Trailer Park Girl

You are Strength

Courage, strength, fortitude. Power not arrested in the act of judgement, but passing on to further action, sometimes obstinacy.

This is a card of courage and energy. It represents both the Lion’s hot, roaring energy, and the Maiden’s steadfast will. The innocent Maiden is unafraid, undaunted, and indomitable. In some cards she opens the lion’s mouth, in others she shuts it. Either way, she proves that inner strength is more powerful than raw physical strength. That forces can be controlled and used to score a victory is very close to the message of the Chariot, which might be why, in some decks, it is Justice that is card 8 instead of Strength. With strength you can control not only the situation, but yourself. It is a card about anger and impulse management, about creative answers, leadership and maintaining one’s personal honor. It can also stand for a steadfast friend.

What Tarot Card are You?

According to the News 8 Austin weather site, it is currently 36 degrees out. It’s cloudy and rained a bit during the night. Free of pressing engagements, I lay snuggled in bed this morning til *11*, no less. Now I’m bundled in multiple layers: long underwear; a skirt with a silk skirt underneath; sweatshirt over shirts; muffler; hat; fluffy wool fingerless gloves made of old socks. Outfitted thusly, I am (just) warm enough to type. In a minute I either will crawl back under the covers (with book or laptop) or will go get my Icelandic wool blanket and wrap it around myself as I sit at my desk.

We’ve had only a few nippy nights and a couple of cool days so far, and so far I haven’t needed to use my little 1,500-watt heater at all. Now, technically, this morning would be a time for the heater, but just as a fun experiment I am doing without. (I realize this is not everyone’s idea of fun.)

Actually, I’m pretty comfortable! And I will be even better in a few short minutes, when I have a mug of hot tea in my hands.

Sorry folks, I am just not feeling very articulate these days. But I’m sure you’re tired of seeing that “dark existential mood, blogging while intoxicated” entry at the top of what has generally become a blog about making positive change. And even if you’re not sick of seeing it, I’m sick of knowing it’s up there. So here’s another entry to bury it.

Plenty is going on but as I said, I’m just not feeling articulate. I’m learning a lot and also experiencing a lot in the emotional realm but when I try to write it just comes out the color and consistency of wallpaper paste.

Oh well.

Today the darling Norable, EcoVersity’s first-ever intern, departed for the East Coast, where she will first visit her family and then head back to college. We will all miss that sweet and spicy girl so much. Her industry, creativity, beauty, sensitivity, offbeat humor, and come to find out, skill in making pina coladas (yes, my head does still hurt) have been an asset to EcoVersity. I have a feeling she’ll be back; she has sort of fallen in love with Santa Fe.

As have I. I have to admit, I’ll have mixed feelings about leaving this place next month. I feel like a cutting from a houseplant. I’ve been transplanted into a foreign pot, far from the mother plant, but have finally sprouted a couple of those pale little root-shoots from the side of my cut stem, and if I stay here much longer I may not be able to leave. When I leave I will have spent five months here. I’ve learned that where I am now, four months, is right square in the danger zone, time-wise.

Living here on this green island in the heart of a small city, taking care of the land, sipping coffee and gossip and working alongside the same intimate little family day after day after day, eating off the land, laughing at chicken antics, sharing awe over a huge day lily or a luscious squash that seemed to come out of nowhere while we weren’t looking … well, there’s nothing quite like it. I think of Austin and my friends back there … So much asphalt compared with here, and all my friends so widely scattered and so busy. So much of our energy devoted to activities that keep us from falling off the treadmill but do little or nothing to comfort our animal souls or assure our long-term well-being. I hope I’ll be able to sustain there the spirit and energy I’ve cultivated here and pass it on to my community back home. Part of me is a little bit scared I don’t really have a home to go home to.

As another little wrinkle in the plot, I fell in love with a person here. Love comes in many shades, and love in any form is always a good and welcome thing. I tend to develop deep feelings for people rather quickly and easily, and just because I feel this way about someone does not necessarily mean we should be “together.” In this case we both realized there isn’t any long-term romantic potential but there is the wish, on both sides, for long-term friendship and collaboration. So we’re trying to build the foundation for that.

This person helped me develop my awareness of some key sustainability concepts, and I deeply admire his intellect and am grateful for his energy and inspiration. Also I’m relieved to learn that my heart and body had not in fact turned to permafrost, though until recently they had been frozen pretty solid for a long time. So many good men around, a healthy percentage expressing interest in me, and me not able to work up any real appetite for any of them, til recently. I am grateful for that thawing-out, even though it didn’t “go anywhere” after that one lovely weekend.

Oh, DAMN IT, why can’t I express things better? If Norable were still here she would come up with one incandescent turn of phrase after another. Oh well. For good writers there is language in all of its color and nuance; for the rest of us there are cliches to fall back on. I guess that’s why cliches exist, huh.

Part of “creating sustainable human environments” (one definition of permaculture) is creating community, and a key part of creating community is being honest with ourselves and others about our feelings, which includes sharing our struggles, mundane and downright dorky though they may be. In that spirit I put these words out into the ether.

All these channels, and STILL nothing’s on. The night stretches out before us, black as fear.

All these websites, and so little wisdom. “Too many churches, not enough truth.” All this porn, and nothing stirs our appetite. We pop Viagra because we’re too chicken to cry bullshit on the status quo and look into what really turns us on. So many old boyfriends I could google, but nobody I really want to hear from.

… if this crazy embarrassment of riches that leaves us cold and dead and jaded and mindlessly reaching for the air-popped styrofoam, which we think is the only thing on the menu just because it’s the only thing the concession stand sells, doesn’t back us up against the wall to look into our hearts and figure out what’s really important, people, then what on earth WILL?

Dark existential mode finished; we now return you to your original programming.

[NOTE: READERS, THIS WOMAN HAS OBVIOUSLY BEEN DRINKING TOO MUCH VODKA. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LISTEN TO HER. REMAIN SAFELY INDOORS, TURN UP THE AIR CONDITIONING, AND DON’T FORGET TO DRINK YOUR SOMA.]

From a NY Times article, “An Exhibition About Drawing Conjures a Time when Amateurs Roamed the Earth”:

We’re addicted to convenience today. Cellphone cameras are handy, but they’re also the equivalent of fast-food meals. Their ubiquity has multiplied our distance from drawing as a measure of self-worth and a practical tool. Before box cameras became universal a century or so ago, people drew for pleasure but also because it was the best way to preserve a cherished sight, a memory, just as people played an instrument or sang if they wanted to hear music at home because there were no record players or radios. Amateurism was a virtue, and the time and effort entailed in learning to draw, as with playing the piano, enhanced its desirability. …

In a new memoir, “Let Me Finish,” Roger Angell recalls trips to the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium in the 1930’s with his father, who also liked to join pickup games when middle-age American men still did that. Today baseball is like the arts, with grown-ups mostly preferring not to break a sweat. “We know everything about the game now, thanks to instant replay and computerized stats, and what we seem to have concluded is that almost none of us are good enough to play it,” Mr. Angell writes.

So it is with classical music, painting and drawing, professional renditions of which are now so widely available that most people probably can’t or don’t imagine there’s any point in bothering to do these things themselves. Communities of amateurs still thrive, but they are self-selecting groups. A vast majority of society seems to presume that culture is something specialists produce.

I’ve been an enthusiast of home-grown culture for a long time. A music jam at a friend’s house or around the campfire at a folk festival is far more enticing to me than a big-ticket rock concert (though I do love listening to rock full-blast on my stereo, er, I mean laptop), and I’d much rather make art myself than go to a museum and look at art. Which is not to say that one can’t do plenty of both. Lately I haven’t looked at any “professional” art, but I have been flexing my amateur muscles in our school garden. When I get over this flu bug thing that flattened me for the past couple of days, I’ll dust off the scanner and share my home-grown drawings with you.

Did everyone have a happy Solstice? I dragged myself out of bed at 5:15 to watch the full process of the sky getting lighter and the sun coming up on the longest day of the year. (Official sunrise time was 5:48.) And guess what, I almost froze my butt off! Jeez, it musta been about 60 degrees out, if that! The morning chill enhanced the suspense of waiting for Apollo to peek over the eastern mountains. A fine beginning to an excellent day.

The next permaculture design class starts tomorrow, and one of my assignments for this week is to prepare sun-cooked goodies for their welcome party. Yesterday I made shortbread and an ice-cream pie. (Well, OK, the ice-cream pie wasn’t solar-cooked. But the cherry topping, which I made from fruit that grew right here on campus, was.) Then today I made a pecan-and-raisin spice pie! I’d been especially worried about the outcome of that particular experiment, because the conventional cookbook recipe calls for a particularly high baking temp of 425, whereas I wasn’t able to get the solar ovens above 250 today. But the pie turned out just great, and finished cooking in the nick of time, right before fat clouds rolled in with a little rain and thunder. Tomorrow I’ll complete the goodie table with vegan shortbread (using olive oil instead of butter), gluten-free shortbread (quinoa flour), brownies, and blondies.

A few of the permaculture students are already here. After having the campus mostly to ourselves for a couple of weeks, it feels a little weird but also exciting to have a new batch of folks here.

Yesterday also marked the beginning of a garden project I’m going to be, dare I say, leading (did I really just say that??) at a halfway-house-type facility for adolescents who’ve been released from juvenile prison. This place is amazing, full of dedicated people who are really trying to give the young folks a lot of opportunities to learn useful skills, as well as find ways to cope with the emotions that led them to do the things that got them into juvenile prison in the first place. The guy who supervises them and coordinates the various volunteers who come in from outside is super. He’s tough and no-nonsense yet very caring and willing to give a lot of himself to the kids. (Also, on a side note, he is a little older than me and, ahem, HOT. [giggle] There’s a lot of that going around New Mexico! Must be something in the water. I’m definitely in deep appreciation mode lately.)

I really enjoyed working with the guys (there were no female residents present yesterday, though I hear there is one at the facility). They were respectful, sweet, and funny, and though they complained about the “hard labor” at first, at least some of them seemed to take to it after a while. We dug holes and planted hardy perennials (many donated by Plants of the Southwest) for three solid hours. Next week we’ll plant annual seeds!

Back on campus, I led (again with that “LEAD” thing — what’s gotten into me lately, I wonder?) a little solstice ritual in the garden at sunset. Various new faces appeared in our midst. I think I was the only person there who identified as a pagan, but it was an open-minded, pagan-friendly little group, and we had a nice circle. Afterward the gathering morphed into a free-form snack-o-rama and jam session.