Druid Permaculture Gypsy Magic

    

     Wendy and I recently bought a 31 foot, 1969, International, Sovereign, Land Yacht, Airstream.  In it’s day it was the king of kings as far as mobile living is concerned.  In 1969 it sold for nearly 10,000 dollars.  Today, the equivalent Airstream sells for $70,000 dollars.  It took us about two weeks of craiglist searching, and driving all over tarnation looking to finally arrive at the one we purchased.  We set 17 one hundred dollar bills down on a desk, received the title, and hooked up to the behemoth and towed it 140 miles to our home. 

    The only incident was that one of the rather large windows, approximately 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, flew off of the airstream and hit the side of a fedex trailer.  We had no idea until the fedex driver pulled up next to us and blew his horn, passed us, cut us off, and began slowing down while signaling to follow him onto the off ramp.  He informed me that the window had hit is trailer, but not to worry because he didn’t think Fedex would notice the minor damage.  He then told us that he owned an RV dealership two exits down.  He was quite certain that they might have a replacement window.  Thanks but no thanks Captain Coincidence.  I got back on the interstate and continued yankin’ that airliner fuselage down the road with my buddies Ford F-350, 7.3 liter, superduty, diesel truck.  Apparently this is the largest diesel engine one can buy without acquiring a CDL.  From the front of the truck, (which is taller than me and I’m 6'3") to the back of the trailer we were well over 50 feet long.  Ironically this set up was completely legal. 
   
     This isn’t exactly a true story you would expect to read on a dedicated peak oiler/permaculturalist’s blog is it?  Well, it’s not fiction, it’s true.  First off let me say that I am not a hypocrite, and this in no way makes me one.  However I do understand how contradictory and paradoxical this all may seem.  Let me explain.

    The need for this arrangement was a long time in the making.  The largest irony here is that this land yacht weights about 3000 pounds, completely gutted, as it stands now.  How many energy slaves does it take to move a 31' trailer up the side of a mountain?  I live 115 miles down the mountain in the hills.  In order to get to Asheville I have to climb the famed Saluda grade (7% grade).  Not to mention the Green River Gorge.  To get a 31' trailer from the upstate of SC to Ashville NC it takes a lot of fucking raw fossil fuel power.  As my wife said the other day while sitting in the cab behind that 7.3 liter diesel engine, “I think I just grew a dick.”  It’s amazing what that kind of power will do to the psyche. 

    So why would I do something like this?  Our global civilization is chillin’ somewhere in the ghetto of the bumpy plateau that might as well be the gate to the downward side of Hubbert’s peak.  All I can say is that it makes sense to me.  The greatest paradox is that my wife and I are embracing our gypsy natures all while cultivating a homestead.  Homesteads require daily work to be done and don’t stand up well to the homesteaders leaving for months at a time.  Yet they can go fallow, and we have begun designing our homestead to withstand months of our absence.  The bottom line is that people don’t take kindly to permaculture, druid, gypsy, ninjas round these parts.  I think Zombie Whispering may be a bust as a career path.  It’s a great skill to have, but only for short term interatctions with zombies.  You can’t live amongst them and not be them in the long term.  Hence the need for our behemoth airline fuselage.
   
    This is what it looks like to us.  We bought a home for 17 one hundred dollar bills.  The undercarriage, towing hardware, and skin of this vessel are all in great condition.  We bought it road worthy (we’re in the process of replacing all of the windows with plexiglass).  We are also in the process of profiting off of all of the vintage vanity that composed the guts.  When we are done with it we will have acquired a portable aluminum home at no cost.  I’m not trying to justify what we have done.  I’m just trying to tease my way through the illusory conundrum.

    Here are my plans for the Airstream.  I’m going to craft a solar hot water heater onto the top.  It will be placed where the airconditioning unit is now (after we sell it for good money due to it being 1969 original and still blowing cold air).  I’m designing a system of rain water catchment for the top as well.  I plan on connecting one sink to the hot water and placing a 55 gallon drum over the wheel’s for a cistern to collect the water.  It will also double as a heat source for the inside of the trailer, which I plan on superinsulating.  I also plan on one solar panel that will run one deep freezer and keep us able to plug into the matrix.  That will be the only need for electricity.  If you have a freezer you don’t need a refrigerator.  Gallon glass jugs half full of water and frozen, and then placed in coolers, provide an ample refrigerator.  There will also be a pantry built into the trailer that will hold bulk dry food (which is pretty much what we live on now...oats, rice, polenta, beans, eggs, and dairy consists of the majority of our diet). 

    This is my plan for the kitchen.  It will be an indoor/outdoor kitchen.  I plan on one propane tank to run the original gas oven and my two burner camping stove.  This will be the only thing we will need fuel for when stationary.  Yet we will not need this fuel to meet our needs.  Propane will simply be for convenience.  The oven also doubles as a heat source in the winter.  The majority of our cooking will be down with a solar oven and a rocket stove.  However we are also installing a small two burner, antique coal burning stove (the stove is from the early 20th century, and I will use small twigs for heat as the firebox is pretty small). 

    The bathroom will be a composting toilet on the inside as well as a camping style shower.  To shower one will simply take the lid off of the 55 gallon cistern, fill the bag, and then hang the bag in what will be a very small showering area on the inside of the airstream.  The water will just drain overboard and be collected in another container for reuse elsewhere. 

    Another aspect I’ve been playing with is a small scale biodiesel set up.  The idea will be to remain in place seasonally and only move as the seasons dictate.  So we will move no more than three times a year.  I figure three to four months is plenty of time to acquire the feedstock and make 30 gallons of fuel or so.  My permaculture associate has operated a biodiesel business in the past, so navigating the various ins and outs and what-have-you’s won’t be difficult.  The next phase of this plan is to acquire an old diesel truck.  However, it’s not necessary due to the fact that I have a 7.3 liter and a 6.3 liter at my disposal. 

    I’m not delusional about the transient nature of security that this plan provides us.  It requires lots of moving parts, but only to move on occasion.  Once in place, we will not need the grid for my families survival, and we will have the ability to go wherever sanity needs us.  I’m throwing all in on permaculture.  It is already providing me with community, but that community is up the mountain.  This is the only plan that will enable me to move my family there due to the hand I have been dealt. Staying in Zombieville is not an option long term.  However we can’t leave now, so this is the best we can do.  The matter of security is one in which I find the majority of us peak oiler’s don’t want to talk about.  I’ve said it before, Zombies are first and foremost insatiably hungry beings.  Zombie children are ravenous feral little evil fuckers that I want to limit my interaction with.  Don’t be mistaken about my intentions.  I have a healthy and open line of communication with the reality of the future.  The Airstream will have a weapon safe.  Essentially this is the vessel that we intend on surviving the long emergency in. 

    I suppose this is fate.  I’ve always been a nomad...it’s just my style.  So Druid Permaculture Gypsy Magic is the final form it would seem...for me and my family.  We still have a homestead here, in the hills, and we still have an obligation to care for our elder.  However that doesn’t mean that we have an obligation to stay in Zombieville.  I intend on surviving whatever the future throws my way.  As for the plans for the rest of the space in our spacecraft.  The first ten feet of trailer, in the front, is going to be nothing but bean bags, oversize pillows, a full size memory foam mattress, and a nice plush circular couch.  That’s right...an oversize chill room great for taken her easy as much as possible while surviving the downside of Hubbert's Peak. 

     As an interesting aside.  The Apollo 11 crew was quarantined in a 1969 airstream for 21 days after returning to Earth.   I suppose if it was good enough for the American legends that walked on the surface of the moon...it's good enough for my family.  The irony in this symbolism is so sweat that it's uniquely beautiful.  The airstream truly is an American Icon that represents the height of American engineering applied to recreation.  I find this a perfect symbol to make an abode to travel into the long descent with.  It's a very real American vessel ripe with space age overtones.  I think what we are doing is necessary, logical, and unavoidable.  If nothing else, the psychological security blanket that this project is providing my family is worth it.  All of us who are aware of the reality of the long descent want to feel that we can do something constructive to combat the helplessness.  There is great value for my families psychological health in this vessel.  This is a very real spacecraft that we are designing to navigate our way into the long descent. 

Talking to President Nixon while in Quarantine

Mobile Quarantine 

On the side of the USS Hornet

Culture of Denial

Afterward 

3/12/13

The Post Petroleum Human Tribe is continuing to evolve.  We are unplugged and wired in without wires.  We drop down the memory hole and immerse our minds in remembrance.  So that we don't forget where we came from.  

The American Hologram is a real program being projected within the Matrix.  There are other programs, but this one is dominant in the industrialized senseless suburban consumer consumption  wasteland artifact of 20th century chemical monkey man.  

We're coalescing for the future of the Post Petroleum Nation at a little place called the Foxstead.  We'll be hiding in plain site.  When you look at us we'll be directly ahead, in the woods, visible in your blind spot.  Don't bother looking to hard because we have vanished in our 21st century anonymity. We are legion and you can't even see us.  Hiding in plain site.  Waiting for you to blink to make our next move.  And you thought you would always remain in control of the masses.  

Also, let me just say, in this afterward that's happening in the forward spot, that I made my way back to "Where the Wasteland Ends" and it expanded my mindscape greatly.  

The last bout of books that I have acquired and began perusing have come to me through two sources, Morris Berman and John Michael Greer. The book I'm currently reading is titled "Where the Wasteland Ends"and is authored by Theodore Roszak. It was first published in 1972. I'm 30 pages in and I'm already beginning to lose interest and for different reasons than one might expect. In fact, I've never even experienced a lose of interest such as this and it's what I can only term as a type of exhaustion. It's an intellectual and emotional exhaustion that protrudes from a dawning realization that the world is suffering from a legendary case of denial. As I read these books that were published years before I was born (in this case 8 years before I was born), and as I look around at the world today to see the furtherance of our march into the wasteland, I can only throw my arms up in despair and then drop my hands into the soil. I put them into animal shit and dead and dying biomass. I mix it all together with the steam rising behind me from the hot compost pile. I mix this all into red dirt in an effort to make cultivated plant seeds a nurturing place to grow. This brings me peace and hope, and the need for these necessary books is fading. I know what needs to be done and why things are the way they are. There is simply no reason for me to read about it any longer, it's just depressing.

The fact that over 40 years ago books were already being written about the "Wasteland" or the Matrix or the American Hologram is proof enough that nothing is going to change or save our empire from this downward spiral. It's a pretty hopeless realization. Yet it's true none-the-less. The easy way out is through denial, and I've noticed that this is indeed an innate reaction, a knee jerk reaction. Intelligent people simply know on some unconscious level that there is very little meaningful action they can take to change any of this truth. They are wrong to think that unconsciously, but that doesn't stop them. And so the realization just never happens for hundreds of millions of people because it's just too depressing. The 100th monkey is not going to wake up from this chemical induced coma of denial until the death march of our empire is over. 40 years ago maybe, but now...it's simply too late. 

 

I didn't sit down with the intention of writing a depressing blog, but even amidst my liberation I have been fighting this underlying current of depression lately. It's taken me some time to figure out why I feel this way. I am taking all the actions I can to learn as much about growing food as possible. I have changed my entire life around to meet these mandates, and I have taken my family with me. As a result I am able to tend to plant life on 1.65 acres as my job. My job is now to learn as much as I can about growing food and that is simply amazing. I have had the good fortune to learn the truth behind the saying that the best fertilizer is the gardener's feet. I'm present and unmedicated for my wife and son. Yet still there is this dreaded sadness that erupts through the fissures in the psychic ground that is supposed to protect me. The sadness is coming from a place that is much larger than I, and it has the capability of strong arming all of my defenses and there is nothing I can do about it. Ahhhh denial, it's one hell of a drug.

I have come face to face with the source of this sadness. It's become more tactile to me because I have had time to tease out it's form and it origination. We've always had the answers about the antidote to the machine, to the wasteland. We put all of our cards into building the Wasteland and now we're going to take them to bed for a self induced nightmare. How is anyone to deal with such horrible truth if not with denial? The only way through it is to feel it and that means a heavy blanket of sadness. I understand that what I am doing is the best I can do. It's not only the best I can do, it's the only meaningful course of action for me. I'm following my bliss. I know that food production is the most important element of this mess. It's the one thing that I know with certainty is necessary now and in the future. It's the one thing that allows me to be a whole person. Everything inside and outside is aligned though me with the simple act of growing soil. I am not in denial, and yet that comes with an immense cost because just about everybody I know is in denial about this. My friends, that is a recipe for loneliness, and no doubt one that I'm sure most of you are intimate with.

I suppose this means I have grown to big for this round of skin. I no longer feel the need to read books about how fucked up it all is. The truth is that it's always been fucked up cause our species is, and worse than that even because we don't have to be. Our species chooses to remain agents of destruction because of cowardice. Nobody wants to deal with the mess we have made, and so they hide in their convenient suburbanland and are at peace with trading their humanity for consumerism. Our species has made a Faustian deal...their humanity and honor for the numbness of complete denial. Not only do they lose their dignity, but they lose their future progeny's as well.

Waking up from the Matrix becomes a sad ordeal rather quickly. I knew I was alone in the Matrix, but I had no idea about what it was like outside of it. I do have a small kernel of hope however. I don't want to leave ya'll with nothing but depressing truth. I have hope that I will find others like me because I already have. The problem is that I have met them 70 miles from where I'm at in Asheville NC. I'm referring to the group of souls I met at the Permaculture In Action event that I have been attending. For the first time in my life I have met a large group of people whom all view the world through the same type of eyes. We are all different. We come from different places, backgrounds, and times. This group spans from 18 to 60 something years old. The easiest way to describe it would be to say that we are a tribe, but in the 21st century a tribe can exist only with it's members spread out in a vast region....a pack of mostly lone wolfs. I'm on the outskirts of our region with only one couple a few more miles further out than I. Our people are spread out in a 100 mile long diameter around Asheville NC. It only took one day for us to all bond into this tribe. The one guiding principal has been permaculture. We have all met each other because we share that one interest, but that one interest spans the breadth of a people whom have been freed from that cultural denial that I have been speaking of. We are united in our decision to do something about this culture of denial. I have plans to write about this Permaculture In Action Tribe that I have found, so I won't continue much about it now.

I think we are the beginning of humanities long muddling trudge into a new environment. Our empire is just beginning to approach the back side of Hubbert's curve. We have been on the bumpy plateau since 2006 or so. To my mind Hurricane Katrina was the harbinger for this new reality. We've probably got another five years left before we begin our descent in earnest. Those of us who are aware are already at the bottom of the back side of Hubbert's curve. That's where you find yourself upon waking up from the Matrix. We're looking at a culture, an empire, of denial and trying to figure out just what the hell we're going to do about it. The fact is that we're going to have to just let the empire plummet to the flat ground after Hubbert. The best we can do is have things ready for when they arrive. I think I'm going to continue asking this question here at Epiphany Now. If you are reading this, and you haven't acted on the information you know to be true, the information that hails from your soul, then what are you waiting for? We of the Post Petroleum Human Tribe need all of the help we can get.