38. TIMBER!

This is more of a picture story. 


I cannot work out how to upload a gift (slideshow), you can make it easy enough but you need to upload it somewhere else before you can upload it here, because you need an URL. I guess that is why Youtube is doing so well.

Pascal hanging on

 

Maxi running for cover...

TIMBER !

We had this old, long dead Blue Gum tree standing in the middle of everything. It is kind of sad to see it go, it was very much part of the skyline, made a pretty picture. The problem is that every time we get lots of wind, bit and pieces of branches fall down. This can become very dangerous. Now we have a lot of firewood.

37. WHAT IS A COMMUNITY?

So much has happened lately, it is all a bit overwhelming. Firstly Riaan is off to the Transkei, he is planning on hosting walking trails along the coast there. The walking and bird watching trails we originally wanted to do, will not work from KD, some of the members have issues with "strangers" on the property. 

Riaan and the Nguni's on the beach at Kei Mouth

Then there was the incident of the house brake at Fabian and Nicole’s “new” house. It must have been a devastating experience, I mean you move to a new place in a different country and one of the first things that happen is – you get robbed. This is rather unsettling for everybody living here, we are obviously being watched. Once again, like it or not, we are still part of planet earth and we are surrounded by poor and desperate people. This is not an excuse for stealing, but it remains one of the reasons why people steel, bottom line; they need money. 

Rural living

At the moment I am not sure about anything. I would love to stay on and partake in the EDE (Eco community Design Education) workshop and get a license and plant some hemp, but we will then also need to built our own place and we are not quite ready for this, in more than one way. The best thing to do right now, is to focus on the garden and learn as much as possible. We will take a fresh look at all thing in the New Year.

It is funny how dynamics can shift by just adding new people to a mix...

What exactly is an Eco Community? The answer to this question will vary, depending whom you ask. One would surely expect it to have at least organic gardens, actually more towards perma culture, simply because it is a total system of using your own waste and creating abundance and self sufficiency. Then there is normally some sort of spiritual base, this can vary from Rastafarian to Buddhist to “earth religions” and some focus on healing. 

The third aspect of every community is the structure. Who’s who in the zoo, so to speak.  I say this because one of the biggest flaws in the current systems in the big wide world out there is that they are all pyramid systems.  There is always a boss and the underlings and then the underlings to the underlings and so it goes on, down the pyramid, it is in our schooling system, that system where parents are forces, by law to allow the state to kidnap their children and “educate” them.

What about self governing?  This concept seems to completely evade some people, they seem to think it totally impossible, but then what can you expect, we as a species has been living under/in a pyramid system for the last  4 000 year at least, so we know nothing else.

The reporters (not Journalists, because try report what they are told to) was very baffled by the fact that the Occupy movement does not have a leader or leaders. I like their thinking, you use the best people for the job at hand at the time and then those people step back, that way you always have the best people doing the right job and making the decisions. We will have to wait and see how this all plays out, but at least some see the flaw with this whole pyramid thing.

Maybe it is time to create something completely different? Where it does not feel like some people are just trying creating their own little "kingdom"?

36. SPIDER BABIES AND STORMS

Haga Haga beach, on the way to a full moon picnic on the beach

Riaan in his birthday outfit

It was Riaan's birthday and a full moon and perfect weather, so we had a full moon picnic on the beach. Anne baked us a cake and we used big banana leafs for plates.

We had a massive storm last night, some broken windows, lots of trees blew over and poor Greg, our new volunteer flooded. He was in one of the Rondawels (round thatched hut) near the house.  Somehow the cement bit at the top of the thatch roof cracked and the rain poured into the Rondawel. Greg is now temporarily living in the house.  All and all we welcome the rain, it was really very much needed, but I would be nice if it does not go from extreme to extreme.

Gregory in his Rondawel before the big flood

Our other new volunteer, Pascal Meienberg (he is Swiss) is having problems with thousands of spider eggs, about to become thousands of little spiders, in the thatch roof of his Rondawel. Spiders are our friends; we have mutual enemies like, mosquitoes and flies, so we try not to kill them. Pascal is being very brave and he leaves the place, window and all wide open so that, when the babies hatch, they can just blow away in the wind. I must add that these are Rain spiders and they are very much harmless, we probably would have had to make another plan, if they where the dangerous kind.  He just told me “every time I turn my pillow there is another spider”.  He has now decided to sleep in his tent until the spiders are born and gone.

Pascal looking the part

They both seem to be taking it in good spirit, laughing and joking about it. 

35. 11:11

My Mandala

Yesterday was 11:11:11, but actually if you take the whole date, 11/11/2011, it really adds up to 8. According to some sources the shift or re-alignment or opening of star gates, (all depends on who you talk to ) already started somewhere in October. That being said, we had a communal supper last night and 11 people showed up, it was not planned that way, it just happened.

I do believe a shift of some sort is taking place, whether just in human consciousness or on a cosmic level or maybe the two goes hand in hand. 

I have never been big on Numerology, Astrology, Tarots etc.  I think they can be very useful tools to find direction in certain situations, but if it starts ruling your live and you cannot get out of bed before you have read your cards or Astrology for the day, (I have seen this happen to people) it becomes a sad state of affairs and almost a kind of “religion” and where is free will in all of this?

So, I have never taken any of the above to serious. I did have my numerology done a couple of years ago, actually what caught my attention where the amazing Mandala’s this lady (Rosalind Pape) designs. She works out your personal numerology, each number corresponds to a certain color, and she then paints you a personal mandala, using your personal numbers/colors. I love my Mandala, I do feel connected to it, and sometime I use it as a focus point when I meditate. 

You basically have four different numbers, a life path number, a destiny number, a soul urge number and an expression number. Well, here is my little secret, I have two master numbers, both 11’s and then there is an 8 and a 4 in the mix. This apparently mean that I am quite spiritually orientated, which I am, but I am also just human. I have also seen far too many spiritual people with massive egos, just because they have good numbers or healing hands or whatever, happens so easy and I don’t want to go there.

Two new permanent residents also arrived last night, part of the 11 for supper. Nicole and Fabian, they are very much into raw foods and I cannot wait to learn more, the one big advantage of raw food (apart from the health aspect) it the lack of dirty pots and pans, I just love that idea…

34. THE BIG MOVE

Our house for the next couple of months

I woke up and I had very serious doubts about the whole move. It is a big step and for a minute or two I had the urge to run for “civilization”, but that feeling did not last long.

We are slowly but surely moving out of the main house and into our own “house” and then today, of all days the water tanks from the borehole are low, so no cleaning and no gardening possible.  It is all actually a very good thing; we came up with some brilliant new ideas and at least the one half and upstairs are already livable. Upstairs is a loft bedroom with a spectacular view, also good for star watching.  

It will take a bit of adjustment; we still have to build a kitchen! We will actually be sleeping over there and still spend most of our time in and around the house, so we will obviously still be using the kitchen in the main house, but we will have a lot more privacy, a home to retire to at nights, all by ourselves with an actual door that can close.

It (our new house) is really very basic, but that is the whole process of integration, most people seem to live in the main house in the beginning and then move to a more private space, but all the dwellings are a work in progress in various stages, some have bathrooms, some don’t, some have kitchens, others not. Still others need other work, you then occupy this space and built something to improve the place, and I am making it sound like there are millions of houses, there are currently 7 permanent dwellings. Then, once you have learned something about building and you have the recourses and/or finances available you built your own place, you do so and somewhere along the line you become a member of the community.

Most of the natural buildings here at KD are cob with a wattle structure, both these materials are freely available, it just needs labor to process the raw materials and then obviously you need windows and stuff, I see a lot of glass bottles and old motor car windscreens being used with great effects. For now we will practice by building a kitchen.

We will also have to invest in solar, for energy to charge laptops etc.

An all in one, portable solar system, cat not included.

There is a leek somewhere in the water system, because the tanks empty out as quick as they fill up. We are all going on a bundu bashing mission tomorrow to find this leek, like most old farms, some the pipes are old and mostly nobody really knows where they are. You just look for wet spots in the grass, it should be easy to find at the moment, seeing that it is so dry.

A new volunteer arrived over the weekend; Greg will be staying with us for (at least) six months (why does that sound so familiar?).