tom campbell standng

I forgot that I even wrote that last post. Not much has changed (hence the continued lack of writing), and a lot has changed.

I moved back to the northside, among friends, into a collective house where rent is one hundred dollars cheaper for me (from 262.50 to 156.25), and even that can be worked off by trading labor on the house for $10 an hour. I’m so happy to be living with my partner and her daughter, along with other friends. It’s what I’ve wanted since the beginning of our living together.

The yard has substantial southern sun- i.e. it has been in gardens before, and it will be again. We’re keeping 6 lovely chooks in a coop and run (that was already here when we moved here, sitting full of weeds) that I’ll hopefully expand to be a two paddock setup, with a chicken tractor for short excursions around the yard.

There was already a little cold frame, and I’m in the process of building a greenhouse out of scavenged wood and windows (still figuring out the roof, the “best” option looking like buying clear corrugated plastic roofing panels). It’s 13 feet east/west, and 8 feet north/south. I’ll have a raised bed along the front of it, and in the back, black plastic drums full of water and a compost pile under a shelf for flats, a closable chicken door (the greenhouse is positioned right next to the chicken yard) to let the chickens in during the winter to get some sun and add their body heat, and possibly a cob oven in the back corner with a chimney letting the smoke out, ala a combination of chad’s idea and ernie’s idea. I don’t really expect to be able to grow in there in the dead of winter, but it’s fun to play with the possibility. If I had the opportunity, I’d follow Mike Oehler’s advice and bury the greenhouse in a hillside so it was insulated on all sides but the south. I hope to build some hugelkulture beds, and I want to dig a little pond for froggies to live in (and to practice sealing a pond naturally, either by gleying or by doing the pigs work (basically mucking in the mud for a while), ala Sepp Holzer). After all that, I’d like to hook up a Jean Pain compost pile to an outdoor shower, dig and build a root cellar, and build a sweatlodge or sauna. I’m also excited to have a stock tank swimming pool in the backyard for next summer. 

And for this winter, I’m living with wood stoves for the first time! I’ve wanted this for like 6 or 7 years. It’s a three story house, and there’s a gas furnace that we keep set to 55 F, but that only has vents on the first and second floor. There is a double barrel stove on the first floor and a smaller wood stove on the second floor, but there wasn’t any heating options existing on the third floor where my bedroom is (except to bring in space heaters). So I built a rocket mass heater, based on Paul Wheaton’s design- which is designed to be lighter weight (so a wood floor can support it) and relatively easily disassembled and removed (since I’m renting this house). And it works pretty well. It’s not quite as rockety as I want it to be, which means it sometimes smokes back into the room when the flames creep up the wood out of the feed tube. And I need to add some pea gravel among the bricks I have around the exhaust pipes for better contact and a more effective thermal mass. But its functional enough to get me through this winter, and then I can rebuild it in the spring and see if I can’t get the draw kicked up a couple more notches.

Here’s a picture of the stove fired up, but with none of the bricks around the exhaust pipes yet-

If I can get my hands on an ammo box, I’ll also be making bio-char this winter in small batches in the bigger stoves downstairs. And that’ll go into the garden or the compost pile.

Once I get around to it, I’m also excited to experiment with making moonshine. I’ve already got the sugar water all fermented up and ready. I just need to find a stainless steel pressure cooker and assemble the condenser pipe as described in Possum Living, and then I’ll be able to get cookin’. Completely homemade tinctures, here I come! (Well, I bought the sugar and yeast, but it’s another substantial step down that road)

I took a ceramics class this fall. I signed up for it in the summer, anticipating that it would help me through what I experience to be the most depressing season, and it did, but I was a lot busier this fall than anticipated and probably didn’t need the help. But I loved the class. I love throwing on the wheel. Maybe I’ll take some pictures of things I made and post them here some time. I originally got the idea to take a ceramics class when I was looking to buy some crocks for fermenting in and seeing how expensive they are. I wanted to make my own. I’m not skilled enough yet to throw as big as the crocks that I use, but I did throw a one gallon sized crock. And I made loads of other useful things besides. Cups and mugs and bowls (including some big ones), spitoons, oil lamps (that are burning waste resaurant oil), ocarinas, a tea pot, a pitcher, some jars, a butter bell, a mortar and pestel. I made a vase/jug that’s only bisqued, so it’s still porous, and I plan to use it as a slow release waterer in the garden by burying it and filling it up. Some friends and I are planning to put together our own ceramics studio in the neighborhood, so I’m very excited to make that a reality so I can get throwing again!

One more cool thing- I’m eating miso these days that I made myself late last winter! My favorite thing to eat these days is a simple miso soup with onion, garlic, bok choy, soba noodles, and my homemade hot sauce. We’ll probably be starting another batch of miso once the deep cold sets in and I don’t want to go outside anymore.

Well, that’s more than enough awesomeness for one update. 

I have not written for a long time, partly because I feel some shame about how I am living my life. Specifically, that I am not supporting myself financially, but rather living off of money that I was given by my dear great aunt. In this culture, at my age, I should have a job. And more to the point, everyone else my age has a job. Well, many of my friends don’t have jobs, but they do sometimes, and they aren’t relying on money from their families to not have jobs. Shame. Lots of shame. The word trustafarian, and the derision that it is said with, runs through my head. I don’t have a trust fund. I will run out of this money. But for now, it lets me be (p)retired, let’s me follow my interests with my whole attention- gardening, mostly. I’ve said that I intend to use money only in ways that move me towards being able to not need to use money in the future. That goal has been complicated by having a partner who has a child, and wanting to help support the raising of that child. So I spend money on rent for an apartment in a part of the city that isn’t full of lead and gunshots. Paying rent is definitely not moving me towards not needing to spend money in the future.

I got really depressed two autumns ago, partly because I was journaling a lot privately and would obsess about this contradiction between my ideals and my reality. Then I made a decision to accept my reality as it is this moment and notice how lovely it is. So I stopped writing, and stopped thinking so much about it. I’m really happy. Except if I let my perspective expand and think about everyone who needs to work really crappy jobs to support themselves and their families, or those who don’t have jobs and are struggling to survive. And I imagine the scorn they might feel towards me in my position of privilege. 

I don’t think getting a job is the correct answer to banishing my feelings of shame. That would be giving in to capitalist oppression. My thoughts lean more towards giving all the money away and living like Suelo does. Like Jesus taught. Without knowledge of credit and debt, good and evil. Give up my privilege. Scary. Awesome. Inspiring. And really scary.

I haven’t been writing because to write I have to reflect on my life and look at the shame I feel and why, and it leads me directly to contemplating radically changing my lifestyle. Which isn’t comforting at all. I have been insulated and comfortable, and addicted to feeling comfortable. But maybe there’s supposed to be more to life than feeling comfortable.

I’ve felt like I want to start writing again, and I have, obviously, so I will be grappling with this. And maybe just maybe I’ll be taking some radical action. Because feeling ashamed is no fun. There is plenty about how I live that I am proud of to be sure. But I want to be proud of every aspect of how I live. That I may stand tall and write freely.

I’m back in portland from going home for solstice, with renewed focus to remain present to the tasks I have set before myself. Concretely, that means I have decided to no longer use the internet at my house. It’s way too easy access, and I’m addicted to it. I intend to hand over my wireless card to a friend for safekeeping. I notice now that I’ve restricted the internet that now my addiction habit is looking for other avenues to score some screen-time. Namely, I’m now contending with movie-cravings.

So, all that to say that I probably won’t be writing here nearly as much. I do hope to continue writing as much, mostly through letter writing (although I am wrestling with the reality of losing my writing for future reference), so if you want to receive a letter from me, you might if you email me your address.

I’m sick right now, and I’m allowing myself to grieve my self-imposed separation from family. I’m hoping to deal with these things directly so that they can be integrated and not hold me back subtly the whole time while I’m here.

I’m also planning to get involved in the co-counseling community here in portland.

I have other secret projects that I’m working on too (they’re not all that secret; it’s just fun to say, and I’m pretty much done writing right now)

Tony Vigorito rocked my world. I’ve read both his books now, and I want all my friends to read them.

I’m experimenting with staying present in the midst of people. Not sure how successful I’m being, but it’s fun!

had a great day today- it snowed, helped to run a “taster day” for the program I’m a part of, which included spolin (improv) games and (bamboo) sword throwing, bow-drilling (clematis vine makes great spindles!), edible plant walk in the snow, and of course the inevitable snow-play-fighting. and then my friends gabe and krysta shared the warmth of their home, and their chili, and a game of spades (for which we had a fourth, dan). I know how to play spades now! it’s really fun to understand the game play but not fully get the scoring, and observe everyone else play at caring about our little human drama.

I feel like the guy in the movie, Memento, constantly forgetting what exactly it is that I’m doing, looking around for clues, and getting back on the trail for a little bit. But then, oh!, time for bed, and I’m back at the beginning in the morning, my groggy self not sure what to make of all this I find around me.

Eating is the one sure thing that comes to me easily, so I’ve been in the kitchen a lot lately. I’ve been making pies since thanksgiving. And this weekend, I’ve been making pemmican! Dehydrating ground bison in the oven (makin jerky) at 150 degrees, and rendering beef fat on the stove- both aim to extract all the water, and then grind up the jerky (I’m using a blender) and mix in the fat (at a ratio of 2 parts jerky powder/crumble to 1 part fat. Store in a glass jar. If you did it right, it keeps forever. Great (physically active) travel food.

I’d like to work on the cultural rewilding skills of storytelling and gifting (or the gift economy). Not just storytelling, but also singing (perhaps songwriting? ballads? epic poems? haha), and also singing circles. And dancing parties. I’d also like to seriously learn an instrument. I’m going to gift massages (or whatever form of healing touch is most appropriate) a lot more.

so, i’m engrossed right now with an author that’s new to me- Tony Vigorito. I read Just a couple of days in just a couple of days, just a couple of days ago. At points, it felt like just a collection of little essays on cultural topics, but they happened to all be espousing opinions I appreciated, and so they worked for me, but the book became more cohesive as it went on.

i recommend reading the book. very entertaining and enlightening. if you plan on reading the book, be forewarned that i may spoil some parts of the plot in the proceeding.

one key idea that was explored was symbolic language and how it separates humans from other animals and also separates humans from each other, as it is a very imperfect means of communication. the author’s exploration of this idea highlighted for me the validity of exploring non-symbolic ways of communicating (which were not described in detail at all in the book, just so you know) and the importance of directness, frankness, clarity in how we do use symbolic language

it also brought to my consciousness how much of my life i spend inside the construct of symbolic langauge (like right now)- in thought, which is tied up inseparably with the ego. symbolic language begets the ego.

i zoned out for a bit there. think i’m done writing for now. maybe i’ll go read more of his next book, nine kinds of naked.

I feel really good about Trackers today. We tracked in the morning, did a plant walk in the afternoon, and closed the day with something new- a “seminar” (discussion) about a short reading that had been assigned. We were talking about craftspersonship and artisanry and the spirit embodied in the materials that we work with, and the meaning in it. I have a really hard time talking in large group settings, but this group today happened to be just intimate enough for me to at least say somthing. The discussion felt contrived at first, but then it started flowing and it was really great to be talking as a group, not in a retrospective meeting format, about something that mattered. Tony, an instructer, has gone through the year up to this point with the motto “less talk, more rock” in mind, which is great, up to a point, but often left our activities disconnected and without context or greater meaning. I really started to grieve a couple days ago finally the fact that Willem is not a part of the program, because I think this kind of discussion is what he would have brought in all along. I’m happy it’s happening now. It feels really good.

something is shifting

by necessity, a shift is going to happen.

or to say it negatively, if there is no (perceived, immediate) need, a shift is not going to happen.

I feel lost, I’ve lost perspective, forgotten why I’m doing what I’m doing. I feel very near-sighted, in the figurative sense. I can only perceive what is immediately around me, and it doesn’t make much sense. because there’s no need to implement what I’m learning right now. and besides, it’s really really easy to get distracted by the addictive stimulation of electricity- the internet, lights. Heck, even the refrigerator and stove.

The systems I am plugged into on a daily basis are too complex for me to understand, or at least too complex for me to replicate, either on my own or with my friends, and I have arrived at using them very easily, simply, blithely.

But the whole point of me being here doing what I’m doing is to be able to disconnect from these systems and to reconnect with a better system, a new system, an old system, a system my friends and I can replicate on our own.

Need creates awareness. I am remaining unaware as long as I shield myself from the need to be aware.

The simplest way to describe with words the root of what I have to do to get to where I want to go is, “observe reality and adjust”. pay attention, expand vision, expand all senses, feel in your body, be present to the external world, both the human world and the other-than-human world (currently, I disappear into other people in the human world, and I disappear into myself in the other-than-human world).

So, taking away that shield, introducing that need… I intend to visit Possibility Alliance, which doesn’t use any electricity, next summer, so I intend to live without electricity next summer. Why wait?

My first reaction to that suggestion is that I would be bored out of my mind at night without the internet and without lights to read by. But that’s the point, tom. When you get that bored, you’ll get creative. You’ll see opportunities open up.

Fuckin’ A. I’m so addicted it’s not funny. It’s just that the goddamn thing is so useful. I get to filter my inputs really well and just take in really high quality [stimulation]/knowledge, most of the time. I’m ravenous with it. Consumption.

I’m going to make a pro/con list for using the internet. But it seems pretty clear to me, observing how my usage of the internet is currently, that it is definitely a major thing that’s going to have to shift.

Ahhhhh! there’s only one and a half hours until sunset! fuckfuckfuckfuck

(this is what the beginning stages of withdrawl look like)