Journal of the VOL Community

By D’Coda:

As usual, winter has meant weather that prevents me from hiking out to the mailbox and now, weather which prevents adequate sun from charging solar batteries to power this computer. As a result, I’m behind on correspondence, my seed list, work for websites, etc. But, this is all part of living with the seasons. Winter is “down time” in some respects.

In late December we had our first snowfall, 8 inches here, but elsewhere the accumulation was much more, like in Tennessee. David mentioned our concerns for Garry and Patricia being able to make our rendezvous for their visit. As it turns out, that visit was planned for the one week of perfect spring-like weather before another system of storms. They missed the weeks of rain which caused intensive flooding of the river.

Had to laugh, this time when Garry and Patricia hiked in with me, they finally spoke their minds, “WHAT trail?” True enough. When I call it a trail, I’m only expressing wishful thinking. I rather suspect that when they finally are able to drive in over the road we’ll hear the same question, “WHAT road?”.

December 26 marked the date of their “official” moving in process as they hauled a few things in and claimed one of the bedrooms. Plenty of books were hauled out and plenty of talks around the fire and food occupied our time. We seem to be on a very similar wavelength and eager to share ideas and visions. This is going to be a match made in heaven and I count the days until their final move-in.

I was also impressed with how well they handled the temporary situation of refitting the kitchen to accommodate 4 puppies –not something I’m normally willing to foist on guests and I’ve been discouraging visitors until these pups are either moved outside when its warmer , or moved to their new owners.

THE TSUNAMI: We spent a lot of time together listening to radio reports about the tsunami. Especially alarming to us was the fact that the scientist Stan Deyo had predicted this quake on December 22 ! He uses data from the Navy to identify warm/cold temperature variations around fault lines in the ocean and has an 80% success rate predicting ocean quakes. We listened to him on the radio as he described how the reverberations of the Sumatra quake have stressed fault lines around the world and the new patterns, shown on his encoda maps, depicting future ruptures. The saddest thing about this to me was that there was a warning issued and few knew about it. I sure hope that the word has spread now about his work and that lots of people along coastlines are checking his daily updates to get a head’s up BEFORE another big event. His maps can be found on his website at www.standeyo.com .

COB CONSTRUCTION: I gave a bunch of material about local cob people who give workshops to Patricia who plans to attend a cob workshop. Garry brought a couple of excellent shelter books, one on cob and we thought a first cob project ought to be a dog house.

SHITAKE MUSHROOMS: When they got back to Memphis, they followed up on an invitation to study mushroom production with a real master of the art who lives at The Farm. Patricia will be going to study with him in March and this promises to be one of our first major income producers. This environment is ideal for mushrooms because of its purity.

RECOLLECTION: On one of my email groups I was recollecting a powerful meditation period during my first summer here. Here is what I wrote:

One of my most interesting meditation episodes happened when I first moved to the wilderness. I slept in a tent in the woods and at night could hear all of the creatures sing, all night long. At first, it kept me awake at night, in rapt attention as I became aware that I was listening to an orchestral composition, the multiple rhythms, syncopations, melody lines, periods of silence when all creatures stopped and started again on a beat. Periods of sameness followed by an abrupt change. Clearly, all of the creatures were listening and responding creatively to each other, not just inter-species territorial stuff. The frogs knew what the birds were doing and vice versa. Whenever the whippoorwills came in it would screw things up a moment because they always came in off the beat, but eventually, the creatures figured out how to get back into the groove.

After a couple weeks of listening, it occurred to me that there were no human voices, and what if I introduced my own in such a way that the creatures knew that I knew this was a choir/orchestra and that I would have to find a part of my own that fit with them all. And could I listen so attentively that I too would know when to stop on a beat along with them? And know exactly when we were all going to start up again?

At the first sound of my voice (mind you, these creatures had not heard human singing before) every single voice stopped and there was a long period of absolute silence in the woods. And I thought, ok, I’ll take the lead and see if they work their song around mine. And that’s what they did. A few tentative voices eventually chimed in with a rhythm matching my own. More and more voices came to play until the full orchestra was in full swing and I managed to pretty much hold my own. But had a hard time predicting the sudden stops.It was also another introduction to a new way of mindfulness for me. One where my boundaries were extended far and wide, receptive to the consciousness of non-human singers. And I had a sense of initiation rite, being born to the wilds as it were. Like I had stepped across a threshold.

I still use voice a lot with the animals and with the mind. Another form of meditation.

FLYING SALAMI: Here is another excerpt from a letter I wrote to the owners of a nearby cabin (names changed to XXX)

A couple of weeks ago I hiked out and halfway up stopped abruptly, stunned in disbelief. Before me, scattered all over the trail were unopened packages of luncheon meats and hotdogs. My first thought was, “OK, a hiker ran into a bear and quickly divested himself of the bear-lure.” BUT, since the meats are still here, the bear must have preferred the hiker. So, I listened for groans, hollered…finally figured everything was somehow ok, picked up the meats and continued on. I figured I’d give them to XXX.

At trails head there were 3 vehicles with college stickers on them. ”OK, it’s college kids, but where are they?” Your cabin appeared to be empty when I passed it around 10 am. Were they roughing it? Camping out? And what’s with the meats? A prank? Seeing Bambi and a sudden conversion to vegetarianism?

Well, I was still giving them to XXX, who knows how to take good care of luncheon meats. But she wasn’t home which meant lugging the heavy weight all the way back home — for what? To feed to the pups? That’s terrible stuff for dogs, but what else?

Again, midway down, I ran into a pack of college kids hurrying up the trail. Chewbacca took center stage and as they fussed over him my mind forgot all about the meats and shifted gears 100% to Ms-Adopt-a-Pup. I even made a match as one lovely girl said she wanted one, but then her friends grabbed her and whisked her away saying they left some stuff up in their cars. Once they were gone I connected the dots and realized they were going up after missing meats. Felt badly that I’d forgotten to tell them I had them. Thinking how they’d ransack their cars, come up empty handed, face the dire prospect of starvation in the wilds followed by the grim prospect that bread and catsup would be their long awaited dinner together. Argue about who blew it, etc. But, when they got home, they would find all their meats neatly stacked on the kitchen table. Should I leave them a note? No way, more fun as a mystery.

When I got to your cabin, another shock. Both doors were wide open and 2 slabs of bacon were on the porch right by the door. Someone needs to inform these kids about bacon & bears & open doors to cabins. In fact, after the last snowfall, there were bear tracks from two bears around your cabin. And I suspect Anna may have relocated to your place where there’s a less rigorous bear-training program. I can tell you, she is not at all shy about following her dreams into a house.

So I put the bacon inside, closed the doors. Figured I should tell you about this cute little story so someone can tactfully let the kids know about bears & bacons and such before their next visit. I will say this for them, they did a great job cleaning up the cabin. And, I strongly suggest that one of them adopt a pup. Nothing like a good trail dog to keep track of all those flying salami’s.

NOW READING: I thought an interesting winter reading project would be to read books on different kinds of logic simultaneously along with a book on comparing Buddhist views on mind with latest findings in cognitive science. So, I’m reading a two volume set on Buddhist Logic alongside a book on Fuzzy Logic (multivalent logic), a college text on Philosophical Analysis, and the book “Good-by Descartes” which comes from the linguistic/systems theory side. Sure enough, insights are pouring in and I’m quite certain that I’ll become unbearable to anyone who thinks they know what they are talking about. Like Hemingway with his “Hemingway’s Challenge” – he offered prize money to anyone who could write one true sentence, so far many have tried and all have failed.