Last night as I lay in that place between sleep and being awake, I had a vision.

I saw the earth becoming more and more overrun with humans until we were everywhere, on every mountain and in every field, and there was no space left for anything else. And the people grew hungry, and afraid, and some of them preyed upon others. And all the infrastructure of centuries collapsed, and there was disease and death and most of the people died.

There were people who lived, mostly in less populated places, and they made their lives and activities sustainable by joining with the Earth, and they thrived, in spite of the pollution left behind. The previous civilization turned to dust pretty quickly, and was buried, and as the generations of humans came and went, the memories became stories became legends became myths. And the Earth repaired herself. And some of the animals came back.

There are also, in this vision, humans who lived through the time of overcrowding and death by virtue of high technology. And they learned how to sustain themselves as well. And eventually, as the population subsided, there was intercourse between the techy folks and the folks who allied themselves with the Earth.

Beyond that my vision did not extend.

I have no children and am unlikely to. I am 50 and my knowledge of my own mortality is that it is a certainty. I find myself aware of wanting to leave something behind. This community, Neruda, is part of my legacy. I am part of Neruda, and this community is growing and moving towards energy and food self sufficiency at a pretty amazing pace. I see Neruda existing after my life is over. Beyond the time when all our lives are over there will be people living here, growing food, eating from the fruit trees we have yet to plant. This will be one of the places where life survives and thrives again, and from whence life will spread again.

I have a vision of this farm. I see the inside of the earthship finished on both sides. This side is all wood and stone and cob and adobe; dry, warm, with lots of earthy textures and colors, the soapstone hearth and a soapstone stove on it, earthen floor with rugs, bedrooms finished, kitchen fixed up a bit, finished bathroom...and outside the gardens in full fertility growing food, happy chickens, gardens growing up the hillside. I see a micro-hydro system powering the earthship and another duplex on the driveway with gardens growing up the hill from it and all around it, and the farmhouse also amidst productive beautiful lush gardens. I see animals on the hillside and in the lower field. I see fruit trees and nut trees and birds nesting all over. I see beehives and...I see so much life and fertility. I see food to share with lots of people. I see people gardening and sitting in the garden and enjoying the peace.

So mote it be.

Addendum: I just got 3 bales of straw and some more chicken wire. On site we have lumber, cement, paper, and nails. Tomorrow with help from friends I will build one wall of the new chicken house which will be stickbuilt with light straw papercrete, providing insulation and a waterproof surface on both sides of the wall so the chickens will be warm and dry in the winter. We will frame the wall, put chicken wire on one side, flip it over and fill with straw, then put chicken wire over that. Then in the manner of light straw clay we will use cement and papercrete to seal up the surface. When that dries we will flip the wall over and cement/papercrete that side. Why do it with the wall horizontal you ask? It will make for a much easier time, I theorize, in applying the papercrete. The wall will not be too heavy when it comes time to stand it up and attach it to the other walls and the deck, especially with a few people to help. Heck I was one of three people that stood up a 10x16 wall when I built my house in 1990. That was way heavier than this will be. I'll post photos in the new Earthship photo album linked on the right side of this page.

I'm grateful that I live out in the country because I do not have the patience or the filters to deal with people much. I can't seem to get past this hair trigger rage that has been with me since August 2004. It's a problem, and the only respite, the only recourse, seems to be no people except those I trust and know well.

I was doing pretty well, and then EAT happened here and the stress of trying to make this thing happen perfectly, which it did not in part due to my mistakes and also to things beyond anyone's control, along with some of the stuff I experienced with some of the people attending the class, has put me on edge and I am still feeling it. The course was great as usual, but some of the interpersonal stuff really challenged me. My ability to be patient or resilient in the face of what I experience as rudeness, self absorption, and a host of other annoying behaviors, is vastly diminished.

I do my best to stand for a lot of things in the world; kindness and compassion and love and nature and all that good stuff. As a somewhat public person, to whatever extent I am, I think some people expect me to behave in the ways they expect a public person to behave, i.e. an acquaintance recently was very offended by the comments I made about the abrahamics in my previous post. I have had a friend take me to task once when I shared some of my personal feelings about my first visit to Germany and some of my personal familial cultural baggage about that country.

I don't always make it pretty. I know that. I do my best to keep it real.

In the spirit of keeping it real I want to share here, again, how changed I feel since my mother was murdered 6 years ago. It's not that I think a lot about the event itself, or her, or her death. It's that I mark that event as a pivot point in my life. Something in me changed. I feel like an instrument that just can't stay in tune, and the discordant note is more often than not one of rage, also grief. Nameless rage and grief because, when you come right down to it, they are feelings that aren't hooked onto anything specific. In moments they are, but there is this just this endless well of ambient rage and grief that I draw from, or that pushes itself through me.

Yes there are plenty of things to be angry about in this world. I mean...look around. Listen to people. Rome is burning and there are billions of Neros fiddling away. It's beyond weird. Similarly there is plenty about which to feel grieved. We all know it. I can't readily escape it these days.

I am posting this because I know there are people who read this blog who love me, who I love, and this is one way to communicate with them. Also because I imagine there are plenty of others who can identify with some part of what I'm sharing, and that seems somehow useful.