Kitsune Bamboo Nursery

This is the first Epiphany Now post to emmerge from my space phone blogger app bluetooth keyboard device.  I hope all goes well, and the many batteries it requies stay charged long enough to complete this communication (although currently I could just plug in and recharge but that doesn't sound as dramatic).  I plan to write much more here at Epiphany Now, but for now I'm just unveiling some intention into the digital cloud.

Shortly after dropping out of the Matrix I moved to my current residence.  My intention for my new unplugged lifestyle was to learn Permaculture and to create a garden of eatin' into the landscape.  I was following my bliss (and still am) and activeily writing the story of my destiny.  My words shapped the land and fostered the birth of an ecologically healthy landscape filled with intentional spiritual energy and meaning.  Essentially I've created a Druid food forrest painted in the Ogam ( the Ogam, or Ogham, is a celtic tree alphabet I happen to study).  

I bet I sound crazy as a shit house rat to a lot of people reading these words.  I don't care really what I sound like.  I'm authentically on fire and refuse to apologize for it.  

Anyways, when I moved here I dubbed my abode, outside of the actual house, "The Fox Den."  I mostly live outside.  Being that I'm domesticated I am forced to spend time indoors, but I am constantly attempting to minimize that time.  I blame it on Aspergers, at least to use the modern psychiatric explanation for my irregularities (than's an entire other bag of worms).  I'm a shaman at heart, and I have a theory that Aspergers may be displaced shamans, displaced by suburban sprawl and cookie cutter jobs complete with required behavior patterns.  It may be that I'm not an aspie, but a shaman, and it just so happens that the diagnosis for Aspergers overlaps qualities of a shaman.  Whatever the case, I have a very strong need to minimize my interaction with people.  I'm perfectly fine one on one, however, which would make sense following my shaman theory.  

I want to make it clear that I have no desire to fill some egoic need to be special.  I'm no more, or less special, than you or anybody else.  However, I am fundamentally different, and science explains that via a neurological difference...so be it.  

Kitsune is the Japanesse word for a fox, but it has strong mystical and magical associations in Japanese folklore culture as well (if you want an interesting read on the subject than I'd reccommend the wiki article for Kitsune).  When I moved here, and essentially devoted my life to Permaculture and Druidry, I had just found the fox to be a spirit animal that was following me around.  I resonated with fox, and so embraced that friendship and guidance that was being offered.  

Then the Bamboo Monster revealed itself to me.  I fell in love with that monster and was unable to resist the overwhelming need to suddenly begin digging up bamboo to plant it at the Fox Den.  Bamboo even began showing up at the Fox Den in pots due to a serrendipitous friendship that started one magical day in the woods at a near by park.  I have since began an internship with Keiji Oshima of Haiku Bamboo Nursery.  He has been teaching me everything he thinks I'm ready to learn about bamboo.  I am interested in the culture of bamboo and not just the growing of it.  Bamboo is very familiar to the shaman in me, and I know that is because I have known bamboo intimately before, just as I have known Kitsune.  

Therefore, to honor the relationship that I have with fox, bamboo, and Japanesse culture, I have decided to dub this bamboo nursery (with very heavy Permaculture overtones) Kitsune Bamboo Nursery.  To kick off the declaration I figured that I would share pictures of all the characters of bamboo that reside here.  I also want to publicly decree that the Bamboo Monster regurlarly hangs out here at Kitsune, but don't worry because he's a nice, and useful monster.  

Here at Kitsune Bamboo Nursery we have 11 varieites of bamboo (not counting two which we're trying to propagate rhizomally which are Moso, and Makinoi).  Two of those varieties are in pots only, they are Green Onion, and Koi.  Currently we have only Buddha Belly and Medake for sale, however next fall we will have several other varieties for sale.  Within four years all of our varieities will be for sale, hopefully.  I'd also like to note that I plan to have only four varieties growing at this site.  We will be moving bamboos to our Rock HIll property as they grow and we run out of room.  Kitsune Bamboo is already expanding habitate for the Bamboo Monster to inhabit.  

The picture below is a fall Madake shoot (phyllostachys bambusoides), planted August 2015, given to KBN (Kitsune Bamboo Nursery) by HBN (Haiku Bamboo Nursery) and showing how bamboo plays with water.  The presence of morning dew on bamboo auricles is considered a sign of good health.  This, however, is rain water.

The same Madake plant showing rhizomal character.  Phyllostachys like to snake in and out of the ground.  I'm performing an experient with this rhizome.  If you look closely at the left hand sid eof the picture you can barely see a rhizome leaf about to hit that rock.  I placed that rock there, and one under it in the ground, to study what the rhizome will due upon encontering it.  It appears that it is already aware of the rock and is simply going to go up and over it...but I'll see as time moves forward.  

Same Madake plant with a gift given to Ayden Zen by Stefani Oshima at the final intern day of the 2015 season.  Madake is one of the two most useful bamboos (according to Japanesse Culture, the other is Medake featured later).  Madake is a timber bamboo capable of 72 foot tall canes that are 6 inches in diameter.  Madake is very hard and it grows straight.  It's great for building structures or for splitting and weaving.  Madake is my favorite bamboo because it's the most useful to humans.  It's also used to make flutes (which Keiji Oshima makes and sales).

Koi (phyllostachy aurea 'Koi'

Some potted Buddha belly (phyllostachys Aurea).  This was the first bamboo plant I ever dug up.  Buddha Belly is valued due to its ornamental appeal for crafts because of it's compressed internodes.

Some more Buddha Belly, in the ground, with Hairy Vetch planted as a nitrogen fixing cover crop.  I'm trying to keep the bermuda at bay.

Medake (Pleioblastus simonii) purchased at HBN and planted here spring of 2015.  Medake and Madake are considered the most useful bamboos in Japan, and with good reason.

This is Phyllostachys Vivax which I propagated rhizomally.  The rhizomes were given to me by Gary McPhee (the serendipitous friend I met at the park)

This is fall growth.  Here you can see how beautiful this variety of Vivax is.  It's a timber bamboo that is celebrated for it's beauty.  It's wood is not very hard and often breaks due to the weight of ice in the winter.

Phyllostachys Aureosulcata f. Spectabalis.  This bamboo has the most character and a lot of beauty in my opinion.  It has variagation on the leafs like Koi, it geniculates (the can zig zags as it finishes the growth of the last couple of internodes), it changes colors in the sun, and it has the green sulcus with bright yellow canes.  It truly is a spectacular site to behold, but it is not a very useful bamboo...just beautiful.  

Showing the green sulcus of Spectabilis

Another timber bamboo I propagated early spring of 2015.  This is Phyllostachys Nigra Boryana, also known as snake skin bamboo.  Right now it's a sleeping giant capable of 60 foot canes that are 4 inches in diameter.

Bamboo island with two species of bamboo.

This is Phyllostachy Nigra Henon.  This is another bamboo that is considered to be one of the most beautiful, especially in Japan.  This is the original "Nigra," although it does not have black culms.  It's a very useful bamboo.

Close up of a Henon culm showing how it plays with slight color variations.

Psuedosasa Japonica, or Arrow bamboo, so called because the Japanesse used to make arrows with it due to it's straight growth and perfect diameter for crafting arrows.  It also makes a very effective screen for making neighbors dissappear.

This is yet another planting of Buddha Belly with some new growth.  This growth is from the last month.

An Unlikely Convocation

There's a Knight standing next to me now. He's got a peace necklace on and he's holding two black and white feathers found in Texas. Before that, while he was still in Texas, he was holding flowers. He was a gift given to me by a stoned and druken WASP shaman from Minnesota. What he was doing in Texas is hard to say, but so is saying what I was doing there. I was there to meet people I've been in written communication with for the last several years. Those in attendance included a shaman, two ritual magicians, a Dentist, a webmaster hermit shut in from Alaska, a Druid, a Shaman Witch (for now at least, and born during the Convocation), and two Druid/Shaman Witch children.

There were wigs, and boomerangs, and 50 year old Texas spider monkey dentists 30 feet up in a tree trying to retrieve a stuck boomerang, and weather magic, and shamanistic happenings, and a 200 year old pecan tree that was actually Old Man Time, and tractor joy rides ending in busted hydraulic lines, and Monolithic dome building, and out door showers erected complete with a Diner noose, hugel beds constructed, gray water retention snake heads (I dug a big ass hole), and my wife walked naked down a limestone dry creek bed by full moonlight...ohh, and I had an actual fox run across my path. Ayden Zen was in communion with the fox just before I walked up and interrupted.

You should have been there for this meeting of minds and souls. I can speak to what I was doing there now. I was there with my family looking for some hope. It's looking pretty hopeless out there these days, what with the writing on the wall and whatnot. BAU continues until it doesn't. So some Diners got together in Bum Fuck Egypt Texas to figure on some hope, and to learn how to build Monolithic domes, which are earthquake, hurricane, tornado, and fire proof domiciles that can be built for less money than a stick built piece of shit of the same square footage. These are domiciles that have withstood 300 mph winds and American Apache helicopter strikes, and simply need you to shut the door when a fire breaks out (they're so air tight that the fire will starve for oxygen before it can do much damage...and anyways concrete doesn't burn).

What's the point of a fox crossing my path, or any of the other oddities encountered during the first Diner Convocation? I'm still trying to figure all of that out, and there's a lot that happened that I won't be writing about (including what happened after I found my wife walking naked down the limestone creek bed by moonlight). Interestingly, while all of this real life magic was going down in Bum Fuck Texas, trolls were hard a work lambasting the very thing that was allowing all of the real world magic to occur. Why is that? I think it's because they are afraid. They don't want to admit that it's come to a group of internet forum friends meeting in Texas for difference to be made in this rigged catastrophe of a petroleum dependent clustercuss. They don't want to admit that technotriumphalism is not going to save a damn thing...accept maybe some people from dealing with the thermodynamic constraints we're all forced to adhere to.

Will we build domes as a result of this meeting? Is there a chance for prosperity for normal people in the near future? Is the Orwellian New World Bravely going to persist and even evolve into draconian dystopians unimagined by the doomerist doomers? Why does BAU continue unabated?

For my part, and the part of my family, we've only just begun on this journey that started here at Epiphany Now and migrated to the Doomstead Diner, and now the SUN. My family is planning a trip to California soon. We'll be burning a lot of petroleum by way of the internal combustion engine in our Saturn Vue to make it there. We'll be camping in state parks just like we did to and from the Convocation. I've got a cousin getting married, and we've got a tribe to meet in Fresno. The tribe is a coven of magicians. While at the Convocation I had visions filled with symbols I'm not ready to understand yet. My family slept outside of the Toothstead house in an REI tent titled the "Hobitat." I awoke from these mysterious visions at the beginning of the Convocation to a monstrous clap of thunder followed by a torrential downpour. The day before this I saw intentional weather magic being worked, as well as a group rain dance in which I supplied the shamanistic beats. Beats I didn't even know I had. Beats accompanied by impromptu musical instruments made by using common kitchen utensils (I was using a 3 gallon bucket myself to drive this thing). This downpour happened amidst a terrible Texas drought.

I was confused by all of this meaning. I was depressed after it was over and we returned to our trailer park Whoville everywhere America. I'm still depressed by how beautiful it could be and yet isn't. How it could all just mean nothing, and how we could remain stuck here where the Zombies will eat our table for lunch. Some things in life do not make sense, and yet they are magical in spite of Cartesian, Newtonian, and Apollonian logic. I chose to believe that all of the Convoction magic was just that, magic. It's not as if anyone can prove me wrong, not when we know that the act of scientific observation changes the outcome of the observation. Not when the truth is that we make our own meaning, our own myths, and our own minds. What's your mind doing about infinite growth on a finite planet? Mine is creating 21st century living tribes out of the virtual reality of the net. We've met, in person, in Bum Fuck Egypt Texas, and we still like each other. We're all who we said we were. Here's to the first Diner Dome we're gonna build. Here's to a future where some of us survive and even thrive. Some of us...likely not many...but at least my new tribe is trying. How about yours? RIP Mike Ruppert. I'm already not the slowest camper. It may be that my tribe is the fastest. However unlikely our Convocation.