Two different realities: "A very full and interconnected morning locally, in a world apparently gone mad."

More and more, it feels as if we are decidedly inside “World War III,” where the protagonists are The People vs. the Corporate Government types who think they have to control us, get our blind, willing submission so they can go to war again and make more money off making weapons for both sides, etc. etc. — so boring, this old game they are playing with our lives!

And our job everywhere, I mean everywhere — a job all of us who are awake and aware, know is ours — is to watch what “their” MSM media handmaiden are handed as “news,” and how they decide to “interpret” that “news,” always, of course, in a monolithic, fearmongering, megaphonic voice.

Of course, they always “get it wrong,” and more and more, faster and faster, we’re on to them. As soon as they spotlight any “event” we question it, notice what it might be covering up, and reframe it as, usually, just another “false flag.” I mean, it used to take days, or weeks, now it’s minutes, seconds! We automatically see anything “they” say or do or show us as SHEER UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT. And while we may not always know what “the real story” is, we do know that it’s at least utterly other than what “they” claim it is.

Meanwhile, inside this swirling media war between the corporate controlled MSM and the thousands, millions, billions, of our alternative website news sources, plus tweets, facebook posts, emails, on and on, the internet is the thing that has us all entranced — which is both good and bad. Good in that we do have agency, finally. We do know that we can and will say exactly what we think about what’s “goin’ down,” that more and more whistleblowers are coming out of the corporate woodwork, and that hundreds, thousands, millions of our fellow world citizens will be acting, thinking, talking, tweeting, imaging, in concert with us, all of us swayed like starlings in one direction than another — that can easily shift “off course” into fear or even terror, and just as easily, it seems, blink out of that bullshit emotion and realize that all we need to do is NOTICE the fear and it dissipates, like fog on this humid August morning, here, in Bloomington, where the greater part of my typically small but hugely important life is focused on creating a template for the future that will work for all of us, not just the “mighty” few, and not just for me.

To that end, we’re revisioning our two-house homestead to include not just a solar array for both houses, and not just, now, as of two days ago, a completed water catchment system, and not just the GANG garden, but an inner community. Three people in each house, the final person to move in later today. None of us have met her. Along with Leah, in the DeKist house, Kiryssa is to be an IU SPEA graduate student. Hails from several years in a Peruvian village, and eager to slide on into village life here with us. She will go into the third bedroom in my Overhill house, with Katarina, a budding herbalist and student nurse, the other resident. In the DeKist house also, besides Rebecca, the other crone in residence, and Leah, is Duncan, another young one, a quiet, honorable rural Indiana native who evolved into a “minimalist” in terms of “stuff” and is VERY handy. So: six people, five women and one man, four of them in their 20s, and dedicated to a resilient, regenerative future for Earth and her peoples, and two female elders, seasoned, with an identical vision and complementary skills who can hold the space for what comes next without freaking out, no matter what.

I hold the overview and the outreach, to the rest of the Green Acres neighborhood, and the city, and the world, via this and other blogs, and Rebecca knows how to do all the stuff that we need to do regarding food production, having been an organic market gardener for 40 years.

Yesterday, on my screened porch in the morning, we both confessed that we’ve finally found, in each other, the “partner” that we’d been searching for all our lives, someone with equal vision and passion for what needs to be done, and complete dedication to follow through. The young ones carry the energy, and the future; we two “old hippies” hold the center, and hold the memories, of what works and what does not, of a certain patience with the process, knowing that young ones tend to “burn out” unless their enthusiasms are tempered and directed.

Then and there she and I decided that the first meeting of our about to be consecrated little two-house community hub within this forming Green Acres Ecovillage will be this weekend sometime, probably Sunday evening, when we will discuss just what it means to live in an ecologically conscious community. Not just the physical practices, but what are the attitudes and tendencies we need to modify and acquire? Let the learning process begin!

I’ll post a group shot from that meeting. Meanwhile, I sit here, at my computer for the first time on a day when I had to get Kiryssa’s room ready and the bathroom cleaned, etc. etc. Katarina and I cleaned the rest of the house yesterday. Plus I went over to Tom’s house to “do” charts for him and his sweet wife Rachel last night. And I took over a second bunch of collard greens to Aggie next door who is frying them up with oyster sauce and garlic.

Two days ago I met with Heather, a new person in the neighborhood, someone who somehow got my name, and who very much wants to live in community. She’s another young SPEA graduate student, about a block away. I introduced her to Georgia, my original compatriot in all things neighborly, who lives only a stone’s throw from Heather. So that second little hub of our Green Acres Ecovillage can ramp up further. Plus, Heather has hired Duncan to do the renovations to her new house, starting today! YES! Live and work in place, I say.

This morning, on the radio, a story about Ferguson. Don’t know how true it is, of course, but what came through was that people who live there haven’t felt connected to each other, even though they are neighbors. Well, I bet this huge, internationally spotlighted military broohaha has connected them now, big time!

Went to a garage sale down the street today (this neighbor didn’t know about our Green Acres garage sale, to be held September 6, because she doesn’t read her email . . .), and ran into Richard, the neighbor who’s spearheading the Green Acres Yard Sale event. He’s also going to contact some musicians, to see if we can get some street music for those who choose to stroll down our streets looking for that perfect recycled bargain. Me? this morning I got a wonderful rocking chair that doesn’t squeek! Here it is.

Plus another small crock pot so I can hand my big one to Rebecca who needs it. On and on, the tiny details of daily life in community.

Oh yes, when over at the garage sale, the woman (whose name I still don’t know; she’s kind of wary with her neighbor
s, though our dogs like each other) suddenly (and to me, surprisingly) asked me if I needed help carrying the chair and its stool back to my house. “Yes!” I replied. “I need a young man!” And turned around. There he was, my young man! Walking up just then with his girl friend. All of the folks standing around at the sale laughed as I handed this “stranger” the chair, his girl friend the crock pot, and I carried the stool, all of us still laughing, on parade down the street toward my house.

Then I led him and his girl friend on a tour of the GANG and our little two home urban farmstead. He runs a farm on his grandfather’s property down in southern Indiana, and gave me a couple of tips, like that of using diluted molasses on tomato plants when watering them. I can’t remember exactly why, something about glucose? He also discoursed on hydroponic gardening, which we tried here, and failed. “You have to be a chemist to do it right!” I exclaimed. “That’s correct,” he said. “You have to check the ph of the water every 12 hours, and if it’s even a millimeter off, your plants suffer.” On and on. A very full and interconnected morning locally, in a world apparently gone mad.

Here’s a photo of my new room/study inside this little intergenerational two-house urban farmstead, both still in formative stage, but definitely “getting there.”