Wittgenstein: “It’s difficult to go back to the beginning, and not go further back.”

When does anything begin or end? If the universe is one continuous opening, intermingling, conscious, divine process, where every “thing” is literally connected to, breathing through, resonant with, every other “thing,” then aren’t all our stories, our memories, created by us as space/time frames which we fill with “meaning”?

And what, actually, is a “thing”? Would there be any “things” without words to “name” them, without language? Do plants, insects, animals, think and communicate about “things”?

Okay, enough of your philosophising, Kreilkamp!

 

I’m going to declare that this  particular “new beginnings” began about five years ago, when I began dreaming of putting a 12-feet diameter yurt in this backyard. (I lived in a 20 foot diameter yurt in the Tetons for many years). It’s taken this long for the project to bear fruit. But isn’t that always the case? The greater the goal, the longer it takes?

Extrapolate that maxim to the current goal of We the People and our proxies: to take down the centuries old, decaying web of visible/invisible, hierarchical structures we have now named: The Deep State.

And we’re nowhere near done.

Any woman who has given birth to a child knows nature’s process of creation instinctively. Her brilliant body naturally knew how to silently, carefully, and thoroughly nurture a newly ensouled human being moment by moment for nine long months to when labor pains began . . . that swelling and tightening, accelerating drumbeat culminating in that exquisite agony: pushing creation out, into the wider world.

There are birth pains here too, in the process of delivering humanity from thousands of years of enslavement to a tiny elite that has utilized propaganda, money, F.E.A.R. (False Evidence Appearing Real) — the mind/body split, and especially, the false perception of scarcity — to capture us innocents for millennia. There’s no masking it: we are undergoing great agony, enduring these collective birth pains.

And we have barely begun that deliverance process. From what I hear, these next three years will force us to discover/recover our true grit.

Okay, so on to today’s yurt-raising story. As I said two posts ago, the process took four hours, and upwards of nine people participated. Some had to leave early; some came late; everybody had pizza to keep going. Most of them had already read the instructions I had hastily sent out early that morning, having just  unearthed them from desperately scrolling through to find the old email. (You’d think I would have thought of that a few days ago?) Remember, the yurt had arrived last June 2022. And sat, there undisturbed, on my front porch for nearly one year. When it arrived I was excited; thought we could get it up as soon as the platform was built, probably in a month or so. And I could have my front porch back . . .

But no. My son Colin, inventor of the Garden Tower, he of unusually questing and acute intelligence (“Mom, which is more real, my dreams or yesterday?” one of his questions as a three year old) as well as a jack of all trades (except electricity), was to build the platform. But his back and knee had given out in late 2021. He’s spent most of the time since then coming back to life, after decades of hard physical work, decades when he could depend on his body; didn’t even have to even think about it. In his 20s, for example, imagine this, the world’s worst job, for I dare you to find another, excepting hand to hand combat in rain-drenched trenches: day after day, driving over one hour in heavy traffic north to Boston to spend eight hours in what was known as “The Big Dig,” doing what? Jackhammering concrete off tunnel ceilings. 

Yes, besides having a very inventive brain, he’s been unusually physical all his life, and now, in his late 50s, his body is talking to him.

So, though my vision had driven this project to the point where the yurt sat moldering in its packing on the porch, I had to tame my emotions and attitude to accept that Colin (who lives here in the house next door) had to heal enough to do physical work again before anything else happened.

In March this year, he began to build the platform, a little at a time, because of his still touchy back and knee. Then, two weeks ago, he designed and built the corner step. OKAY. Now we can begin.

Before I show the process, let me say that in this project, we are gambling in a big way. Why? Indiana weather, which is hot and wet in summer, but with big windy, storms moving through, and cold and wet in winter. Will the yurt stand up to these conditions? If so, how long? Will we decide it best to take it down in the winter? And what must we do to ensure mold won’t develop, or if it does to erase it; what about wind? We will need to anchor it by screwing into the deck itself; that has not yet been done. On and on. As usual: Will it work out? Will this audacious experiment succeed? Answer: it all depends. I’m going to show you the process of putting the basic yurt together, without adding the totally rain proof cover that also came with it.

That last paragraph was to indicate that we are aware in advance of at least some of the drawbacks to this yurt idea. And will do our best to mitigate them. As usual with anything new; it takes awhile to figure out what you’re doing, with failures along the way. Given that the entire financial system is going down — and that includes credit; can you imagine not being able to buy with a credit card? — there goes purchases from far away in one fell swoop. We will have no choice but to get and stay local. To depend on each other. To cooperate in creative projects that at times seem impossible.

We are fortunate here, because in Green Acres Permaculture Village, since I’ve known what was coming basically all my life, we have already built in a cooperative village atmosphere; a tribal sense of connection and synergistic cooperation. Again, this silent invocation, to change the frequency, to imagine and (re)create a new (ancient) culture inside the old dying one, the materialist, separatist, wasteful, isolationist culture of the boring suburbs, has taken years.

To repeat: anything worth doing is not just worth doing well, but takes a long time to do.

So, here goes, as a series of photos, montages, and finally, a short video by dear friend and neighbor Mariella who was here part of the time, worked, took photos, ate pizza, then went home and worked her magic.

IT BEGINS: moving the yurt packages from the porch to the back yard:

Meanwhile, some of us stand around, talking philosophy, probably. On the left, Ben, like Colin, in his late 50s, finishing his PhD after ten long, grinding years, and on the way to serve as a teaching “professor” at a small California college — the dream of his lifetime, finally!

In the middle, fellow GAPV resident, 25-year-old Camden, here until May 2024, after having landed a great job as a grant writer for a worthy cause, thus utilizing his unusual brilliance at least somewhat! — gives thumbs up to the project.

On the right: ME, 80 years old (sporting my Crones Counsel t-shirt).

Okay, here goes . . . Joseph and Mariella start measuring for the circular walls, 6 feet diameter, from center of platform.

This starts the process, with constant reference to instructions, which at times did not really help much . . .

Like this sticking point. Not clear from instructions on just how the straps are to connect the two sections of wall . . . That little glitch took about 15 minutes . . . with Ben and Colin finally figuring it out.

Note instructions below Ben’s foot . . .

Oooo . . . there goes the hoop that the dome will cover! Scary! Do we know what we’re doing? Joseph, left, thinks so, apparently. Marita’s newly teenaged, and very bright son Nicolas, still groggy from having just gotten out of bed, stands and stares. (Marita decided to drop him off at the library . . .)

As the yurt goes up, more and more I feel the contrast between the pristine yurt and the ugly moloch-looking barn behind. Tear down or fix window and paint a mural? Undecided. How one project alters its surroundings, suggesting other changes, new beginnings. Yes, folks. We are in a time of new beginnings. From now on. Period.

And of course, with the yurt up, we’ve got to figure out how to furnish it. Carisa, from across the street, says she’ll direct me to a site she knows that will have circular indoor/outdoor rugs. (“Make it 9 feet across, not 12, “to allow people a place to put their backpacks.”) I tell Mariella this, and she says to put a tarp under it as well, to catch any moisture from below. Good idea. Hmmm. What kind of bed? We’ve got extras of various sizes and types. Lights? Heat? AC? Fan? (It was already hot in the yurt at noon, in mi-May, in the 80s, despite windows and door circulation. BIG QUESTION: can we raise the dome when we need to?

And then there’s the redesign of the entire back yard where the yurt hunkers on its throne.

Notice how one thing leads to another, and another, and another? That’s the way it is on our dear Mother Earth. As I always say:

WHAT WE’RE DOING ON THIS PLANET IS MOVING STUFF AROUND.

AND IT’S ALWAYS, IN ALL WAYS, AN EXCUSE FOR RELATIONSHIP.