How does it feel to be truly welcome?
Camp Bamboo
"Just please, find me people who have not become homogenized." - Elsa P.
We will be on the move again. Wagon living. By definition if you live in a wagon, you will move. Sometimes a small move. Sometimes a big one. And many times, the move is an unpredictable one. If you've followed my blogs you may be dizzy from the journey, disbelieving the story, admiring the gritty reality, and probably thinking 'glad it's not me.' Pete and I have been vardo/wagon dwellers since 2009.
Our vardo for two was built because we needed a home with materials and processes that were non-toxic, safe-enough-for-us, and mobile to accommodate the changing reality of the environment. To create this kind of lifestyle we needed to bend conventional standards on many levels: Pete built beyond standards (code) using 'hardier' structural methods but we never had the wagon 'inspected' or 'licensed'; we tested and used materials that I could tolerate and pioneered the use of processes not yet in place; our small bedroom/home is not a Tiny House, per se, nor an RV. To survive and thrive in our creative world we have become fringe or edge dwellers, and we are not alone.
We are more like the nomads -- though we live a variation of their tribal ways -- who have banded together thanks to the courage, generous hearts and R.V. reality of people like Bob Welles of Homes on Wheels Alliance. Bob Welles began sharing his experiences of being a full-time nomad on his website Cheap RV Living.com I've followed his blog, learned from his practical skills and philosophy that fuels his life and the eventual collaboration with like-soul in the creation on the non-profit group, Homes on Wheels Alliance. Here is an excerpt from the "Letter from the President of Homes on Wheels Alliance President, Bob Welles":
"As you may know by now, we are devoted to the purpose of offering an alternative lifestyle in alternative housing. While one of our primary goals is to help people find a way to survive in difficult economic situations, we are equally devoted to creating a new community with a new attitude towards society and to the earth. A key element of everything we strive to do is that we never approach anyone as a client to be pitied or merely a person to be offered compassion in a difficult time–nor are we just offering a hand-up. Just the opposite, we see them in light of Thoreau’s famous quote:
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” Henry David Thoreau
With those who come to us, we are honoring a person who has made a hard decision to no longer be resigned to a life of quiet desperation. While it’s true that for nearly all of our new friends there is an element of running away from a bad situation, there is also an excitement of running toward something that is worth the risk.
They are making a leap of faith into a whole new world and a whole new way of thinking about life, money and the things we own. It truly is an unknown country full of unknown dangers and opportunities to fail, but they’ve mustered all their courage and reached deep down to find a store of hope and faith and made the leap off the cliff.
At the Homes On Wheels Alliance, we never offer our new friends pity; we always offer them a profound respect."
Before the tenth of September we will move from the campground in Langley. We, and less than a dozen other full-time campers will need to find other places to live. There's a sign on the metal box where campers pay for our nightly fee.
A good friend of ours has welcomed us to the goat-centric land she stewards. Yes, there are goats, and yes there are slopes and climbs that goats love. There is a stretch of flatland just below the goats; this is what our friend offered us as camp ground. We asked her for a temporary landing place, knowing there is another friend who is creating a community dream that would include us in the future.
These changing times of The Virus is a grand opportunity to re-configure and re-calibrate what community feels like; what it looks like; who is included and what stories are valued; and what is the currency that connects us. Pete and I are experiencing this re-calibration thanks in great part to our once a week/six-month's of ZOOM community building focused on the art of Jin Shin Jyutsu.
Pete and I drove to visit our next campground, lovingly named Camp Bamboo, and did our ceremony of introductions and asking permission of the Ancestors of this land -- those we can see, and those we can not see. All of them see, sense and recognize we are there. To chant permission for staying with them is just good manners. We started by asking our friend about sharing land and place with us. When she encouraged pilina, we waited for the moon to move into her cycle of progression; and out of the 'wait for awhile' phases (the 'ole moons).
We have learned how important it is to be sharing life, and land with people who always offer us profound respect. With the many moves, and challenges we've faced living in a wagon safety pinned to people and places it is this reciprocal nature of give-and-take which has made the greatest difference to our sense of well-being.
The sun has moved behind the ridge, and shadows lengthen over the campground. Bunnies, rabbits and hares blend into the dried grasses, and the newest kids on the hillside reach for the blackberry leaves revealing soft sandy bellies. Scrapes and hidden hallows, the deep warrens for the families who are the true residents punctuate the rise. Crispy alder leaves collect on the dry dirt and asphalt road.
The wild capacity to adapt to changes is a gift we don't take for granted. Among the most valuable experiences of living from a wagon is the wildness that these bunnies, rabbits and hares live. They are beings, doing what wild creatures know. For a time, we humans come into their world and if we are lucky they welcome us into their experiences.
Each place, and each wild rabbit, coyote, hawk, crow, raven we meet does not pay rent or a nightly fee to be where they are. These places are mowed, pruned, 'landscaped' and modified to become compliant with human economies. The novel and unseen viruses press on our illusions about controlling Nature to suit oppressive and selectively engineered rules. How respectfully do we welcome the wild nature of Nature?
We know that an animal who knows it is time for him or her to die will often leave 'the pack' to die. With dignity, in her own way, accepting his death as part of the give-and-take. We also know, because we have lived with them for a year of seasons, rabbits, bunnies and hares are fighters and boxers defending territory and virility. Not simply the cuddly fur balls they appear to be, they are animals who may live for two or three years if they are lucky. They love to love, they love to live and play. But they know life is life, and survive because? They have extremely keen ears, powerfully built hunches, are intuitively tricky, facile in their cunning ways, and are fast.
We will miss the bunnies, rabbits and hares. Our lives have been drawn more beautifully because of them. We have felt at home in their company, trained to recognize their wildness as valuable when they came to feed on our scraps. They were never pets, and we are grateful. We treat them with the greatest respect, shared what was commonly good for both, and that is good practice!
“The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them away. They forgot the ways of wild rabbits. They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy’s warren and paying his price?” - Richard Adams, Watership Down
Purpza of the three-prongs ears. A sweet and powerful Rabbit we came to know while on the Campground in Langley.
RELATED POSTS & RECOMMENDED READINGS
This medicine is being written to rite the mythic and inter-twining medicine that answers the question How does it feel to be truly welcome? The Five Petals of the Rose begins here.
The Myth of Masks: Diving into the Cover for Meaning is a two-part article/blog post that explores the odd and complicated relationships we humans have with the mask. To be truly welcome does it require masking, or is it possible our masking techniques are equally an internal generational juggling act?
𓂅𓂅𓂅𓂅𓂅
Pete and I have just finished reading three of the four novels in the Chocolat series by French-English author Joanne Harris. What began for us a love affair with the film version of the novel, Chocolat, with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche, in 2004, grew to a marathon read during lock-down. Between us over the past many weeks Pete and I have read the work of a wizard with story who wrote us into a plot of wandering, worries, wind and welcoming. Harris's latest novel The Strawberry Thief was published in 2019, Pete finished the last pages in the dark early this morning. Seems fitting as we prepare to move ourselves to Camp Bamboo. Perhaps the winds stir you to wander, wonder, or question where you are truly welcome; or how you extend welcome to neighbors or strangers?
One final recommendation. After decades, I finally read the novel Watership Down. Richard Adams' 1972 adventure and survival saga was published the same year my son was born. I remember it being in the house as he grew up, but don't remember reading the book. My son remembers the story. Pete and I have lived with bunnies, rabbits and hares and made a decision NOT to research their habits until now. Adams' novel is all about rabbits written slant. A human's excavation of rabbits' ways, but, there are insights that help to expand our personal observations and relationships to these four-legged beings. Loyalty, bravery, battles, cunning, and resiliency are all in this story.
Our local library has re-opened modified with practices that are covid-conscious. We have read these books after they have been cleaned and quarantined, and welcomed them into our wagon-centric life.
Pilina kakou,
Mokihana and Pete
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