so we are at the 1/3 point in our summer process. we first came together the first of june when emma and i were joined by genevieve and kathleen. early on the day of genevieve and kathleen's arrival, i witnessed four crows swooping and playing thru the foggy air, and did a painting of them. they've since become a bit of a symbol for us, we started to see crows in fives around when cara joined us a week and a half later. yesterday we watched a small murder of eleven crows flying out to sea, i don't know yet what this means.
i am from edmonton, cara is from vancouver island, genevieve came from montreal, emma is from new brunswick and kathleen is from dartmouth nova scotia. it has felt like a small group, less than we were expecting, and we have definitely noticed this when our day to day work consumes an inordinate amount of time. sometimes it seems slow, coming to conclusions about who we are and what we are achieving. it has been a struggle to formulate a coherent vision, and we still seem to be grasping at a group identity. an interesting tool that has become a part of our process (off and on) is a book called the artist's way, which we have started following through. it is a guide to creative recovery, a 12-week process (we're only on week 2 tho' week five of our summer), and the steps have been 'recovering a sense of safety', and 'recovering a sense of identity'... we're stuck on week 2.
"we build the road as we travel" has become a hopeful, helpful analogy. and mostly what we have as a destination is colorful imagery from a few sessions we did of visioning by the sea.
and so some of our visions come to fruition. being at earthsea has been a definite blessing. the community is very welcoming and supportive, and their creative projects have been inspiring. the greens from earthsea's greenhouse have been very nourishing. we have also had the opportunity to partake in their events; a full moon women's drumming, a summer solstice celebration/drumming, a ceremonial sweatlodge, and the opening ceremony for the shaman's helper trading post. we have been living outdoors on the land, we constructed a tarped shelter area to hang out on the cold rainy days, which were abundant the first few weeks of june. a fishnet salvage from the shore has become a hammock in allostar the big old apple tree, so that we can rest in the shade next to the garden. our nasturtiums have just started to bloom, and so have the zucchinni, which is a certain source of excitement. but something just nibbled the tops off our tomatoes, so we'll have to do some investigation. i suspect a prickly porcupine. it couldn't have been the slugs, they are rather disinterested in the tomatoes, more in the beans and peas. the slugs have been a time consuming chore since day one. voracious.
food. plenty of beans and rice, plenty of greens and sprouts and veggies. oatmeal for breakfast almost each day, cooked mostly over the fire pit. we have hopes to build a clay oven so we can bake our own wholesome bread outside. and a composting toilet so we can keep the cycle complete. keep the cycle in our conciousness. these projects shall fall over mostly to august. ideas are currently percolating about the possibility of developing a month long microsession of the ripple project within the longer ripple project, and we are discussing how we may invite participation in this project from more people, as there is the expressed need to connect with a broader range of people. it's a lesson we're learning about the difficulty of smaller group dynamics, and how we may open up to have the energy input of more folks with more visions and gifts. diversity is a feature of sustainability. so we are building towards some form of youth gathering focussed on sustainability: sharing wisdom, skills and the growth of/in community. of course we welcome input of ideas and involvement to help us create something meaningful and positive. we can be reached by email at [email protected], or by phone at 766-4129. parts of july will be more dormant here, as we'll be doing some out-tripping (no doubt with some tripping-out) to newfoundland and other fringe realms.
this is our life in the simple, according to jonathan. tune in for further blurbing by the other participants (the haven't yet been empowered to this webpage, but it's not cuz the intention ain't there). there are many threads to a process, perhaps some that i've omitted this round shall come to the fore in our next update. if you have questions about us, ask and we shall contemplate, and feed the responses out as they come. suggestions for making this a more whole process? love and prayers, peaceful hearts and calmed minds, we reach healing.