Modernity vs. Basics... Jan 6

Dear life,

Here are some photos left over from my North Carolina stay,

the catch water system at the homestead where I stayed in NC, built by Horse & Sparrow

the cabin where I stayed in NC

the huge spider that kept me company

And here are some of the pictures from yesterday's adventures at Blue Heron.

This is one of the buildings at Blue Heron. I thought the hand-done siding was beautiful.

This is the little shack made of pallets, back view. (built by a 7 yr old)

This is the front view of the pallet house.

This is one portion of a great mosaic that wrapped this house.  I dream of doing the same one day.

I drove to Athens, Georgia today to stay with my friends Hopper & Sway, and their beautiful little girls Cute # 1 and Cute # 2, who are 3 and 2, I believe.  It was a different feeling for me to come to this house with all amenities available to us.  I took a warm shower where I didn't have to warm up the water over a fire beforehand.  I flushed poo down a toilet instead of layering leaves ontop of my excrement in a bucket and emptying the bucket daily.  I have a room with a door so far away from the other bedrooms in the house that I can't hear anyone else.  Internet is magically in the air and connects to my computer so I can write this silly blog.  Other waves are in the air so that the hunk of intricate metal that makes up my phone can send little messages to my friends in Philly.

We exist in our world so differently now than how things have been for centuries. I have many feelings about this. And after living "simpler" for even just a few days, and coming back to modernity, I am feeling surprised with how far we have taken our comfort levels in our modern way of living.  We have made things so that we are so separate from the basic realities of our lives (like fire-making, food gathering, trash, lights). Is this a good thing? Meaning, is it better to live with so many gadgets between us and the basic realities of life? Do we have a need to ever learn those skills again in the modern 1st world? Have we simplified our lives so that things are easier? In all honesty, living life last week, I don't think modernity is any easier, it is just a different way of spending one's day. We work nowadays so that we don't have to work at home in the same capacity as we, as humans, have for centuries. Is this "easier" life a better life? Who is it easier for? Who gets the shit end of the stick in this "easier" life? I think that the earth gets crapped on a lot when we fill our landfills up with excess broken gadgets, plastic, and toxic waste. And that's just one part of the shit end of the stick.

I could go on and will go on elsewhere.  But all that said, I think this week will hold a lot of beauty in it and I look forward to spending time around here and with Hopper, Sway & the Cutes.