Journal of the VOL Community

by David

I have finally found a decent program that will allow our Newsletters to be broadcast in a more standardized format, allowing more people to be able to read them.  The program I found allows you to convert Microsoft Word documents (the previous format) to PDF documents.  I went and converted all of the old newsletters to this new format.  They are available at:  http://www.volcommunity.org/newsletter/archives

I also finished tweaking the new photograph handling software that makes it so much easier to handle huge amounts of pictures.  I think its working properly.  *fingers crossed*

And finally, I’m still working on the Members Area of The Ozark Seed Exchange website.  The problem I am having is finding a way to automate all of the routine tasks since doing these all by hand takes forever and leads to mistakes.  So far, I’ve tried 3 different systems and none of them do everything I want them to do.  I have a forum running, and will be able to enable it to send and receive via email instead of requiring web-access only.  But this is not the only part of the site, and what I need is a front-end that will allow people to not have to log in 2 or more times to access features of the Members section.  I have some more leads, and will try them.  But it will take some time.  Patience, young grasshopper.  Patience.   

I am also going to the VOL land in April to visit with D’Coda, relax, meditate, and do a little work on the Land. 

by D’Coda

“Be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.”—Rainer Maria Rilke
 
 My connection to the outside world is broken! My outgoing email program has up and quit, without any valid excuse. My cell phone took a trip to Fayetteville and never came back. Can’t use it here anyway…but in a red hot, “gotta contact the outside world” moment I could  hike out to a floating signal. The rains prevent me from reaching my mailbox. Cut off. Wherever the outside world is racing to, I’m falling behind and I fear I may miss the grand finale. Worse, my friends may think I’ve forgotten them. That all I care about now is turtles. (or the bear currently nosing around the house–upsetting the dogs, and my concentration).
 
One of my teachers, the Kahuna, Serge King, taught me– there is ALWAYS another way. I can tell you I’ve put that notion to the test and so far….it seems to be true.  I’ve figured out an unorthodox way to get a small amount of email to David despite the computers lack of cooperation. David won’t like it, extra work on his end…so only the “highest priority’ emails are going out….whenever the rain stops.
 
Forest came to visit a couple weeks ago, brought a friend from Fayetteville, Jason. They came to fix the roof and carried a guitar, lawn mower, roofing tar, roofing tools, 5 gallons of gas a new chain saw…and MORE down the mountain…in the rain. Youthful vigor. (in their early twenties).
 
Jason had an ear infection, had it a month and couldn’t afford to see a doctor about it, so I showed him how to make a garlic oil ear treatment and explained how to use a peppermint oil steam inhalation for inner ear infections …drinking peppermint tea as well. During their week stay, the ear improved. Food, as usual, held center stage. The lads craved wild salad, told me the salad I fixed would cost them $20 in the city, IF you could even get it: the typical mix contained yucca blossoms, violet leaf, plantain, sheep sorrel, lettuce, spinach, lambs quarters, green onion, yellow dock leaf, horseradish leaf, red mustard leaf, brier tips, giant hyssop. Jason ground wheat so I could make bread, homemade bread seems to be another “luxury” item. They were amazed that I make my own tortillas….all of these things I take to be so common, have turned into luxuries out there in the machine. Jason said it had been years since he had homemade bread. My heart aches to think what these kids are eating.
 
Especially as I continue to study how genetically altered foods are creeping into everyday fare. There’s a new book out called “Genetic Roulette” which scientifically documents the very serious health risks posed by eating it. Most of the corn and soy is now genetically altered. The bacteria in our gut can pick up the gene that produces BT(a pesticide) in these GM (genetically modified)  crops and we start producing this insecticide in our own bodies…possibly for life. Some of the proteins are abnormal in soy and can produce allergy. Animals given a choice between GM foods and REAL food, pass up the GM…they can tell the difference. Over 60 diseases are now associated with eating GM foods. I still use some of the foods from the outside. I’m grieved to think that I may have to decline them now. No more corn chips, no more corn meal, no more chocolate bars (contain lecithin from gm corn), no more “vegetable oil” (contains GM corn or soy oil). Of course, organic corn chips,etc. Are most likely safe…but they are beyond my means. Apparently the only GM veggies showing up in the markets are zucchini and crookneck squash , of all things. Looks like the die is cast, if I can’t grow it, I can’t eat it. The rest of the people, those who have to buy their food, had better start roaring “NO” to food manufacturers, and roar loud. Buy organic, too. (That’s another story for another time, a lot of “organic” ain’t “organic”)
 
One morning Forest and I were meditating together outside in the sun. A grasshopper flew into my hair so I grabbed it. My hand told me it was actually a wasp. No problem, a clay poultice break, then back to spring morning meditation….ending with Forest’s announcement that he wanted to become a VOL provisional member! Well!!! Forest and I have been coasting along with the understanding that since he’s our founder’s son, and a property owner here, its not necessary to be a member to be involved with us. I also had the impression that at age 23, he’d want to devote himself to exploring the world outside. But he’s a smart one. He knows that intentional community can offer solutions to some of the problems society mishandles. He’s looking ahead. If he joins now, he can play an important role in creating VOL. He also wants to reassure Das that the community he started so long ago will “stay in the family” and the “next generation” will see it to completion.
 
Forest and I haven’t talked much about becoming a member. I don’t think Forest realized that provisional membership is an educational course in how to live and work together harmoniously. People really need to spend their provisional membership here, working with me, finding out what the life on the land is like, making plans for how they’ll be able to make this their permanent home. Orinarily, I would not vote for anyone who wasn’t spending their prov. membership period on the land….but I’ll make an exception for him. His circumstances are unique. He was born here for one thing. His long term plan is to spend six months here, and six months outside, every year. I’m looking for people who will be here full time. But, again, this is a unique situation, so I’ll go with it. I think his contribution will be worth making this exception. He is fully aware that this is sacred ground, he gets bonus points for that.
 
So now, I must convert the training program into a correspondence course for him. I’m spending a great deal of time putting a lot of it on the computer. There will still be books to read, some of that can be done here. Discussions to be had face to face. I’m enthused to think I may finally have a partner to work with who spends more time here. A lot can be done in six months a year, year after year. He’s in it for the long haul, that I know. (That gets him more bonus points). I’ve explained to him that I don’t vote someone in based on privilege…being “son and property holder”…but on merit…on excellence. We need people who know what they are doing. Who make it their business to learn, endlessly learn, the way of peace…the way of joy and love…of doing good works to benefit mankind…and the Natural world.
 
In the meantime, I’ve had a revelation about our other members, the ones who live in the cities. Their trips to the land are very infrequent and very very short (anywhere from a day to a week). We’ve had difficulty establishing a real sense of community this way. Virtually all of our contact is through our email forum. Community process doesn’t readily adapt itself to email, especially when most members don’t even know what community process is. It occurred to me that part of the reason this has wound up being dysfunctional, is because we are trying to apply the standards of an intentional community that lives together…to one that doesn’t. When we measure ourselves against the norms for people who spend a lot of time together, living and working together, we fall short. So we’ve been complaining, “This isn’t community!”.
 
It turns out that we’ve made a category error. We need to reframe. What we ARE is a cyber-community. VOL is likely to wind up being two communities, a Land or Physical community AND a Cyber community…we need to start distinguishing between them. We need to start thinking about norms for a cyber community. What kind of vision can a cyber community dream up? What goals and mission are appropriate for a cyber community? When we reframe as a cyber community, suddenly, we look like high achievers since our cyber community actually gets things done in the physical world. Intentional communities do, sometimes, create subcommunities. Let our cyber community develop as a full fledged subcommunity (called a “pod” in IC-speak), complete with a name. Since VOL has a kind of “Star Trek” ring to it, call it something like VOLdron, or “VOLshire”…and drop the boring reference to “town members”–give them a proper name…like VOLdrons.
 
One thing I’ve noticed is that the VOLdrons, definitely need an infusion of fun. Our cyber community needs to be more creative and playful. So I’ve proposed that we play it. Create a computer game…remember SimCity? Yeah, a computer game where we play at building a self-sufficient intentional community…work out the kinks in cyberspace and apply the best results to our physical community. Any members who are at odds with each other can release their pent-up emotions through role playing. Roghan, “Defender of Water” vs. “Erileon, Savior of Thirsty Australians” (one of our members suggested bottling our water and selling to Australians & dry Americans as a VOL business venture).
 
I haven’t heard back from the VOLdrons about this idea yet…its likely to come as a shock to them…or they may think I’m kidding. Who knows? But I do think I’m on to something here.
 
(I’ve sent three journal entries to David this time, so readers may want to check for them)

by D’Coda 
 

 “Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and all the colors of the dawn and dusk. – N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969)
 
Just because they call it a highway doesn’t mean its for going anywhere. Some, like the highway to Dago’s house and my mailbox, just lay across the hills throwing story shadows across the sun.  Hay fields and duck ponds tuck it in on all sides. It’s a highway for standing under the sky and picking persimmons down by the trail head. Heck, the people who live on it don’t even have telephone service yet and aren’t really worried about it.  It’s a place time forgot. If you can throw your story shadow far enough, you don’t need to live near it to get your mail dropped off at any point of your chosing. I chose Dago’s house, its about a mile walk once I reach the top of the mountain. She invited me, of course. I could have had it tossed out along the side of the road just about anywhere. But I’ve still got a streak of civilization in me. Maybe it’s a woman thing. I just like my mail going to a house with an address.
Besides, I like to visit Dago. She’s an honest to god hillbilly…a term of respect by the way. It means you date back to the original settlers. That you can tell if someone is lying by the look in their eye. That you look out for each other. If a gal wants a proper house to go with her mail box, you offer yours. Of course there’s a price to pay, like everywhere else. The currency is in story. Her house is cluttered and and run down, she’s no housekeeper, but she can spin a yarn. Her place  started out as a one room schoolhouse. Then the legendary mountain woman, Aunt Cora retired in it when she, a tiny lady living alone,  couldn’t butcher her own hogs anymore or haul hay down the trail in her Morman cart. Dago inherited the place, with all of its relics,after Aunta Cora died. You learn to overlook the truck carcasses to glory in the beauty of her iris garden, daffodils, azaleas, fox grape and cherry trees.
So the dogs and I arrive every couple of weeks to see Dago and that’s as far as this highway ever seems to take us. My last visit, she pulled out a page she’d ripped from a magazine with a picture of a cheese ball covered in nuts, “I found a recipe! I’m makin it for us, I bought the ingredients.” She knows I rarely get cheese and has planned a big event. Normally, I can’t stay long, its such a long trip for me and I have to get back before dark. But she’s going to make me a cheese ball and I’m going to plan on an early trip out when it’s a warm spring day. We’ll sit on her porch and eat crackers, try to name all the birds at her soda bottle bird feeder. Our eyes will wander across the hay fields. We’ll laugh at the peeping tom donkey across the way. We’ll share the love of spreading ourselves out as far as single women can spread –wings whistling through the thermals.

 by D’Coda

“Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.”

–Winston Churchill

When I was in high school our board of education invited a few members of my senior class to come and tell them what courses we thought were most important. I, one of the rebels, was invited to let them know what I recognized as missing in my high school education. That was easy…..philosophy. Not one class in philosophy. This declaration — that philosophy was essential for those of my age — was met with silence. To my knowledge, the subject was never added. And today? Are our teens equipped for life by learning how to think — about life? Or are they spilling out of our schools trained to accept views carefully shrink-wrapped into prepackaged life-packs? Given the right meds, they’ll never notice whether or not their “life-pack” fits. What about college? How many courses in philosophy are required to graduate? The young require philosophy. Facing a world of complexity and change…they must hone the sharp sword of questioning everything. Learning how to ask the right questions precedes finding the right answers.

Too many adults devote themselves to defending a life path adopted in their youth, without question. Without a background in philosophical thinking processes. As if its too late to change course. In a changing world, who can afford to lock in to preconceptions about who we are and what we’re capable of? Preconceptions based on what? MTV? Football? Getting the right stuff?

One of the best remedial texts for “philosophy deficit disorder” is called “Sophie’s World” (sorry, I don’t recall the name of the author –written in the ‘90s). Kind of a mysterious fantasy novel taking the reader through the history of our greatest thinkers. This enjoyable read penetrates the most obtuse concepts with ease.

During the Katrina rescue effort, owners of restaurants banded together to serve up enormous, free, buffets on the street to hungry victims. Many went hungry rather than eat from this feast, because it wasn’t the kind of food they were used to. They wanted Big Mac’s and fries. When they found out there was a food joint offering up burgers, they stood in long lines to get them…ignoring untouched tables of food nearby. I remember reading about people who starved to death during WWII rather than eat unfamiliar foods. That’s how far it can go. We can ignore opportunities close at hand because they are unfamiliar, different. We have forgotten how to question our choices and the choices others make for us. We hurry off as if nothing happened, only to stand in line.

We’ve heard the complaint for years, “He/she/we have a communication problem”. What does that mean? We usually take it mean that our speaking and listening skills are skewed somehow. I suspect that’s only part of the problem. Another part could well be that there’s a “philosophy deficit disorder” preventing the kind of clear thought that precedes clear speaking and listening? If we’ve never closely examined an issue, how can we communicate about it? Sometimes we activate the philisophical potential in others. Whenever it happens to me, I feel the white glow of a deeply satisfying conversation.

I have finished most of the work on the new picture album.  There are still descriptions to be added to alot of pictures, and some that will probably be removed.

But for now, the new album can be accessed here:

http://www.volcommunity.org/pictures/album

The old picture display has been removed in favor of the new album.

by David

Whew!  Who says computer work isn’t tiring?

I’ve been moving all of the existing VOL website pictures to a new imaging system, and I have been adding about 500+ new pictures that never have been posted.  The system will be up in a few days.  Ill post an update here. 

For the time being, most of the pictures on this site are temporarily out of order.

David

 by D’Coda

The winter was not given to us for no purpose. We must thaw its cold with our genialness. We are asked to find out and appropriate all the nutrients it yields. If it is a cold and hard season, its fruit, no doubt, is the more concentrated and nutty.”
– Henry David Thoreau

Drat!! I’m going to be late again getting the newsletter out and answering email. Severe winter weather has kept me from getting to my mailbox and its cut down on computer time. Then…. suddenly…its like spring. Yesterday was HOT. I worked in the garden all day, laying paths, gathering leaves for mulch, building wood frames for raised beds. Today I’ll start the seedlings and plant the beets and spinach outdoors.

Like all gardeners, I get excited when spring rolls around. I’ve been hearing that half of the pollinating bees have died in the U.S. and Europe and there’s concern about food crops not getting pollinated!! So far, the bees here are just fine. For one thing, I don’t spray anything to kill insects and I make sure there’s always plenty of food for them. I practice integrated pest management and let the diversity of nature take care of the balance. Oh, I have my bug squashing moments. Especially blister beetles, but I restrain myself from going over board because those guys kill grasshoppers.  Daffodils are starting to bloom.

I heard from professor Nolan, he and some of his students are getting ready to head out to Berkley to present their papers. Ethnobotony has long been one of my interests. I used to be on a private email discussion group started by Terrence McKenna, which consisted of a number of scientists, ethnobotanists and just plain curious minds like my own. I lost touch with all of them when I moved here, but one of them has just tracked me down and I hope to catch up on everything that’s happened over the last 8 years. If you want to check out what’s happening with Nolan’s research you can go to his website at: www.ethnobotany.org
 
Earthquakey feelings. YES, I’m still having them (in periodic waves). I figure it’s the New Madrid, that it’s active. Active faults emit electromagnetic signatures that can be detected by the body. It doesn’t necessarily mean a quake is imminent; it can be minor pressure releases (a good thing). But one thing that has me on alert is that the sun can trigger quakes — among other things (weather & climate change). The sun is now at its quiet period, just before the beginning of its next 11-year cycle. The thing is, the sun spots now occurring at its south pole are as strong as they are at solar maximum – meaning, as the sun’s strength continues to build over the next few years, there may be very extreme activity resulting in increased global warming, quakes, volcanism, X-class solar flares playing havoc with satellites and so on.  I recommend that folks read “Earth Under Fire” by Paul La Viollette (a scientist), which explains a cycle where the sun periodically turns into a T-Taurus type star. It’s an eye-opener.  The following is a blurb from an observatory, I think you could find out more at their website:

Predicting Cycles 24 and 25
The Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model is enabling NCAR scientists to predict that the next solar cycle, known as Cycle 24, The scientists expect the cycle to begin in late 2007 or early 2008, which is about 6 to 12 months later than a cycle would normally start. Cycle 24 is likely to reach its peak about 2012.
NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory
Geophysical Research Letters
 
Also check out www.thehorizonproject.com  to keep up with those scientists tracking the sun and solar system., as relates to earth changes.

I’ll tell you, I’m not into “fear”. I’m into “awareness”. Awareness is all-inclusive and doesn’t close its eyes to anything.  There’s a beautiful haiku about a monk chased over the side of a high cliff by a tiger. He grabs hold of a bush and dangles over the abyss as the tiger tears away the roots of his support. He spots a wild strawberry, plucks it, and savors its flavor thinking, “how sweet it is!” Took me along time to figure that one out, but now I  “get it” and see how we can perceive all of the world’s beauty, ugliness, dangers, and opportunities with passionate equanimity…all at the same time…through cultivating awareness. Fear blocks this kind of global awareness. Oh, fear can be useful for its quick burst of energy when directly facing a threat, but it’s nothing to live with day-to-day; or even hour-by-hour.  There’s some dicey stuff on the horizon like a possible war with Iran and the consequences of that. Like continued weather anomalies, continued food supply problems, the lack of statesmanship leading the way, economic difficulties.  Folks are going to have to transform fear into guiding awareness.  So I plan to write about that in this journal (occasionally) since it’s an area where I’ve made a lot of progress.
 
The photo is from artwork by Doolittle. Magnificent artist. Joy Fox lent me a book of her artwork, and, coincidentally, I later received this photo by email from a friend in Utah.