 2014
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Ingredients only a cauldron can hold?
I’m writing to respond to a conversation/borderline dispute that is going on over at The Doomstead Diner. The discussion of the term, “Feminazi”
Many opinions have been spouted over at The DD about the usage of this term. I’ve skimmed over a few. I’ve written my own response with minimal reading of others opinions, because I wanted to make sure that my own opinion of the word shined through my writing, without the bias of having read the opinion of others’ responses.
First of all, through my understanding, the word “Feminazi” is a combination of the words “feminist” and “Nazi.” BOTH of these words are touchy topics to write about. Feminism has many facets. I have not studied much about the liberation of Women. Perhaps that is something that I SHOULD know more about as a woman. I should know how I’m able to be free to have the same rights as the male species. I should know more about the struggles of women in the past. I should, but I don’t. I believe that this may be explained, minimally, by the fact that I have never had to feel repressed, looked down upon, or downtrodden just because I’m a female. I have not felt the need to take to the streets to fight for my right to be a person of equal rights. My life, at my age of 33, has not been affected by such matters.
The closest that I can relate to this issue is easily found through my experience with a hospital birth vs. a birth within a birthing center using a midwife. The hospital’s treatment toward me, their “customer” opened my eyes to how sad it is that the system fails us (women) when it comes to the birthing process.
I made a fleeting comment to the gallant Surly, for him not to be “butt hurt” about a drawing that I sketched out while snickering about dick and ball jokes written all in fun by the strong population of male form members at The Diner. I enjoy crude humor. Dick and ball jokes? Laughable. Most of the time I can stomach it: jokes about spunk? Nope…I’m outta that conversation, thank you. I find myself able to overlook circumstances in which men make jokes about women. It’s easy to feed those jokes backward into a reverse pattern, but why? Overall, this is something that the wrong type of feminist is unable to overlook, IMO.
There are three types of feminists that I have separated in my mind.
Feminist Type A: Has studied the journey that women have been on over the centuries. Knows the history of repression that females have fought through in the past. This feminist fights for, and will continue to fight for, the right for Women and Men to be treated equally, no matter the circumstance. Can accept and defend against sexually racist statements without getting too defensive or angry.
Feminst Type B: Has all of the abilities and knowledge of Feminist Type A, yet is unable to laugh at jokes poking fun at their specific internal reproductive organs. Takes offense easily to PMS jokes, but can throw backlash out in the form of television remote handling and other male centered comebacks. Type B is one sided. Females can poke fun at males: OKAY! Males poking fun at females? NOT okay. Not okay, indeed.
Feminist Type C: Has a distrust and overall dislike for the male species. Most of the time, this form of Feminist gets easily offended and borderline angry when a man makes a comment about a woman. Often, their understanding of said comment is twisted out of proportion.
Through the interaction with the men I’ve had in my life (friends, mostly), I’ve come to understand that most men don’t have a problem making jokes about body parts. After all, men were all, at one time, boys. I don’t have much of a problem with that myself. Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina. We are different and unique. We each fill a position in the human population necessary to continue said population. Joke as we might about PMS and high testosterone levels…we are what we are.
Mix in the fact that we all also have our own belief systems and personalities, and you’ve got a complicated mixture, for sure. Overall, we are each our own. Sometimes we’ll step on each others toes. Sometimes a male might say something that can push the wrong button in a female. Vice Versa. But whoa…swirl the testosterone and estrogen hormones into the wrong mix, at the wrong speed, or at the wrong time, and you’ve got an INSTA BATTLE soup de jour. Might as well throw your soup into a blender.
Some male and female ingredients aren’t going to taste well together. Period. (no pun intended) I don’t see much reason in attempting to make all of the worlds spices compliment each other. There are far too many psychological, environmental (and otherwise) personality traits involved with simply being human. Breaking ourselves down into male vs. female without considering personality will instantly set you up for an argument. I write this to explain: just because I’m a female doesn’t mean that I’ll always take the side of a feminist response to an argument.
We are creatures of not only our sexuality, but also of our past, our environments, our upbringing, our experiences. Simply put: Men, Women…respect the ingredients mixed into the soup. Communicate your feelings and thoughts on how to make the soup be more palatable for conversation. Tell someone when you think they’ve poisoned the soup. Wait for the soup to cool off. Try not to stir the pot too much.
The short version to understanding my thoughts:
1.Telling me I can’t do something you can because I have different reproductive organs: NOT okay. Okay, I can’t ejaculate or pee standing up (not gracefully, anyway) …but otherwise…not okay 
2.Believing that you are more of a person than I am because we carry different body parts: NOT okay.
3.Believing that you are owed special treatment as a Woman because of the Women’s Suffrage of our past is…well…kinda stupid. Get with the times. I’m sure our ancestors would tell you the same. Guess what? We’ve won most of the battle. Move on. Bask in the delight that we are living in different times, where the struggles and voices of the Women of our past have made great changes for us in the present. By dwelling on the past, you are allowing yourself to experience unnecessary distress. Be happy with the advancements.
#2 on that list brings in the term “Nazi.” From my understanding, The infamous Nazis of Hitler’s following believed in one master race. They believed that one skin color WAS more important than the other…to the extent that they believed in exterminating anyone who did not fit their belief of master race.
Overall, the term “Nazi” included into “Feminazi” is what makes it such a horrible term. It’s really a slang word that shouldn’t be used lightly. It deserves to be criticized. It should not be used loosely.
In my opinion, using a term like that loosely is like pissing on the graves of all of those who died because of one man’s psychotic and manipulative dictatorship. It is like shaking hands with all of those who were brainwashed into following such a belief. One master race. How ugly is that? Who was Hitler to decide the elite race? Who are feminazis to do the same?
The Creative Energy of Mother Nature
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on December 6, 2013
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Throughout my life, my creative energy has been a force I’ve had to learn to hold back. I constantly feel the need to create. I was once asked, “What is the one thing you have to do on a regular basis to avoid losing your mind?” My answer? “Create something.” That is the truth. I have an overpowering need to create.
My husband and I are in a sort of ballistic space in which we are free to do just that: create. Our youngest son, Harper, has finally battled through colic. My husband has decided to stay at home and chase his dream: “Ecological design”. It is up to our combined efforts to try to pay our bills without either one of us having a “real” job. We’re diving in head first.
I have crafting material that could probably stretch all the way back to our Rock Hill house. Crafties for eons. I’ve finally been handed the opportunity to make all sorts of things, and these things are erupting like fire. Recently, I made three baby bibs and a pair of infant shoes for a baby shower that I’ll be attending tomorrow afternoon. Next, I plan to make my own baby carrier for Harper. Fabrics are scattered all over our office, just waiting for me to get my hands on them. I can’t contain my excitement. Life is good!
This afternoon I had a graduation photo shoot scheduled at a local college. I arrived early to scout out locations on the campus. I rarely have photo shoots these days, so I decided that I’d “warm up” with a few nature shots. The creative bug struck me. I could not stop photographing the beauty around me. Finally… photography had returned to the release it had been years ago, before I started up my business in 2003. I was overwhelmed by the landscape around me.
The photo shoot was cancelled due to rain, but I was able to capture these images today instead.
Raw. Unedited. Straight out of camera. Filled with life, love and respect for Mother Nature’s abundant beauty.
Most of these images, as you can see, were taken of evergreens. I think I have a touch of the Christmas spirit after this shoot 
Dyshidrotic Eczema: A Malady of Concerning Cause and Effect
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on October 15, 2013
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I've been working on writing a blog about this for quite some time now. My time, however, has been occupied mostly by trying to juggle being a "new to two" mother. I've revised this blog post over and over again. Frankly, I'm tired of revising it during the short time frames in which I both have free time to write and am also not tired enough to watch some Netflix instead. So, here is a combination of what I've written over the past few months about my hands. My witchy, wrinkly, crusty, itchy hands. I'm also extremely SICK of having to talk about these hands. I'm kind of getting used to dealing with them, really. Fuck these hands. Here are some exerts from my continuous stream of writing:
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Tomorrow my lover and I plan to work. To work our job, we'll need to photograph items to post for sale on Ebay. Tomorrow, I'll be using a new set of hands to work with. For the past three months I have been struggling with an excruciating, debilitating case of dyshidrotic eczema. The fingers of my hands were so laden with this oozing, crusty, flaky, bleedy, itchy ailment that just a month ago, I could barely hold my newborn son.
I was a slave to white cotton gloves, petroleum jelly, Coconut Oil, Dial antibacterial soap and off brand Neosporin. I was a creature of an unwanted yet necessary routine:
Disinfect hands with dial soap.
Coat in Neosporin.
Coat again in White Petroleum Jelly.
Wrap in White Cotton Gloves.
Don't itch.
Don't touch anything.
The last on the list, “Don't touch anything” was the hardest step of my regimented routine. I have a newborn son, Harper Tribann. He will be fourteen weeks old this Sunday. How can a Mother not TOUCH her newborn son??? The severity of my hand eczema was so intense that it was physically painful for me to hold him. He needed me. I was distraught.
I have been through one of the most intensely painful, insanely stressful, psychological challenges of my life over the past two months. I've been struggling with severe eczema on both of my hands. It is painful. It is itchy. It is crackly and peely and oozy and crusty and not very socially acceptable. I've been stewing on how to write about this topic. At first, I thought about writing a raging blog of blame. A blog to release my outrage onto our twisted standards of normality. I wanted to blame something, someone for my ailment.
I have tried to write about how my hand eczema (dyshidrosis) has affected me, several times over the past few weeks. I've started typing, and couldn't finish because I wasn't completely healed, and therefore felt the story I was writing had no end. I finally feel comfortable enough now to feel as if the end of suffering is near. My hands, I feel, have regenerated themselves. I am convinced that the skin on my fingers has been reborn. I have baby soft, newly evolved finger skin 🙂 You can't imagine how happy it makes me feel to be able to say that. They aren't pretty…but they are diamonds as compared to their former coal state.
Am I fully in the clear? No. Not by a long shot. I still have to continue a regular routine of hydration. My hands have to be moisturized pretty much at all times. Just like a baby's skin…my hands require constant attention.
In my journey, I've learned to be glad that I was able to heal with the minimal use of corticosteroids. Corticosteroids are routinely prescribed as treatment for eczema sufferers. They have many side effects (scary ones…like steroid psychosis). Read into the side effects of corticosteroids for yourself, and you'll see why their minimal usage is the golden goose of this story. For example:
Below Source: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corticosteroid
Corticosteroids are a class of chemicals that includes steroid hormones naturally produced in the adrenal cortex of vertebrates and analogues of these hormones that are synthesized in laboratories. Corticosteroids are involved in a wide range of physiological processes, including stress response, immune response, and regulation of inflammation, carbohydrate metabolism, protein catabolism, blood electrolyte levels, and behavior.
It's got electrolytes. Perfect example of how poisoned we are.
Synthetic pharmaceutical drugs with corticosteroid-like effects are used in a variety of conditions, ranging from brain tumors to skin diseases.
Corticosteroids have been widely used in treating people with traumatic brain injury.
First known use was in 1944.
Side effects such as cutaneous addiction with the development of uncomfortable and unsightly dermatoses, can occur with just one 15 g (!!!) tube of moderate steroid over a period of one year.
I have used a HELL OF A LOT MORE than a 15g tube in a year's time. Just to let you in on just how severe an outbreak I had, I currently hold a prescription for TWO 60 g tubes of steroid creme. Corticosteroids are SCARY and should be avoided at all costs. I believe that the "unsightly dermatoses" that was listed as a side effect to overuse/addiction explains a lot about the severity of my last outbreak.
Need another example why I'm ANTI-CORTICOSTERIOID?
Use of corticosteroids has several severe side-effects as for example: steroid psychosis,[19] hyperglycemia,[20] insulin resistance, diabetes mellitus,[20] osteoporosis, cataract, anxiety,[20] depression, colitis, hypertension, ictus, erectile dysfunction, hypogonadism, hypothyroidism, amenorrhoea, and retinopathy.
The choices that the dermatologist, general practitioner and allergist gave me as treatment options were:
A.) corticosteroid prescriptions, including topical cremes and Prednisone.
B.) Suffer through it and use lots of lotion.
I won't be able to write about all of the stages of psychological distress I went through during the healing process. There are too many tales to tell. In short, I chose option B, with a few relapses out of painful desperation to option A.
The best way that I can show you a glimpse into my mind during the healing process is to simply share with you a few of my thoughts . They may seem a bit psychotic to you… That is, if you have never had to deal with eczema. If you suffer from this ailment on any level, chances are you can connect to some of the thoughts that ran through my head through the depths of this skin disease. Or maybe I just took one too many corticosteroid treatments before I decided to stop using them? 🙂
Here are a few of the things I remember thinking while my hands were at their worst.
Dyshidrosis is a psychological disorder.
Is dyshidrosis more commonly found in women with newborns?
Is this a bacterial infection?
Will I ever be able to use my hands the same way again?
Did gardening without gloves, combined with the lack of antibacterial soaps and hand sanitizer in our home cause this? (AKA: was I too much of a hippy?)
Is this a sanitation issue? (My Mother thought it was).
Has this ailment caused me to connect less with my baby (ex: not holding him enough because it hurts to use my hands to hold him), and therefore caused me to produce less breast milk?
Is there a link between eczema and fungal infections? Why do my fingernails look so disgusting?
I felt as if my stress was pouring out of my hands. My hands were itching with the force of fire. When an itching episode would emerge, it was as if I could feel the disease writhing through my bloodstream.
I was in agony.
Was I suffering from a side effect of the corticosteroids of my past? Was I dealing with the worst eczema outbreak of my life because of prescription medications that numerous doctors had prescribed me? I have no other logical answers.
Of course, the answer to my dilemma changed over time. I was so ready to have an answer to my ailment that each thing that seemed logical was instantly roped and pulley-d to the top of the reasoning flagpole.
I arrived at the following conclusions that I was satisfied with for a limited amount of time on my journey:
There's something funky in our kitchen towels.
I am allergic to Charlie's Soap.
I have a bacterial infection.
I have a gluten allergy.
Our food system has poisoned me.
I'm allergic to pretty much every modern day skin product.
I am allergic to water ( sounds hilarious, right? It felt true at the time. Trust me.)
(The majority of these false(?) conclusions were arrived at due to the placement of the eczema on my hands. It extended over my fingertips and to my knuckles on each and every finger except my thumbs.)
“We live in a toxic world.” I don't know how many times I've heard LD make this comment since we've been married.
I've struggled with eczema since childhood. It was always controllable in my youth. In my adulthood, it has steadily worsened. My eczema has most recently been a vicious beast. A beast who seeps through your skin in the form of water blisters that itch until you scratch them open. If you abstain from scratching, they will often do the task of bursting open for you. Once they are open, they begin to spread their ooze all over your skin. Growing like a culture in a petri dish. The itching is unbearable, so you eventually scratch. The beast has got you now!!!! Once you scratch, the skin is an open sore. The skin begins to crack and if you're not careful, it will begin to bleed, while oozing and scratching. My own painful, cruel, outbreak.
The past few months, my eczema was the worst it has been in my life. My fingers were swollen with edema, covered in ooze and were so cracked and bleeding that I couldn't even straighten them or form a fist. They were only comfortable in a mannequin-like pose. Fingers slightly apart and slightly curved. I could no longer do household chores around the house. I couldn't open the juice container to refill Zen's juice cup. I couldn't change Tribann's diaper without pausing to retain mind over matter when he grabbed one of my fingers or kicked another. Doing dishes was out of the question. Putting up laundry could not even be accomplished without wearing gloves, for fear of dripping ooze all over the freshly washed clothes. If I decided to wear gloves to handle these chores anyway, the gloves would often STICK TO THE OOZE. I'd have to painfully pry the gloves off of my crust infested fingers, separating the dried ooze from the cotton fibers of the glove. It HURT. No way to cover up this predicament so that I could function. I was miserable.
Nice article to read, huh? Everyone loves the combination of the words “blood, ooze, scratching, painful and cracking” in more than one paragraph, right? Eczema is an ailment that most people do not want to talk about. If they have it, they shield it from the world. They don't want others to see their socially unacceptable wounds. This is, at least, what I've heard from fellow eczema sufferers and have also experienced for myself.
For the past few weeks, I've stayed at home, keeping tasks at a minimum, trying to re-cooperate. Finally, last week, I decided that I was going to have to get out of the house and keep my mind off of this crap. I decided that I would take Zen and Tribann to the library's story time.
When one wears white, cotton gloves out in public in the middle of July…the public eye glances when you aren't looking. When you combine white gloves and a swollen, red, gypsy eye…the public eye studies you from afar behind whispers and curiosity. Can't blame them.
When a few of the mothers asked me “What's with the gloves?” I made jokes about having a job as a mime on the side. I told one woman that I was just feeling fancy that day. I followed up both of the jokes with “I have a severe eczema outbreak going on right now on my hands.” Each woman instantly began telling me about how someone they knew or loved had also struggled with this painful atopical dermatitis.
Soon, the question arose in my mind: How long has eczema been around? Has it gained steam since our soaps and cleaning products began being produced with chemical compounds we can't pronounce? Do the preservatives and ingredients of our food that are 18 letters long have anything to do with this outbreak? This is still a theory that I want to explore.
Eczema is, by the definition of Wikipedia, a “condition whose cause is unknown.”
Great.
After doing a bit of online research about Eczema, I discovered that there are multiple types. This is how I discovered “Dyshidrosis” or “Dyshidrotic Eczema.” FINALLY. I felt as if I had found the specific definition of what ails me. The photo struck a nerve. “There it is”, I thought.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyshidrosis
“It is an acute, chronic, or recurrent dermatosis of the fingers, palms, and soles, characterized by a sudden onset of many deep-seated pruritic, clear vesicles; later, scaling, fissures and lichenification occur.”
Apparently this particular form is known as “dish pan hands” around the net, as well. Having this ailment is like being allergic to water. Water actually AGGRAVATES your hands into an outbreak. Luckily for me, I married Aquaman so that he can handle and control the water for me 🙂
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Blisters may itch, cause pain, or produce no symptoms at all. They worsen after contact with soap, water, or irritating substances.
Lucid has been incredible. I repeat: INCREDIBLE during the healing process. He has stepped in to handle all of the household dishes, laundry and cleaning. Drool worthy, eh ladies?
I am convinced more and more each day that Aaron is my soulmate. He and I are so right for each other…it is a connection beyond this world. We were meant to meet (while playing pool in a bar). Our commonalities have always tipped the attraction meter. As a matter of fact, as soon as he and I spoke to each other the first time, a U2 song played on the bar jukebox. Neither one of us had selected this song. Shortly after the song started playing, he showed me his U2 tattoo 🙂 Our compatibility only grew from there. I love my husband. Want me to carry on with the mushy? I totally could. LOVE HIM! (for more reasons than the fact that he can hammer out some dishes and laundry, of course). I love him more and more each day, in a new way, through a new lens, in a different colored light.
On my “take 'er easy” break, (thanks to Aaron), Slowly my hands began to heal. I sat on the couch like a princess with my hands doused in a creme the ladies at the front counter of the doctors office had recommend (Elta Tar). I watched as Lucid HANDLED the task of being…well, pretty much a single Dad for about a week. (love him). I watched as my hands began to heal.
“There are many different factors that may trigger the outbreak of dyshidrosis such as allergens, physical and/or mental stress, or seasonal changes. “
During the healing process, I took a trip to a nurse practitioner. She, of course, tried to prescribe me corticosteroids. I am allergic to Cortisone, so it is a lose/lose battle for me to play that skin thinning game (skin thinning, being a side effect of long term use of corticosteroids). She tried to get me to accept a prescription for Prednisone. I denied it.
Aaron and I are convinced that stress (via many changes in our life at once) was the major cause of the outbreak. Mix this with chemical allergies, and you've got meat grinder hands. To avoid chronic outbreaks, I've been trying my best to keep my “mind right” and stay calm. I often tell myself to “Slow Down” and “Relax.” Practicing these methods of self control/calming have helped tremendously, but credit should also be lathered upon Aaron (again) for taking the majority of the stress away in the form of household duties. He also helped relieve lots of my stress in ahem other ways 😉 I've also begun a regimented process of using Cetaphil Lotion to wash my hands. I later up my hands with Cetaphil and then pat them dry on a hand towel. I do not wash my hands with water. I wash them with Cetaphil. It has been working! (so far). These things, mixed with nighttime dips in Elta Tar and NO SCRATCHING has seemed to tame the beast.
All in all…I'm still pretty angry at the lack of quality, natural products our culture has to offer us. Why can't I just use a SOAP to wash my hands, for cryin' out loud!?!?! Why should I have to read the ingredients of EVERY beauty product I purchase? Why can't soap be soap? *SIGH*.
We live in a toxic world!
On Monday of this week, I went to the allergist. I told him that I feared I may have a food allergy that was coming out in the form of eczema. I let him know that I believed I had dyshidrotic eczema. I showed him the Wiki article I had printed out and told him about how I had read that nickel, oatmeal and chocolate were suspected causes of the disorder. I asked him to test for every possible food allergy he could. He agreed to run a full panel on me.
I was pricked sixty times on my back.
Some of the pricks, I could immediately tell I was reactive to. I could feel an instant itch, almost like a mosquito bite. Others took awhile, but soon I could feel itching all across my back.
“Uh oh” I thought.
Uh oh was right. I was allergic to 19 out of 60 of the items included in the testing, including Milk, peanut, egg whites, Oat and dust mites….all listed in Wikipedia articles I'd read about eczema and dyshidrosis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyshidrosis
Allergic reactions of various kinds, including allergies to nickel which is present in many foods and vitamins (i.e. oatmeal, canned foods).[3] A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over study by the University Medical Center Groningen reported that dyshidrosis outbreaks on the hands increased significantly among those allergic to house dust mites, following inhalation of house dust mite allergen.[4]
Ingestion of alcohol; the dehydrating effects of alcohol may exacerbate the severity of the fissures and cracking.
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Inherited, not contagious. Often, patients will present with other types of dermatitis, such as Seborrhoeic dermatitis or atopic eczema. For this reason, among others, dyshidrosis is often dismissed as atopic eczema or contact dermatitis.
This Wednesday, I also took a trip to the dermatologist. She was not open to discuss an answer to my question about a possible link between breastfeeding mothers and dyshidrosis. She was methodical and impersonal and wrote me a script and was out the door. I was more or less DISMISSED. I later learned, after having a conversation with her nurse, that eczema was the number one ailment of all of the patients who came into their practice for treatment. I asked if she had noticed an increase in eczema sufferers in the past few years. She agreed that yes, she had noticed more patients with eczema.
Dismissed by the ministry of health, and given option A vs. B, I've thankfully been able to discuss my thoughts, feelings and theories about dyshidrosis with a close friend of mine, who also suffered a debilitating bout about a year ago. She also had a newborn at the time. She had breastfeeding issues. She also rejected corticosteroids and attempted to walk the natural path. I hope to share her story soon. Perhaps in a podcast over at the diner.
I have battled the eczema swale in a paddle boat.
Here's to hoping that I'm through the worst of the storm in this toxic world. I'll keep paddling until some of my questions and theories are answered. It's all I can do.
I took the following photos today, after moving mulch "earth" with Aaron. It had just begun raining. I often study my hands. In today's hand study, I noticed mica scattered all over my coal hands…sparkling in the new rain like diamonds.
These hands may still appear unhealthy to you. You may be wondering why I feel as if the end of the healing process is near when I carry these hands. Let this speak to you. The hands you see in this photo are so much better now than they were before…enough so, in fact, that I'm happy to show them off. I know they still aren't picturesque or "normal", but I also know that it is a relief to look down at these hands and not see something like they were before. Below are a few images that are similar to what my hands looked like. The last, of which, is a pretty similar picture of how they were toward the end. Meat grinder hands.
I am also happy to report that my magical gypsy eye no longer looks something like this:
(I did take photos of my hands and eye during the healing process. They have been misplaced. Probably a good thing for you, the viewer. I only hope that my description of them can create an even better visual picture.)
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If you also suffer from this ailment…godspeed, my friend. I recommend you visit an allergist. After much trouble shooting, as an October update to the above writing, we're fairly certain that dairy and peanuts are the main cause of my troubles. I've unwillingly removed cheese, milk, sour cream, whey, (etc in the dairy products list) from my diet. My hands are much happier about this.
A few times, I've eaten peanuts and have seen the ooze re-appear.
I still wonder if having a carpeted house has caused my dust mite allergy to erupt through my hands.
Is it a combination of my topical allergies and my diet? I'm still on the road to discovery about that theory. It is going to be a long, winding journey to get this ailment under control. But at least, at this point, I can use my hands to type my story.
Free ain’t worth the trouble. Pass the pesticides, they make me comfortable.
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
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Published on The Butterchurn on August 26, 2013
Discuss this article at the Environment Table inside the Diner
LD recently took a trip to the main county landfill to purge some of our waste (chairs that were broken and unrepairable, recyclables, etc). At his visit, he struck up a conversation with an employee of the joint about the free mulch that the county has been offering its residents.
Apparently people have stopped taking the ground mulch home. The “mulch mountain” mound has grown to the point where the county has decided that they are going to cease the mulching operation, and let the $250,000 mulching machine sit and rust.
This has caused LD and I to ask ourselves… are people just too busy to pitchfork some of this free mulch into their truck beds? Are people lazy and upset that the landfill no longer offers a Bobcat’s assistance for loading the mulch into your truck for $5 a load?
I have discovered, through my interaction with Facebook, that the issue is much bigger than we may have imagined. People are AFRAID of it.
That’s right…people are afraid of FREE organic material. Lawn waste that others have gathered and brought to the dump so that it could be both disposed of and recycled. Tree limbs, the tops of trimmed bushes, landscaping prunage…all things that would be thrown into the vast wasteland of dirty diapers, soda bottles and pizza boxes if it weren’t for the city’s mulching operation.
And that is just where this organic material will end up if residents of Spartanburg County don’t speak up and do something about the county office’s decision to shut down the mulching machine for good.
I recently posted this cry for help to the little community page I’m trying to get rolling over in Facebookland:
“TRUTH: According to a Spartanburg County Employee, our main landfill, Welford, has a $250,000 wood chipper/mulcher that will ROT unless Spartanburg County Residents DO SOMETHING about it. We need your support!
FREE MULCH is currently available, but “Mulch Mountain” is going away SOON. People who care about the Earth have begun to cultivate what will be the LAST pile of mulch created by the landfill unless residents contact their local media to let them know they are AGAINST the discontinuation of collecting Landscaping waste, leaves that you leave on your curb, bushes you’ve trimmed…all of the things the county has picked up from your curbside…will go in with the dirty diapers and other regular waste unless someone says something about this! Help us spread the word!!!!”
I was shocked at the immediate, negative responses…such as:
“Have to be careful… A lot of that free mulch contains parasites that can be harmful to your plants. Aside from that, organic material aids the landfill in breaking down garbage.”
“We used to get the mulch, now our yard is full of poison ivy, and we have to use ivy killer, which we don’t really like to do. But with the gkids we have to”
“… Unintentional seeding”
“We had an infestation of ticks one year from some of that “free” mulch..and it has huge chunks in it…free isn’t always worth the trouble…”
I asked, “What makes the trees that are chopped up and processed into mulch that you purchase different from this free mulch (which is also mostly chopped up tree limbs)?
Where do the landscaping companies get their mulch? What makes it different than the free mulch? Does anyone know?”
The one and only response so far to that question: “Isn’t the stuff you purchase treated for insects and such?? I think it is also double ground..so it is much finer without all the large chunks.”
There you have it… it seems that people blame the free mulch for unwanted, naturally occurring plants and insects. They’re flat out afraid of it and see it as poisonous….yet they’re cool with purchasing mulch that has been “treated for insects”, thus, loaded with pesticides. Does this make the purchased mulch any cleaner???
I’m really at a loss here. I’m upset for my generation and our way of thinking. Free organic material is bad, apparently. We can only trust the integrity of organic material that has been zapped with pesticides and “treatments.”
I hang my head in shame for our species. How have we separated ourselves from nature, from the Earth to this extent???
This was the only Facebook friendly response I could come up with:
“I have never heard of mulch being treated for insects, but that is a stirring thought. I’ll do a little internet research and see what I can come up with. On that thought, however, if they do treat the mulch for insects (via an insecticide) is that worse for gardening than taking the chance of unintentional seeding, poison ivy, ticks…which are all naturally occurring?”
You can’t change everyone’s way of thinking, but you can save as many as you can, as slowly as is needed…but with how much effort? Trying to deter people away from the plague of programmed thinking is exhausting. All I can do is keep putting the idea out there that…natural is always better when it comes to gardening. It has to be, right?
Looks like Earth to me!
LD’s creative tie down.
Gypsy Mulch Mountain.
Echoes of the Foxstead Future
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
Published on The Butterchurn on July 11, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
This post was written before Foxstead Chronicles #1. I had it on hold to add photos. A little out of order, but here’s a little blog about our visit with Roamer last Saturday.
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Watching Roamer and LD through the window today, my hope for the actuality of the Foxstead/Sun Project grew. After a few beers at the thrift store patio table sitting in front of the Gypsy house, the two decided to co-dig a moat for drainage out of the dry pond bed LD dug months ago. We’ve had a tremendous amount of rain the past few days, so the soil was prime for diggin’.
I watched from the kitchen window while rinsing out some breast pump appliances and freshly sanitized bottles. A few of the blankets that we use to child proof/protect our couch (we call them couch condoms) were hanging on the clothesline in the foreground, dancing in the perfect wind that had come after a few rainstorms.
The two were wielding their weapons of choice, digging effortlessly in the saturated soil. “Groundbreaking” I thought. This is a moment I must photograph…after I finish this bowl of chili while the boys are sleeping. As I stood in front of the window, shoveling the chili leftovers that LD had cooked for us at the beginning of the week, I saw him put his weapon into the sheath of the soon-to-be broken ground that laid ahead of the moat outlined by little orange flags on metal sticks (landscaping flags?). He leaned over and extracted something from the ground and then darted off around the side of the Gypsy house. I knew just where he was headed…he’d found a grub to feed to the chickens. We call those big, fat, white grubs “Chicken treats.” I’m not sure exactly what sort of insect those grubs would become if left to wiggle around beneath the soil, but I’m pretty certain that they would mature into the dreaded Japanese beetle. A garden predator. See? Digging Earth is our preventative organic pesticide.
After awhile, LD came into the house to grab one of the glass gallon jugs of water that we keep rotated in the refrigerator. He has a bit of an addiction to ICE, so as I type this, he is rumbling around in the kitchen. I’m sure soon the freezer will open and the dollar store ice trays will crack. Yep…there he goes I went into the kitchen to help him find the outdoor water glasses that I’d recently moved to the other side of the kitchen (just to fuck with him, he’d say.) He was looking for a water container to share with Roamer. Work must be getting heavy now! They’ve put down their beers and have began their water intake. The yard doesn’t know what to expect now.
Soon, the boys and I will be able to join them outside. Zen is at the tail end of his nap that began 1 hour and 47 minutes ago. I’m sure it won’t last too much longer. Little Tribann, after gurgling down just over 5 oz. of freshly pumped breast milk, is chillin’ in his little baby rocker seat in front of me. I’m using my big monkey toe to rock him. This movement is replacing the foot shake that usually accompanies a good writing session. He’s quite content…thinking about going back to sleep. He occasionally curls his fists up under his chin to get comfy…a sure sign that he’s relaxed.
I told Tribann that we’d be going outside with Dad as soon as his big brother wakes up from his nap. I think he’s excited. This baby loves the outdoors just like his Mom, Dad and brother. In fact, I think he gets a bit grumpy when he has not had enough Vitamin D. We’ve concocted an outdoor set up for our little almost 7 week old (He’ll be 7 weeks old tomorrow). He has his very own bug proof lounger to hang out in with us. It is a hand me down from his big brother. A hand me down of a hand me down, actually. We were given the Jeep stroller years ago after we wrecked our original one in a walking trail accident. Now there’s a memory I’d like to revisit for a good laugh.
The short version of the stroller Jeep accident goes like this: LD and I decided to take baby Zen for a stroll on a newly developed walking trail a few years ago. LD was always making fun of me for overloading the diaper bag…and therefore, the stroller, with baby gizmos and preventative what-if tools. I am a master at packing EVERYTHING we MIGHT need. In the middle of the three mile long trail, the rear axle on the stroller broke and was unrepairable. We had to drag that beast all the way back to the beginning of the trail. LD and I took turns carrying the bag(s) and Zen. You should have seen the looks that folks who were also out for a walk gave us when it was MY turn to drag the stroller. (I wanted to do it). Great social project for sure. It was like there should have been a hidden camera nearby.
When Zen wakes up and we venture outside today, Tribann will be all set up with padded mobile comfort and mesh bug protection. He is nice and acclimated to being outdoors already. He doesn’t whine for air conditioning. If there is no breeze, however, we do provide him with some pivoting floor fan luxuries. He loves it out there. One of the first times we took him for a stroll in the yard, he slept by the garden bed while Zen and I put transplants in the ground that LD had combed and thinned from the “Zen garden” bed’s mane.
Zen just woke up. He is a grumpy waker, that kid…just like his Mom was about 3 years ago. (I’ve since adapted to not being able to sleep until noon if I wanted to). He’s over there rubbing his face on the naked couch cushions. (See? Couch condoms.) Once the face rubbin’ stops and Tribann is finished eating at Mom’s, we’ll be able to join the makings of the Foxstead dream out there digging trenches (LD would call them swales) in the yard.
Once outdoors, Zen took to the creek developing in the yard instantly. He went into the Gypsy House, grabbed his metal shovel with a wooden post that he got for his birthday, and started scoopin’ dirt from the ditch to place it into the garden cart. A little boys’ heaven.
After about 10 minutes of diggin’ and scoopin’, Zen found an earthworm in the trench. He picked it up and began his trek over to feed it to the chickens without direction. Good stuff going on here. Good EGGS to be had here, too. Whenever those chickens start eating bug matter, their eggs turn a golden, deep orange. Our girls’ eggs are tastiest in the Summer.
Soon after the earthworm became a chicken treat, it started to rain again. The hole diggin’ ceased and the roll up doors to the Gypsy house closed for a mini-storm to roll through…producing just enough water and wind to drive us into the GH for awhile. Long enough for Zen to sneak a Grandma Cindy popsicle out of the freezer, long enough for both LD and Roamer to crack open a new beer and long enough for Mother Nature to provide a pond and trench demo. An agreed upon concensus was made for tonight’s meal of Bison and Steak to be Mexican themed. Early discussions began about lucky numbers, following your own proverbial bliss or the “intuition of your bliss — This will lead to more than what came before it” per Roamer’s definition.
“Teach Ayden how to harvest compost. Hook something up to his tractor so he can haul it off”– Roamer has begun bonding with Zen. During the rainstorm I caught him enjoying the childlike glee present in Zen…soaking up the happiness exuding from him as he tromped around in mud and dipped his head into rainwater collected in one of his yard toys…taking his magnifying glass on a bug hunt.
I joined in on Zen’s adventurous search of discovery. We gathered cucumbers around the hugelbed as LD and Roamer discussed the future next to the moat. Echoes of the future abound.
One day’s bounty.
The groundbreaking hole diggin’ team.
Diners unite.
The Foxstead Chronicles 1
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
Published on The Butterchurn on July 8, 2013
Discuss this article at the Doomsteading Table inside the Diner
The SUN Project
Sustaining Universal Needs: Journal Entry 1
I’m going to have to throw this blog up there, without putting the time I need into it to make it marketable…but I have to say, quickly (I’m a tired Mommy who can’t stay up too much later)… that the Foxstead is HERE. I’m not sure why I didn’t see it before, but here it is.
Tonight I stood in our yard, holding a sleeping Tribann. I saw our property and the surrounding land around us in a new, moonlight, light. Moonlight was not the only light out there tonight, however. These strange power surges echoed across the sky tonight too…shedding lots of new light onto this subject: “Where will the Foxstead become a reality?”
In my mind, tonight it did. It is now a reality.
When we first moved here, LD posted this blog: http://emtmusings.blogspot.com/2012/03/epiphany-now-photojournal-1.html
He knew, long before me, that we were building a future here. THIS IS THE FOXSTEAD.
I’ve also composed a quick, mental, unedited list as to where I see the future of the Foxstead emerging that I want to share. A sort of timeline, really. It may change…it is preliminary, it is a vision and I am excited…so I am typing frantically to try to get all of these ideas out there to share. I know it will take some time for these ideas to emerge, and be visible to the members of the Diner so I will have to be patient. Please be patient with me, as well, as I begin the journey into telling you why I feel the Foxstead has already been created, right before my eyes, in my own backyard.
Tonight, as I stood in our back yard holding Tribann, I saw beyond the confines of our property’s chain link fence in a new way. It was as if someone smacked me across the face, using some power electric technology…offering my bliss back, tangibly. I took the bait.
Strangely, all of this talk about “Seeing” things in a new way is ironic. I have a pretty severe case of eczema going on right now on my right eye. It is all swollen and itchy. Pretty unbearable at times. It makes my eye water constantly. Zen asks me frequently if I am crying. It’s pretty ugly. I took a few pictures of myself holding Tribann tonight. I’ll share them later so that you’ll be able to judge for yourself whether or not I have a magic gypsy eye. I’m thinking I might. It may just need to itch and weep for me to see things the way I should, sadly. I’ll have to find a way to welcome it in without such a painful emergence next time around. So…let it be said, MAGIC GYPSY EYE, you are WELCOME!!!! You don’t need to break out with eczema anymore for me to be able to see the Future more clearly.
Anyhow….when Roamer visited this weekend, we discussed how the trailer park/RV park model was THE way to begin our model. Then I realized that there is a trailer park next door to us…a bunch of tin cans and EMPTY ELECTRIC AND SEWER HOOKUPS!!!!! COME on DOWN, Diners!!!!! Reanteben? Monstaa and girlfriend? Ships ahoy, mates!
Then, I connected that RE had allowed us to make this address, this location, the center of the SUN project, which is essentially the Foxstead’s gossamer veil for the public.
Then I realized that when Roamer was here, we had shared the dream of owning a large piece of property to create a Foxstead. I was pushing wanting to own property with a Farmhouse on it. Tonight in the yard, I realized that there is a FUCKING FARM HOUSE just across the field from us. The empty, more than likely for SALE field just sitting there, waiting to be purchased.
Now…purchasing the farm house is going to be far into the future…but so will purchasing the RESTAURANT across the street from the Farm house. Anyone who pays any attention to LD and his posts knows that he loves hole diggin’ and cookin’ up concoctions. Be it ferment, mexican themed wraps, pancakes or biscuits…the man is a CHEF. Lucky me! Lucky boys, too! Aunt Bee will pretty much jump the baby gate for some of LD’s pancakes. Ask JoeP about the fermented hot sauces. Ask Roamer about LD’s mexican cookin’ and AM biscuits. We shall hold onto the dream of owning that restaurant.
Then…I see an empty field (also probably purchasable…easily purchasable, in fact. Perfect for cattle, sheep, goats and some permaculture production of nut trees and perennials using Mark Shepard’s methods as brought to “light” in my eyes via LD and Roamer.
Then, I envision a sort of English garden where sheep are the lawnmowers of our paths. The paths that connect the garden beds to the flower beds to the gypsy house.
Then I envision living in the Gypsyhouse. Then I see our current house as a converted apartment for Diners to come. Then the top garage becomes an idea for conversion into two small rental properties to bring money in to fund the diner…to promote it, to make it profitable.
THEN, those trailers next door look even more appealing for the money making profitability of the future. I think of how the owner of the trailer park is elderly. He’s knockin’ on his 80′s at least. His son is apparently planning on clearing out the trailer park to build apartments. Could we buy the land from them before that happens? DO we have enough funds to convince the elderly father and perhaps his son, to sell us the land that the trailer park sits on? Do they have a good enough relationship as to where the Father won’t sell the land to us before his eventual death? Will the son accept a decent amount of money for the land to be bought before his father’s death? These questions rolled around in my head.
Soon, I saw that we owned the trailer park. We owned the land, owned the plots, and were BRINGIN’ in the RENT from the current occupants. We spoke to one of those occupants recently. He owns his trailer, but pays $300 a month parking fees for his lot on the property, plus electric. Say we buy the trailer park…the current residents sure would be happy with their new owners if we lowered their rent to $250/month for good measure. We’d create great connections with them from the start. They’d like us. They’d be interested in what we were doing or they would move their tin can. That’s cool. More room for RE to pull in his RV!!!!!!
Anyhow…that is as far as I think I can go tonight. The screen is getting blurry through my magic gypsy eye. I need rest. Tribann is in my lap snoring, so that doesn’t help me make the process of staying awake to get my message across any easier.
So…maybe I’ll continue what else is around these parts of the Foxstead to the potential soon-to-be residents in a following blog. For now, just study the below photo that I drew out tonight with the Wacom tablet that my former rich photographer ass purchased to be super master photographer. Funny how things connect full circle. Zen.
The photo shows that across the street from our property. The blue is water. The orange is peaches, the red is danger, the green is forest, the yellow is fields (empty, and established with vegetables and edible growth), the black is road, the gray is gravel. NOTE: the land with the pond and the fields connecting to the peach fields and swamp is FOR SALE and I am in LOVE WITH IT!!!!! I plan on speaking with LD’s Mom and Dad about a co-purchase of this land.
Next image I’ll post will be of our current set up, and will show the proximity of the trailer park, farm house, LD’s restaurant and purchasable fields and restaurant.
THAT’S NOT ALL FOLKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Before I began this blog post, I began writing a little fictional tale of the future of this Foxstead. I’ll leave you with what I wrote to lure you back in to the next blog:
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This idea is going to have to be a blog, guys. I’m not sure where my “traffic” is coming from these days, but I have a feeling that a decent number of diners might stop in every now and then. The Gypsy house at the end of this hilly gravel road doesn’t see very much movement these days. I’m unsure if anyone is out there, really. Some of the more skillful minds who have survived the collapse we all knew was coming may know of some way to access the internet. We wish you were all here. Luckily, we have Haniel to take care of our server needs here at the Foxstead. He’s saved our Server’s ass more than once from Big Brother and his burly siblings. RE still receives our messages and manages to get my newest messages posted at the Doomstead Diner. He has managed to survive the great beyond so far, the old fart.
Here’s an update on what is going on at the FoxStead. The FoXStead newsletter: VoL 2: Article 3
Date: July 07, 2037
Authored by: GypsyMama and LD
GypsyMama:
Roamer is out roamin’ again. He’s put Zen and Tribann in charge of protecting his den. I hope those boys don’t burn it down. Some commune down in Arkansas hired Roamer to introduce another Earth Works Power Plant into their system. He’s still getting paid with room and board and a trade of supplies. The Oregon Trail 2037, some of us call it. I like to call it the Roamin’ Trail. He leaves here with a backpack, a cow and cart and comes back with vegetables we can’t grow in this soil, furs, little pre-petroleum perks like Twinkies and Whole Coffee beans. The Twinkies are zombie bait. They LOVE ‘EM! “Tie a Twinkie on a string and watch them swing” we like to say. The coffee beans are like pre-collapse gold to LD and I. We like to grind them in the mortor and pessel, heat up some rainwater over LD’s kitchen stove and indulge like it’s 2013. One of the last years before TSHTF (no longer only Diner code. That’s as standard as that age’s “LOL” now).
A new couple found their way here. By word of mouth, they say. We’re still a bit skeptical of them because we don’t know who sent them, but our base is so large now, it’s just hard to tell. Word of our Foxstead has apparently already spread to Colorado. That’s where they’re from, so they can’t be all bad.
We’ve set them up in one of the original trailers to the FoxStead. It’s the blue trailer behind our Gypsy House Hubb. Used to be Freddy’s Place. “Pesticide Freddy” the kids know him as. He was always spraying his roundup and seven dust on his collard greens back in the day…thought that was the only way to garden. He had no idea what us hippies were doing over here for so many years. He just figured we were young and unexperienced with gardening. He had never heard of permaculture and didn’t quite understand it when it was explained to him. He was a simple man. Poor Freddy. Those Aldi eggs sure weren’t worth the dollars they saved to try to keep that man healthy. He lost all he had to doctor bills and ended up getting kicked out of the trailer park before collapse hit because he couldn’t pay his rent. We hated to see him go. That trailer was one of the first plots we were able to buy. He was the first to leave the trailer park next to us. We took some of the Diner money and started renting out his lot and trailer each month. We began storing dry goods and lumber over there at first. A place to keep things dry, really. Then Roamer decided he was gonna take the leap, make the move, and begin working in Upstate SC. He scooped up one of the trailers for rent behind the Gypsy House. That was the beginning of our community.
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I plan to write, possibly CO-WRITE with LD a work of Fiction, the dream of the future of the Foxstead as we envision it. Hope you’ll join us for the ride. The bliss has returned.
Red, White & Doom
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
Published on The Butterchurn on July 4, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
Here we are. Another American Fourth of July. Another reason for awkward family “get togethers”. Another chance to throw some RBGH onto the grill. A free pass to pollute the air with mini fires in a tube. A chance to increase your chances to visit the ER and hang with drunk drivers, reckless rednecks missing limbs and victims of circumstance.
America
I have never truly enjoyed this holiday. Now…it would be easy to call me Un- American and to tell me that if I don’t like it, then get tha’ fuck OUT! I wouldn’t say I’m UnAmerican…just a little sickened by how our country operates. The 4th of July only adds to that sickness.
Over the past few months I’ve had the American experience of visiting BOTH of the “BUY and Large” bulk corporation outlets: Sam’s and Costco. My Father in law took my family and I to Costco to stock up on dry goods for our pantry. My Mother in law later took us to Sam’s to do the same. Both in laws have memberships to these super stores. We tailed them in and broke into the super secret bulk buying club. I felt a twinge inside my stomach to be one of the many supporters of the super club. I always wish that I could buy ONLY locally…but unfortunately, in today’s society, that is not an easy feat. So, there I was…inside the beast.
Inside each of these stores, I saw fireworks for sale…in bulk. The cheapest bulk buy for fireworks could be purchased for a mere $500. Now…what does this say about our culture? Americans will spend money on explosives to show their “love” of this country. They will spend enough on the mega fireworks pack for it to be profitable for the bulk-o-rama store to keep in stock. They will celebrate being “Free”…but do they really have their eyes opened to what this country has REALLY become? Will they ever see that they are only under the illusion of free? Will winds of change blow through in my lifetime or the lifetimes of our children?
To add further stress to this little disagreement that I have with our country’s mindset…My family is having a little southern “get together” today at my Mama’s house (yes: “Mama”). I received notice of this “celebration” via a Facebook event invite. If I go, I’ll get to eat some unhappy cow meat and baked beans. I’ll get to listen to awkward sexual jokes from my Mama’s redneck boyfriend, Rick James (no shit, that is REALLY his name. REALLY.) I’ll miss the pleasure of being oogled by his drunken redneck ass. I’ll be deprived of my Mother showing love in the only way she knows how: by buying shit and giving it/feeding it to me. I’ll miss having to chase my toddler around the yard adjacent to a busy road…without help. *sigh. Family issues, dude. The holidays always remind me of the dysfunction surrounding ours. The dysfunction that somehow only I can see…and that makes me a snobbish, big headed prude.
So why bother? Why should I show up to this last minute planned, Facebook invited event? Because I feel obligated? Because I hope that MAYBE something will be different this time? I imagine that PERHAPS I’ll be able to finally unleash my internal fury over how many issues I have to deal with because of my Mother ONTO my mother? Really tell her how I feel for once?
I feel as if my family doesn’t even know who I am anymore. This is a valid concern, as I rarely ever see them. Birthdays and holidays are usually a given…but why? Why should we pretend that we are a caring family unit? Why must we mope along and get together and play nice? How much longer will I be able to play nice?
Will we ever be able to sit around and talk about things that I feel really matter? Can we discuss our country’s failing future this Fourth of July? Perhaps discuss how corporations are genetically altering our food and causing cancer in our bodies? Maybe come up with a plan for a family reserve of food that we have grown together? Can we talk about how our country has allowed the American lifestyle to be almost completely dependent on petroleum products, oil, corn and pre-packaging? Dreams.
I have held onto hope for far too long that my family, particularly my Mother, will ever be able to change her backwards ways. I have worked for a few years now to erase the damage that I feel she has passed on to me throughout my childhood and now into my adulthood. Now that I have children, the urge to purge is becoming more and more powerful. Will I allow my children to be around someone I feel has influenced me for worse? Over HOT DOGS? When will it end?
As for America…go ahead, play-play along. Shoot your fireworks, drink too much beer, cook some poisoned meat and CELEBRATE! Pretend while you still can. Maybe I will join you, or maybe I will be the one who pisses in your potato chips with words of warning. Where does the line of sight end for people like me?
I hold onto the hope that sits on the horizon. The hope that one day I will find myself surrounded with people who believe the same things I do about our future. Perhaps one Fourth of July, I won’t have to worry about feeling obligated to celebrate a false freedom. Perhaps I will be the definition of FREE that I feel is true. Hopefully there will be others who will awaken to this new sense of freedom…and we will celebrate with fire pits cooking fresh caught fish and newly culled chicken vs. fireworks offering a few seconds of visual pleasure and a garbage bag full of ageless waste.
So…from all this, I ask you the question: What is your definition of freedom for the future?
I view freedom as living in a community on a piece of property that we own together. A piece of property that is immune from peering eyes, zombie takeovers and yearly fees. I envision freedom as a chance to live off of the land in a home that is unique to the hands of the community’s building talents. Freedom is a chance for every day to involve a bit of gardening, a touch of laughter, and a smiling demeanor, all welcomed by the morning dew.
The perfect day of freedom would include the silence of clothes drying on the clothesline, sunlight brushing our shoulders, vegetables gathered in a basket, and air flowing through an open window to an empty earthen structure.
The perfect night of freedom would be surrounded by friends, nourishment and a nearby play tent filled with sleeping children…all dreaming of tomorrow’s adventure.
Independence Day…it is coming, but it is not today.
Podcast: Gypsy Mama on Childrearing in Collapse
Off the microphones of Gypsy Mama, William Hunter Duncan and Monsta666
Aired on the Doomstead Diner on July 3, 2013
Discuss this at the Podcasts Table inside the Diner
Ask the right questions.
Retain the childlike joy we are all given.
Cultivate critical thinking.
Encourage community.
Join Monsta666, GypsyMama and WHD as we share our visions for how to prepare our children for an unpredictable future. Take the best of the past and present cultures, combine, shake and stir. How will your children’s natural lives solidify into a world where high technology and style are no longer meaningful? How comfortable can we be with our natural selves? These are all questions we will discuss in this podcast. Join us! WHO am I? WHAT am I?
Podcast: Childbirth
Off the Microphones of Gypsy Mama, WHD & Monsta
Aired on the Doomstead Diner on June 15, 2013
Discussion at the Podcast Table of the Diner
In this podcast, we discuss the differences in hospital birth vs. natural birth.
As a Mother of two boys, (one born in the hospital using an OBGYN and the other born at a birthing center using a midwife), I spoke with William Hunter Duncan and The Monsta of Doom about both experiences.
This podcast has many layers of depth. In the discussion we speak about how the hospital has more or less created a ritualistic program for all mothers who enter the labor and delivery suites.
By viewing the expectant mothers as clients, hospitals are taking more and more liberties in scaring women into scheduling or inducing unnecessary Ceasarian Sections for profit’s sake…and not for the well being of their should-be patients (not clients).
We continue to analyze the differences between the societal norm of the hospital vs. the natural process of having a child without a doctor’s suctioning device or surgeon’s scalpel of intervention. I share my opinion of the two processes as someone who has experienced both the shadows and the open window of the paradigm.
YOPP!
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
Published on The Butterchurn on June 13, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
I once owned “Horton Hears a Who” as a child (VHS, baby!) It was a short at the beginning of the full length movie, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” As an adult, I can still remember most of the words and song lyrics. I can also now deduct more meaning from the message of the film. Hope you enjoy my interpretation as of late. Amazing how everything around you can begin to change when you look at it through new eyes.
In this tale, the voice of ONE made a difference in minds of many. A single uttering of “YOPP!” opened the minds of the outside culture. A culture so thick in believing that the world they lived in did not need to change. A culture who were blindly comfortable with the way things are. They believed that this way was the ONLY way…that anyone who tried to change the status quo beliefs of their system should be shunned, deemed insane and be forced to abide and submit…or else face persecution and mental torture. Sound familiar?
I am currently becoming fond of a group of individuals who see our society through the eyes of Horton. Different. Clearly. They see a problem with the structure of things. They feel the need to share with those around them that there is more to see, if you can only open your eyes and ears. If you can essentially “WAKE UP”…If you can “YOPP!” Some of the members of the forum I have joined are not nearly as reserved as Horton. Nevertheless, we are all commonly trying to find a way to exist among the Whos. (I like to call the un-awakened whos, “sheeple”–I first heard this term used by my husband and found it appropriate for everyday use).
Horton and the Whos: Doomers and the Sheeple
Essentially, I see myself and other like minded folks (including the group I mentioned) as the “Hortons.” Gathered together as many different levels of Horton, we believe that our current way of life in America, our industrial civilization, cannot continue along its current path. We abbreviate the way things are now as “BAU” (Business As Usual). In America, our BAU consists of dependence on oil and petroleum products. Oil and Petroleum are limited resources. We have stupidly built our entire way of life around the NECESSITY of these products. Driving our cars, running our air conditioning, running our programed mouths, outsourcing our food supply, unwrapping our plastic products from their plastic containers…I could go on and on. (Google “Peak Oil” and prepare to read the Whos’ disapproving comments) OR watch THIS. We are also so spoiled to the gift that the Industrial Revolution handed to us (easily accessible everything), that we have lost the knowledge that our forefathers used to survive off the land. If you handed most US citizens a bag of dried rice they wouldn’t know how to cook it without a microwave. Americans are spoiled, spoiled, SPOILED when it comes to food products. They’re also oblivious to the harmful petropesticides that are coated in thick layers all over those food products. Most of them don’t CARE to know. BAU= will be short lived.
Horton, the main character of the movie has a large presence…but doesn’t impress this upon his fellow members of the jungle. He doesn’t go around romping and stomping and shouting his beliefs. He actually comes across as humble, polite and withdrawn. Horton has just discovered that something exists he must accept. In the movie, it’s a dust speck on a clover. In our reality, it is the collapse of the industrial civilization as we know it.
Horton, upon learning the truth about this dust speck, puts himself into a situational dilemma. He feels obligated to save the speck’s mostly clueless inhabitants (The Whos). Often unseen and unheard, this speck of dust is, at the beginning of the movie, filled with inhabitants that believe that THEIR way of life is the only way. That there can’t possibly be anything more than what they see. That BAU is alllll good….so why change? Why believe in crazy theories from a grey haired scientist (Doctor Whovee). Doctor Whovee has built a scientific structure he calls his “Who Who Scope” in an attempt to prove his theory that there is more to their world, more they could pay attention to and accept, if they could only BELIEVE. We’ll call Doctor Whovee the DOOMER of the story.
When the Whos are awakened by the CRASH of the black bottomed eagle dropping their speck of dust into a clover patch (when the sheeple WAKE UP to how the world has turned and where it is headed), they suddenly trust in the beliefs of the educated Doomer, Doctor Whovee. This is the severity of what I believe will need to happen for the majority of Americans to be able to see the future of our world as I do (umm…FUCKED UP!). What will it take to wake everyone up? …To make them see? I think that the easiest way will be the depletion of gasoline. No one will be able to drive their cars… Simple enough to cause mass chaos. The trucks that deliver our food will park = no food in the grocery stores, producing PANIC. Perhaps we will lose power for a long period of time…NO AIR CONDITIONING? STRESS. It will truly take an Earth/Clover shattering SHAKE to get some of the sheeple I have encountered to see that we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet.
And we’ll have to get past The Wickersham Brothers too:
“We’re the Wickersham Brothers.
We’re vigilant spotters.
Hot shot spotters of rotters and plotters.
And we’re going to save our sons and our daughters from you.
You’re a dastardly, ghastardly, shnasterdly, schnook,
Trying to brainwash our brains,
With this gobbledy gook.
We know what you’re up to pal.
You’re trying to shatter our morale.
You’re trying to stir up discontent.
And seize the reigns of government.
You’re trying to throw sand in our eyes.
You’re trying to kill free enterprise.
And raise the cost of figs and dates,
And wreck our compound interest rates.
And shut our schools,
And steal our jewels,
And even change our football rules.
Take away our garden tools,
And lock us up in vestibules.“
These darkened monkeys scared me a bit as a child. I didn’t really understand the lyrics of their song, but I liked repeating the big words. As an adult, I see this acrobatic trio as the voice of media, Corporations, big money, the strong arm of the law, The MAN. Essentially, you could compare them to any of the entities that tell us BAU is all good, and it would make sense to me. I hear doublethink, fear, greed, and coverup in their song now. They are fearful of the truth and are doing all they can to keep the jungle creatures COOL and focused on carrying on with their daily lives…lives covered in an invisible gossamer curtain of programming.
So how does one begin to see a Children’s movie in this light? It is my process of acceptance. Did Dr. Seuss intend these messages to be interpreted this way? I suppose we all interpret things as we want to see them.
I have just stepped onto the clover, I suppose. I’m only now becoming one of the many shouting “WE ARE HERE!”
Fire, Feminism & Collapse: Part II
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
Published on The Butterchurn on June 10, 2013
VS
Zawacki vs. Orlov in the Thrilla in Doomervilla
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
Time to continue the bottle slingin’
Upon first glance at Gail’s blog Wit’s End, I connect with the sense of artistry that we seem to share. She posts many images to her blog, all designed to help her share her thoughts both visually and textually. I’ve always been one to visualize my thoughts and am most clearly a visual learner. She also posts many images of (and in) nature…which I also connect to. I feel the most spiritual when I am surrounded by nature.
I suppose it makes sense that I can connect to a female author’s blog much faster than a male blogger’s corner of the net. However, upon inspection, there are a few less welcoming aspects to Club Orlov. Orlov’s blog typically has one or two images per post. (The Age of Limits post being an exception) His written word is shrunk by the banner of self promotion that careens down the right side of the screen. (Can’t blame the guy for trying to make some cash off of his readership, I guess).
Also…I don’t really understand the premise of naming your blog “club *insert author’s last name*.” This can easily come across as a bit egotistical…but maybe I am just not seeing the entire picture here. I mean…I DID just read the guy’s blog for the first time yesterday.
It should also be noted that I respect both authors for what they are attempting to do in the doomer community. Spread the word, share their knowledge, give us some fair warning…all that. I have just heard about Gail because of the debate I’m discussing in both this blog and the last (good thing there was a debate so that I could learn about her, right?), but I have been aware of the name “Dimitry Orlov” for a few years now. My husband (author of Epiphany Now) has been following Orlov and his blog for years. He owns most (if not all) of his books. He respects the guy, and feels that he is an intelligent voice to listen to.
Anyhow, I’m writing not to belittle the knowledge and authorship of both Club Orlov and Wit’s End…but to instead give a “newbie’s” interpretation of both authors and their messages, while also chiming in about the bit of rivalry that has seemingly arisen between them.
Onward to my response of Gail’s written word and visual stimuli:
I’ve obviously been on a “Mothering” kick, as you can see in the past few blog posts. Our second son is three weeks old today…so I suppose I have good reason to be bursting with nurture.
Gail seems to be focused on nurturing Mother Earth and protecting our throne (Nature/our shared planet) throughout her blog. When first reading Orlov’s comment about Gail being a part of the 1% via an SUV escorted tour of dead leaves…I was intrigued to find out what the hell he was talking about. Gail is highly concerned about trees dying from pollution and climate collapse in general. Valid concerns. Any one who understands that our bodies need to breathe oxygen to survive should be concerned about the future of our trees, at least. So…after reading both sides of the attack, I find Orlov’s jab and comment poke about “dead leaves” to be a bit callused.
“To be able to criticize, one must first rise above that which you wish to criticize.”- Orlov
I will state, however, that I’m not sure that all of the photos of trees and leaves that Gail posted on her blog are proof of her theory. I’m no expert in horticulture, but I’d guess that poor soil conditions might cause some of the fallen leaves, maybe even some of the disfigured, withered leaves to appear. Now, are poor soil conditions a part of the Earth’s dangerous CO2 levels that she speaks of? I’m not sure…but I’m skeptical. Maybe the trees she photographed were affected by all of the vehicles pulling up into their habitat to attend the conference? Perhaps they didn’t care for the burnt petroleum coming from their tail pipes? Just sayin’…I’m curious.
My curiosity led me to this article about Maple Tree Decline, in particular. Looks like I’ve got a point? (any correction or input is appreciated). Although I assume Gail was photographing leaves surrounding the Age of Limits Conference and not an Urban area, there is still an argument to be made about the affect of vehicles invading the habitat of these photographed trees? I’m still unsure…she did mention that all different species of trees were affected. Hmm…
Overall, I applaud Gail’s concern for nature and the dying trees and plants who are a part of it (I’m a plant lover, myself). I seem to notice that Males (especially male doomers) are more focused on the political spectrum of collapse study and debate. So there’s some basic male vs. female generalization for ya.
I admire both Orlov and Gail in their ability to share their belief systems openly. I’m just saddened to see the battle of words slung around like the wet mop used to clean up the alcoholic spillage off the bar floor after the roadhouse romp has been played out.
The beauty of free thinking and free speech, as especially pertaining to the written word, is that we can all focus on the things that concern us most. We can be passionate about these topics…but we cannot belittle those who are focused on a topic that we don’t care to pay as much attention to. That is, we can’t make fun of someone for being hellbent on saving the bees when our own belief system says that we are facing a much larger problem, say…human extinction. (Which I haven’t really researched into and at the moment, don’t really believe is a possibility within my lifetime or the lifetime of my children).
In short, don’t poke at someone’s belief system as related to the big picture of what we should be concerned about in this world. Just be glad that they are showing concern about important issues that surround us. They could just be concerned about making sure their football team beats their rivals, and nothing else. Football being a topic that I could give…maybe a pinched off shit about. Football= the little picture.
Once Gail began describing her visit to the Age of Limits conference, I instantly connected with her reasoning for attending such an event. Aaron and I wished that we could have attended the conference, wholeheartedly, however unrealistic and ambitious that wish may have been (I had just given birth at the time of the conference).
Being a 30-something child of the 80′s…I don’t find may people my age with whom I can connect with when it comes to my belief system of how I think the access to infinite resources will end. I’m still in the early stages of acceptance when it comes to understanding that collapse is coming. I’m not sure if I’d be able to give an educated opinion about how fast I believe said collapse will arrive…but I sure as Hell believe it is coming.
The infancy of acceptance.
I am at the stage of understanding, as of late, in which I’m beginning to expand my reading coverage of the topic of collapse. Before, I was just prepper hoarding useful materials that could be helpful to us when collapse hit: seeds, mason jars, needle and thread, gardening and cooking know-how. But still, no matter how deep I am into my collapse infancy beliefs, when I read Gail’s words, “No matter how peacefully collapse is internalized, it’s really lonely if you know hardly anybody else who shares that perspective.” I understood. I had felt the emotion of those words before.
I also felt hope for acceptance after reading this paragraph: “I approached the weekend as a watershed event in my own personal journey towards reconciling with the irreversible and unavoidable morass that characterizes our foolish predicament. After five years since learning about the converging catastrophes that loom in our future (indeed have already begun), I am ready to move past grief, past attempts to persuade, and on to calm acceptance…and finding something worthwhile to do with the time that remains other than track the path of decline. It was refreshing to find it’s possible to share bemused laughter at our intractable conundrum.”
Hopefully, with the support of my partner and online community, I will be able to get to the stage of true acceptance much quicker than 5 years from now… I’m thankful for those who have lived this process of awakening before me! It helps me move along through the process much more fluidly than it was for the early doomers before me. I’d imagine there is much more information out there for the new batch of Neos than there may have been before the “green” movement.
Further into reading, I saw that Dimitri Orlov’s speech was not the only one criticized by gender issues from the members of the crowd. Apparently Carolyn Baker was also approached by issues. She told a fable of a wife who practiced getting close to a tiger to help her husband overcome his PTSD rage after returning from war.
There were a few women who looked at the story from the perspective of the tiger…who they felt was abandoned and neglected of trust after the wife had achieved her goal of attaining a whisker. A strange perspective on the overall message of the story… I feel that the tiger in the story, if it felt any form of loss…was probably more upset that it wasn’t getting fed every day vs. depressed about being abandoned. I doubt that it felt betrayed. I think it might probably be more on the HUNGRY side I also feel as if the women who made this comment MIGHT possibly be animal rights activists…who are a little on the extreme side of their support of animal preservation? Are we preserving the feelings of animals now…I mean, since we know what they are thinking and how they feel and all? Sure…the tiger may very likely go through a bit of depression after the story’s wife stops coming to him daily. But…how do we not know, without being a Dr. Doolittle, that he tiger was depressed because he missed the juicy tenderloins he’d been gobbling up over the past few months?
Then there was a point made by a few women in the audience who complained of the apparent weight put on the story’s wife to perform the role of nurturer because this husband had made the decision to go to war. This husband, they complained, was putting undue pressure onto his wife by choosing to go to war in the first place…making the wife the victim of the actions of her husband and the PTSD he’d been afflicted with while at war.
Well, well well…could these women have possibly been married in the past? I find this doubtful. In my opinion, a husband and wife are a TEAM. Surely the wife and husband discussed the man’s decision to go to war in the first place, right? I mean…did he just come home one day and say, “Hey honey, pack your shit, we’re moving! Oh, and… I’m headed off to war! Hang in there while living alone! I don’t care what you think about my decision. Peace, woman!”
Here, one might argue that perhaps the husband in the story was a member of the armed forces, and that he HAD to go to war. Perhaps the decision for him to go to war had been made for him by his superior officers and the Department of Defense. But still, my point remains…didn’t the husband and wife discuss his decision to become an active member of the forces in the first place? Think they might have made that decision together? A good husband and wife would. A healthy husband and wife always communicate their true feelings and thoughts when an important decision is made that involves both of their futures. Because I feel this way, I find the audience members response to the topic of “it was the man’s decision to go to war” pretty flippin’ ridiculous and downright annoyingly feminist. In fact, it is this sort of logic that makes the word “feminist” pretty close to a slur in the minds of many.
Enter our adversary, Dimitry Orlov, and his presentation on communities. Orlov’s question and answer session was RIPE for some feminist fueled debate. Carolyn Baker’s presentation seemed to get the estrogen protection flowing…so when Dimitry spoke of communities that were patriarchal and known to carry histories of abuse among their community members…a wildfire was sure to erupt once the comments were welcomed.
Orlov’s mistake of mentioning an Amish “gunshot wound” inside a discussion involving all things domestic violence really got them going. So, when he continued into his question and answer session by discussing how Russian women believe that feminism is a failed experiment in the west…and then carried on even further to claim that the Pussy Riot women were idiots (which he may have stated to try to get a quick laugh?)…it is no wonder that the women hung around after the speech to shoot eye darts at him in their firing circle. Mr. Orlov should have spoke before Ms. Baker, I guess. At least the attackers aren’t sexually racist when it comes to picking their targets, right?
To the speakers’ defense, it must be fearfully difficult to answer any question appropriately among a group of highly passionate doomers. For instance, “Hey Dimitry! You’re facing animal rights, freedom of speech and PTSD…Fuck one, Marry one, Kill one…annnnnnnd…. GO!”
Looks like this bar fight between Gail and Orlov, as seen in their blog comments, may have started up just before “last call for alcohol.” That roadhouse was, again….RIPE for a fight!
Ripe
One thing that I have truly noticed, being new to the idea of collapse, is that those who are “aware” are also passionate. They are, in fact, usually passionate about more than one basic issue, too. I suppose it makes sense that when you are of the opinion that the entire structure for which our society is based on is set up to fail, you might want to be informed and loaded with mounds of facts to back up your claim. This requires one to be passionate about their belief. If you have researched the idea that our industrial civilization is eventually going to regress or cease to exist…and STILL believe that it will after said researching process…you know what he hell you’re talking about. You are PASSIONATE, downright LUSTFUL about your beliefs.
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Passion Flower
Passion (from the Latin verb patī meaning to suffer) is a term applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something.
The term is also often applied to a lively or eager interest in or admiration for a proposal, cause, or activity
———-
(yes…I keep using Wikipedia references…which, I am aware can be altered by just about anyone with a brain…but when I use these references, I agree with their definitions)
Note this particular Wiki definition’s Latin root: “Pati: meaning– TO SUFFER” Well, well,welllll…there we have it, doomers. We have gotten so deep into our beliefs, so deep into acquiring the TRUTH, that is, that we are destined to become passionate about said beliefs and are therefore, destined to SUFFER for them.
Sadly, this suffering will include arguments between not only those who have not yet been awakened to the truth, but also among our fellow believers…our DOOMER COMMUNITY. Let’s try to remember this the next time one of the main passionate speakers in our community has the balls to get up in front of a group of OTHER suffering, open eyed, open eared sponges to give their thoughts and emotions about topics that we all agree upon.
Can’t we all just be tolerant of each others opinions? Time to ban together, put down the broken bottles and help clean up the mess, folks. Let’s just all go have some coffee, eat a little fruit, over at The Diner and talk it out like adults.
Passion Fruit
Fire, Feminism & Collapse: Part I
Off the keyboard of Gypsy Mama
Published on The Butterchurn on June 8, 2013
VS
Orlov vs. Zawacki in the Thrilla in Doomervilla
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
The next set of blogs are my initial response to the little virtual bar fight I see going on between Stout drinking Dmitry Orlov at his blog, Club Orlov and his article, “Communities that Abide (Preamble)” vs. Pale Ale sipping Gail Zawacki’s post, “Our Revels Are Now Ended” over at her blog, Wit’s End.
Disclaimer: Before hearing about this battle between forces, I had never read either blog. I came across a description of each side’s argument inside a thread over at the Doomstead Diner Forum. I am going to attempt to read each blog, give my thoughts on the articles written by both authors, and share those thoughts with you. This might bring up some tension…but it is about time I took on a blogosphere challenge when it comes to comparison of ideas.
—————————-
Let the bottle breaking begin:
In this post, I will respond solely to Orlov’s blog. In a following post, I’ll respond to what I read in Gail’s.
The type of woman who can get so riled up about a man claiming that women who sacrificed their motherhood (raising their children) in exchange for some political activism (see: Pussy Riot) are idiots PROBABLY doesn’t have children. That would be my guess. I cannot see how someone could see a Mother who is in jail because of her political beliefs as anything other than a egotistic failure to her children.
Sure…you could think on the opposite end of the spectrum: you could consider these women to be leaders, warriors, heroes or a list of other terms related to making change in the world…but in MY opinion…it is NOT the job of a Mother to take a stand in exchange for being there to support her children. It is just irresponsible.
I have plenty of opinions about the way the world is and will become. I get agitated and passionate about these topics. But I would never riot or chance being arrested for the sake of my beliefs. I am a Mother. My responsibility is to BE THERE for my children. To teach them, mold them, answer their questions and support their decisions the best I can. Children will not understand that “Mommy made a stand for freedom and her beliefs.” They will only remember that Mommy can’t come to the “Mommy and Me” pancake breakfast. They will remember having to tell other children that their “Mommy is in jail.” They will likely place resentment on Daddy for not being able to handle the support system of actions that two parents can provide together. “Daddy couldn’t take me to the movies because he had to work”…”Daddy won’t play pretty pretty princess with me as well as Mommy could.” These are all basic reasons that would cross my mind, many, many times as a Mother when the thought ever-so-slightly entered my mind that I should go out and set fire to that statue of Ronald McDonald and then use his big red boots as a wedge to shove up the ass of all of the corporations who promote that fast food is safe and nutritious. (A few topics I might be tempted to riot against are the fast food industry and our industrial food system).
Children’s needs should always be placed before a personal agenda (political or not).
The organizer of the age of limits conference, Orren Whitten, called the group of women who were angered by parts of Dimitri’s speech and answers to their questions a sort of “Circular Firing Squad.” With this term, I can just imagine them hissing fire and throwing eye death-darts with Orlov trapped in the center. I picture this group of women (who hung around the tent sulking together after the speech was over) as a sort of teenage Clique. They were all mad at Orlov and his responses…and they wanted EVERYONE to know it. Instead of approaching him individually like adults after the speech, they gathered in their ring of fire and pouted out their lips and talked about how totally unfair it was that they had not gotten Orlov to see and agree with their point of view. What an oppressor he must be to not think that Pussy Riot was, like, totally cool.
What must be considered here is that the original speech was downsized from a three hour seminar to the length of a stack of index cards. I’m sure PLENTY of information could have been provided to avoid this entire attack if the full speech had been given. When you summarize a topic, you leave wide holes in the subject matter. Easy prey for attack. Totally easy for the Clique to circle around.
Also…a question and answer session (probably timed to leave space open for the next speaker) will not provide enough time for complete responses and supported facts and information. Loud topics such as the Pussy Riots deserve complete responses when an opinion is asked of them. It was a “pussy” move to try to get your personal beliefs across through a question and answer session. Just have a t-shirt printed next time, okay?
So…here we are…a group of individuals who have “taken the red pill.” We have educated themselves on the state of the union. We see things as they are in the world, and not as they are presented through the media. Here we are… a collective assortment of educated, informed minds…bickering with each other after a speech about the importance of COMMUNITY, and tactics on how to form one that works, together, as based on past examples throughout history. Here we are…acting like a group of angry teenage girls. GEEZ people!!!!! Be an adult! Entertain the thought of another educated individual without picking out keywords and phrases that set off your liberation-o-meter! Approach the speaker after the event, if possible. Ask him to expand on the topics that bothered you. Ask him to write a blog in response to your politely stated rebuttal to his comments. If the response still bothers you, continue to tell him why you feel he is wrong…with logical, thought out meaningful responses. Don’t make all of us others who dream of a functioning post petroleum community see how quickly you can get your panties into a wad over someone else’s opinion. Don’t SHOW YOUR ASS…in PUBLIC to the rest of us. Give us some hope? Maybe show the leaders of our belief system that men and women can function together without some fucking DRAMA?????? Quit being such whiny little Skipper dolls in front of everyone while the rest of the women in the movement still have a chance to join a community without being drilled about the fucking pussy riots and what we think of them.
Stop pouting in public and deal with it over a nice, fluffy pile of cotton candy…in private. Drown your agenda in sugar, Skippers.
Why aren’t there any Matriarchal communities? Because women, lets face it, can over-exaggerate things. We can be DRAMATIC. We are filled with hormones. We are sensitive. We are more nurturing and sympathetic to the needs of others. We are less likely to be able to kick someone out of a group or to defend ourselves from a pack of predators.
Now…I feel as if I am a pretty strong woman…but there is no way in Hell (especially a pink, glittery, sprinkle covered Hell) that I could ever see myself being a part of a community who’s main leaders were women. I DO know some strong women in my life whom I look up to, but even they do not have the genetic coding that Men do when it comes to a few of nature’s characteristics: Hunter, gatherer, protector, defender, provider. A woman might possess a few of these characteristics, but ALL of them is very unlikely. Why do you think that Xena, Warrior princess was such a hit? She was dreamily manifested by the script writers and creators to be exceptionally, genetically different from all other women. She could kick your ass, defend the villagers from your drama, track you through the woods and cook you for supper. Women just aren’t genetically bred that way. Xena was fictional.
She’ll kick Skipper’s ass and maybe Ken’s too.
With all that said…there is a place for a Patriarchal community. Men typically don’t react with their emotions first. Women do. That’s just how it is. Emotional responses can be toxic if acted upon in a fleeting moment, without being thought out first. I know that I am guilty of emotional responses. I know many other women who are, too. This is why I’d much rather have the critical thinking male handle all of the important decisions…but with consulting others first. That is to say, I don’t want a leader of my community to act upon his beliefs alone.
What a community needs is a leader (or group of leaders) who can remain level headed the majority of the time. Leaders who can analyze the situation, come up with a list of possible solutions and choose the best approach based on those tactics and the advice of others are valuable. An exceptional leader would be one who could handle all of these actions quickly if a threatening situation arose that required his sole decision.
Repression and subordination are some of the downfalls of past patriarchal communities. Now…no man is going to repress my thoughts. No woman will either. I should, as you should, always be allowed to speak your mind. Just take care in how and where you do it. I’m also not going to accept authority being held over me. I am an individual who does not conform well. I don’t like being told what I can and cannot do. The thing to remember about that last sentence, however, is that I KNOW what I can and cannot do. I can accept that I probably couldn’t kill a deer for food unless I was starving. I am thankful that I have a husband who can HUNT and PROVIDE that for me. I know that I don’t like people bossing me around only to stroke their own ego…so I work for myself. I take responsibility for my strengths and weaknesses. Subordination just…shit…probably AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN with this woman.
The natural instinct of a person when they are told what they cannot do is to prove the accuser wrong. Sometimes, you just can’t. Men and Women each have our place in this world. Men do some things better than women. Women do other things better than men. This is how it is. This is how it should be. This should not be questioned.
To summarize, I’d rather be involved in a community led by men. I get ticked off at people who show their asses to make a point like a twitty teenager. I find joy in free thinking. That joy will be not be taken away from me by any man (or woman).
So…is the Foxstead ready, yet? I am a member of the forum over at the Doomstead Diner. I am one of few commenting women there. I have to smell virtual farts and abide dick and ball jokes. I wouldn’t trade it. The men (and few women) that I have come to know and befriend over at the Diner each have their own unique characteristics that make them exquisite. On the forum, we discuss all aspects of a collapsed post-petroleum world. I am still fairly new to being “awake” about our predicament, but am learning a lot of valuable information through perusing comments and answers on the forum.
Over at the Diner, you’re allowed to say whatever you want. There is a lock on the delete button for comments. Granted…even though the delete button is barely ever used, you’d better be prepared to back up your comments. No matter how vulgar or wrong they are, your comments will remain…but you must give us all a good, logical reason for your thinking. Make us believe or understand your comment, or face the napalm
Well…I don’t really throw much napalm…but…I’m a lady
My favorite place in the diner to comment is in the SUN (Sustaining Universal Needs) thread. Here, we are all planning and discussing a way to create a money-making, sustainable community for ourselves and those we love in the event of collapse. We are searching out a spot for land (the Foxstead). We each have our individual roles. We know who can make power out of hydro and who can dig the pond the fastest. We know who our spokesman will be, who our master gardener is, who can gather the most pertinent information the fastest and who can sniff out the funds to make it all happen.
I am, (so far) the only woman involved in this project. So… when I wrote (above) that I’d much rather be in a community led by Men…I had the SUN project as a basis for this decision. The bonus to this particular group and our plans for a community? Talent. Talent abounds. Intellectual thought fires are set daily. Each member throws their own scraps of knowledge into the fire through comments. We are building a community of individuals who are stable, logical and who each carry their own important talent to the table. The dudette abides.
In a following blog, I will discuss any thoughts that arise after reading the Wit’s End blog. Interesting how reading another writer’s blog can prompt so many ideas for a blog of your own. I suppose it makes sense that the more you read, the more you’ll have to write about. Let’s see if I can get more posts up using this tactic…after I finish snuggling this baby.
Knarf plays the Doomer Blues
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