10.18.2008
Fauve
10.17.2008
by Arthur Sze
Caw Caw, Caw Caw Caw.
To comprehend a crow
you must have a crow's mind.
To be the night rain,
silver, on black leaves,
you must live in the
shine and wet. Some people
drift in their lives:
green-gold plankton,
phosphorescent, in the sea.
Others slash: a knife
at a yellow window shade
tears open the light.
But to live digging deep
is to feel the blood
in you rage as rivers,
is to feel love and hatred
as fibers of rope,
is to catch the scent
of a wolf, and turn wild.
Anger Management TrackersNW style
10.09.2008
It’s been a little over a month since the TrackersNW immersion program began, and I have yet to cut off any major appendages–which I take to be a fortuitous sign. I have cut myself making my bow, trimming cordage, actually, whenever I am in the same room with my knife or hatchet, I seem to cut myself. But all in all, no emergency room visits as of yet.
Which is a good thing, as our group recently began practicing making tools out of stones. The idea here is that if you are stranded without a knife you can create one by flintknapping. According to our instructors Brian and Shaun, if you hold one rock in your hand and hit it on a 45 degree angle with another rock, the result will be sharp flakes that you can use to cut things. Apparently, this works.
I say apparently because after trying this and smashing my fingers several times, I had worked through all the curse words I know and had to move to another method. This consisted of holding one rock upright between two sticks and slamming down another rock on top of it. The smaller rock crumbles under pressure and begs for mercy. While I did not smash my fingers with this method, I also didn’t produce anything sharp. I did manage to break up a few rocks and gloated over their decimation.
So I switched to the final method, which is my favorite. Here you take big rocks and throw them down on the ground against other rocks. This is Anger Management TrackersNW style. The upside of this is that when you are smashing objects for flintknapping, no one thinks you are crazy or out of control–they think you’re resourceful.
At least, that’s how I choose to think about it. In fact, I’m so resourceful that I threw a rock down that bounced back and hit my shin, thereby providing me with enough anger to flintknap for a while.
By the end, I hadn’t managed to produce anything very sharp, but it’s probably for the best. Looking at the cuts on my hands, I figure that my playing with only blunt objects is probably a good idea.
Check out Earth Ninjas for more stories by the TrackersNW immersion team.
I been in jail in Chattanooga
10.06.2008
Ian just bought a new mattress and the store could only deliver it during work hours, so I volunteered to be at the apartment when it arrived. They only sent one guy, and I'm sick right now, but somehow we managed to lug it up together.
"So where you from?" he asks me. He has already lingered too long. Apparently, he's feeling chatty.
"Chattanooga," I say.
"I know Chattanooga. I been in jail in Chattanooga."
"Oh," I edge towards the door. "Isn't that interesting."
"Not that it was my fault. I mean, it was my fault, but you know."
I don't know, but I don't let on. He tells me that a cop was being aggressive (not quite the way he put it) and he decided to be aggressive back. I have already said thanks and shook his hand three times. So now I nod and slowly start to close the door.
"But I don't take that kind of treatment and hired a lawyer that costs one thousand dollars an hour."
"Good for you," I say. The door is almost closed but he moves towards me.
"I just love your accent." He's got an arm the door way, looking at me.
I want to say, So does my big, big muscular boyfriend. He's just crazy about my accent. Instead I stick my hand out one more time, say, "Thanks. You have a good day," smile and close the door.
Bear Poo
I think, anyways. I’m not entirely sure.
One of the downsides of being in TrackersNW is that I am now taking pictures of shit to show to my friends. I recently went backpacking at Goat Rocks and there was a lot of scat on the trail. Most of it was bear, but I think there are elk in the area.
Another downside to being in Trackers: too much to do. I really wanted to go on this backpacking trip, but I also wanted to work on my bow, practice starting a fire, and work on my website. So, I did what any reasonable human being would do in this situation–I carried my stave and two books with me into the woods.
For over 6 miles. I decided somewhere in there that this may not have been the smartest decision.The picture below is of me hiking, and that wood sticking up right behind my back is not a tree. No, it’s attached to my pack.
As luck would have it, we were greeted on our first night by a moonsoon. And, as we had camped out on the side of a mountain, climbing higher through the thick fog didn’t seem like a wise idea. So I donated my stave to the earth because I didn’t want to carry it any further. Ah, well. I returned from my trip bow-less, comforted only by my pictures of bear poo.
On Horny Goats and Slaughter
9.15.2008
There is a horny goat in our midst. No, I'm not making a veiled reference to another student. TrackersNW is one of the few educational institutions where you can say, "There is a horny goat in our midst," and literally mean that with us there is an actual goat not getting enough action.
And he won't shut up about it. I was kept up all one night, as he called out to the females. I wanted to say, "Dude, you're sounding desperate. Chicks don't dig that." But, as you probably guessed, horny goats (like horny humans) are very hard to reason with.
After a whole night of hearing his calls, I woke up the next morning grumpy and exhausted. If I had previously had any doubts about my willingness to slaughter an animal, they were now assuaged. I could kill one, and I had just the right goat picked out.
Unfortunately adult male goats are not so tasty. The meat tastes too much like pheromones, the goat equivalent of Axe body spray. The animal we had selected for slaughter was a yearling sheep. He was kind of cute. Watching him pace in his pen, I couldn't help wondering if he somehow knew. It seemed like it, as he resisted being caught, and it took four people to hold him down. Shaun stroked his head a few times to calm him. It was tender, and felt both strange and appropriate to show affection to this animal right before we killed it.
I had decided to witness this event because I wanted to know if hunting is something I can do, if I can take the life of another animal. And I wanted to be accountable for my food decisions--to pound into my head the reality that the meat I buy in the grocery store was once something living and breathing.
Despite my determination, I could not watch the first cut. It was too raw. Too grim and holy. I turned back to watch after that. Shaun held its head over a bucket to drain out the blood, and Krista stroked its flank. It twitched for a while and I wondered how long it would stay alive. All I could think was, we've severed its vocal chords, it can't even call out in pain. We were all quiet then, grave, waiting for it to stop moving.
Later, as we skinned the animal, I joined in. I saw blood on myself, spots of it on my thumb and forefinger. I understood then about the blood offerings different cultures do to the gods. That it is some attempt to honor the mystery of our lives being dependent on the death of another animal. That destruction and life are tangled in with one another. The blood on my fingers, the smell of burning fat, the half digested grass in the sheep's belly, all hinted at something larger and more terrifying than I know how to grasp.
We ate the meat, tanned the hide, used the bones to make tools. We did not let its body go to waste. Ultimately, watching this whole process was important to me, and I hope to participate more directly in the future. I want to be involved in the cycle of life and death. To approach my meals with a mixture of gratitude and solemnity. It's not that I like killing animals. It's not blood lust. For me, it's looking reality in the face by loving and thanking the animal that will feed me. It's surrendering to things unknown.
That is, unless we're talking about that damned goat, in which case, it definitely is blood lust.
Nature of the Village
9.14.2008
I just got back from spending one week with TrackersNW at a permaculture farm in Port Orford, Oregon. Details to follow.
Travel Photos
8.31.2008
I uploaded some of my pictures from Semester at Sea onto this website.
Here's the link:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/7074/travel_photos.html
Dungeons and gold short shorts
My team just ended our ultimate frisbee season. Determined to go out on a bang, we all wore costumes for our final game. They are supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons characters, but you can tell by the outfits that many of us don't actually play the game.
Separation Creek Trail
This was a great semi-secluded trail. We were attacked by a swarm of rather athletic mosquitoes (they bit through our clothes!), but the trip was otherwise beautiful and quiet.
Nova Scotia Photo Journal: Whale Watching
8.25.2008
Yesterday was my cousin John's birthday and we went whale watching to commemorate the ocassion.
Here's my first photo entitled: Oh my gosh! A whale!
Which ended up with my taking a picture of other people's backs.
The next ones went better. The whales came right up to our boat.
Apparently, Humpback whales are very curious and find us as interesting as we find them.
The water where these pictures were taken is only twelve feet deep!
The whales have bumps around their eyes called tubercles. Apparently, each on of these is a gargantuan hair follicle with one coarse hair. The whales detect tidal patterns and calculate distances based on the vibrations from these hairs.
The next ones went better. The whales came right up to our boat.
Apparently, Humpback whales are very curious and find us as interesting as we find them.
The water where these pictures were taken is only twelve feet deep!
The whales have bumps around their eyes called tubercles. Apparently, each on of these is a gargantuan hair follicle with one coarse hair. The whales detect tidal patterns and calculate distances based on the vibrations from these hairs.
Bush and Birth Control (sounds naughty, eh?)
8.15.2008
My friend Abe sent this to me and I thought I'd pass it along.
The Bush administration is trying to include birth control in the definition of "abortion" so that healthcare workers can refuse to provide it. From the Houston Chronicle on August 10th:
"Health and Human Services officials are considering a draft regulation that would classify most birth control pills, the Plan B emergency contraceptive and intrauterine devices as forms of abortion because they prevent the development of fertilized eggs into fetuses."
If you, like me, feel that this is insane manipulation of both women and English, please add your name to the MoveOn petition about it, and keep your eyes and ears open for other opportunities to intervene in this bait-and-switch.
Click here to read the Houston Chronicle article:
Click here to sign the petition:
http://pol.moveon.org/
Petition for aid to Georgia
8.12.2008
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-georgia
This is a petition for international community "to meaningfully aid Georgia in stopping the Russian Federation from violating international laws and its attacks on Georgia's sovereign territory."
It only takes a second to sign.
In honor of my dear friend Maggie Osdoby-Katz.
Sleep with the earth
8.06.2008
"Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth."
-Walt Whitman
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