pre posts:
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i got in here! baby shark 4 (my laptop, or rather my 4th laptop for the newly initiated) is in critical condition, cracked his head, can’t communicate with any clarity at all. oh well. while i’m in seattle there are at least internet cafes with actual computers.
i’ve gotten myself involved in some direct action. i love activism. i wasn’t really planning on joining this particular protest, but i went to be body support for a day and ended up with responsibilities. yeah, the occupies. i should bake some pies. take apple pies to activists. i have a friend who was arrested over the weekend at occupy wall street, and another friend who is living at occupy boston. they are both huge occupies compared to occupy seattle. i met my friend monte whom i’ve talked to (with keys) a few times but have never actually met in person before – he is very active in the homeless community in seattle. he estimated there were about 200 people there. i had thought there might be a few more, but as he is used to counting congregated bodies on streets, he’s likely the more correct one. i think seattle is still a heart broken city for protests and direct action. yes, speaking of the great glory of days gone by, battle of seattle, the great WTO protests, the first and greatest U.S. protest in modern times (or maybe ever, don’t know enough about the history of unions in my own baby country), where everyone i knew* in the city participated, where somewhere between 50,000 – 100,000 people took to the streets with hope, rage, idealism, intelligence, solidarity, demands. every street and sidewalk in the entire downtown was full of citizens, people, fellow humans marching, demanding an end to corporate domination and global injustice. we took rubber bullets and got gassed (i just got gassed, no bruises).
and. nothing. changed.
it was the most amazing gathering of people any of us had ever seen. not only were our efforts apparently ineffective in implementing change, since that week more than a decade past, the situation has become remarkedly worse. so how are a couple hundred protestors sitting outside expensive boutiques in a cold wet city supposed to effect change?
i don’t know. but i still believe in activism. one thing working with the buffalo field campaign has taught me is that activism works. very slowly. activism isn’t about showing up for a day and complaining about the status quo. though every contribution counts – without the general populace behind a movement, a movement goes nowhere. you don’t get that support easily in a coddled nation. it’s just too fucking easy here. despite the millions living in poverty even here, it’s just too easy to turn your head in this nation to focus on your own ego, your own comforts, your own little universe as long as it’s working for you. they know that, all those champagne drinking motherfuckers toasting their own arrogance and power from locked, high places. they know that if unrest grows to beyond what they see as amusement, they just have to open the doors a little wider, let a little more money flow, and we’re all smack happy again.
or, they think they know that. but people are getting smarter. i hope. we can look to the arab nations to see that activism actually can work in a modern age. i can look at the fact that due to the efforts of some activists who’ve dedicated years to saving some beautiful animals from extinction in the wild, 800 buffalo were spared their lives this year. small victories. victories that come one small step at a time. this is my world, and i will choose how to live in it, will try, however futile it may seem at times, to right the wrongs and leave my children a healing planet.
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thinking about it now, i realize that both my children even participated in essence in those WTO protests. i took my daughter on the march when she was just over 15 months old. my son would have been a newly implanted zygote in utero…
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links:
buffalofieldcampaign.org
occupyseattle.org
occupyboston.com
occupywallstreet.org
my bfc friend tony is flying to florida tonight to see friends and work for earth first journal. i’m excited for him. i got to camp with him for a little more than two weeks separated into two pieces in the grand tetons in august. i camped for three weeks (the whole time) with another new friend nawontah and with a couple of crazy dudes for a week or so each. nawontah and i went up the wind river and the chief washikie trail, into the only reservation that was chosen by the tribe itself. the eastern shoshone chose their winter hunting grounds and that became wind river indian reservation. then the crow lay some claim to the territory too and there was a battle which the crow chief lost, but honorably, and the crow were supposed to leave the reservation. they never left though, so now there are two tribes residing there, both small, both poor it would seem. the land is beautiful. i bought my souvenirs and a coupla books at the gift shop up the trail.
i think nawonatah is going to the sept 17 occupy wall street protest. i am looking to get involved in local roadblock campaigns when they happen, but i’m not quite sure how. will get it figured.
been with the bf everyday since coming back home. every day of it has been good to great. went riding around whistle today and picked a fat half flat of blackberries. had sex in the morning. life is good. i need a job. that i can tolerate. that i really like. that likes me. soon. contract. or higher money for lower hours. right. universe, work it out k. bf knows code, need to have him update me so i can use links and pictures like i’ve done for years but cannot do with my noodlefecked wordpress. i’ve thought about asking him to make me a new one that’s not broken, but i’m not sure i’m ready for that. he’ll probably read this eventually. what will he say then?
autumn starts back to university this month! ben has twelve credits this quarter:) my little buddy is starting kindergarten. good things are happening all around me.
http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/
buffalofieldcampaign.org
it’s very warm tonight, lemon full moon, good time for walking.
love you miss you goodnight.
i wish the pub was still open. i want to crawl out of my skin (almost feels like the beginnings of withdrawals again), but i’d settle for getting out of the house. i think i’ll take the dog on a long long walk. knife walk. i want a second fat vintage piece to tie around my leg like i did with my previous knife. and a fierce diamond sharpener.
i leave for montana, wyoming and the bfc in a couple of weeks, for 3 weeks again. on the bus again, which is just fine. by myself this time, and that’s fine too. i don’t know who will be there, not many people. not even sure if mike will be there, though i hope so because i need to talk to him. i think the roadshow doesn’t start until september. prolly daryl’s around. the office lady. i just don’t know. and i’m stalling. i didn’t come around after a month and a half to muse on who will be at the bfc. i’m going for the buffalo and the mountains. a couple of friends i hope to see, but summer isn’t bfc social season as they only have 3-4 people volunteering at a time and most of the serious volunteers/coordinators are away.
i got myself a boyfriend or something like it. i’m not always sure how i feel about that. so far, he’s always nice to me, occasionally very. i like him more than i expected. we have fun together. i’ve known him for most of my life. he was actually my first high school boyfriend at 14 and even then we never had a falling out. i’m out of balance. a large percentage of my energy has been diverted from mental,spiritual to physical,emotional. physical is an easy plane for diversion, once i jumped the germ hurdle, especially when it’s been so long under-served and in frustration with that status. plus he’s strong and capable in certain aspects of the physical plane that men typically dominate and i’ve been mediocrely managing by myself for years; and he seems happy to be helpful. it’s great. to participate, be in myself on the emotional plane is not so easy. i don’t like feeling my emotional independence slipping. and then when it does, i don’t know well how to respond; my first instinct with any discomfort is just to run, disappear, evaporate back into mental and dispassionately observe from an inaccessable and safe distance until there is nothing left to see. frustrated with myself. i had kind of a bad day today, in parts. bad days, so what right? i handle them all the time, if you consider all the time to be increasingly infrequent but stretched over a decade. only this time, i wanted someone else to bring me back around; i wanted to braid myself into him and get my comfort there. it wasn’t even that big of a deal, my badish part of the day. i hate that, feeling like i need another person for my emotional stability. it’s such an easy drug, drawing energy from another person, but unreliable and like all drugs, it’s only a tool, the real strength always has to come from yourself. the lectures to myself in my head, in the deep background, are quite severe. i feel weak. for whatever reasons, he wasn’t available, and anyway, my wanting him to be made me pull away. i don’t know if i asked him, if i let him, if he is good medicine for the heart lines or not. we don’t talk so much past the surface, just a couple of times and i’m not sure they worked so well. i can talk to myself better than most people can even concept. i can talk to intangible you better than to opaque people. i don’t think, in the past 10 years of working on me, that i realized how hard it would be to actually relate.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Marmot-Couloir-ZERO-f-18C-Down-Sleeping-Bag-/220801673488?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3368ce2910
maybe that one, but it’s a little too soon. rei says:
http://www.rei.com/product/731796/marmot-couloir-0-sleeping-bag
if i’m going to buy one of these bags, which i have to, it makes much more sense to get one i can also use in december. one of my bfc bunkmates said it’s easy to cool down, but as warm as it’s rated is as warm as it gets, and even that isn’t reliable with all qualities.
i’m working as a carni over the holiday weekend, a soft carni job, caretaking a bouncy house. it’s the lowest wage i’ve worked for, not including the free or i pay you to work wages, since high school. since i don’t remember. and i don’t care. i love everyone. in an abstract etc. way at times. the sun comes out every day. moon always comes back.
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june has been a month of stranges. changes. migration. drums.
from basquiat: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115632/
hey benny man, how long do you think it takes to get famous?
for a musician
hmm
or a painter?
whatever, famous
4 years, 6 to get rich. first you’re gonna have to dress right you know. then you gonna have to hang out with famous people, you know, make friends with the right blond people, go to the right parties,yeah, socialite. then you gotta do your work all the time when you’re not doing that. but i’m talking about the same kinda work, the same style, so people can “recognize” it and don’t get confused you know. then, once you’re famous, airborne, you know, you gotta keep doing it in the same way even after it’s boring unless you want people to really get mad at you, which they will anyway. famous people are usually pretty fucking stupid. you’re too smart.
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the question i get and dislike most when i tell people i’m a painter, which i almost never do anymore (meybe bcause i don’t paint no more almost), (also cause i don’t want to answer the questions) – anyway, always “oh, where do you show?” and the immediate assumption because i never show, is that i’m amateur and would show if i could, but that i am unable because i am: unskilled. unoriginal. no account, whatever. i don’t really care. because the reason i don’t show is partly partly above . also because i am painting only a few times a year, too slowly. i care about that. i don’t know where i am. i will try this week, while i have time to go deep into alternate space. the cool weather is great for summer painting. when using benny’s answer for explanation of my own, i’m not comparing myself to the artist; relating to the reasons. i toured cali galleries a few years ago, every response touted a different one of my styles and told me to “go in this direction, this is your best work”. all power and no water. business. and art. don’t mix. and i’m so slow, if you have a painting of mine, you know i love you, where something was seen. and you’d better take really good care of it. both.
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i’m loving this movi3. &omg courtney love:) yeah, she’s a bitch but she does have some skills.
i spent fathers day with my brother and then an old man who is not related to me. we saw jesus christ superstar in issaquah and it was fantastic beautiful loved it. now i’m waiting to get my kids and go home. it’s a very cold june. they say the strawberrries should be very good, blues and rasp may suffer the february frost. i am going back to MT. i can’t remember the name of the park i was told we’d be camping in, but i guess we aren’t there 7 days a week, which means some different days on the property i think. and i went to a birthday party for a good friend who i only see every 3 years or so, where i saw another friend who fits the same description. and ben fixed the key problem with my car:)
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i received a permission from someone authorized to give it, though it is a conditional permission based on a mutual permission from another party, which i almost already have. 
:):) now i have to practice my forms, but i am afraid to do that. not so afraid that i won’t, just not every day.
out of balance, been out of balance for a week or so and i don’t know why. fear. i lost $400 a month in benefits with no money to replace them. that is food, gas, insurance, clothing, shelter. half of it is food. maybe this is enough to throw me out of balance. it’s 50% of my steady income. hopefully i can find a source to replace it – a source that will replace it dollar for dollar rather than in the messed up welfare way of charging the poor tax of 80% (calculated by direct loss of benefits plus taxes for every dollar earned. add in the costs of working, then throw on the loss of medical because suddenly you make too much to be eligible for health care, though you are poorer than before.) fear. hunger. i’m hungry right now, though i had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. stomach hurts but i don’t want to eat. maybe i will fast for a few days, contemplate my fear of foodbanks and the crappy, mouldy food they offer in exchange for official gravelling. the pain goes away after a while, i’ve fasted before. i don’t even know why my stomach protests this moment. i guess i didn’t eat much yesterday. i want to learn to fish by myself. my ex husband stole my fishing pole and gear. that is part of this imbalance. i am full of anger at him because he doesn’t support our children adequately, though he knows they need it and he has plenty of money to do so if he chose. he actually just bought a brand new SUV. i don’t like to carry anger. fear. anger. fear. the more i struggle with them, the more inclined i am to just run away and ignore the problems. they feel so much bigger than me. anger is easier to approach, to talk down out of the tree. i’ve never managed to drop it entirely, but i can shove it in the bottom of the basket and leave the tree behind for a while.
damdamndamndamndmn. i forgot to pay the rent on time and now i have a $20 late fee. this is one of the troubles i have with the world. dates. times. i do so poorly at placing myself within those structures. time flows less and less linearly for me. my memories of day to day are often completely missing, but i remember significant moments outside of time. it’s so difficult to make myself care. money. i don’t want to live in a world ruled by commerce and clocks. tick tock tock head on the chopping block who was the scalper and why? let me out let me free let me live let me breathe let me love let me laugh let me run on soft needles while raven flies through the trees. the dirt is warm but lonely, the air is cold when lonely. children to love and teach.
no matter. i am strong, though not equally in all ways. spirit is stronger than body, mind is strong and stable, emotions are strong and unstable. heart is good, true, but fear and anger spin it out of balance. i’ve yelled at my kids way too much lately, and it hurts – them, and then me because i hate to hurt them. ocean is having trouble in school, can’t seem to get organized. i ask everyday if she has homework, and usually she says no. if she says yes, i make sure she finishes it. her grades though show lots of missing assignments, bringing her grades down to d’s (2) and an f, with c’s and one A in an easy class. we fight and go round and i get angry and frustrated with her arguing – she’s becoming a teenager, and i don’t want to go down the battle path. my daughter is my best friend. i know i’m her mother first, but sometimes i don’t feel i’m so good at it, when i’m fighting with her, when she tells me it feels like i’m grinding her to dust. after she talked and i listened, it got better. she finally started listening rather than remaining the argumentative agonist. honestly i wouldn’t care so much – i don’t think their public educations are entirely effective, too many tests, too many kids, not enough focus in this world of distractions, plus the formula for what is to be learned is not always accurate or balanced (though it’s much better than when i was a kid) – there is a lot of learning outside that doesn’t get as much time but is more valuable, but what my daughter believes she wants out of life will require her to be an A/B student, more on the A side. and I want that for her too, as I believe that much learning to think takes place at competitive university, and i want my children to be educated in multiple ways that require them to seek wisdom, that require reflection and in depth analysis. perhaps i am too hard on public education at the childhood level. it’s hard for me to understand her challenges because school was always so easy for me. i was 99th percentile kid, at the top of every class, and without effort.
i have a tarot reading down, a rather long one that i’m halfway through. then i hope to look at another issue. but time.. i want to paint today, i need to look into a possible job, i have housing matters to attend to, i want to go into the forest, clock is ticking tick tick ticktickticktickticktickticticktidktidkdktikdtidktitkdckcittickckcitklfjadsklfjadfskjjadsklfkjldfskjljf!
it’s ok. it will be ok.
painting again. it’s about time – i think i painted briefly at the beginning of the year, but brush hours this year so far are very low. the change in school schedules which cut my non-kid day by 2 hours has been a difficult adjustment. yes, to all you normal people who live by the hours and minutes of the clock, this may seem whiny and absurd (it’s not whiny as much as simple fact), but my energy builds itself slowly within imposed structures, and restructuring must happen naturally as well.
ok, now i paint. will continue this post throughout the day. will attempt to post pictures.
links:
http://www.indigenousaction.org/
pageowands
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i think i will try to write again with frequency for all of june, except when i manage to get back to the mountains or the coast.
i’ve been following the elwha dam removal project since learning about it last summer at oly nat park headquarters. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015202387_elwha02m.html
there is a comment in that article stating:
i am in a paradox of ideologies. while i spent the weekend dancing for free at folk life, 5 people lost their freedom for dancing at a monument to our free country.
freedom. overused 7 letters.
too many people. chaos order.
perspective and paradigms,
chains of biology.
spirit chains.
chains of steel, chambers bars.
soft little chains on paper don’t want to be broken.
chaos perspective order paradigms.
intelligence.
mountains.
shift.
if we cut down all the mountains, where will we climb to see god?
http://protectsacredsites.org/2011/05/indigenous-community-spiritual-leaders-affirm-commitment-to-protect-holy-san-francisco-peaks/