The Not So Romantic Parts - Wednesday 10/10/12

Illness. It is upon us and I have observed it tends to occur around the transition of the seasons.
As our bodies slow down to combat the invasion, one can suffer, or one can embrace the time and change of pace we are gifted.
On this occasion, I have reflected and observed some very important and often overlooked factors when it comes to living the much romanticized, almost mythical 'simple life'.

Thankfully my affliction is minor and its main effect is lethargy. But even this can present a challenge. Energy must still be expended if the fire is to be kept fed and the wood supply replenished. Feeling tired can amplify the feeling of exertion and sap morale.
From the perspective of a father, it appears there is scant opportunity for a mother to rest to the extent her body requires. The demands of infants does not slacken, in fact they seemingly increase if the child has also contracted the infection. This in turn appears to prolong the duration of the illness in the host.
Living in close proximity takes on a new dimension as you cower in the extremities of your abode, hoping that the cough and splutter that just erupted from your eight year old and showered your cheek holds no dire consequence.

Relative to most, my family and I do exist closer to 'nature' or 'the edge' so to speak, but the truth is we are no where as near as our ancestors nor indeed the bulk of the worlds population today.

No, unlike most, when unwell we cannot, and do not, lie in bed sipping on mass produced pharmaceutical 'remedies' whilst heating is activated via a timer, food procured from a freezer, blasted with microwaves and reputedly edible in minutes etc.
Nor do we walk a tight rope where pneumonia or the risk of more severe disease is a reality. This is due in part to having friends and family who dwell in houses with the aforementioned conveniences  where we can retreat if needs dictate, as well as having the safety net delivered by Universal Free Healthcare in the form of the NHS. Thankfully we rarely need to play that card, but it's very existence is a comfort and worth acknowledgement.

I am sure I am not the first modern youth who was flabbergasted when told that the common cold swept like a plague through the indigenous population of the Americas, with deadly effect, when first the white man arrived.

Now, I believe I am closer to understanding why. If it wasn't the disease itself, then a contributing factor could have been the ease of its transmission compounded by the difficulty of functioning and fulfilling basic, everyday needs. A whole family, even village could quickly become incapacitated (this still happens today!) and a vicious spiral could easily begin.

Sadly, a lifestyle such as my own is undeniably elitist. Natural selection at work in its ugliest and crudest form. No amount of currency will fill the void of not being able to lift your head off your pillow to light your stove. Your bank account cannot put food into your mouth. Your estate will not magically manifest a watertight shelter.
Consequently, I admit to being probably overly cautious when sawing and chopping wood for instance. No 'injurylawyers4u' will be able to replace the functionality of a severed thumb or chopped foot. A broken leg could easily mean many weeks of hardship not solely for me but for my entire family.

At Lammas I witnessed dreamers from all ages, backgrounds and walks of life come to visit, nearly all wishing to engage in a similar endeavour. For a few, the realisation that they would not physically be able to do so without relying on another was a sobering and hard to swallow truth to say the least.
Nature does not adhere to any amount of disability or equality legislation.
This is not to say these folk were beyond hope. Far from it. Their challenge only slightly increased by the need to re-unite their family. To rediscover the strength a family unit provides. It is no accident why family is so very very important, perhaps not literally and physically so much in the western world, but you need not travel far to see it in action.

I am able to meet the demands and challenges I am faced with, but this will not always be so. Is the answer a pension plan? No. It is my family, primarily my offspring. They are my retirement fund. They just don't know it yet!

A Tiresome Train Wreck - Tuesday 20/09/11

At midday, Kit, Saara, Nick, Emma and I plus babies finally had a sit down chat.

I was rather dismayed, indeed disgusted by some of what was aired.

I particularly wished to put to bed the recent grumbles about my perceived lack of input. Somehow, it would appear my efforts are viewed in an inferior light to those of Nicks. A grossly unfair comparison to start with and I won't go into detail here.

It is times like these when keeping a diary pays dividends.

What most shocked me was Kits confession of envy. Not only of our material possessions, specifically my air rifles, but also our finances and what appears to him to be our relaxed life despite our newborn child. I am aware that beneath envy lies flattery, but it was Emma who astutely pointed out that whilst things such as money and toys are what they are, who owns the land? Who will leave here with nothing? Who will gain a house!?

I am writing this shortly after the event has occurred, so no doubt emotions are still present and issues that may fade still vivid in mind. I have expressed to Saara that I would like a follow up chat with them regarding the points raised.

Whilst my emotion charged mind wishes to document all niggling details, my hearts wisdom and pen hand knows it is for the better that I refrain. There are no accidents.

If my frustrations become a catalyst for our departure then that is that.

Am I sabotaging my circumstances in accordance to the pattern I have observed in my life, I ask myself. I said in their presence that I attributed this period to a lack of focus (building) and lack of clarity on our exchange.

A small voice voice in my conscience recalls that Hoppi and others warned us that Kit can be a challenge. Be that as it may, whilst I breathe, I am ready to be challenged.

I attended a Lammas meeting in the evening, not much was different from the others bar two items regarding directors and outside committee members. My notice that I wished to stand as a Director was again on the agenda after being dismissed off hand previously. None objected, bar Andy who belligerently asked me to repeat myself when I spoke clear enough for all to hear, as he “did not understand a word” and then declined to elaborate on his objection when challenged. Either he was being polite, so strong were his feelings, or he was just being 'difficult'. I didn't take it personally, just as well too as he was also did not like the idea of outside committee members. I also have a feeling Melissa would have objected as well, so the focus cannot be trained on him alone. This concensus thing seems a waste of time, cited as 'something to aspire to' it appears as fluffy and as foundless in practice as most other 'enlightened' ideas practiced by incapable aspirational folk.

I have endured all meetings that have taken place during my time here. I have observed and offered input when it was required, and/or requested, but watching a train fall off the tracks eventually becomes frustrating and dull. More so when your insight is most often seemingly cast on stony ground.

My offer to stand as director was therefore a most charitable and generous one. I thank Andy for excluding and protecting me from being obligated to attend these circuses. Lammas is bankrupt due to gross negligence and financial mismanagement. That is not hearsay nor speculation, it is a fact. The ship is sinking and like many others, I'm cashing out.

Let us see what next the Fates will deign to weave into this, my tapestry of life.

The Voice From The Ether...

Hello!

Yup, I'm still here and the story goes on. But its time to end the black out to bring you guys upto speed on things.

First off an apology and explanation for the sudden neglection of the blog. This is down to two reasons. 1) A slip on the totem of priority and 2) the evident inability of my phone's mobile internet connection to upload the corresponding photographs. A consequence of this is that I require landline broadband and have thus far failed to bring with me my diary whenever I'm presented with the opportunity to log on. Like, now... So, sorry for that.

I do intend to post the missing entries but, I'd like to fast forward to the final entry I made in my diary before things got busy and ironically, very interesting. I don't mean to ruin things for you I only wish to sum up where I stand at this present now and why 'blogging' has become of lower significance to me when it is about documenting my physical life's events. The murder of the family pet cat, Eira, by a Human Being on the night of Thursday the 27th October was an excellent opportunity to observe my ego and all its urges to lash out, seek enemies, exact retribution. Instead I was the witnessing presence. I don't wish to sound 'saintly' but it was very easy to let go. To not react in the manner of the 'old' conciousness. To not be suckered in. We lacked proof, but the evidence was powerful enough for us to know almost by intuition 'whodunnit'. We went directly to them and had our answer. It changed nothing. Our cat is still dead. Her existence ended by enforced drowning in mere inches of water in the very same mill pond that had witnessed the demise of so many other beings. The feeling that it was most likely that Kit's wife Saara had executed her will upon the cat we named Eira changed nothing. It also was not solely the reason we ended our arrangement of volunteering for them and left Lammas (Tir-Y-Gafel) some three/four weeks later.
This non-reaction and non-identification enabled me to continue my interactions with Kit and Saara without anger, bitterness or hurt. I admit it still lurked and irked somewhat in the dark recesses where the pain body and ego still dwell, but I observed those emotions/thought forms, I did not react to them.

I forgive Kit and Saara both unreservedly. I am, and always will be, very grateful indeed to them for their part in my experiences and the facilitation of them. Had I grabbed my air rifle and shot dead their cat Gwyn, I would have perpetuated the same insane behaviour that plagues mankind presently upon this Earth. How in hell can ending the life of another, innocent, unknowing being bring justice or revenge except through the insane delusion that that being is the perpetrator or somehow was in alliance with the perpetrator. Or even that justice lies in inflicting the same injury upon the injurer, disregarding that the one that would really pay the price is faultless. The ego is cunning like that. By mere association, my mind attempted to convince me that their cats death (Eira's Sister) would make things 'fair' or 'right'.  What rubbish. Death plus Death will never equal Life. I could be ashamed to admit to those thoughts, I am not, for they are not mine, they are born of the ego.

It was almost poetic when viewed from a distance. That the cat named Eira was born at Tir-Y-Gafel, and just over a year later she died there after producing a litter of three, one kitten was an almost exact replica of her. The kitten who seemed most attached to her, despite being homed and living over 200 miles away, died shortly after his mother. Emma speculates he simply wished to follow his beloved mother to that which waits for us all.

Eira; Born 10th October 2010, Died 27th October 2011. She was a cat who walked by herself... Into a man's tent in the middle of the night, one too many times and paid the ultimate price. Her life had been verbally threatened 2 days prior. How many of us know of a cat that will heed warnings or one that ever understood the human concept of 'Private Property'?

 
I do intend to periodically utilise this medium for communicating to those who will listen, but the structure of how I do so will take on a different form.

I have begun, and am toying with finishing, writing a book entitled "Coping With Mine and Society's Dysfunction". In this book I intend to relate my observations and draw out into the open not only some of the issues I have witnessed at Tir-Y-Gafel (collective human coexistence in the micro) but also experiences before and after as well as inside and outside 'me'. There is little 'out there' that does not occur in me. Often the most infuriating or upsetting aspects of the 'out there' is often the very same tendency or aspect that I dislike inside 'me' or rather the mind I use. Just a germ of a concept...

Here is the final entry in my diary, should you wish to read it before its chronological place;

05/10/11 Wednesday

Our 'Indian Summer' is at an end. Normality, if that is what it is, seems to have returned.
Friday, Simon and Jasmine took us with them to Picton Castle where an event was being held in the gardens. The theme was light. Interestingly to me, my pleasure came not from the man made attractions. Primarily it was being with Simon and Jasmine and my family and the change of scenery, and once there, the magnificent trees and horticulture, most notably a 300 year old Cedar tree. From its trunk extended sucker like branches that grew outward a distance, just beyond the canopy, and turned skyward.
My favourite of these was one that resembled an elephants head and trunk.
I grant you that its been one week to the day since my last entry. I am finding it increasingly difficult to breakdown my life into newsworthy events. My life just is. What arises, passes. The fact that yesterday, I and others collected algae bloom from the millpond along with its brown trout victims, does not particularly change nor matter much. It is a tit bit of limited interest to another. Collectively, the entries may give my children an idea of who I was and what I was thinking, but that is of little significance to who I am. To me, each day is now a new life. Each night that previous existence fades and serves no role in the present. A death.
The photographs are images, a form of forms, it, like the other forms, will fade and whither into past. Unless one derives identity from these and other forms, their capture and/or demise are of no consequence.
I once thought it mattered to record and to remember the past. I once believed it important to be able to communicate my activities to others. It is not. Not, for me, anymore. These records are and have been entertaining. A distraction from the present.
For those who read this because they want to follow my path, to learn the secrets of how I changed my life, I have not answers, but important questions for you.
It was not particularly useful for me to ask "Where do I want to live/be?" But rather "Where am I happy to die?" I believe the latter of the two evokes much stronger imagery in the minds eye than the former. Also; "If not now, then when? If not here, then where?

"These roses under my Window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them...But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time" - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance.

M Jones

The Factory Drones - Friday 09/09/11

During a lull in this period of wind and rain, we sowed some wheat. As John Seymour says "Sow wheat in mud, Barley in dust".
Later in the day I received a telephone call from the manager of the local leisure centre. We have an ongoing discussion "photographic records". They wish to photograph Frances and hold it 'on the system'. Frances was registered with them on the condition that this would not be required and the deal was done. Now they wish to change the terms.
In the evening, I went to the Lammas sub committee meeting of Tir-Y-Gafel residents. I went as it was still a Lammas meeting and I am a shareholder. As a shareholder, I wish to witness and oversee the company's progress.
AGAIN, the agenda was infiltrated by Lammas business i.e loans.
Ayres, shortly after my arrival, sought clarification that my presence was authorised and accepted by the group. This upset me only when it came to light that this loan proposal included a condition that, upon default, the company would stand to lose a portion of the woodland. That would reduce my share... I, to my mind, therefore had every right to attend. As it transpired the loan was temporarily rejected in order to seek one based on more acceptable terms. A short grumble about volunteers voting at meetings followed. Melissa verbalised her indignation that a temporary resident could have a say and influence "her life". "Her life" is rather inaccurate of her to say. The knock on could very well be that, but it is more like your employer reducing your lunch break on a vote helped by that of an intern. Sure it may affect your 'life' at work but not your private life. The company cannot and should not hold that power.
What I imagine I see is a scenario as I shall describe;

There is a factory. The factory consists of drones. One day, the drones say "we don't want to work 24/7, we want one of those 'private life' things. So at company meetings the drones discuss (at length) how they will create and action the 'separate private life'. They resolve to, and are permitted to, meet in the staff room before walking out of the door to the big wide world. This way, they can prepare themselves. They believe. But some of the drones are confused. They think the staff room is the outside world and part of this 'private' life thing. When a director walks in to watch the drones and oversee their progress, they get upset. So programmed are the drones, that for the most part, they continue discussing 'work'. Their meeting is hijacked by the news of the company's fiscal flow report. The drones' circuit boards too easily flicking out of 'private' mode, seemingly without the drones' awareness it has happened.
The director is concerned. He supported the idea in order to gain a happy, rested, contented and productive workforce, but the drones appear incapable of handling more than one role, and nearly resolve to jeopardise the assests of his and their company (let's assume the factory is a co-operative kinda thing).
The director is, to a large degree, also a drone. Yet he possesses the cognitive power to walk out of the factory door and is able to identify what issues pertain to what and which of his roles.
He is an outside drone. A hybrid. Potentially the most qualified to assist, yet deemed incredible and often shunned for not being a full, real drone. His position and potential is seldom, if not ever, recognised and his role is often mistaken.
So the director waits quietly. He continues to attend the staff room meetings in the hope the drones show signs of learning, of evolving and to assist when he is called upon to do so.

Are you a drone dreaming of 'freedom'? Are you a 'Director'?
Or are you human?

My Ambitious Baby - Sunday 07/08/11

Tomorrow, we return to to Lammas. Today, some packing was required. It is always an eye opener to how much you possess and acquire. Our baby is the length of my shin and the width of two. Small clothes=small bag? It would appear that women of our culture believe babies, the smallest incarnation of human beings, require more clothes than two and a half adults. Pack/travel light seems not to compute. Perhaps this would change if they were tasked with carrying it...
I've come across garments that suggest this being, after only one month of existence intends to journey to the far north. She can't raise her head off a pillow, yet appears confident of pounding polar bears into submission. If it is about 'being prepared' I simply cannot fathom how this is truly accomplished by stockpiling a small towns supply of wool and cotton in the part of the wardrobe not bulging with now obsolete maternity/clown costumes. I wonder how much money is saved, if indeed any, by those living in warmer climes. I dread to think of the expense, following western women's logic, of raising a child in Siberia or Alaska.
I must need educating.

Scott The Explorer Ready To Go

M Jones

Really 'Living The Dream' - Thursday 28/07/11

The marriage between myself and my newly acquired TX200 has bourne fruit. Levi and I decided to forego sleep so that we could go a-hunting at sunrise 05:25. About half to three quarters of an hour in,  I shot a young rabbit. We had opportunities at squirrels and another rabbit but for me the purpose of our outing had already been fulfilled. One rabbit was all we needed.
I find it ironic that to date my hunting experience has bucked the ".177 for feather, .22 for fur" adage.
Despite the fatigue, this morning was a welcome return to the life and activities that make me feel alive. Regardless of 'trophies' the experience of acute awareness and presence makes the whole venture extremely pleasant and satisfying for me.

That one small rabbit put meat on the plates of my family (solid food eating members).

The salted hide.

The head and paws went to the Badgers and Cats. I regret giving away the head away as the brain is a natural tanning agent.

Meat left to soak overnight in fresh water. Not sure it was necessary as the rabbit was under a year old.

On the subject of returning, it was Emma that brought my attention to the fact that yesterday marked 365 days since our arrival at Lammas. What we call a year. Very convenient considering that I am nearing the end of this, my third, notebook.
This is also a good point, in light of the above, to pause and reflect upon the journey.
My recent activities are a dream manifested. Providing food for my family. A role many like me wish to fulfill physically. A fulfillment that just doesn't seem to come from turning labour into debt, debt into food. Therefore, I can truly say with conviction and feeling, that I am 'living the dream'. In absolute contrast to the time I wrote those words 365 days ago. I have learned that a dream is realised now, and can only be done so in the moment called now. Dreams are never realised in the future regardless of what self imposed conditions are satisfied. What other moment is there but now?
That is not to advise haste, it is but truth. How you translate that into meaning is for you to decide.

What would you be doing/Where would you be if you fulfilled your 'dream'?
I believe a 'dream' is better described as a persons preferred reality. The word 'dream' commonly denotes something elusive, intangible, even 'unrealistic'. There is also a warning, or rather a consideration. That is cost.
If you are thorough, your payment will be all that you do not need,use or care for. If you do not approach the attainment and creation of your preferred reality in any way but a holistic one, you risk losing something of great value (I don't mean just monetary) and importance.
Listen to your heart and intuition that,for me, has been a practice that has guided and I believe, ensured that I have gained things of immense and immeasurable value.
I was prepared to make large sacrifices. At the earliest stage the largest potential one was my partner and family. Luckily, through open communication with my daughter and her mother, it was not a sacrifice I was called upon to make. By keeping that communication open, we moulded and adapted the shared vision to encompass the needs of us all. I believe I am at the point where I am not chasing the desire/dream, but it is evolving around and with me.
I am still susceptible to all the same emotions as I was before, the difference certainly with the negative ones, is that if they do occur they are not as severe and are very short lived. If emotions are the body's reflection of the mind, then it must be that what thoughts I have, are more positive. By not painting over the cracks with drugs , by addressing the root of what ailed me, the condition known as depression is no longer a part of my world.
More requests for my books are materialising. This brings me happiness and great honour. I thank all those who afford me the pleasure and opportunity to give. I hope by gifting my books to all those who ask, requesting they pass it on, I am paying it forward and perpetuating that positiveness and feeling.
To all those who have cared to read my work, you have my sincere gratitude.
Much love, to you, those who have yet to, and those who may never read this. We are as one.

Namaste.

M Jones.

Quod Bonum Est Tenate - Monday 20/06/11

Nine days ago I was truly on a high. Presented with a fantastic opportunity to research, gain empowering knowledge and then put it into practice. I crossed swords with my bank, saw off debt collectors and went about planning an ambitious stunt involving a new car.
Then I drank some beers Saturday night and I haven't been the same.
Disconnected. Disjointed. Frustrated and lost. I had known my time here would be challenging. The protection of my well being was at stake. By allowing myself to slip under the waves, I now face an uphill struggle to re-gain what I knew could be lost.
If I do not handle this properly, I face a very dark time ahead.
I am reminding  myself of the logic that brought me back to a world of shitting in drinking water. But the thinking behind the phrase "a means to an end" is flawed. It can be the same reasoning used by governments to justify murder.
I have, under this pretext, returned to a world I know to be unnatural. Even unholy. The road to hell really is paved with good intentions. I came here with good intentions, I now find myself in a hell.
Herein is the issue with which I have wrestled my entire life. I know it is my perception that makes life for me "hell". I could change this perception, or I could change my life.
For now, I will change my perception for, like it or not, my life will change of its own accord. Babies do that. Shortly after my second child's birth we will return to Lammas. My preferred reality. Where life is natural.

Where water is holy and used for drinking.

M Jones

Soul Soothing - Saturday 11/06/11

The Fallacy Of The Monetary Market System.

"The majority of our society appears to choose to engage in a practice whereby an individual will attempt to convert their labour into currency, then currency into the very thing their labour could have produced. This practice is exploited by government and corporations. It's inevitable inefficiency exacerbated by numerous 'taxes' including, but not limited to, inflation and interest." - Mike Jones

About 11:00 Emma said "Right let's go!" So we did. Out of the town and into the woods then on to Swifts Hill. The sights, the smells, the sounds. They soothed my soul.

Later, I couldn't help but recall the little dip I experienced at Lammas whilst reading Walden.
Utilising the wonderful phenomenon that is hindsight/retrospect, I believe I can clearly identify the ingredients of my state of distress. I wanted what Thoreau had. Whilst stuck in the paradigm that had me believing my potential was confined within rules and boundaries, it is completely understandable.
I believe that herein lies the source of many peoples pains and resultant 'misery'.
My salvation has come through realisation and understanding of my power to bend , break and create those very same 'rules'.
There is only one law aside from those of nature. Do not cause harm, injury or loss to any other being.
Under this one law we can live up to our otherwise limitless potential. Should we choose instead to be governed by the sixty million odd statutes, we will find this limitless creativity and freedom, limited. Simple huh?

If your reality is not to your liking, recognise firstly that it is you who created it and perpetuates it. By this line of logic, it stands to reason that you can end and destroy it. The poor unenlightened beings whose ranks once included myself, mistakenly jump to the conclusion of suicide. That is definitely not what I am advising. Quite the opposite. What is the opposite of death and dying? Life and living.

Don't like your job? Stop doing it. Don't see your partner and/or children enough? Change that if you and they want the same thing, namely each others company. Don't think those two simple examples are possible? Why not? Where is your evidence? My chosen reality is my evidence and I believe proof.
Look around you. Where are the gun men? Can't see any? So where does your fear lie? I think you and I both know that answer. Money is where your fear lies. More accurately your fear of a lack of it.
You believe that a lack of money means you will die. You believe it is a lack of money that is killing people in the distant and removed "third world". Rubbish.
Aside form possible blame lying with the actions of the same government that supposedly acts in your name and interests, the truth is far more simple.
Death results from a lack of food/water and/or adequate shelter and/or ill health and/or inflicted harm/abuse and/or a foul mixture of the above.
These people who are dying from AIDS are not dying because the drugs are not available...
Enforced poverty is the deadliest form of violence combined with a population conditioned to believe, and die, resulting from the false idea they need money.
The same applies the world over. Why do pensioners freeze to death each winter in Britain, a resource rich country, when trees and fuel grow in their gardens and outside their homes? Heat could be generated, better still, shared.
Why do children as well as grown adults starve to death in this country?
If I ever found myself in that scenario my family and I would be in Tesco filling our faces. Sure, the corporation slaves might get upset. They might call the corporations henchmen and will enforcers otherwise known as "Her Majesty's Police Force". God bless em those lovely people would inadvertently or otherwise provide us with state funded food, shelter, even clothing!

So there you have it. Identify, analyse and attempt to find hard solid evidence, initially to support your "fears".
What I believe you will find after your identification and analysis is that once you break down your fears into actual effects and ramifications, it will be more difficult to prove your fears than it is to disprove them. I could be wrong. I speak only form my experience. Try it. What have you, or I, got to lose?
More to the point, and here is an infinitely more important question;

What have you and I got to gain?

A Bodger's Workshop.

Are You A Have? Or A Have-not? - Wednesday 11/05/11

Land is power. Those without it do not have power. This is a fact. "He who has the means of production has power". Land = means of production.

Attended another committee meeting today. Just as well too. Flicking through the agenda, I noticed the following.
"Hunting, fishing and firearms - following complaint from Su [previous landowner and neighbour] about hunting and fishing in the woods. PW"

This was most interesting. Obviously this issue was concerning my recent activities, as no one else here at Lammas hunts or fishes except me.
I don't own a firearm, they require a firearms certificate. I own a sub 12ft/lbs air rifle. The first inaccuracy...

Following this item was point 8.21 of the management plan labelled 'for reference'. "Hunting in common areas is not permitted. The committee is empowered to make an exception when it is deemed absolutely necessary for pest control. Any such activities on residents plots must be in accordance with current laws and regulations. JW"

My first thought was to explain to the group where I had been hunting. It wasn't the woods, there's nothing there! But I realised how vague the item was. There was no elaboration on the complaint, which made me question if indeed there was one. Paul W, the very person who put the item on the agenda, admitted that no, no complaint had been made at all. Merely a question had been asked of him by Su as to whether I was allowed to hunt/fish in the Lammas woodland...
Glad I asked! Still, the others present voiced their concerns over my fishing in the millpond. Jane said she had felt "upset and disappointed" when she heard I'd caught a fish and Melissa believed it best the fish be left for an otter that had occasionally been sighted.
20 fish were added a year and a half ago, so assuming they were infertile and none perished, there are 17 left. I had already decided to give the fish a break, but have now been formally asked not to fish for an undefined period.

I find it all very amusing.
So here we have the haves and the have-nots.
The haves do not. When the have-nots do, the haves ask the have-nots to do not.
Because the have-nots have not, the have-nots have no choice but to do not.

Land is power. The Barons knew it. The Kings knew it. Civilisations knew it.

Governments know it.

7:19 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone.

The Builders Of The Hub Posing For A Group Photograph.

Magpie Decoy.

M Jones

The Most Important of Gifts - Thursday 05/05/11

Yesterday I made some new friends. Zhenia, Xavier, Cai, Abbey and Mark, who stayed with Simon and Jasmine during their time at Lammas. A fact finding mission I believe, but each with their own curiosity.
From what I could gleen, Mark was most interested in how Lammas came into being and observe it in action as, like many others who visit, he wishes to found another intentional community. The difference with Mark however is, I believe he will actually do it. You can tell who is a do'er and who is a wishy washy dreamer.. (like me?)
Xavier has visited before at various stages of development and is an avid admirer of Simon's buildings and philosophies. I see great similarities between these two men. Both are very connected to the design and graphics industry, both are admirers and see beauty in their environment. This is betrayed by a shared love of photography. I feel it is this that drives such men to work with, and endeavour to conserve nature and the world around them. Both men are also wonderful to talk to, unassuming and genuine. I appear to reside in a distillery for rare and precious human qualities!
I think Cai and Abbey had a very broad and general interest in the whole project. To say they were just in it for the ride I feel would be inaccurate.
Zhenia, it transpires hails from Stroud! He told me he was employed in the research and development of vertical axis wind turbines, so I guess his was an environmental interest. Will hopefully see him again and catch up with him when we return to Stroud.

All this I learned through working and relaxing with these guys over two days. Mark was easy to connect with, this was down to both his open and friendly personality, as well as my having read his book The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living. This gave us common ground and enabled us to talk at length whilst digging pits for fence posts. His companions were equally as open and likeable and I hope to work with them all again in the future.

The morning of their departure, they brought and left us with the most important of gifts. No, not a copy of Marks book (although it is an important read) but rain. Much needed and strangely missed. Some would say Wales isn't Wales without it!

So thanks guys!

Thank you for your stories.
Thank you for your labour.
Thank you for bringing life back to the soil.
And thank you for restoring a countries identity.

Simon's Recently Completed Solar Water Heater.

M Jones