M Ljin

The other day was a good one. I boiled lots of dame’s rocket greens, some garlic mustard, carrot greens and dock too, and stir fried with beans, scallions, and boiled acorns with butter. The boiling, while I try to avoid overdoing it, is a good way to make use of way too many greens as a protein source and something you’d actually want to eat as opposed to something that would make you sick.

Tonight—some salad and winter squash with some raw carrots. Not much hearty food to speak of, being ill prepared. That was not them, but I have been enjoying eating wild carrots, cooked and raw. They are more like parsnips in texture but are definitely carrots.

I was looking on the Wikipedia page for whistling because I was wondering if there was anyone who whistled “seriously” as music. I have heard it done occasionally, by the Avett Brothers (I think) and probably some others, but it seemed to have a sense of informality to it. On the other hand, Alice J Shaw, the famous whistler around the late 19th/early 20th centuries, whistles in an orchestral setting:



Others too—I am tired of staring at this screen though!

I have not tried marsh marigold yet, but someone I know says it is very good and is eaten by some old-timers who don’t eat other wild foods, even ramps. They are extremely abundant in some areas where I live, and iconic spring flowers. It’s odd how the ones traditionally eaten are oftentimes the poisonous ones.

As much as I appreciate snow, there is something very primal about how the land looks right now, before the snow has set in: dried grasses, the rocks and mosses all visible from far away, leaves on the ground, the mountains grey and stern.

I am looking forward to getting more acorns processed during the winter…

I also love how the snow traps all the scents, and then during a thaw, when the river is rushing, the forests smell like…forest, a pure, indescribable scent.

Seeing tracks in the snow. Last year we saw moose! I hope to spot some again.

Wintergreen berries and leaf tea! And partridgeberries!!!

Making a pot of alder twig tea.

I also like to go exploring the forests more in winter. The warm season often feels too busy for that—wherever I go there is something I have to stop and pick. And with the leaves off the trees it’s easier to see the landscape. And so I often go further in winter.

I have heard of such things before. Apparently they read electrical impulses from the plants and use that as information.

https://www.musicoftheplants.com/

Judith Browning wrote:

I asked a hundred painters
and a hundred poets
how to paint sunlight
on the face of life.
Their answers were ambiguous and ingenuous
as if they were all guarding trade secrets.
Whereas it seems to me
all you have to do
is conceive of the whole world
and all humanity
as a kind of art work
a site-specific art work
an art project of the God of Light
the whole earth and all that's in it
to be painted with light.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(1919 to 2021, American Poet and Publisher)

Strange…I was at the library the other day and felt inexplicably drawn to pulling out A Coney Island of the Mind. I think it was the same day you posted this.

Les Frijo wrote:The thing I always thought about college or even trade school is why would I want to go learn how to do things like we have done in the past that got us here. I don't. There are better ways. Look where we are, The results speak for themselves. College serves our masters not us.

The title of this thread is pretty specific. The only reason I come here is because most of the answers that I haven't come up with on my own are already here. Thanks to Paul. Wheaton Labs is a great idea manifesting as we speak. But we need millions of them at this rate.

The last thing I ever want is another "job". It would be nice to be able to make a living though. Like before "jobs" were invented. That's what jobs and whatever masters we serve have taken away from all of us.

I have thought the same thing. Another thought of mine maybe aligns with yours:

That we choose who and what shape our minds, and this is a serious decision.

If I were to choose who my foremost teacher is, the one I listen to above all others, I would call it “mystery”. Or myself. Or both. Trusting yourself leads to creativity, to wisdom, to perception. Whenever I gave my mind to others, I would find that the language-mediated reality they offered was only partial. When I gave my mind to mystery, finally I would learn. Not knowing is knowing truly.

I am not trying to imitate sustainable people, or anyone, just follow what I know in my heart to be true. That has always lead me well, even if it has taken me to places that seem like madness or irrationality.

I flipped open a book yesterday: “This is your mind on plants” by Michael Pollen, the chapter on caffeine. It was just the right section—it was describing how caffeine, in effect, shaped the patterns of thought and perception in society and ushered in the age of rationalism. (I don’t use caffeine and it makes a difference!) If we took that one substance away, would the whole paradigm crumble, would our perception of reality change entirely? And culture works the same way. If you only work within one cultural context there is no room for contradicting it. If you free yourself from cultural context, it opens up into the vastness of the world. And that is where we find what we need to create real change.

Not saying people in college don’t think (not at all!) but that working alone, self in concert with mystery, is a very different and very valid approach, and allows for a lot more creativity and novelty than working within an existing cultural paradigm. (It might be said that that is the work of the shaman, even…)

Oh, what a shame! I forgot to make crabapple honey candy to go into town and hand out children. Maybe next year.

Maybe I could’ve even made them something with acorn. Now that would be diabolical indeed.

Maybe Schizophyllum commune? I am not sure—maybe someone else knows better.

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/schizophyllum_commune.html