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1
Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance / Re: Meat Tax
« on: April 14, 2009, 09:46:52 PM »
what a shitstorm of absurdity.
how come no one ever does a study on infertility and veganism?
how come the most common food allergies include eggs, nuts, dairy and soy?
how come no one ever writes articles about the impact of the zillions of acres of earth forced to grow corn, or soy, and nothing else? stick that tofu tax in your pipe and smoke it.
I have no love for a system that domesticates animals and produces them in a factory.
however, I've begun to feel really sad about the way civilization (and agribusiness, and its cohorts self-hate, self-denial, and the army of green zombies) has turned folks on themselves in this way. remember the phrase, "fashion victim"?
I say we starve the civilization monster instead of ourselves and our children and grandchildren.
how come no one ever does a study on infertility and veganism?
how come the most common food allergies include eggs, nuts, dairy and soy?
how come no one ever writes articles about the impact of the zillions of acres of earth forced to grow corn, or soy, and nothing else? stick that tofu tax in your pipe and smoke it.
I have no love for a system that domesticates animals and produces them in a factory.
however, I've begun to feel really sad about the way civilization (and agribusiness, and its cohorts self-hate, self-denial, and the army of green zombies) has turned folks on themselves in this way. remember the phrase, "fashion victim"?
I say we starve the civilization monster instead of ourselves and our children and grandchildren.
2
Flora Food & Medicine / Re: Good indigenous cookbooks?
« on: April 09, 2009, 04:57:23 PM »
Miles, (or anyone else!) if you've got anything good on rehydrating and/or cooking with dried salmon eggs, please post!
I still have some and my last effort at preparing them turned out, er, kinda indigestible. I think maybe they needed some special care I didn't know about. And how would you serve them so they really taste good? I consider them a pretty precious food and I'd love to do them the honor they deserve.
I still have some and my last effort at preparing them turned out, er, kinda indigestible. I think maybe they needed some special care I didn't know about. And how would you serve them so they really taste good? I consider them a pretty precious food and I'd love to do them the honor they deserve.
6
Relationships, Partnerships & Sexuality / Re: WANTED a girlfriend to rewild with
« on: March 15, 2009, 06:43:19 PM »wild girls are overrated.
HEY!
au contraire, mon frere.
7
Common Misconceptions / Re: Rewilding Must Be Nonviolent
« on: March 13, 2009, 12:00:09 PM »I heard a story about a Navajo practice to take men returning from war straight into ceremony for three days before they are allowed back with their families. It'd probably help our societies if we did the same, reduce suicide and abuse statistics for vets.
wow. really, really, really cool.
I wonder what something like that would look like here and now?
8
Common Misconceptions / Re: Rewilding Must Be Nonviolent
« on: March 13, 2009, 11:29:48 AM »
I appreciate everyone's comments on violence. You've said my piece already.
Anger--the refrain from an 80's punk rock song (Rise, FWIW) comes to mind: "Anger *is* an energy". Anger motivates action. Anger provides fuel for change. Without anger, we'd have a big hole in the spectrum of human emotions, and when anger gets repressed, ignored, stuffed, then we've really got problems.
Civilization's daily war on life makes me angry. It gives me a restless feeling, a vacuum, it makes me search for a way to respond.
Anger--the refrain from an 80's punk rock song (Rise, FWIW) comes to mind: "Anger *is* an energy". Anger motivates action. Anger provides fuel for change. Without anger, we'd have a big hole in the spectrum of human emotions, and when anger gets repressed, ignored, stuffed, then we've really got problems.
Civilization's daily war on life makes me angry. It gives me a restless feeling, a vacuum, it makes me search for a way to respond.
Quote from: Jessica
If I didn't love the world, and life (and myself), I would feel perfectly happy living in this death culture.I totally agree, Jessica.
9
Media Reviews & Recommendations / Re: Snowshoes and Solitude
« on: March 08, 2009, 10:26:05 PM »
Maybe this thread needs redirecting to another area? Anyway. . .
I feel compelled to add, some cultures have enjoyed the benefits of highly skilled midwives, who made great use of certain kinds of technologies where modern western medicine severely lacks.
I read a really excellent book recently: Harukor, an Ainu Woman's Tale by Honda Katsuichi. Thoroughly researched, the whole first half of the book gives thorough background and information on his sources, who he talked to and the lineage of their stories. [Aiko Aoki, a modern healer and midwife of Ainu heritage, provided a lot of the inspiration for the detailed pregnancy and childbirth part of the story.]
The midwife in the story, Auntie Monashir, uses touch and highly developed intuition to determine the size and position of the baby. Through a very slow, gentle, and patient process she assists the baby in turning around from a breech position, then deftly helps the first-time mother guide a very large baby into the world without tearing the mom thru her expert hand manipulation. Afterwards she instructs her helpers how to do blood stops on the arteries in her arms and legs, to stem the blood loss when it became a problem.
Before, during, and after the birth she made prayers and offerings to the hearth, ancestral and childbirth gods. Her main tools were her hands, her intuition, her patience, her cool head, and her confidence in the will of the gods, and the state of mind/spirit that all of the above competencies and her shamanistic relationships with spirit and ancestor put her in.
Also worth noting--the woman giving birth experienced the support of an intact, indigenous, village lifestyle. She had no concerns about whether she'd made the "right" choices, no decisions to make during labor about various interventions, none of the myriad stresses of civilized life on body and soul too numerous to mention here, and had grown up trusting all the people around her attending the birth.
Just sayin', with all this talk of statistics and mortality rates, what price do we pay for those numbers? What do they even mean? What relationship do we have with death?
I've read that many cultures have a different sense of when to bestow "personhood", that before a certain age, we have a sort of "liquid life" that doesn't yet belong solidly to this world. When your culture has a whole and healthy way to frame these realities, maybe that matters more than the numbers?
I feel compelled to add, some cultures have enjoyed the benefits of highly skilled midwives, who made great use of certain kinds of technologies where modern western medicine severely lacks.
I read a really excellent book recently: Harukor, an Ainu Woman's Tale by Honda Katsuichi. Thoroughly researched, the whole first half of the book gives thorough background and information on his sources, who he talked to and the lineage of their stories. [Aiko Aoki, a modern healer and midwife of Ainu heritage, provided a lot of the inspiration for the detailed pregnancy and childbirth part of the story.]
The midwife in the story, Auntie Monashir, uses touch and highly developed intuition to determine the size and position of the baby. Through a very slow, gentle, and patient process she assists the baby in turning around from a breech position, then deftly helps the first-time mother guide a very large baby into the world without tearing the mom thru her expert hand manipulation. Afterwards she instructs her helpers how to do blood stops on the arteries in her arms and legs, to stem the blood loss when it became a problem.
Before, during, and after the birth she made prayers and offerings to the hearth, ancestral and childbirth gods. Her main tools were her hands, her intuition, her patience, her cool head, and her confidence in the will of the gods, and the state of mind/spirit that all of the above competencies and her shamanistic relationships with spirit and ancestor put her in.
Also worth noting--the woman giving birth experienced the support of an intact, indigenous, village lifestyle. She had no concerns about whether she'd made the "right" choices, no decisions to make during labor about various interventions, none of the myriad stresses of civilized life on body and soul too numerous to mention here, and had grown up trusting all the people around her attending the birth.
Just sayin', with all this talk of statistics and mortality rates, what price do we pay for those numbers? What do they even mean? What relationship do we have with death?
I've read that many cultures have a different sense of when to bestow "personhood", that before a certain age, we have a sort of "liquid life" that doesn't yet belong solidly to this world. When your culture has a whole and healthy way to frame these realities, maybe that matters more than the numbers?
10
Flora Food & Medicine / Re: Invasive species are sweet!
« on: February 09, 2009, 11:22:13 AM »
My favorite native remedy for chronic melancholia is what the famous Lakota Heyoka, Crazy Horse used: Go wild and fuck up your oppressors!
hah!
I talked to a guy who farms oysters in Willapa Bay (without chemicals), who says the invasive, non-native spartina grass makes more places to live for more animals, while most of his corporate neighbors spray all kinds of chemicals right into the water in an attempt to keep it down/wipe it out. He told me they all want to introduce a set of rules (that somehow include the spraying--???) for "organic" (or maybe they called it "sustainable", I can't remember) shellfish farming to justify their actions and make it all sound "environmentally friendly".
Like Mugwort said earlier, I often wonder when I see humans jump in to "solve the problem". Does the bay know how to "solve the problem"? Or does the bay just see change.
Someone mentioned a hillside covered with brown thistle for part of the year. I wonder what comes next there? What will grow and who will live on the hill after the thistle? Surely the hill knows.
The other day I saw a film that showed pea shoots dancing. We don't usually see them dancing, because it happens too slowly.
12
Social Technology / Re: Social Roots & Rootlessness
« on: February 01, 2009, 12:33:39 PM »
i've always wondered why people would willingly give up the people that they can rely on. personal growth aside, and proving that you can survive (which is what those 'walkabout' things are for, i think) what good does it do to rip yourself out of the ground every five years for a few more dollars? i just don't get it. . .
Yeah, I wonder a lot about this too.
I just read an article by Francis Weller on WisdomBridge.net. I thought she had some really important things to say about the technology of belonging. I can't resist. I gotta post this long quote from it:
The Roots of Our Belonging: Belonging is a fundamental need to the psyche. Belonging initiates a sequence of unfolding that drops us further and further into the world, into her folds and features. We become participants in the ritual of life rather than dispassionate spectators living “lives of quiet desperation†as Thoreau observed. Belonging confirms a sense of mattering that quiets the ghosts of exclusion and stills the questions of adequacy. After 25 years as a psychotherapist, I can tell you with no hesitation, that this culture has failed in instilling into our people a feeling of belonging. The reason I feel this is so vital to our attention is reflected in a stanza again, from William Stafford. [I think this little verse describes what the anonymity of city life does to us really well--y.d.]
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
Traditional cultures around the world have much to teach us about this fundamental need. They have developed an exquisite “technology of belonging†that carries a person throughout their lifetime, reaffirming their place within the community. This tells us something extremely important: belonging is fragile and is very prone to rupture. In other words, the felt sense of belonging requires frequent confirmation, which was the basis of ritual life among indigenous peoples. From birth, (even prior to conception) through death and into the realm of the ancestors, your place in the community was continually assured.
It is in the context of belonging that our deepest self emerges. There is a beautiful saying among a South African tribe that says, “I am, because we are.†Now think about that. I am, because we are. My sense of self is directly related to the depth of my being known, being an integral part of the whole. Contrast this with our western correlate: I think, therefore I am. Where are the others? And by others I also mean the animals, clouds, wind, rose, coyote yip, lichen, valley oak. Our sense of identity is shaped by relationship and this is predicated upon belonging. This need of the psyche to feel embedded within the holding space of multiple individuals is ancient. It was in that specific context that our psyches were shaped and it is what we expected upon our arrival here. When this familiarity is set, then the “primary satisfactions†of the soul are fulfilled. This is a critical understanding for us today.
In the absence of these primary satisfactions, (touch, comforting, embodiment, sensuous surrounds of fragrance, color, tastes, intimacies with the natural world, multiple reflections from the community) our attention moves to secondary forms of filling the need for belonging. We strive for success, wealth, prestige, we seek to gather material goods, bigger houses, multiple hummers, we become addicted to power, status or drugs, alcohol, all in an effort to fill what cannot be satisfied except through the experience of true homecoming. As our one-dimensional corporate fantasy spreads across the planet while simultaneously dislodging the social and spiritual base of traditional peoples, the clamoring for secondary satisfactions will increase, much to the pleasure of these corporate interests, but much to the dismay of our beleaguered planet. The earth cannot sustain attempts to fill the emptiness left when the essential need for belonging is aborted.
I see this as one of your central tasks: to translate your passions, your learning, and your particular strand of the thread into a new “technology of belonging.â€. . . You each carry a filament in the reweaving of the fabric of belonging and it gives me hope.
13
Transition Tech / Re: knit or crochet with plastic bags
« on: February 01, 2009, 12:02:00 PM »
I sort of get shivers down my spine imagining the horrendous squeaking sound that knitted cassette tape tape might make. . . especially in a hammock situation where it gets slowly stretched. . .aaaaaaaaaggggh!
14
Grief & Praise / Re: Murderous Airlines
« on: January 23, 2009, 12:09:48 AM »
awright, i feel about to throw up. i just receive one of those "forwarded jokes" from my own brother about a guy driving 140 mph in his beemer on the autobahn, hitting a deer, then wondering where it went.
then they show a series of photos saying "this is how you pack a 150 lb deer into a BMW convertible." then at the end of the bloody photos of the mangled deer--you don't want to know--"seems pretty safe, nobody got hurt
"
smiley wink face not mine.
machines don't give a fuck about mangling animals, just so you get there in a big goddamn hurry. i guess the people inside have become machines too.
that tops the one my mom sent me about oil drilling in the ANWR--"after all, it's just a barren wasteland!"
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
the rage. the sadness. the disgust. i don't know what.
then they show a series of photos saying "this is how you pack a 150 lb deer into a BMW convertible." then at the end of the bloody photos of the mangled deer--you don't want to know--"seems pretty safe, nobody got hurt
"smiley wink face not mine.
machines don't give a fuck about mangling animals, just so you get there in a big goddamn hurry. i guess the people inside have become machines too.
that tops the one my mom sent me about oil drilling in the ANWR--"after all, it's just a barren wasteland!"
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
the rage. the sadness. the disgust. i don't know what.
15
Stone & Bone / Re: Crow bones
« on: January 22, 2009, 05:46:18 PM »
You could try burying it. But take a little care about where and how long.
I found a seagull head on the beach last summer that still had most of the muscle and feather attached, with a really beautiful beak. I brought it home & buried him in my yard, about 8 inches deep. After 3 weeks or so I dug him back up and the skull bones were actually decaying and falling apart! Don't bones usually take forever to do that? I only have the beak and some skull bits left.
I buried it in a place where I'd sheet mulched and added lots of compost and compost tea, so I guess the soil in that area had loads and loads of scavenger-critters, to decay bone so quickly. Also, a bird skull just has such fragile, fine bones.
Penny Scout has some cool crow-feet earrings.
I found a seagull head on the beach last summer that still had most of the muscle and feather attached, with a really beautiful beak. I brought it home & buried him in my yard, about 8 inches deep. After 3 weeks or so I dug him back up and the skull bones were actually decaying and falling apart! Don't bones usually take forever to do that? I only have the beak and some skull bits left.
I buried it in a place where I'd sheet mulched and added lots of compost and compost tea, so I guess the soil in that area had loads and loads of scavenger-critters, to decay bone so quickly. Also, a bird skull just has such fragile, fine bones.
Penny Scout has some cool crow-feet earrings.