On First:

This is a sort of anti-blog — I post about once a year, though that could change as our little situation gets even more interesting. My purpose here is to discuss some of the strategic, ethical, moral, and spiritual issues that attend Apocalypse and, to a limited extent, provide resources for preparing.

However, if you're inclined to get serious about preparing, one of the best places to come up to speed is Jim Rawles's SurvivalBlog site, which covers every conceivable aspect of self-sustainability in challenging circumstances (as, for example, when the world as we know it rolls off a cliff). There are daily contributions from astute, well-prepared readers, along with commentary from Jim. And be sure to check out the SurvivalBlog archives (I often copy past and current items to Word files and put them into subfolders within my "Survival" folder.) You might also consider accepting Jim's "Ten Cent Challenge" (a dime-a-day contribution to SurvivalBlog), to support his excellent work.

Oct. 28, 2008

There's all sorts of clamor in the financial sector as to whether "the bottom is in." Don't look now, fraidy-fat-cats, but the bottom won't be in on this one until most of us are gone from this planet -- not that that is likely to take more than a few years, now.

No, the financial and political pundits don't get it yet; their big picture just isn't big enough. What they're missing is why all this collapsing needs to happen: they're missing the meaning of it, the spiritual dimension of it; and they don't understand the inevitability of it. Those are the things I try to talk about in these pages.

Oct. 22, 2008

Another year gone, and you may conceivably have wondered how I've been doing. Did I already mention that I divided my new 160 into four parcels and settled families on the other three? It's been working out well. We're a diverse group agewise and even, in some ways, with respect to backgrounds and lifestyles; but we're all very much on board when it comes to earnest preparing, and there's a lot of sharing all around.

We're on old Chimiriko Indian land, and one of our partners is himself Chimiriko. He has led us in setting up a sweat lodge ... and getting very sweaty. Which has given us a common spiritual focus that is entirely compatible with the religious beliefs we bring to the table (and they range from fundamentalist Christian to New Age Buddhist).

We feel blessed to have been led by Spirit to this land. We all feel, deep in our bones, that it's meant to be a place of refuge in the days ahead.

Oct. 26, 2007 — Back Again

Nineteen months between entries should be ample demonstration that I ain't no bloggin' fool. Nope, been busy out there in the real world (which, in case you hadn't noticed, is coming down around our ankles ... or up around our ears ... or something). Yep, got a gravity-fed water system installed at the new land, slapped in a Pelton wheel to run off of it, tossed in a few solar panels and a way-uptown Outback inverter and power panel, and I'm up and runnin'. Even nicked a free 1150-gal. propane tank off the Forest Service.

And let me tell you about my four -- count 'em! — 40-ft. shipping containers, stuffed to the gills with all the detritus I've accumulated on the Road to Apocalypse (speaking of which, read that little number by Cormac McCarthy yet?). I even buried one of 'em -- biggest root cellar in three counties!

OK, gotta run -- the goats & ducks & dogs (new puppy: half-wolf, half chocolate Lab, a real monsta) & cats are waiting for breakfast. And it's about that passive solar house I haven't built yet. See you in a few months!

Jan. 18, 2006 — I'm Back (But Not for Long)

You haven't seen much of me here lately, but I hope you've been having fun poking around without me. It's about the 160 acres of undeveloped land I found last month. It's land that was homesteaded in 1885 and has never sold since. It's out over the mountain from here, in the next watershed north, ten miles farther away from all the stuff that it's getting to be a good idea to be getting away from. Not that there's really any escaping it.

I also haven't been reporting in because I reached a point where more stories about peak oil, the economy, the environment, and all the rest, just didn't seem to be telling us anything we don't already know. Namely, that it's all going south, lickety-split.

I did find my eyebrows rising the other day, though, when James Lovelock, Mr. Gaia Hypothesis himself, up and announced his conclusion that the world has already passed the point of no return on climate change, and civilization as we know it is now unlikely to survive. Yep, he says, "Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."

But like I say, this isn't exactly new news.

This site is, of course, old news too, and my page-view stats have gone all to hell. But I didn't set out to blog & flog you daily with cry-wolfie recountings of the obvious. I mean, you either get it or you don't, right? Hopefully, you're already headed north, and later for reading about it.

Still, I have missed corresponding with you — no one has said boo to me in weeks via the email link over on the left there (hint, hint).

And I do hope that when things really get rocking and rolling, and just before they pull the plug on the Internet, you'll drop by and lift a glass with me to the good old days when the Apocalypse was just a gleam in our demented eyes and self-sufficiency was just an entertaining option.

Next: A Strategy for Apocalypse