Monday, April 07, 2008

I write to you, as always, from the kitchen table. This physical kitchen table that my laptop (and elbows) rest upon is in the Warehouse. The Warehouse is in the Ghetto. The Ghetto is at the foot of a steep hill, and on that hill is a soon-to-be garden. There's also a garden right next to the Warehouse that VFD is about to go clear of fallen limbs, which will be chainsawed, brought to the pub and burned behind in a community firecircle.

My elbows are connected, by way of shoulders, back to my center. The physical center of all human beings is the root of their Chi, (sometimes spelled Qi). I was reminded of this experienced fact by the interesting book "ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running", by Danny Dreyer. I am not suggesting that the base of consciousness is above the pubic bone and below the navel- I tend towards the Celtic view that it's behind the face on your head- but it's certainly true that, with your physical body, acting from the center Dan Tien makes a lot of sense. There will be less hurtful stress, more grace, and easy laughter if you pay attention to your center line, between the top ur head and the bone we monkies used to hang a tail on. Orient your extremities around your core- imagine if the Moon decided to move in disregard to the position of Earth, who she naturally spins around!



I am growing in awareness not only of this whole outside world, but also my inner worlds. I've been thinking about the "Tree of Life" a lot lately, and doing a fair amount of climbing. It's interesting to see that there's actually a Tree of Life at the Center of Judeo-Christian mysticism. This past autumn I thought that maybe, initiating into the HOGD would be useful for the Valiant Foresters' Debauchery effort. It's been a few months, and I can say that yes, studying and practicing magick is useful for permaculture. I'm starting to appreciate unseen entities more, and also opening to the experience of direct communication and therefore, cooperation, with wild plants. Trees in particular- my hunch was right, and the fringe benefits have been more than I hoped for. Like, the onwards and upwards, disciplined magickal practice has been immensely useful in steering my course way outside the dominant, "swimmingly fetching cultural milleua", towards the heart of Noble Savagery. To be more specific, with my attention on the ultimate source, the all-encompassing unmanifested potentiality that we can tap into consciously for greater effect in this realm, I get my bearings on aspects of myself and may focus on correcting glaring imperfections in the process.



Okay, VFD's gotta go chop that wood. Love and light always.

5 comments:

D. Lollard said...

Happy chainsawing.

Just today I pretty much finished up the bignormous logs of ours that have been in the neighbor's property for a year or so. Mike helped a lot the other day with leverage. I learned from it.

Leverage is one of those nifty permaculture principles. Today I dropped off Introduction to Permaculture at our local Nation of Islam bookstore. The proprietor is interested.

Sharqi's right now lighting a fire. The new woodstove is burnin' good.

Mary Kinirons said...

My mom I think would find this post very interesting. She is always interested in Chi, tree of life stuff, and communication with plants. I can't wait to see the progress of VFD. If you ever need help planting or something and I don't already have plans I would love to help out. I need to remember to bring our compost to the warehouse. Its getting pretty nasty. I hope work is going well and say hello to your parents for me!

~Mary~

Unknown said...

It was happy chainsawing. People seeing me participating in the "environment", lovingly in a cooperative manner to meet my needs and enhance the neighborhood's ambiance- it felt like the best propaganda I've put out in a long time. Now that the place is cleared, I wouldn't be surprised if other gardeners materialize to work with the land. Happy days. In removing the rotting cat carcass and burying it, we better smell the flowers's perfume and the wort's sweetness, wafting up from da local brewery.

So Don, you have leverage to open eyes in the Nation of Islam bookstore? Very cool. The ethics of permaculture are very spiritually informed, and the Nation is radical enough to keep their eyes open I expect.

Unknown said...

Hey Mary, I'll keep you in my loop and inform the other VFD folk that you want to partake- much love, amiga.

D. Lollard said...

I don't really know much about The Nation, but the one guy who's usually there is into autonomy, off-grid power, and plants. So we have nice discussions.