2009-05-06-1027 To be plain about my motivation: the only cash-accumulating I do with little effort or effortful commitment is, potentially, that which occurs by me writing here. We are not supposed to discuss this phenomenon in certain ways.
So, since I generated more text in writing to my mom for mother's day--I'm planning to type it in here.
I have yet to see a cent from doing this, but last I checked you have to make $100 before you can get anything.
And I have friends who, well one friend, Frank Cook (plantsandhealers.com or .org?) who just ask for donations when they need something (and when he is teaching). (He is an active teacher and many value what he shares.)
I don't have a clear vision of what I need though. So here's writing I've done recently.
Yes, my motivation to post here is not (only) $. If motive were $, then--(more effort required). and I've been posting to web sin lucro since 1995--
Perhaps if ads could be displayed by photos in picasa photo albums--
What is life without entertainment?
What is life but entertainment?
2009-05-06-0937
Dear Mom:
Happy Mother's Day! I'm in Tucker Grove County Park in Santa Barbara or Goleta. It looks like I will be walking over to Goleta Beach County Park to find out about doing volunteer work for these parks. I'm supposed to do about 17 hrs work for the ticket I got (or pay $164).
The past two days here it got very windy in the afternoon. This day seems more tame.
I have a tick bite that is rather tender--I'll have to watch it. I heard someone say their dog got Lyme Disease on the west coast--
I have many good books to read. I have two from a pile I found mouldering in the forest yesterday-- _The Nobel Prize Treasury_ from 1948 and _The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction_. I'd like to do more than read books though,
---
I just looked up Lyme Disease. The Wikipedia article cost 91k. . . Long, detailed. It's probably not lyme disease that the tick gave me, based on what I read.
It sounds like lizards can get ticks! And all the lizards in CA may be a reason there's not so much lyme disease here.
I'm in a leash-free dog area. but this is a less-used park than some closer to the coast.
I got my food stamp 'benefits' yesterday--why I'm in this part of town--
I took the bus out to the county offices and decided to explore around there in the opposite direction I went from last time.
My tentative next step is to get an address and an 805 telephone #. But with me, nothing's for sure.
Without a strong plan, I'll probably follow the volunteer work suggestion of the park host here who's over by the restrooms and playground doing garden/landscape work. Earlier a court-ordered community service guy was with him.
I'm not sure what's next--If I weren't writing you, I might not be considering that--
Probably 1st the volunteer work.
Maybe avoid getting an address or changing phone # until the need for that becomes painfully clear.
That sounds like a good plan!
Is this the evolution of frugality?
Avoidance of any commitment?
It is a beautiful day here--
And when I stop attempting to plan or implement plan--I have a lot of time to enjoy reading, walking, cooking, exercising, exploring, resting-- [yet the plan gives me places to walk to, etc.]
So! This is a good Mother's Day letter I think--
Love,
Colin
A breath and a smile
---------------end letter------------
Asunto: Introspection
2009-05-06-0800 I reed, and it is a kind of escape. As a balance, as a practice, I'll make a point to write, somewhat without concern for interesting an audience.
Wanting a purpose, direction I was, not long after waking. Why don't I have one? I have learned to doubt any purpose I develop. An old story. Driven by great goals for years, the goals achieved are not nourishing?
And so many fret about not having purpose--so then: question the idea of needing purpose. Questioning purpose is a luxury allowed when necessaries of survival are abundant.
Concretely, the question of purpose arose this AM because: do I really want to get a Santa Barbara mailing address, say at a UPS store, and start applying for work? Or do I want to wander? Would I rather work on becoming a sailor as I was before--and so on. A use of the mind I'm tired of, that wondering, questioning.
A larger purpose would be nice, would help to organize life beyond maintenance of daily pleasures, would help to guide my interactions with others, would help me be a social being.
A change has been that I completed the food stamps app process yesterday, and now have $320 + $200 more every seventh day of the month after this one for food. So I have more time to not worry about income and less motivation to look in dumpsters.
---
A doubt that any long-worked-for goal will continue to be rewarding, motivating. A doubt of ability to maintain long-term enthusiasm for--
Watching life continues to be interesting. Acting, producing, serving--anything active--
I know a few on food stamps, and others who probably are--helps to explain a few mysteries of how some I know 'support themselves'.
For me, food stamps become a sort of reward for not living with relatives--they'd be more difficult to get were I living at an address with family.
Does life ask?
----------------end Introspection-------------
Asunto: more than breathe & smile
2009-05-04-1821 I'd like to more than breathe and smile.
Tina helped me remember another reason people choose to associate with a person or community: to develop health- and life-affirming practices.
She shared with me some "Gojis - Cacao Nibs - Cashews" by NavitasNaturals.com (Novato, CA). She asked if I'd like some food when I stopped close to where she was sitting at the Oceanside Transit Ctr, feeling drawn to talk with her--
She discussed experimenting with raw food diets after I mentioned a raw foodist I had met had given me a cacao bean when I asked that raw foodist what she did if she ever felt run down. I still carry that bean. Tina said: but no, you get more energy, and described how she had more awake conscious time when she ate raw foods than she knew what to do with, almost. Tina mentioned that many people do things, it seems, that (or in order to) run them down.
I thought, "more awake, conscious time--what would I do with that?" I had jogged down the hill from Counsel Springs in record time to make the 5:45- ~6:30 sitting at Deer Park Monastery on Sunday, only because I happened to wake up early and knew it could be my last chance (I had come down later -- ~0830 -- on the previous Thursday day of mindfulness). Sleeping often seems to me a pleasureful and interesting (from the dreams) use of time.
But might it be nice to want to make use of more awake time? Might that be to be more alive?
At any rate, I realize that if the path I'm exploring appears to others to be destructive of health--if I smile and my teeth look black around the gums (among other signs)--well, potential fellow walkers would be encouraged to go elsewhere.
And the diet of the the long-time raw foodists I have met seems very good and they often are thin but healthy-looking and even radiant or vibrant, at least when speaking with me (we often are energized when speaking with others about what we care about).
Tina also shared with me some of her experiments in life--relating, I think, to what she called "glimpses", glimpses of pure love, joy. I don't quite have her words--she said something concrete--perhaps describing the experience as tingling, vibrant, radiant, [bubbling? twinkling? effervescing?] but not in those words.
She mentioned going a day without speaking, a day+ without eating, and, what she detailed most and what most appealed to me, a day without sight.
So Tina, Mirror--
And just the day before, reading Sister Chan Khong(sp?)'s _Learning True Love_, I had written down the following: Thay/Thich Nhat Hanh had asked her why she wore an ill-fitting dress--which she wore as a sort of disguise to fit in in the slums-- and he recommended she dress to look good: "A person's beauty must be seen from the outside as well as from the inside[. . .] It will encourage those who might like to join you[. . .] One's mind, actions, and dress should all communicate one's quality of being."
And here's another note from the pad while I'm at it:
Friends of CML (Community of Mindful Living?): groups.yahoo.com/group/friendsofCML
---
It seems I don't have a lot more to add. On the train to Santa Barbara, I also met Jen--that was a positive, even joyful interaction. Leaving Tina was a bit less graceful. I got to saying, right out loud, that I wonder how to make the most of meetings such as this one. I do pass on a handmade business card (a page from my notepad with name, blog url). But can we be any more deliberate in meetings such as these to help build / evolve positive culture? And while I did not say this out loud, when in an encounter like this, when it seems that we each continue to have new things to say--how does one peacefully, mindfully, gracefully, meaningfully say good-bye?
I love the buddhist bow and the gatha "a lotus for you, a Buddha to be," with a clear meeting of the other's gaze. I got a bit of that in with Jen.
Jen and
[that's as far as I got--the sun set, the wind was high along the cliffs by Shoreline Park where earlier I'd cooked garbanzos, black-eyed peas, eggs, rice, greens, in my pot & stove on a picnic grill. 75'+ tall palm trees flagging--one lost a frond; a crow, wings in, attempting to dock with another of the trees in gusts to 30 knots.
Jen and I'd been talking partly about how to guide life, decide, plan--based in spirit. We were together long enough and different enough to be silent together, She reading a Philip Larkin (?) book on prayer, me looking at newspapers I'd pulled from a trash container before meeting Tina.
And this kind of writing has an element of showing off? Who I met? That these people will speak with me, have meaningful conversation?
And I note that the greatest pain in my mind comes from--here it is from the notepad: "The relational component of mind causes most anxiety and suffering--
is dad ashamed of me?
am I rejected by dennis?
seen as worth less?"
and a tip from Michael Kimmel's site, lifebeyondtherapy.com: we/I may use compulsive behaviors to temporarily decrease anxiety.
---
So. Time to send this off and enjoy this day and what's next?
A breath and a smile,]
-----------
Asunto: In search of adventure
There is one other theme stored up. Vernon (he is [in]famous for something but I resist giving his last name since I labeled his ~location in Brightkite) and I had hours to talk--
About things to do to be more inviting to others who'd want to walk, there were many insights. Adults, as do kids, benefit from structure--
But more to do with life, we got to talking about intoxication.
So much of what adults do that is called vice has to do it seems with an escape from mundanity, a sort of search for adventure within the realms where any fear that comes up is a joyful[?] fear.
Drugs--an adventure in perception, and also a perceptual cycle. Sex. Tina's non-vice experiments. My camping out. Ray Jardine's life.
---
Jan at Quail Springs (may have) defined spiritual growth / enlightenment as becoming more and more attuned so one needs to do less and less to make joy.
At the monastery, the absence of sex, intoxicants, and entertainments as I've gotten used to them: walking to new places, reading, and so on. . . The enormous weight (for me) of the routine there, the amount of sitting still--all that may be consistent with Jan's idea, and with what one nun there shared as the process of learning to appreciate broccoli or carrot rather than candy bar.
And some guy, a lit critic or book reviewer--"to entertain the passing while" that's my nonsense approximation, but something about 'enriching time as it passes' as being, possibly, the most we can ask of anyone, of any art. And Thomas Mann's description of music and literature as existing in time, as doing just that.
how much of what people believe needs to or should be done is a sort of drama, generated, sought, or accepted in order to occupy the mind?
(the thoughts of a person who feels strongly about, is commited to, believes in nothing?)
and here insert the usual disclaimer about how privileged I am--. The usual answer: if you're privileged and suffering, "give back" (shaktirising.org), help others. . .
---- past time to go. But to complete the dump here's some _Atlas Shrugged_ that made it into the notepad, and related thoughts:
"he held his head as if he faced a challenge and found joy in his capacity to meet it."
development: are you challenged in a meaningful way?
sex as perhaps the best way to express "being in love with the fact that one exists and in this kind of world."
and this brings to mind when Tom Brown Jr's _Grandfather_ recovers meaning facing death finding joy as his body rises to supernatural potential to survive.
To meaningful adventure and work-- let's not just 'pass the while', but be as Rand's heroine when with Rearden exploring implications of the new alloy--I did not write that part down, but she wishes every moment of her life to be as pregnant, potentiated, significant as those were (more likely, we want those moments in our cycle of experience).
the wind has returned.
This moment matters, in it we are creating the new culture--when all who wish to are free to. . . responsible for. . . obligated to--
1335
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Rut; *Shared* vision; Without entertainment, what-- ?
[This is written at Grandma Ann's house in San Diego. I took the 0640 train back from Santa Barbara yesterday (-$33, -$2.50).]
A list of things to do before I leave.
Plan is to go to court on Friday. See if I can do something other than pay $381. Doing so will cost $2+$2+$8+$2.5+$2+a day maybe--until they tell me the new penalty--if there is a different one possible. Legal Aid in San Diego was helpful. They said if you plead guilty to a misdemeanor, infraction, felony--all those are criminal offenses (when applying for jobs they often ask about these).
Friday night, visit Point Loma grandparents.
Saturday?
Sunday? could go to World Beat Sangha. Not sure-- [have sort of lost that sangha love I felt before; just have Santa Barbara-ish love now.]
Monday?
. . .
Wednesday: catch the 0610am train to Santa Barbara! (-$33, -$2.50)
---
Begged David from the sangha for the ride to Escondido--
Begged a guy on the train for his paper.
Recognizing need (?) for entertainment. . . [could I talk to people?]
---
***Some time after posting that last post--
--near the top of Angostura Pass--
--I lost the cable that lets me charge my cell phone and palm/clié/pda.--
[so I type this on my old sony vaio subnotebook with fan, drive noise, laying on my back--a pulsing bass, ding from apts out back.]***
---
The next morning I noted it missing. I walked all the way back up (6-7mi rt) after hanging my pack from a line over a branch. Did not find the cable.
So I had a week+'s worth of food, but only one partial charge on my ebook reader.
---
Long ago I figured there would be a break in the [technomadic] technology at some point. [de-tech-ed]
---
I stuck it out for a little while.
---
But still, I came back (at least two+ days) before I had run out of food.
---
I did take some time to be visionary. To practice self-inquiry rather than self-escape.
---
[From the notepad:
Culture comes from energy use.
Mood, etc., from ~ (mood, state) of organisms eaten. (had eaten a wild snake).
Divine, how can I use my mind constructive?
use form, create space,
space that was right in front of noses, unseen.
]
I got to contemplating an old writing of mine, "Ten Steps to a New Vision." (because it mentions spending "40 days and nights at our desert retreat center"; because it was from a time when I was willingly visionary--when I was engaging in, not avoiding, creative thought. )
I considered that "developing a vision" wasn't the best pointer--I needed to develop a shared vision. . . (otherwise I could just be insane perhaps).
How do I develop a shared vision?
By sharing others' visions.
Whose visions can I share?
-----
[Here begins the initial attempt at writing about the visioning forced on me by lack of entertainment. The part above is a later attempt begun after realizing I'd left some parts out in what follows.]
First I thought a bit about my last post. And the Los Padres Walkers idea.
Do I really want to have others to walk with?
If I do--with whom would others want to walk? Not a whiner.
They, I ask of people with whom they are considering spending time:
- Is s/he content?
- Does s/he stay still?
- Does s/he have a vision I can share?
- Does this relate to a developmental path? [at Quail Springs: build house, grow food, make living; at Sunburst: spiritual path; mainstream society: money, career, family; academic paths; Tom Brown Jr's school and Grandfather: development of spiritual, nature awareness, caretaking ability.]
[(Are the following qualities important: is s/he) compassionate? loving? thoughtful?]
---
Develop own developmental path. . .
Many existing developmental paths:
increase in development corresponds to increase in consumption.
[e.g.: developmental paths of achieving wealth, status, fame, power.]
how to have a developmental progression that corresponds to increase in service -- service to others (enabling them to consume less?) [is consumption inherently a problem or just the type of --- ?]
[the writing went like this:
most ↑ devel ↑ consumption
how to ↑ devel ↑ serve
how serve?
serve to ↓ consumpt?
Don't know]
---
That was basically it.
I also added "perhaps sit together once or twice per day" to the 'shared spiritual path' of Los Padres Walkers. I changed 'decision making' to: "by consensus (by elders in case of emergency)".
---
I did mentally compare myself when I was dreaming of organizing, leading, world-changing (as back in 1995 - 7, as with "the being group"), to now.
---
So here is the only plan I have in the world:
(1) The replacement part I need to charge cell phone should be here soon--Monday or Tuesday. (happily I had an extra cable here (San Diego) so I could charge the ebook reader. . . [and resume reading Arthur C. Clarke.])
(2) Return to Santa Barbara.
(3) Go to interview to see if I can get Food Stamps.
(4) Get address at UPS Store or other mail box place.
(5) Get new cell phone number in Santa Barbara (805) area code.
(6) Apply for jobs--One interested me: tutoring with Americorps. Also: attending people with developmental disabilities [the location is wonderful: an ocean- and marsh-surrounded peninsula on a large campus near UCSB with many abandoned buildings. . .]. Both are part time.
The Americorps job requires written references. I may not apply in that case.
I may want experience working with people with developmental disabilities. . . so I could later be a part of a Camphill Community.
Plus, With people With developmental disabilities, as opposed to non-developmentally disabled kids, I will be serving people who are emancipated.
I think you understand.
---
The main reason I can consider working in Santa Barbara: I can walk from beach to mountain trailhead in 1:15; there is plenty of open space for camping out even within the city; there are plenty of grilles with wood chip mulch nearby (fuel) for cooking; it is a nice place.
---
If I had a ton of money?
It would probably still be time to start working [in a new way]. (probably still would be camping out?)
I do not think I'm ready to endlessly wander the forest. I may avoid any commitment to a/that 3-week walk this summer.
---
So that's it.
---
The book[s] I got to reading this past trip was Arthur C. Clarke's
_2001: A Space Odyssey_, _2010: Odyssey Two_, _2061: Odyssey Three_, _3001: The Final Odyssey_.
"HAL" is one of those chilling/astonishing _Infinite Jest_ connections my mind came up with. . .
---
So why am I destitute without entertainment? I used to think I could deal with solitary imprisonment. . .
I could dance, meditate. . .
Sing. . .
[why can Clarke create this astonishing imaginary story while I must fall asleep for an engaging release from solitary forest existence [a dream]?]
---
There is a relational component of self, of mind. It is that fifth contemplation--"the sangha eye."
---
So, these words show a bit of where I'm.
---
Without entertainment, what--?
[that I left, briefly, the mindless habit energies of my 4602Seminole rut to spend time writing here. . . (~hope?)]
---
[To be fair: there had been a growing backlog of stuff to accomplish by returning here--one main goal: getting rid of some extra winter gear I'd been carrying: 3lb sleeping bag, umbrella, . . .]
A list of things to do before I leave.
- Wash various things.
- Contact LM
- Find W2s, etc.
- Deposit check
- H202
- Tooth brush
- Notepad
Plan is to go to court on Friday. See if I can do something other than pay $381. Doing so will cost $2+$2+$8+$2.5+$2+a day maybe--until they tell me the new penalty--if there is a different one possible. Legal Aid in San Diego was helpful. They said if you plead guilty to a misdemeanor, infraction, felony--all those are criminal offenses (when applying for jobs they often ask about these).
Friday night, visit Point Loma grandparents.
Saturday?
Sunday? could go to World Beat Sangha. Not sure-- [have sort of lost that sangha love I felt before; just have Santa Barbara-ish love now.]
Monday?
. . .
Wednesday: catch the 0610am train to Santa Barbara! (-$33, -$2.50)
---
Begged David from the sangha for the ride to Escondido--
Begged a guy on the train for his paper.
Recognizing need (?) for entertainment. . . [could I talk to people?]
---
***Some time after posting that last post--
--near the top of Angostura Pass--
--I lost the cable that lets me charge my cell phone and palm/clié/pda.--
[so I type this on my old sony vaio subnotebook with fan, drive noise, laying on my back--a pulsing bass, ding from apts out back.]***
---
The next morning I noted it missing. I walked all the way back up (6-7mi rt) after hanging my pack from a line over a branch. Did not find the cable.
So I had a week+'s worth of food, but only one partial charge on my ebook reader.
---
Long ago I figured there would be a break in the [technomadic] technology at some point. [de-tech-ed]
---
I stuck it out for a little while.
---
But still, I came back (at least two+ days) before I had run out of food.
---
I did take some time to be visionary. To practice self-inquiry rather than self-escape.
---
[From the notepad:
Culture comes from energy use.
Mood, etc., from ~ (mood, state) of organisms eaten. (had eaten a wild snake).
Divine, how can I use my mind constructive?
use form, create space,
space that was right in front of noses, unseen.
]
I got to contemplating an old writing of mine, "Ten Steps to a New Vision." (because it mentions spending "40 days and nights at our desert retreat center"; because it was from a time when I was willingly visionary--when I was engaging in, not avoiding, creative thought. )
I considered that "developing a vision" wasn't the best pointer--I needed to develop a shared vision. . . (otherwise I could just be insane perhaps).
How do I develop a shared vision?
By sharing others' visions.
Whose visions can I share?
-----
[Here begins the initial attempt at writing about the visioning forced on me by lack of entertainment. The part above is a later attempt begun after realizing I'd left some parts out in what follows.]
First I thought a bit about my last post. And the Los Padres Walkers idea.
Do I really want to have others to walk with?
If I do--with whom would others want to walk? Not a whiner.
They, I ask of people with whom they are considering spending time:
- Is s/he content?
- Does s/he stay still?
- Does s/he have a vision I can share?
- Does this relate to a developmental path? [at Quail Springs: build house, grow food, make living; at Sunburst: spiritual path; mainstream society: money, career, family; academic paths; Tom Brown Jr's school and Grandfather: development of spiritual, nature awareness, caretaking ability.]
[(Are the following qualities important: is s/he) compassionate? loving? thoughtful?]
---
Develop own developmental path. . .
Many existing developmental paths:
increase in development corresponds to increase in consumption.
[e.g.: developmental paths of achieving wealth, status, fame, power.]
how to have a developmental progression that corresponds to increase in service -- service to others (enabling them to consume less?) [is consumption inherently a problem or just the type of --- ?]
[the writing went like this:
most ↑ devel ↑ consumption
how to ↑ devel ↑ serve
how serve?
serve to ↓ consumpt?
Don't know]
---
That was basically it.
I also added "perhaps sit together once or twice per day" to the 'shared spiritual path' of Los Padres Walkers. I changed 'decision making' to: "by consensus (by elders in case of emergency)".
---
I did mentally compare myself when I was dreaming of organizing, leading, world-changing (as back in 1995 - 7, as with "the being group"), to now.
---
So here is the only plan I have in the world:
(1) The replacement part I need to charge cell phone should be here soon--Monday or Tuesday. (happily I had an extra cable here (San Diego) so I could charge the ebook reader. . . [and resume reading Arthur C. Clarke.])
(2) Return to Santa Barbara.
(3) Go to interview to see if I can get Food Stamps.
(4) Get address at UPS Store or other mail box place.
(5) Get new cell phone number in Santa Barbara (805) area code.
(6) Apply for jobs--One interested me: tutoring with Americorps. Also: attending people with developmental disabilities [the location is wonderful: an ocean- and marsh-surrounded peninsula on a large campus near UCSB with many abandoned buildings. . .]. Both are part time.
The Americorps job requires written references. I may not apply in that case.
I may want experience working with people with developmental disabilities. . . so I could later be a part of a Camphill Community.
Plus, With people With developmental disabilities, as opposed to non-developmentally disabled kids, I will be serving people who are emancipated.
I think you understand.
---
The main reason I can consider working in Santa Barbara: I can walk from beach to mountain trailhead in 1:15; there is plenty of open space for camping out even within the city; there are plenty of grilles with wood chip mulch nearby (fuel) for cooking; it is a nice place.
---
If I had a ton of money?
It would probably still be time to start working [in a new way]. (probably still would be camping out?)
I do not think I'm ready to endlessly wander the forest. I may avoid any commitment to a/that 3-week walk this summer.
---
So that's it.
---
The book[s] I got to reading this past trip was Arthur C. Clarke's
_2001: A Space Odyssey_, _2010: Odyssey Two_, _2061: Odyssey Three_, _3001: The Final Odyssey_.
"HAL" is one of those chilling/astonishing _Infinite Jest_ connections my mind came up with. . .
---
So why am I destitute without entertainment? I used to think I could deal with solitary imprisonment. . .
I could dance, meditate. . .
Sing. . .
[why can Clarke create this astonishing imaginary story while I must fall asleep for an engaging release from solitary forest existence [a dream]?]
---
There is a relational component of self, of mind. It is that fifth contemplation--"the sangha eye."
---
So, these words show a bit of where I'm.
---
Without entertainment, what--?
[that I left, briefly, the mindless habit energies of my 4602Seminole rut to spend time writing here. . . (~hope?)]
---
[To be fair: there had been a growing backlog of stuff to accomplish by returning here--one main goal: getting rid of some extra winter gear I'd been carrying: 3lb sleeping bag, umbrella, . . .]
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
stopping, breathing, smiling, acting
[I stopped on the way up from 205' (Stevens Park) to 3390' (Angostura Pass) to not just focus on breathing and smiling (haven't been?), to say hi!]
We have arrived, we are home. Abide here, between heartbeats, between breaths.
I was in Santa Barbara for three nights and now am back in the hills.
In the five contemplations before eating, there is this:
"5. We accept this food so that we may nurture our sisterhood and brotherhood, strengthen our sangha, and nourish our ideal of serving all beings."
Everything can be seen as eating--eating of life. Though I'm often alone out here, I do consider how my actions can strengthen our sangha.
One way: writing a bit of what I learn. Much of it cannot be written. By going through repeated cycles of cooking, of eating, of sleeping, of weather, of trails, of walking, of resting, reading, repairing, resupplying, route choosing and finding--of leaving car-land and returning there and dwelling, urban houseless--of emailing, Internetting, and of leaving that behind--of discoveries found only because I walk--of frustrations, compulsions, recovery from and watching these, and of renewal of the feeling of love for wandering, for waking up another day somewhere I've never woken up before, a day ahead of--?.
The main lessons (? --from the 12 or so days out):
1. Bring or hunt more animal protein. Previous trip had one egg per day. For this one: two+ per day. Plus I scavenged a lot of animal foods while in town--and still have about 1lb Vons meatloaf, pounds of various cheeses (mascarpone, fontina). No sour cream this time, but the 4 lbs of non-Altadeena s.c. (trader joe's) worked well for me [last trip].
Because I am buying for a week or two at a time, I could now do more controlled dietary planning in terms of getting recommended amounts of fat, protein, etc.
2. Plan for three meals per day.
I did not move this last trip for ~6 days: I had one camp, read _Infinite Jest_, began to reread it, [then left,] began _Hamlet_.
Reading _IJ_ took a long time. 4+ days straight (and I was already a good ways into it). While the sun didn't exactly yo-yo, it was a bit as if I was on a multi-day drug binge or had succumbed to "the entertainment".
And it is designed to be re-read, a different book the second time. And attempting to understand the gestalt behind the work--the mind chews on the events of the story, tries to make a plausible story of where the author was coming from, tries to understand the mythology of the text, and the parallels pop up--with _Hamlet_, with creation myths, with Greek myths, with hypotheses about the author's new mythology presented here [in _IJ_], and the mind works in the background, popping in later, astonishing or amusing with a new guess about a new reason _IJ_ is the way it is.
Now I left all that behind when food got low and I had to walk and walk and then encounter and explore the city again and resupply in it--but soon I return to just mind, watching mind, and when I have enough of that, returning, perhaps, to _IJ_, to other stories, to some _IJ_ commentary on the web I plucked (downloaded) for the clié (palm).
Tentative Plans: Angosturo Pass -> Devils Cyn Trl -> Gibraltar Trl -> Cottam, Blue Cyn -> coming out Monday @ Romero Cyn.
I may try to stay longer. I think I have way more carbs than needed for 6 days. But I made an appointment. More on that later (~when I comment on the photos).
I took steps this time in town to learn SB as if it will be a long-term base for me, without a house.
Replaced decaying plastic water bottles. Visited a laundry mat. Surfed the web a bit for places I might look into working for.
Someone did email me about Los Padres Walkers, but I've taken no more steps to announce it.
Still working on organizing the 3-week Sierras trip with Leslie M., whom I've not met; wrote her a bit more about my prefs--and always wonder if that's the end? or will that greater revealing be accepted[, tolerated, allowed as only approximation].
Have yet to solve haircut issues. Needing new shoes. Need to mend pants. Those resupply / regeneration desires.
I did write my dad's mom. Both she and my mom's dad broke bones--clavicle, hip--since I've been gone. They both should live with other old folks/ more people, I think, but they don't.
I may return to San Diego May 1-11. May 1 is, I think, sdfoodnotawns.com's big conference. And maybe I can avoid paying $381 for that ticket, plus other assorted business--maps for planning trips; shoe, hat renewing--things for which an address helps. But returning there is risky rut-wise. Tho the longer I'm away, the more times I've left there, the less I fear sticking. Why go so far to return? Learn to live here, handle address-related desires here--
--
I got to watch the body get exhausted, not want to move, and then recover and do very well just from eating more of the food I brought + foraged greens.
I watched the mind cycle into period of frustration, frustration, frustration, with many little things, then out of that again into love.
I may be developing a more John Heron-like (or perhaps integral-like) view of helpful life practice: rather than seeking to bring a kind of mindfulness to all one's living, focus on cycling the mind and body and experience.
Rinsing in the cold stream is a way to reset mind from focus on little frustrations. Dealing with rain, hail (a cycle of body experience of weather) brings mind to whole focus on sense-experience rather than the somewhat mindless silent mental counting I fall into when hiking when mind is not wandering.
Yeah, so I have no job and am making no money.
The places I might apply to involve working with youth.
My issue is partly that I'm exploring a life I'm pretty sure most parents aren't to keen on their kids exploring.
My life is also a bit of an affront to those following the permaculture way of growing food, caring for land.
I don't need to look at it that way--
I still value the products of others' labor. Is there a way I can contribute?
I, perhaps, most want to serve the emancipated adult who finds mainstream life not fitting--
They could look here to see an alternative.
They could walk with me at some point--a hobo school unschool / Los Padres Walkers.
---
Inspired by _Infinite Jest_, I also briefly looked more into Food Addicts in Recovery and Overeaters Anonymous--oa.org, foodaddicts.org--both of which have SB-area meetings, Thurs eve, Sat morning.
Tricky with food is how to define succumbing to The Disease--not as simple as whether one has drunk, inhaled, shot up, gambled, etc., something.
My urban disease might now be 'looking in dumpsters'. [restraint begins there]
Well--
---
Lyn @ Quail Springs was grateful someone encouraged the green ambassador kids not to fret about what they want to be doing in 20 years. What do I want to do now? Follow that. Lyn was grateful for getting that suggestion herself at some point.
---
Is my vision the Los Padres Walkers? The wilderness awareness people who are interested in the idea are not lit-reading forest layabouts. . . ?
---
I looked a bit more at Obama's _Audacity_.
---
I walked by a shooting range / junkyard free-for-all on Forest Service land, at the top of the hill here, top of the watershed: shot-out monitors, TVs looking over a waved bowl [contoured in rising swells] w/ fragments of plastic, glass, florescent skeet clay--[an] expanse of unmade mosaic with tattered scarecrows of traffic cones, protruding posts, old tables, platforms, with things on them being smithereened--mini-epicenters of the unmade mosaic; a white-bread girl in white skirt with red earmuffs and a silver six-shooter; gangsters with their SUVs and AK-47s [the skinny country guys had the AKs--? The black/hispanic SUV guys, handguns?]; white prep boys in Carharts with shotguns and pigeon-launcher; and everyone else. The shots and their echoes sounding like rounds tearing the air somewhere nearby.
---
I just stopped, one night, and slept near a tunnel under the freeway, earplugs in, nice spot [eucalyptus grove] but for the rushing noise. It was time to just stop.
---
I spent a night in a monastery, a free one, where the monks go to bed by 1930 on Sundays, in clothes not their own, just showered, and rise in shifts of 20 at a time beginning at 0430. Later they have a few minutes to eat oatmeal, milk, generic-Os, the milk-glass emptied, a bit of coffee, before the sanctuary closes at ~0600, and they go out to their good work, sun unrisen.
---
There is a race of master builders of earthworks for BMX bicycles in this town. In neglected spots of oak-groved, pepper-treed open space along Las Positas Rd, Arroyo Burro Creek; one with a live Buddha, smoking something, overlooking it from an arundo cane alcove early on a quiet Sunday.
---
And master painters of concrete walls on the embakment between rail- and high-way.
---
There is coastal bluff open space for dogs and flute-busker Milo. There is SBfoodnotlawns.org and west-side food-shed google group and a kiosk/bulletin board with built-in free box on Camino De La Luz, which has a pedestrian bridge at the end into Mesa Park where I saw Milo again.
---
There are extensive bike trails, well-used.
---
A breath and a smile,
We have arrived, we are home. Abide here, between heartbeats, between breaths.
I was in Santa Barbara for three nights and now am back in the hills.
In the five contemplations before eating, there is this:
"5. We accept this food so that we may nurture our sisterhood and brotherhood, strengthen our sangha, and nourish our ideal of serving all beings."
Everything can be seen as eating--eating of life. Though I'm often alone out here, I do consider how my actions can strengthen our sangha.
One way: writing a bit of what I learn. Much of it cannot be written. By going through repeated cycles of cooking, of eating, of sleeping, of weather, of trails, of walking, of resting, reading, repairing, resupplying, route choosing and finding--of leaving car-land and returning there and dwelling, urban houseless--of emailing, Internetting, and of leaving that behind--of discoveries found only because I walk--of frustrations, compulsions, recovery from and watching these, and of renewal of the feeling of love for wandering, for waking up another day somewhere I've never woken up before, a day ahead of--?.
The main lessons (? --from the 12 or so days out):
1. Bring or hunt more animal protein. Previous trip had one egg per day. For this one: two+ per day. Plus I scavenged a lot of animal foods while in town--and still have about 1lb Vons meatloaf, pounds of various cheeses (mascarpone, fontina). No sour cream this time, but the 4 lbs of non-Altadeena s.c. (trader joe's) worked well for me [last trip].
Because I am buying for a week or two at a time, I could now do more controlled dietary planning in terms of getting recommended amounts of fat, protein, etc.
2. Plan for three meals per day.
I did not move this last trip for ~6 days: I had one camp, read _Infinite Jest_, began to reread it, [then left,] began _Hamlet_.
Reading _IJ_ took a long time. 4+ days straight (and I was already a good ways into it). While the sun didn't exactly yo-yo, it was a bit as if I was on a multi-day drug binge or had succumbed to "the entertainment".
And it is designed to be re-read, a different book the second time. And attempting to understand the gestalt behind the work--the mind chews on the events of the story, tries to make a plausible story of where the author was coming from, tries to understand the mythology of the text, and the parallels pop up--with _Hamlet_, with creation myths, with Greek myths, with hypotheses about the author's new mythology presented here [in _IJ_], and the mind works in the background, popping in later, astonishing or amusing with a new guess about a new reason _IJ_ is the way it is.
Now I left all that behind when food got low and I had to walk and walk and then encounter and explore the city again and resupply in it--but soon I return to just mind, watching mind, and when I have enough of that, returning, perhaps, to _IJ_, to other stories, to some _IJ_ commentary on the web I plucked (downloaded) for the clié (palm).
Tentative Plans: Angosturo Pass -> Devils Cyn Trl -> Gibraltar Trl -> Cottam, Blue Cyn -> coming out Monday @ Romero Cyn.
I may try to stay longer. I think I have way more carbs than needed for 6 days. But I made an appointment. More on that later (~when I comment on the photos).
I took steps this time in town to learn SB as if it will be a long-term base for me, without a house.
Replaced decaying plastic water bottles. Visited a laundry mat. Surfed the web a bit for places I might look into working for.
Someone did email me about Los Padres Walkers, but I've taken no more steps to announce it.
Still working on organizing the 3-week Sierras trip with Leslie M., whom I've not met; wrote her a bit more about my prefs--and always wonder if that's the end? or will that greater revealing be accepted[, tolerated, allowed as only approximation].
Have yet to solve haircut issues. Needing new shoes. Need to mend pants. Those resupply / regeneration desires.
I did write my dad's mom. Both she and my mom's dad broke bones--clavicle, hip--since I've been gone. They both should live with other old folks/ more people, I think, but they don't.
I may return to San Diego May 1-11. May 1 is, I think, sdfoodnotawns.com's big conference. And maybe I can avoid paying $381 for that ticket, plus other assorted business--maps for planning trips; shoe, hat renewing--things for which an address helps. But returning there is risky rut-wise. Tho the longer I'm away, the more times I've left there, the less I fear sticking. Why go so far to return? Learn to live here, handle address-related desires here--
--
I got to watch the body get exhausted, not want to move, and then recover and do very well just from eating more of the food I brought + foraged greens.
I watched the mind cycle into period of frustration, frustration, frustration, with many little things, then out of that again into love.
I may be developing a more John Heron-like (or perhaps integral-like) view of helpful life practice: rather than seeking to bring a kind of mindfulness to all one's living, focus on cycling the mind and body and experience.
Rinsing in the cold stream is a way to reset mind from focus on little frustrations. Dealing with rain, hail (a cycle of body experience of weather) brings mind to whole focus on sense-experience rather than the somewhat mindless silent mental counting I fall into when hiking when mind is not wandering.
Yeah, so I have no job and am making no money.
The places I might apply to involve working with youth.
My issue is partly that I'm exploring a life I'm pretty sure most parents aren't to keen on their kids exploring.
My life is also a bit of an affront to those following the permaculture way of growing food, caring for land.
I don't need to look at it that way--
I still value the products of others' labor. Is there a way I can contribute?
I, perhaps, most want to serve the emancipated adult who finds mainstream life not fitting--
They could look here to see an alternative.
They could walk with me at some point--a hobo school unschool / Los Padres Walkers.
---
Inspired by _Infinite Jest_, I also briefly looked more into Food Addicts in Recovery and Overeaters Anonymous--oa.org, foodaddicts.org--both of which have SB-area meetings, Thurs eve, Sat morning.
Tricky with food is how to define succumbing to The Disease--not as simple as whether one has drunk, inhaled, shot up, gambled, etc., something.
My urban disease might now be 'looking in dumpsters'. [restraint begins there]
Well--
---
Lyn @ Quail Springs was grateful someone encouraged the green ambassador kids not to fret about what they want to be doing in 20 years. What do I want to do now? Follow that. Lyn was grateful for getting that suggestion herself at some point.
---
Is my vision the Los Padres Walkers? The wilderness awareness people who are interested in the idea are not lit-reading forest layabouts. . . ?
---
I looked a bit more at Obama's _Audacity_.
---
I walked by a shooting range / junkyard free-for-all on Forest Service land, at the top of the hill here, top of the watershed: shot-out monitors, TVs looking over a waved bowl [contoured in rising swells] w/ fragments of plastic, glass, florescent skeet clay--[an] expanse of unmade mosaic with tattered scarecrows of traffic cones, protruding posts, old tables, platforms, with things on them being smithereened--mini-epicenters of the unmade mosaic; a white-bread girl in white skirt with red earmuffs and a silver six-shooter; gangsters with their SUVs and AK-47s [the skinny country guys had the AKs--? The black/hispanic SUV guys, handguns?]; white prep boys in Carharts with shotguns and pigeon-launcher; and everyone else. The shots and their echoes sounding like rounds tearing the air somewhere nearby.
---
I just stopped, one night, and slept near a tunnel under the freeway, earplugs in, nice spot [eucalyptus grove] but for the rushing noise. It was time to just stop.
---
I spent a night in a monastery, a free one, where the monks go to bed by 1930 on Sundays, in clothes not their own, just showered, and rise in shifts of 20 at a time beginning at 0430. Later they have a few minutes to eat oatmeal, milk, generic-Os, the milk-glass emptied, a bit of coffee, before the sanctuary closes at ~0600, and they go out to their good work, sun unrisen.
---
There is a race of master builders of earthworks for BMX bicycles in this town. In neglected spots of oak-groved, pepper-treed open space along Las Positas Rd, Arroyo Burro Creek; one with a live Buddha, smoking something, overlooking it from an arundo cane alcove early on a quiet Sunday.
---
And master painters of concrete walls on the embakment between rail- and high-way.
---
There is coastal bluff open space for dogs and flute-busker Milo. There is SBfoodnotlawns.org and west-side food-shed google group and a kiosk/bulletin board with built-in free box on Camino De La Luz, which has a pedestrian bridge at the end into Mesa Park where I saw Milo again.
---
There are extensive bike trails, well-used.
---
A breath and a smile,
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Photos up; Los Padres Walkers community listing created
Finally the photos from since February 11 or so are captioned and rotated!
The main big news though is that I posted a listing on ic.org for a new community, "Los Padres Walkers":
http://directory.ic.org/22140/Los_Padres_Walkers
and I set up a google group as well:
http://groups.google.com/group/lpws
What remains is to announce it.
There's a lot more that could be written. Well, below I paste about the only writing I've done though, a letter to a member of the Sunburst community. The rest is in the captions for the photos.
I plan to announce Los Padres Walkers to:
Here's that email I wrote:
 |
| San Diego - LA - Piru 2008-02-12 to 17 |
 |
| Hike to Quail Springs 2008-02-17 to 22 |
 |
| Quail Springs to Spirit Pine (Figueroa Mountain) |
 |
| Figueroa Mtn to Sunburst to Refugio Beach State Park 2008-03-28 |
The main big news though is that I posted a listing on ic.org for a new community, "Los Padres Walkers":
http://directory.ic.org/22140/Los_Padres_Walkers
and I set up a google group as well:
http://groups.google.com/group/lpws
What remains is to announce it.
There's a lot more that could be written. Well, below I paste about the only writing I've done though, a letter to a member of the Sunburst community. The rest is in the captions for the photos.
I plan to announce Los Padres Walkers to:
- SoCal Indigenous Living & Origin Skills
- Dharma Hikers / Walking Sangha
- Derrick Jensen lists / primitive skills lists.
Here's that email I wrote:
Heiko,
thank you for sharing your time with me and for being a teacher. For giving me _Grandfather_ [by Tom Brown], for sharing about Sunburst, for that time together on on the porch when you reminded me of divine intention.
Friday, I walked down Route 1 after morning meditation and walking the labrynth. It wasn't more than two hours to the adobe at Las Cruces. I went up to the hot springs, rested there a long while, got out, began to read _Grandfather_.
Later I followed the Trespass Trail--washed out (impassable), overgrown, but there is good water along the way, and I came out around 5pm along the coast. Now I'm at Refugio SP.
If you get a chance, please thank the rest of Sunburst for me for being so welcoming.
I was up on the hill that last afternoon, and came down again to help out a bit. I bet I'd like to help more people walk in the forest (or just sit still in the forest). And I realized you were walking in your forest, so I went to participate.
Thanks for giving me your email address!
Please have anyone looking for a walking (or forest-sitting) companion email or call me. We can sit at times and share mindfulness practices and just enjoy being out here together. It really is wonderful out here.
I think I saw three young condors this morning along the beach drying their wings or warming up--wings outstretched (imposing).
Thank you for the beautiful natural building you and Michelle helped make happen and for the permaculture ideas/awareness you shared.
I'm enjoying _Grandfather_--the clarity of purpose "to make things better for future generations by caretaking creation".
I enjoyed getting to read a bit of Paulson's (sp?) _Christ Consciousness_ and see a bit how your stories related to his.
It was wonderful to visit Alicia and Thomas and see their picture of Francia at Lemuria/Olgivy--and to meet Patty (sp?) and hear her words about living, working in community being a way to realize divine intent. And I value Barbara's sharing with me an essence of Sunburst's mission--the keyhole, with the practices or elements supporting progression to Christ Consciousness. (and Helge's showing me around
the ranch! And Francia's sharing about the farmer who knows Chumash rock art sites--)
It is great to see how your focus on growing and selling good organic food has led to such well-being for your community (I noticed at least some beautiful teeth--some or most communities I've been visiting have neglected dental care perhaps). And to meet people who have been growing organic food for years.
Heiko, I'm rambling--thanks for sharing with me--I feel that partly (it was divine intention that) I came to Sunburst to learn from you.
a breath and a smile,
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