Someone has stripped every scrap of bark off one of the trees in our street. It will now, of course, die.
At the moment I feel like I could happily reintroduce the death penalty for such a stupid, destructive act.
Monday, 23 July 2007
Saturday, 7 July 2007
It's been a mixed week.
I've been wanting to go barefoot on some of our walks, but have been hesitant because of the gravel trails (some with broken glass embedded in them) and the different texture of nature - it's not all soft grass! So I bought a pair of flip-flops from a clothes shop. I felt dirty afterwards.
Went to the farmer's market on Sunday morning, barefoot. We needed bus money so went to the cashpoint, only to find that it was empty and we had to walk to the next one a mile or so away. Someone had thoughtfully smashed every bus shelter between here and there, covering the pavement with shattered glass; very thankful for those flip-flops I was. Although if I hadn't had them, I would have just walked around the glass.
Went on the bus, barefoot (first time on public transport) - it was mostly fine, except for walking down the aisle while the bus was pulling up to the stop! I felt my feet stree-e-e-tch, slightly painfully; I'd say that was easily the scariest thing I've done with my feet so far. It's an unobvious thing to be frightening.
Once we got into town (major obstacle #1!), I realised that going barefoot in town the morning after Saturday night was moderately unsensible: St Mary's Street (the major clubbing venue) was strewn with broken glass, and not nice, friendly broken glass like the sort I usually encounter either. It was shards of broken bottles and glasses, clustered, small and needle-sharp. I could have picked my way around it, but it was early and I was tired, so I put the flip-flops on. I would have had to in the market anyway; it's *very* busy and the pavement around the stadium is pebbledashed (pebbledashed pavement - who came up with that innovation? I bet they wore shoes).
Got a chicken (proper free-range, not organic - the market doesn't seem to offer organic chicken at the moment), some eggs and bacon (same again), a lettuce and a small, knobbly cucumber. Also finally got my washing-up bowl in one of the shops - the local hardware store didn't have one.
Washed my feet when I got in, and it's still a little bit awkward - but much less so, and I use a lot less water. The bowl hangs on the coat rack. Looks a little bit weird, but hey, nobody's going to see it.
I'm enjoying being barefoot. People are arguing pretty enthusiastically about it elsewhere, but me, I only need to look at the scars on my feet from wearing shoes - on my toes, the backs of my heels, the cramp of my toes: places where skin has blistered and bled from friction, and blistered again. I have scars elsewhere on my body, scars that ultimately I credit civilisation with; scars that originate with the scars on my mind. Cast off the constraints, and you free the soul, like casting off shoes frees the feet. If only it were that easy.
Finally, this: Woman jailed for "neglected" lawn. Posting this elsewhere, I got it pointed out to me that this "wasn't exactly the norm"; like others who commented, I feel it's not exactly the police violence that leaps out, but what it says about how entrenched the lawn mentality is in the American desert. All that wasted water...
I've been wanting to go barefoot on some of our walks, but have been hesitant because of the gravel trails (some with broken glass embedded in them) and the different texture of nature - it's not all soft grass! So I bought a pair of flip-flops from a clothes shop. I felt dirty afterwards.
Went to the farmer's market on Sunday morning, barefoot. We needed bus money so went to the cashpoint, only to find that it was empty and we had to walk to the next one a mile or so away. Someone had thoughtfully smashed every bus shelter between here and there, covering the pavement with shattered glass; very thankful for those flip-flops I was. Although if I hadn't had them, I would have just walked around the glass.
Went on the bus, barefoot (first time on public transport) - it was mostly fine, except for walking down the aisle while the bus was pulling up to the stop! I felt my feet stree-e-e-tch, slightly painfully; I'd say that was easily the scariest thing I've done with my feet so far. It's an unobvious thing to be frightening.
Once we got into town (major obstacle #1!), I realised that going barefoot in town the morning after Saturday night was moderately unsensible: St Mary's Street (the major clubbing venue) was strewn with broken glass, and not nice, friendly broken glass like the sort I usually encounter either. It was shards of broken bottles and glasses, clustered, small and needle-sharp. I could have picked my way around it, but it was early and I was tired, so I put the flip-flops on. I would have had to in the market anyway; it's *very* busy and the pavement around the stadium is pebbledashed (pebbledashed pavement - who came up with that innovation? I bet they wore shoes).
Got a chicken (proper free-range, not organic - the market doesn't seem to offer organic chicken at the moment), some eggs and bacon (same again), a lettuce and a small, knobbly cucumber. Also finally got my washing-up bowl in one of the shops - the local hardware store didn't have one.
Washed my feet when I got in, and it's still a little bit awkward - but much less so, and I use a lot less water. The bowl hangs on the coat rack. Looks a little bit weird, but hey, nobody's going to see it.
I'm enjoying being barefoot. People are arguing pretty enthusiastically about it elsewhere, but me, I only need to look at the scars on my feet from wearing shoes - on my toes, the backs of my heels, the cramp of my toes: places where skin has blistered and bled from friction, and blistered again. I have scars elsewhere on my body, scars that ultimately I credit civilisation with; scars that originate with the scars on my mind. Cast off the constraints, and you free the soul, like casting off shoes frees the feet. If only it were that easy.
Finally, this: Woman jailed for "neglected" lawn. Posting this elsewhere, I got it pointed out to me that this "wasn't exactly the norm"; like others who commented, I feel it's not exactly the police violence that leaps out, but what it says about how entrenched the lawn mentality is in the American desert. All that wasted water...
Monday, 2 July 2007
Jesus didn't wear sandals
Something has just clicked into place for me.
I've been putting off replacing my shoes for months (they're in a bit of a state, as you can see - although the holes don't look too large, the boots are completely not watertight, and are so worn that they're bruising my feet on the inside), partly because I hate buying things, and partly because I haven't got any money, and partly because I can't help thinking it's a better idea to get used to going without shoes, and partly because I just hate shoes and would love to go barefoot everywhere. Lots of people do it, and recently the primitivist blogosphere has been talking about it.
We're all enculturated to wear shoes on pain of ostracisation, and I have a number of personal hurdles to get over with regard to it. The first one was going outside without shoes at all (broken glass, and omg, people might laugh and mock me). Today I kicked another one into touch - I went to the local shops ten minutes walk away. This doesn't sound like much, but those pavements are *dirty*. I think I've mentioned this isn't a nice area, and you don't see any of those little sweeper things going up and down here. You do see a lot of horrible little kids trying to look tough, littering, breaking glass, spitting, etc.
But I did it! and it was fine! I even went into the scary veg shop and they didn't say a word.
Other hurdles include: going into town. Realistically this should be a lot less intimidating than going to the corner shops, but there are a lot more people, a lot more CCTV and a lot more police. At least the people in the local shops know me.
going out in the rain - I've done this before. Worried about the damp obscuring hazards on the pavement, like glass.
going out in the dark - Again, this shouldn't be too much of a problem, but worried about what I won't be able to see. Also drunk gangs and people, who I won't be able to run away from. Not that I've ever had to run away from anyone, or that I think I'd be successful. But the option is nice.
going out in the winter. This is a big one. It's mostly just wet and windy and miserable, but there is frost and there is snow. For now, anyway. The Barefoot FAQ recommends moccasins and even lists a supplier, which is good, because as far as I can make out all moccasins sold in Britain have hard soles. It's really just a question of something which is warm and waterproof. I wonder if I could make something. What do the Inuit do?
But back to my revelation.
When we moved into our house a few years ago, Matt's mother paid for us to have shiny new carpets in the front room and upstairs. So we've always been a "no shoes" household, although as time has passed and the carpets have become more "lived in", the rule has relaxed slightly. When I come in from walking barefoot, I hop upstairs to the bathroom and wash my feet and hands. This isn't entirely an optimal solution, for all our modern technology: perching on the side of the bath is uncomfortable and awkward, and while I'm not bothered by getting my feet dirty, I also need to walk dirt upstairs first.
So while we were out, it occurred to me that I could fill a shallow washing up bowl with a bit of water, and leave it by the front door with some soap and a towel. The stairwell is right by the front door, and I could sit there comfortably with my feet in the bowl and wash them and my hands as soon as I came in. Faan-tastic. Where's my Nobel prize?
I made a note to check the hardware store for a round washing-up bowl, but there was something about the idea of coming in and washing my feet in a bowl that was bugging me. I turned it around and around in the back of my mind for a while. And then it hit me.
It's tucked down deep in our psyches that Jesus wore sandals. He was a goddamn hippy! He had long hair, wore a dress and was egalitarian, and wore *sandals*. But, of course, he didn't wear sandals at all.
Jesus went barefoot.
Remember all those foot-washing scenes in the gospel? Where people come indoors or go to visit someone, and wash their feet? You don't get your feet dirty walking around in sandals. You get your feet dirty walking around barefoot. At the outside, shoe-wearing had caught on so recently that washing your feet when you came in was still a social nicety.
Anyway, I'm going to give it a go. But I draw the line at smearing £200 anti-ageing cream all over my next guest's feet and drying them with my hair.
I've been putting off replacing my shoes for months (they're in a bit of a state, as you can see - although the holes don't look too large, the boots are completely not watertight, and are so worn that they're bruising my feet on the inside), partly because I hate buying things, and partly because I haven't got any money, and partly because I can't help thinking it's a better idea to get used to going without shoes, and partly because I just hate shoes and would love to go barefoot everywhere. Lots of people do it, and recently the primitivist blogosphere has been talking about it.
We're all enculturated to wear shoes on pain of ostracisation, and I have a number of personal hurdles to get over with regard to it. The first one was going outside without shoes at all (broken glass, and omg, people might laugh and mock me). Today I kicked another one into touch - I went to the local shops ten minutes walk away. This doesn't sound like much, but those pavements are *dirty*. I think I've mentioned this isn't a nice area, and you don't see any of those little sweeper things going up and down here. You do see a lot of horrible little kids trying to look tough, littering, breaking glass, spitting, etc.
But I did it! and it was fine! I even went into the scary veg shop and they didn't say a word.
Other hurdles include: going into town. Realistically this should be a lot less intimidating than going to the corner shops, but there are a lot more people, a lot more CCTV and a lot more police. At least the people in the local shops know me.
going out in the rain - I've done this before. Worried about the damp obscuring hazards on the pavement, like glass.
going out in the dark - Again, this shouldn't be too much of a problem, but worried about what I won't be able to see. Also drunk gangs and people, who I won't be able to run away from. Not that I've ever had to run away from anyone, or that I think I'd be successful. But the option is nice.
going out in the winter. This is a big one. It's mostly just wet and windy and miserable, but there is frost and there is snow. For now, anyway. The Barefoot FAQ recommends moccasins and even lists a supplier, which is good, because as far as I can make out all moccasins sold in Britain have hard soles. It's really just a question of something which is warm and waterproof. I wonder if I could make something. What do the Inuit do?
But back to my revelation.
When we moved into our house a few years ago, Matt's mother paid for us to have shiny new carpets in the front room and upstairs. So we've always been a "no shoes" household, although as time has passed and the carpets have become more "lived in", the rule has relaxed slightly. When I come in from walking barefoot, I hop upstairs to the bathroom and wash my feet and hands. This isn't entirely an optimal solution, for all our modern technology: perching on the side of the bath is uncomfortable and awkward, and while I'm not bothered by getting my feet dirty, I also need to walk dirt upstairs first.
So while we were out, it occurred to me that I could fill a shallow washing up bowl with a bit of water, and leave it by the front door with some soap and a towel. The stairwell is right by the front door, and I could sit there comfortably with my feet in the bowl and wash them and my hands as soon as I came in. Faan-tastic. Where's my Nobel prize?
I made a note to check the hardware store for a round washing-up bowl, but there was something about the idea of coming in and washing my feet in a bowl that was bugging me. I turned it around and around in the back of my mind for a while. And then it hit me.
It's tucked down deep in our psyches that Jesus wore sandals. He was a goddamn hippy! He had long hair, wore a dress and was egalitarian, and wore *sandals*. But, of course, he didn't wear sandals at all.
Jesus went barefoot.
Remember all those foot-washing scenes in the gospel? Where people come indoors or go to visit someone, and wash their feet? You don't get your feet dirty walking around in sandals. You get your feet dirty walking around barefoot. At the outside, shoe-wearing had caught on so recently that washing your feet when you came in was still a social nicety.
Anyway, I'm going to give it a go. But I draw the line at smearing £200 anti-ageing cream all over my next guest's feet and drying them with my hair.
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
everybody's doing it...
So I figured it was about time I set up a blog for my primitivist and green pursuits. Partly this is because I feel like I simply can't talk about them on my LiveJournal, which I've maintained for six years now... wow, that's a long time. Most of my real-life friends are on LJ, as well as a bunch of people I know from the Otherkin community, and when I get to talking about how we need to bring down civilisation, agriculture being unsustainable, mass extinctions and the like, I get the feeling they're looking at me a little bit oddly. And that's not to mention the occasional incursion from science-uber-alles types with whom I've developed a sizeable difference in worldview over the last decade or so. And I used to be such a good little liberal rationalist.
Anyway, you may have seen me commenting as Vashti in various places, because that's my name. I live in Wales and am Welsh-speaking, which immediately irks various people who think that defending your language and culture is some kind of hideous anti-English racism. This makes me fall about laughing - not least because I live with an Englishman and my father, who I love dearly, is one, but also because the immediate effect of people not defending their minority culture is that smaller languages and cultures are wiped out by larger ones until all diversity is gone. Some people think this would be a good thing; I note that these people almost invariably identify with the dominant culture and consider diversity a bad thing. I think diversity is fantastic and so I don't think I have very much to talk about with people like that. Politely, at any rate.
I have a major addiction to video games, and also to a certain brand of caffeinated fizzy drink. I am a civ junkie. I love to be out in wild places (and there are some astonishing little oases of life here in the Welsh capital), but everything in my life seems to conspire to stop me from getting out in them. Especially the computer. In fact, wtf am I doing starting a blog?
Seriously, I think it's because of how restricted I feel on my old one - like I've grown apart from everyone I know, and they'd laugh at me if they knew what I really think. Or be horrified. Probably both. But I really don't need an excuse to spend more time on the damn gogglebox. Perhaps this will wean me off LJ.
The other thing that keeps me walled up is OMG THE FEAR. The reason I've had the luxury to explore alternative viewpoints and expand my worldview (what my mother likes to call "getting brainwashed") is that I've been shut up with depression and agoraphobia since I was 21. So I hung out on first Usenet, then online games, and read a lot. The agoraphobia has pretty much cleared up now, but I still feel like if I venture anywhere quiet alone it will suddenly be full of axe murderers. Working on it.
Oh, the title of this blog is from the song by Annie Lennox. Partly it's because walking barefoot in the council estate I live on is to take your life in your hands (or rather, feet), because the streets are paved with the shattered remnants of beer and cider bottles; partly it's because it strikes me as a fantastic metaphor for living in the dominant culture:
The sun's still shining in the big blue sky, but it don't mean nothing to me;
Oh, let the rain come down, let the wind blow through me;
I'm living in an empty room with all the windows smashed,
And I've got so little left to lose that it feels just I'm walking on broken glass.
Now every one of us is made to suffer, every one of us is made to weep,
But we've been hurting one another, now the pain has run too deep,
So take me from the wreckage, save me from the blast,
Lift me up and take me back, don't let me keep on walking,
I can't keep on walking,
I can't keep on walking on broken glass.
It's a love song, of course, or rather a relationship song: it's about the pain of being dumped. Which ties in rather nicely with what Derrick Jensen has written about civilisation basically being one big abusive relationship.
While I'm quoting, something from Tim at What a Way to Go:
Anyway, you may have seen me commenting as Vashti in various places, because that's my name. I live in Wales and am Welsh-speaking, which immediately irks various people who think that defending your language and culture is some kind of hideous anti-English racism. This makes me fall about laughing - not least because I live with an Englishman and my father, who I love dearly, is one, but also because the immediate effect of people not defending their minority culture is that smaller languages and cultures are wiped out by larger ones until all diversity is gone. Some people think this would be a good thing; I note that these people almost invariably identify with the dominant culture and consider diversity a bad thing. I think diversity is fantastic and so I don't think I have very much to talk about with people like that. Politely, at any rate.
I have a major addiction to video games, and also to a certain brand of caffeinated fizzy drink. I am a civ junkie. I love to be out in wild places (and there are some astonishing little oases of life here in the Welsh capital), but everything in my life seems to conspire to stop me from getting out in them. Especially the computer. In fact, wtf am I doing starting a blog?
Seriously, I think it's because of how restricted I feel on my old one - like I've grown apart from everyone I know, and they'd laugh at me if they knew what I really think. Or be horrified. Probably both. But I really don't need an excuse to spend more time on the damn gogglebox. Perhaps this will wean me off LJ.
The other thing that keeps me walled up is OMG THE FEAR. The reason I've had the luxury to explore alternative viewpoints and expand my worldview (what my mother likes to call "getting brainwashed") is that I've been shut up with depression and agoraphobia since I was 21. So I hung out on first Usenet, then online games, and read a lot. The agoraphobia has pretty much cleared up now, but I still feel like if I venture anywhere quiet alone it will suddenly be full of axe murderers. Working on it.
Oh, the title of this blog is from the song by Annie Lennox. Partly it's because walking barefoot in the council estate I live on is to take your life in your hands (or rather, feet), because the streets are paved with the shattered remnants of beer and cider bottles; partly it's because it strikes me as a fantastic metaphor for living in the dominant culture:
The sun's still shining in the big blue sky, but it don't mean nothing to me;
Oh, let the rain come down, let the wind blow through me;
I'm living in an empty room with all the windows smashed,
And I've got so little left to lose that it feels just I'm walking on broken glass.
Now every one of us is made to suffer, every one of us is made to weep,
But we've been hurting one another, now the pain has run too deep,
So take me from the wreckage, save me from the blast,
Lift me up and take me back, don't let me keep on walking,
I can't keep on walking,
I can't keep on walking on broken glass.
It's a love song, of course, or rather a relationship song: it's about the pain of being dumped. Which ties in rather nicely with what Derrick Jensen has written about civilisation basically being one big abusive relationship.
While I'm quoting, something from Tim at What a Way to Go:
One day, maybe quite soon, our magic chairs will lose their magic. I can think of two things to do now that will help prepare you for the emotional hammering that this will likely engender: find your people, and practice, practice, practice.
Find your people, because none of us can navigate collapse on our own. The pain and disorientation will be severe. Without a strong container of loving souls to share our pain and help hold our grief, how can any of us hope to remain whole and hale? I don’t think we can.
We will have to stop pretending that this current atrocity can continue, drop out of the distractions and expectations that keep us from action, and do the work we need to do, to find the people with whom we can face the storm. We’ve seen Katrina. There is nobody out there who is going to help us through this. We have only ourselves.
And when you find those people, begin the task of letting go. Embrace collapse as the reality it is and step into it. Shut down the magic chair and find out who you are without it. You need to know. Practice collapse, in small steps, in short leaps and brief bounds. Unplug. Disconnect. Turn off. Do without. Find out who you can be, will be, must be as things fall away, as the present unravels, as the future unfolds, as the losses accumulate. Notice how it feels, how it looks, how it sounds, how it smells. Notice who you become.
And when you find that who you are falls short of who you think you’ll need to be, find what healing and aid is available to you, with your people, and with those healing souls who live nearby. Seek healing, and work to make it yours.
Do it now. The collapse has begun. It will be with us from here on out. And one day soon, your pizza delivery will take much longer than 30 minutes. It will not come at all.
And there will be no cheesy breadsticks to soften that loss.
This really spoke to me, because I find it so hard to explain to people why I think we should be doing things now, learning things now, while we have the luxury of a safety net. Why we shouldn't just enjoy the last trappings of empire while we can.
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