Tuatha vs. Autumn

Many faithful pet pooches honor the tradition of the leaf pile fight. Who knows why they feel compelled to attack flying handfuls of dried leaves, even as the handfuls fall apart in the air?

At least in the case of my dog, Tuatha, I believe that he’s acting on my behalf. He must know, because he’s smart in that creepy way, that fall leaf piles are a sign that winter is not far off. And since he knows I hate winter, again, creepy smart, he takes up arms—or teeth—to prevent summer from giving up the stage.

I have decided this. Don’t correct me; My life is small and I have few entertainments. –WT

Join our Hippie Chick Diaries fanpage on facebook!

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Yippee! I wish I had bet money. I imagine some people thought I would have trouble finding Singing in the Rain coloring pages. How could you doubt my Googling prowess after I came up with coloring pages for our STOMP! unit?

So the fizz is fading on our origami unit and it’s time for the members of Open Classroom to consense on a new unit. Decisions are made by consensus, just as in Heathcote’s adult community. So the kids are brainstorming ideas on lists and then ranking them.

Our origami unit was my idea. The kids had a presentation on paper airplanes in their science club. Suddenly they were making and flying paper airplanes at a rate of about three per second, all over the community. The problem was, they were picking them up at a rate of about one per year. Any piece of paper was a risk of being folded and flung–receipts, committee reports, shopping lists and virgin copier paper–That was the most coveted by paper airplane manufacturers and least tolerated by communal adults who preach “reduce, reuse, recycle.”

Now normally I would be happy to follow the kids where there energy goes. I’m sure they were learning all kinds of useful principles of aerodynamics and gaining fine motor skills. But when they cracked into the very pricey virgin construction paper it was time for some structure, if not redirection.

How about origami? It’s peaceful–you make bird sounds instead of those spitting machine gun noises. And cranes fly–You hold one in your hand and fly it around; You don’t throw it. And because it took you forty-five minutes and two interns to figure out how to make it, you want to keep track of it and admire it for a long time!

Origami, Japanese for “stop tunneling through the expensive paper as if you were trying to get to the Earth’s core and neutralize it before we all explode!”

We also repeated our annual ritual of filling the mill windows with snowflake cutouts. I love this shot of paper snowflakes looking out on all the buildings and cars nearly hidden in snow.

So what unit will we choose? Our intern Gloria brought lots of resources from her job, teaching science and math. We read a story about Harry Houdini and some energy welled up around magic. The kids constantly invent their own board and card games. Some game theory might be interesting. Maybe Spiderman–Our youngest member refuses to answer to any name other than Peter Parker these days.

In any case, I’ll be looking for everyone’s “buy in.” My role is more that of facilitator than teacher. So what are the common values that inform the decision? Our shared love of learning and curiosity, our preference for experiential learning, egalitarianism. So where is the energy flowing? I like C.T. Butler’s point that in consensus, one “consents” to a decision. It’s a decision one allows to go forward, it doesn’t have to be everyone’s first choice. This is people’s first misunderstanding of consensus, I think. Then they mistakenly believe that every member of a group has to be involved equally in every decision. Every member has equal weight in every decision, but the group can empower committees and managers to make certain decisions within their mandate, given by the group.

Open Classroom experiments with this kind of leadership in a horizontal (non-hierarchical) structure by taking turns being the “chooser” for the day. No, not The Decider, shudder to think…The group decides what decisions the chooser may make for the group. Then each member of the group is at choice to follow the chooser’s suggestions or not.

Currently, the group has mandated the chooser to

• select the talking stick for our opening circle
• select our lunch, which must follow the food pyramid
• make up silly challenges for us when it’s time to return to our classroom for quiet time (so we don’t run and act crazy)
• present a simple workshop during our late afternoon boring time

The chooser learns to consider her/his audience and act creatively but in the interest of the group.

I’m ready for a tropical unit of some kind–parrots of the world, equatorial predators, sewing summer clothes…

–WT

Join our Hippie Chick Diaries fanpage on facebook!

Seasons spiral. Playful, clever kittens become standoffish cats, parsnips become stirfry. People spiral, too. After a year of traversing the wilds of The Ozarks and Kentucky, I came full circle and landed where I started, at Heathcote Community. And Iuval spun out too, landing in Atlanta, answering his son’s call.

In the same, transient way, things come and things go. Shoes become air-conditioned foot coverings, nations become archaeology.

About a month ago, my ex-partner let me know that he gave away his bio-diesel schoolbus, Shadowslo. Just gave it away. In the same moment I felt like someone had died and I was impressed. I was also confused. Didn’t he need the bus for housing at his new Intentional Community? Why give away such a basic resource, just when he was launching his project?

“I’m in this meditation group and we were given an assignment to give away something of value. Most people were giving away rings or things like that. But then I met these people and they said they’d always wanted a veggie bus. It just seemed right.”

Wow. I wonder if I could do that. I also wonder if it’s smart, but mainly, I wonder if I could do it. This gift is no kidney, but it’s certainly on the order of Pay It Forward. I wonder what the people who accepted his gift thought of his act. I notice my shelfishness in wishing I could have seen Shadowslo one last time, to remember our shelf on that mountain in Murray Valley, Arkansas and say goodbye.

When I ponder my relationship to my possessions, I’m fond of saying, “If my house burned down tomorrow and I lost everything in it, as long as the pets got out, my quality of life would be the same.” I don’t know how deeply I mean that or not, now that I realize it’s not the same as saying, “Come on in and take anything you like. I won’t miss it!”

Iuval’s a big Howard Zinn fan and since Zinn’s recent death, I’ve been reading his A People’s History of the United States. Zinn makes a clear point of American Indians’ relationship to possessions, how they gave of them freely and seemed to lack attachment, and how most resources were communally held. He notes also how, although Europeans sometimes wrote of this with admiration, they universally went on to exploit it.

Even so, I believe that simplicity, especially in turning away from material things, is the path to be desired. It’s what will serve us now. If we can lighten the demands we make on the planet and begin to conceive of resources as communal, we might make it.

So, dear readers, I knew the departed well. Shadowslo never traveled when I knew him. He stood firm where Iuval had planted him, on a densely wooded mountain. He got his water from a spring and only took what he needed. Tents  and cars came and went around him. Sometimes he was alone on that mountain for weeks at a time, ready, solar batteries charged, waiting, for Iuval to return.

I heard the stories of Shadowslo’s adventures, trips to the West Coast, rock festivals with Iuval’s son, Zac, tours of Intentional Communities with his previous partner, Christina, Saint Christina to some.

Legend had it that no state trooper could lay eyes upon this organically painted hippie house rolling down the interstate at the speed limit and resist pulling it over.

The mountain folk of Murray Valley will no doubt tell the tales of Shadowslo, driving onto the mountain, on that dirt road laid out using plans designed by a kitten with string. And then, 2 years later, Shadowslo repeated the feat, taking an entire day and several shouting matches to go six miles.

Now there are the Atlanta legends, in which Shadowslo and Iuval, seemingly together to stay, landed in a friend’s yard as the leaves changed, and Iuval’s life changed, bringing one last change to our faithful steed.

Shadowslo could be said to have heart and soul and a kitchenette. He sheltered and carried and rested. He obeyed Iuval’s every command, unless his fuel was rancid or his headlight popped out. He kept out the rain, wind, ice and snow, but not mice.

But despite his motor and mobility, and his fold down solar shower, Shadowslo was an object, a possession, a parcel that could be bartered, sold or given away.

Even more than this, Shadowslo was a gift to those who knew him. And so, let us offer him into his next service, a gift of some randomness and shock value, which is always interesting, maybe even poetic.

–WT

Join our Hippie Chick Diaries fanpage on facebook!

While I’m enduring the snow and expecting more to arrive, I am warming myself by looking at camera pictures from the past year–lots of greens and browns, and people in short sleeves!

I’ve been struck by how productive we’ve remained, as individuals and as Heathcote, during the snow. So I want to belatedly post about an event we had here. I posted an announcement/invitation, but I never showed you how fabulous we all looked during our Community Work Action Week!

Facilitator Teryani Riggs led Heathcote members and friends, such as Erika, above, through an intensive week of work projects, ZEGG-Forums, excercizes to build up trust, fun and connection, and, for our non-members, learning about Heathcote Community, our systems, structures and group process.

Work projects included gardening, restoring Mill siding, renovating our bunkroom, and filling a giant dumpster with debris from Polaris construction and random Heathcote trash. Although I plugged in on the dumpster and the bunkroom, my back limited my hard labor. All the better for snapping a few shots!

Enjoy!

–WT

Join our Hippie Chick Diaries fanpage on facebook!

So I have this understanding or  conceit, guess, whatever, that my pets are in an eternal now, that they have no understanding of past and future.

They must be bummed, if not seriously devastated by all this snow!

Think of my poor goats, Niabi and Wicca, believing that our world is now permanently frozen and devoid of yummy plantlife, with oceans of  snow, above their heads, preventing them from reaching trees they could debark.

Think of my dog, Tuatha, who would love to fetch a stick. But if I throw it into the distance, I just have to rescue him in a minute and a half, when he realizes he’s not going to reach the stick, or return home on his own.

Instead, he and the goats are marooned, like the rest of us, in the trench system that connects human buildings but doesn’t go to any interesting pet places.

As the second blizzard hit its stride last week, I went to dig out my goats from their cob shelter, which is now essencially and igloo. As I shoveled from my hut to theirs, I called to them, “Mamma’s coming,” They answered back, which I took to mean, “That’s a good thing, Mom. Anytime now…” I had to dig a wide opening for the gate to swing. Then I saw that the large walking area I’d dug out for them the day before was now two feet deep in snow again. the narrow entrance to their structure, which is only three feet high itself, was nearly closed over in snow. I reshoveled a walking area for them on my way to their door.

Once I had cut a passage through the snow, they considered their options. It was snowing heavily. And, I suspect it’s true of all goats, but pygmy goats, a dwarf breed originating in Africa, especially do not like to be wet. First the leader, Niabi, stuck his head out to assess the situation. Then they both did. Then they went back inside and discussed it. Soon Wicca poked out, just far enough to say, “You’re kidding me, right?”

I assured Wicca I was serious.

He answered, “Hon, we’re from Cameroon. We’re not built for this. Close this door and when you open it again, I don’t want to see reindeer!” I pointed out his Baltimore accent, and he pulled inside indignantly.

After he and Niabi conferred within for another spell, Niabi took charge and led the way out of the goat house, through the walking area and out the gate. I assumed their only option was to follow the trench to my cabin, where they could pass the time under the house, which they always choose over their pen.

Always, until that day.

About halfway between the gate and my cabin, Niabi promptly turned around, passed the pliant Wicca, and led him right back to the pen, through the gate, past the newly dug walking area and straight into their tiny, windowless cob cave.

I left the gate open wide and later they did reemerge and make their way to my cabin. But at three to five feet deep, the snow is too high for them to make their own paths.

Normally Niabi and Wicca free range forage in the woods surrounding my cabin. They have a routine of places they go, from dawn to dusk, on paths they’ve long established, in a perameter of several acres. Most of the year, they’re not even curious about Heathcoters’ gardens or plantings because the undergrowth gives them their natural food source.

They prefer to sleep under my cabin, not because I feed them (I don’t most of the year) but because they seem to consider me, the dogs, kids and other Heathcoters to be their herd. The goats go on hikes with us and are often included in Open Classroom explorations of our land. The picture on the right, above, shows two students actually closed in the goat pen, enjoying a snack unpestered, while Niabi is loose, hoping for a renegotiation.

So while the snow dominates our layout, I’m trying to give Niabi and Wicca as many options as possible. They continue to base themselves under my house. But I keep my porch gate open, allowing them to basically make a huge mess while they access the timothy hay and bed down on bags of sawdust pellets.

Now the timothy is spread all over the floor and mixed with, shall we say, the goats’ favorite little decorator motif. (It’s okay, as infestations go, they’re cuter than the rodent that’s systematically pulling out all the insulation in my loft through five different holes…) I’ll figure some appropriate payback. The year is long, my furry little Cameroonians…

–WT

Join our Hippie Chick Diaries fanpage on facebook!

One day, early on in my blizzard confinement, I traveled down my hill…Hm. I make that sound too easy. I pushed my way through waist high snow, pulling myself on not one but two walking sticks, sometimes wenching myself, using available trees, falling, disappearing below the ocean of snow, climbing up, retrieving my sticks, inching my way down my steep slope, digging my shoe spikes in with each stomp into virgin snow, until I made it down to Heathcote’s Mill, snow inside, between my jeans and long janes up to my knees, ready to find food.

The usual scattering of community members was about, along with a whole sporting goods store’s worth of snowpants, boots, gloves, jackets, vests, scarves, sweaters, and many, many wet socks.

And then I saw it: a tray of homemade, hot from the oven bagels! Nick, our newest full member and Heathcote’s patron saint of breads, bees and pottery, had just left them on the counter with this note: “There is abundance here. Eat when you are hungry! : )”

I was and I did! I got stuck on “A BUN DANCE,” though;  I saw little dancing buns. I grinned maniacally…Now I can confess, I ate more than my share…way more, considering that I’m supposed to be avoiding bread during my candida cleanse…

While many on the East Coast were rushing off to the grocery between snowfalls, I trudged the trench to Heathcote’s greenhouse, a plexiglas attachment onto a former corn crib, which is actually painted yellow, confusing many a visitor. the structure did used to be green, until then-member Mary Hall provided us with some fashion sense and now it’s yellow with periwinkle trim. I loved stepping inside our greenhouse, after pushing the door through the snow. Within were lettuces and chards in full color, next to plexiglas with snow banked five feet high!

When I took my turn to cook the community meal, I was determined to fill our giant soup pot with thick, crunchy vegetable soup, so our growing community would feel well-fed a-bun-dance. The fridge was full of leeks, yellow onions, red chard, purple cabbage…Along with green lentils, some fire roasted tomatoes from a can, and more, it was chunky, colorful and satisfying.

This past fall, Heathcote received a grant from the Koinonia Foundation to build a large hoophouse style greenhouse in our main garden. Many Heathcote members and friends contributed considerable labor to build it, in tandem with workshops, as part of Heathcote’s educational mission. Starting this spring, our hoophouse will significantly extend our growing season and increase the food available from Heathcote land, for both our table and market. Heathcoter Mike has been diligent about removing snow as it falls on the plastic sheeting, which wasn’t easy to put in place. Now snow banks up five feet and more around the outside.  The structure has held up well with Mike’s proactive care. It’s exciting to stand inside, the space is full of potential!

Yesterday, our monthly wholesale food delivery finally came, three days late due to road conditions, specifically our road, which had only just been plowed. Several of us gathered to unload the truck, count the boxes, inventory the order and put the food away.

Our diet is vegetarian and vegan, whole foods and organic as much as possible. At Heathcote, we grow what we can. (This year, lead gardener Betsy will be supervising interns in our Permaculture based gardens.) We also collect wild edibles, such as mushrooms, off our land. Then we buy what we can, wholesale and in bulk, using our collective buying power. What we can’t get from our distributors, we buy, usually at locally owned health food stores and grocery stores, such as Sonnewald, Saubels and The Natural.

It’s always fun to help put the co-op order away; It’s like opening presents. And it’s usually much easier to plan a menu for the community dinner after the order has arrived than while it’s due. But still, as we were waiting for it and living and working in our buildings connected by trenches in the snow, I never felt a lack.

–WT

Join our Hippie Chick Diaries fanpage on facebook!

Former Maryland poet laureate Lucille Clifton has died. This poem seems a perfect way to pause and raise my tea mug to her. I met her briefly in Columbia, Maryland and I was moved, not just by her poetry and narrative style, but by the use of Lucille’s dramatic training in her delivery of each poem. I picture her bringing this one up from the belly:

won’t you celebrate with me

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my one hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

–Lucille Clifton

Join our Hippie Chick Diaries fanpage on facebook!

For new HCD readers: I often forage the woods of Heathcote Community picking up trash, some of it decades old, left behind by, hmm…I’m going to say well meaning hippies who have smoked something that makes them think plastic has nutritional value for squirrels and other woodland creatures. This folding chair is my all time favorite find. It was just sitting there, rusted out, deep in the woods. It’s become something of a totem of solitude for me, appearing in several posts. I love Folding Chair. She might get her own Facebook fan page!!!

–WT

Please join our Hippie Chick Diaries fan page on Facebook!

Somewhere, under this huge snow cloud that spans several states, there is a wooded ridge, overlooking a narrow stream valley with a quaint mill and beautiful gardens, a pond and a playground. That wooded ridge is blanketed, no, quilted…no, comfortered…no, duveted in three feet of snow. Under that snow is a modest, cozy cabin with an A-frame loft. But you wouldn’t know it, because it’s under three feet of snow.

In that modest, cozy cabin is one bored sheltie, who has managed to tamp down a path to the nearest tree in the back yard, It’s a very well watered tree.

Under that modest, cozy cabin are two shivering pygmy goats, who have blazed a ten foot trail under the evergreen, whose branches are heavy with snow, so they hang low enough for bored goats to nibble–One well nibbled tree!

Around the edges of the roof, icicles line up like soldiers, or stalactites or predators’ teeth asking, “Don’t you wish you’d put those gutters and water catchment barrels on last summer?”

On the porch of the modest cabin is a plastic tree, covered in snow, perched as if looking out on the real forest like Pinocchio. Against the house lie two tons of wood pellets. And beside them rests a drop cloth which seems to say, “You should have spread me over the pellets before the snow came…”

Inside the cabin, surrounded by folk art decoys, Blenko glass and books on filmmaking, butt up against the blast of the pellet stove, is me, one barely coping Hippie Chick, warming her hands and thinking, “I hope they plow us out in time for my therapy appointment. I can’t miss my therapy appointment. Have they cleared out parking spaces downtown? I have a therapy appointment!”

I check the internet for a weather forecast. I see we’re in for another two feet! Two feet? We have three feet already on the ground, that’s up to my hip socket. Another two feet? I’m only five foot one, total. That puts the snow at my hairline, which, I might point out, is north of my nose. I’m gonna need a snorkel. I wish I liked snorkeling.  Then I would probably own one. Oh, this is unacceptable.

Can’t we be egalitarian about this? There must be other regions of the country to which we could truck our snow. My hometown, Louisville, only got a couple of inches. This is not fair to the children of Louisville, of all the Louisvilles everywhere. I can’t keep this abundance for myself. How about Los Angeles? Think of the little children of Los Angeles living without snow. Send a caravan of refrigerated trucks here and we could make their dreams come true!

A helicopter. I need to be airlifted out of here now. S.O.S.!

I can only survive so long. I started a candida cleanse before the snow came. I have no fun food in the house–no pasta, bread, cheese, chocolate. I like greens and quinoa but under threat of being buried alive, I want happy food, now!

Dad in Florida, if you’re reading this, this is your other daughter, the one who doesn’t live in Minnesota. Don’t let the photos fool you. I know Minnesnoweda only has two seasons–winter and July. But I’m your Maryland daughter. I’m entitled to four seasons and I graduated from winter early this year. So as soon as I can dig out, I’m coming to live with you for a while. Are pygmy goats allowed in your golf/retirement Intentional Community?

Please join our Hippie Chick Diaries fan page on Facebook!