Entries this day: Barf Gin_in_Ariege

Barf

2:16pm CST Monday 10 December 2001

So I'm asked to modify a report so that instead of 1/5th of it being updated 5 times a week, the thing is created in realtime each time it's run. Barf.

Erika is here. I love to flirt with her and it makes it hard for me to work sometimes. I don't know how long she'll be in town, but hopefully for a while. I'll be more focused in the middle of her stay, but not as much at the beginning nor end.

5:41pm

I just wrote a frustrated-with-job email to Kevin and Karla. I was able to get mostly good stuff done today.

Now I'm going to I-group.

Gin in Ariege

10 December 2001

Hello lovely friends, the times have changed since the
last time I wrote on September 11th when my brains
were freshly scrambled.  It took a while to process my
revived disgust with our world situation.  Now that my
thoughts have a fresh order I have decided that an
absurd explanation for all of this is the one I can
live with for now.  At the onset of the reactions that
followed 9-11 my punk rocker reaction was outrage at
the superpowers that toy with humanity and
economically dictate our lives.  Whoever they are, I
was sure they somehow were privy to the why's and
how's behind many of  the "terrorist" activities of
our period and the authors of the new wave of
"control" we are moving into. While we conquer our
children, the indigenous left on the earth, the
animals, our planet and each other into submission due
to fear-our petroleum-arms based economy uses war and
mass suffering to gauge stock market values.  War is a
waste of time and resources.  Overpopulation, over
industrialization, exploitation of the earth and the
oceans and her resources and disregard for the oxygen
producing systems we depend on will leave us in a big
mess not so long from now and we still shy away from
that grim reality cause we are so comfortable.  I have
tried to fit all my theories together to make a
certain sense of it all.  I am a person who once said
i believe in everything, which is very close to
nothing.  I accept the fact that everything is
relative and that it would be quite difficult to know
the absolute truth of our universal nature.  My simple
rationalization for our mis-management of this planet
is that we are not from this planet, so like tourists
in Spain, we throw our trash down wherever we want. 
Here it is, we began as a genetic experiment between a
extra terrestrial race of people and an earth species
like homo erectus.  Maybe they had recently
overpopulated and industrialized their planet and
needed more resources and workers to harvest them, and
after some rough years in the lab-walla, here we are
in our 10 toed glory!  We do have the nicest planet in
the galaxy. This explains Atlantis, Lemuria, the
astronomical maps of Teotehuacan and Egypt, the greek
and roman gods, strip mining and clear cutting, the
banana, the space program and who nets the profits
from the Gross World Production.  Someones got to get
off this planet alive and find the next paradise
planed to harvest.  So that is my theory in a
nutshell, i am probably not the first to arrive at
such a conclusion.  Perfectly absurd and plausable.
Anyway, Christian, or Muslem, from the Orion Nebula or
the Solar System,  it is one universal force that
binds us and there is no excuse to trash our planet or
any other.  
        Language is such a crazy tool to play with. 
It is almost impossible to communicate exactly the way
we feel without changing the feeling.  Even if there
was only one language, would people understand each
other?  There are so many important feelings and
desires that all humans share and the language that
would inhance our understanding about this is not used
if it exists at all.  We say things in bursts of
conceited manipulation that we don't even understand
and because it sounds right we defend it. I don't
think I am ready to defend my alien theory, but it
makes me laugh to think I can take myself seriously.  
 
     I walked a long way this summer, from the North
of France, near to where D-Day occurred in Normandy,
to the south.  While rescuing a dog from what was soon
to be his certain death, I took my first spill of the
pilgrimage and hurt my leg.  After a brief hospital
visit and x-ray to determine it wasn't broken, I
hitchhiked the last 50 miles to Ariege, where I am
staying for the winter.  A good friend has lent me her
house in the mountains.
      From my back yard I can see the white peaks that
define the border between France and Spain.  The view
would be a marvelous hallucination if it were not
real.  The house is about 3/4 of the way up the
mountain (and way off the road) at about 4000 feet in
elevation.  The spring is not far away and the water
is like candy.  My friend from Holland came to visit
and he says the house looks like Pippi Longstocking's
house.  The mountain is very steep.  The garden has
the biggest sage plants I have ever seen and there
were apples on the trees when I got there.  There was
no firewood and the deal I have always had with myself
about staying here is that I would cut no trees for
firewood.  I built an A-frame sled and I hike to the
top of the mountain and find dead trees, cut them into
4 to 6 foot sections, tie them to the sled and run
down the mountain pulling the load.  I have a handsaw
and a little axe.  There are huge chestnut trees and 
hot roasted chestnuts are delicious.
      My friend has 4 kids, so the house is big, too
big to heat.  I am isolating the living room and have
moved the woodburning stove next to the fireplace
where I keep an open fire to cook on and look at. It
is a science to stay warm up there.   The views out of
the enormous windows are enough to get me out of bed
in the morning. Last week there was fog in the valley
on several mornings and to see the snowy mountains
opposite mine above the clouds was like seeing them
for the first time. I could not gaze enough at the
breathing mist bathing the valley floor and the
mountain sides. Almost everytime I look around it is
still as stunning as the first time. There is a bath
house that looks like the gable of a castle, and a big
porcelain tub with a matching wood-burning water
heater. The last time I was here I had to walk down to
the river to bathe. On November 8th it started to
snow. We had about 1.5 feet of snow (50-60 cm)! and
there is still snow on the ground. I have neighbors
400 meters away with kids my age (6 and 10). We play
in the forest and sled in the powder snow and take
long walks and have long discussions in French. They
invited me for Christmas, and would look after me if I
needed it. I have not gotten bored or lonely and the
hard work and solitude feel good. I have a fair amount
of wood and am becoming a little more resilant in the
snow and cold. Hopefully it won't be too much for this
Texas girl to tough it out for the winter. I still
have a long walk towards Portugal in the Spring.  I
bought lots of warm clothes and have had excellent
luck finding beautiful and warm 2nd hand blankets. I
plan to come down possibly two times a month. I have 8
kilos of bio oatmeal and a chest full of provisions.
There is a solar panel and if I wanted to bring a
battery up, I would have electricity. I put up a radio
antenna and while the sun is shining, I have good
reception with the little car stereo in the house. At
night candle light is enough, and the ambiance is rich
and sometimes smokey. So that is the setting for this
part of my journey. My work has been thinking about
how I feel about love, children (having them), giving,
taking care of myself, settling into an idea of who I
am and what I want to be and trying to find a language
for that, accepting my choice to take an alternate
road in life and trying to make sense of the route I
have traveled thus far, and opening up to breathing
and the moment. Thank you for your patience with this
letter. For lack of not having anything good to say
about the barbarian bloodbath ritual we so easily
responded to the painful events of 9-11 with, I didn't
have much to say. I hope this is just a growing pain
in our accelleration evolution. With the best aim I
can hold I am shooting on a spiritual trajectory of
self discovery and acceptance. I know all of this is
part of the plan, and I too have a part to play. I
hope you are at peace with yourself, your family is
healthy and staying warm, the sun is shining from
within and you trust your footsteps. Thank you for
your companionship in spirit, I feel you and don't get
lonely with you as company in my heart. Have a very
prosperous end of the year and happy holidays.
 Be good and excercise your freedoms. Love, gin