Decade Dents

A decade has passed already!  The last one totally went out in a blast.  My head is swimming.

Before I get started, I decided to add a quote from Joanna Douglas in this news release about corporate greed, confirming what I constantly witness all over this country:

This week the New York Times reported a disheartening story about two of the largest retail chains. You see, instead of taking unsold items to sample sales or donating them to people in need, H&M and Wal-Mart have been throwing them out in giant trash bags. And in the case that someone may stumble on these bags and try to keep or re-sell the items, these companies have gone ahead and slashed up garments, cut off the sleeves of coats, and sliced holes in shoes so they are unwearable. [to read the full article, go to Yahoo's Shine]

I would also add that most these items are made by underpaid workers in overseas sweatshops so you can buy them cheap.  Please settle in your mind that you'd rather starve or go naked than to buy anything at Wal Mart or H&M.  Please.



Domestic Life

I'm still in Moab.  It's like Siberia here.  People don't remember it snowing here so much, and so frigid.  But I'm being soft, still house-sitting at my friends', Ann and Phil D's, with my co-house-sitting friend Phil B, two Australian shepherds, a cat, six fish, and lots of plants. 

Life was fairly mellow over the holidays.  I took a break critter/house-sitting from this house, leaving it in Phil B's hands, and critter/house-sit for my friend, Drew.  He had some interesting books to read and videos to watch.  I read a biography of Byron Katie (she's amazing), the Upanishads, the writings of Chuang Tzu, and Money and the Meaning of Life, by Jacob Needleman.  I'd recommend Needleman's book if you want to look at money through a bit different lenses than my own.  Drew has the series of Kung Fu episodes (that old 70s series), and I watched a few.  It reminded me how that show was part of what inspired me to live as I do today.

Oh, yeah, Drew's neighbor, Charlie, went away for the holidays, too, so I got to cat-sit for him, too.  Charlie has been amazingly generous with me.  He helps me with bicycle repair, is letting me use one of his working bikes, and has offered to give me one of his old bikes when I fix it up, as well as a bicycle for my new friend Yolanda (I'll be talking about her in a sec). 

I went to the community dinner on Christmas day, a bash for the whole town of Moab put on by theWabi Sabi thrift store folks.

Interior Life

I've been doing a lot of contemplating, continuing to update and refine the essays on my website, especially

Love and Possessions - Sex and Money,

Our Fall From Grace: Our Departure From Gratis: The Beginning of Money,
(about the universal myth of stealing fire from heaven)

The Seven-Headed Dragon: World Commerce

(this one is hard-core Bible theology, withheld from us by church business interests).

These subjects are so intensely intriguing to me I sometimes can't contain myself.  These are all kind of leading up to the epiphany I had in the Gila wilderness last summer (while I was giving another go at living off the land).  I'm still working on writing down this epiphany, which is about the laws of compounded interest in wild nature, compared to the compounding interest of banking in commercial civilization (which I call Canaan).  It takes in the enigmas of interest banking in the Torah, as well as the allusions to interest banking in the Gospels, and the commercial relationship between Jewry and Christendom, including what spurred on the pogroms against the Jews down through the centuries, as well as the underlying cause of world poverty, wars, and oppressive politics.  It's turning out much harder to articulate and write down than I'd thought.  It is a way touchy subject matter, a bit scary, in fact, so I'm proceeding with caution.

Yolanda

The latest intriguing chapter in my life has begun today.  A woman named Yolanda came to Moab to try out living my lifestyle with me.  We've been in e contact for over a year, since before the publicity stuff, and she finally decided to take the plunge.  She took a bus up from Phoenix to Green River, Utah (no, Greyhound does not come all the way to Moab!).  I decided to hitch-hike up to Green River to meet her at the bus station to hitch-hike back to Moab with her, since my father instinct did not want an attractive young African American woman hitch-hiking alone, especially since she'd never hitch-hiked before.  I started walking north of Moab, with a sign I made that said "Green River".  I had an exact spot where I had planned to hitch, outside the city limits, so I kept walking to that spot, sign in hand, so passing cars might see it and stop.  But none did.  I wondered why cars rarely stop unless you are actually standing and facing them (I remember wondering the same exact thing last summer as I was walking out of Taos, New Mexico).  Then I saw the exact spot where I had envisioned stopping to get a ride.  Right when I arrived there, putting my pack down, not yet facing traffic, a car stopped to pick me up and said he would take me all the way to the Green River bus station.  This same thing happened last summer walking out of Taos, a car stopping to take me all the way to my destination at the Albuquerque airport!).  It was a confirmation to me that my going to get Yolanda in Green River was destiny, just as it was a confirmation to me that my going to get James in Albuquerque last summer was destiny.  We arrived there at the same time the bus arrived, and here I'd thought she'd have to wait hours for me.  We hugged, got our stuff together, and started walking toward the interstate.  The same bus Yolanda had come in on caught up with us, and the driver asked us if we wanted a ride, 20 miles to the Moab exit!  From there we got a ride back to Moab from a wonderful Moab couple and their baby.

As we were walking up to this house, Conrad stopped to give us a ride.  A welcome ride it was, since Yolanda, I'm sure, was exhausted after all night in a bus.  Angels brought us all the way to our destination. 

Last summer it was a magical encounter with James, who had come to join me from Chicago.  Last late fall, it was a magical encounter with Cody, who had come to join me from eastern Colorado.  This winter, it is a magical encounter with Yolanda, who has come to join me from Phoenix.  All the beautiful people, where do they all come from?

So here we are.  I wonder what'll happen next.