I stumbled across this amazing little video the other day on a site called Earthsave - the Compassion Campaign. It shows a mutually generous, reciprocal, affectionate relationship between an Indian yogi and his family and their family cow. I personally wasn’t too surprised at how the yogi doted on the cow but I was very surprised at how the cow doted on the yogi!

I was keen on my husband and children watching this video to see what their reactions would be. Everybody enjoyed it a great deal with almost everybody being really surprised at what they saw. My husband was particularly surprised at the cow looking for affection in the way that it did. Our cows seem very self-contained by comparison. But our middle daughter said she was not surprised at what she saw, interestingly enough. She commented that she thought that the video showed a natural relationship the way it should be and wishes that we had something more similar with our cows. (Watch the video and imagine how challenging that would be!)

I was intrigued by how commonplace an occurrence this arrangement of yogi and cow apparently is in this household. With everyone situated just so, the yogi carried on conversations and read his scriptures and carried on with his daily life in a very life-as-usual way.

I wonder what that would be like…

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie

Part II of the Art of Listening to Nature Series

To best illustrate the way our family has benefited from a Sahaj Marg/ Natural Method of Responding to Life’s Challenges, I will post a series of stories that illustrate some of how it has worked in our lives. We have lots of such stories, the outcomes of which have kept our lives very interesting and full. I think sharing some of them is the best way to really illustrate this method of going “within” and “listening to nature” in order to chart a course for the future.

A few years ago we officially started what we now call The Pockets of the Future Project. Through years of research and planning, our family evaluated the systems that supported our lives and began to either tweak them or develop or implement entirely new systems to replace the more commonly used systems. In most cases we continued using the usual (typical) system while integrating a new (more self reliant) system as it was just too hard to make the switch wholesale. In any case, the motivation for all of this switching of systems was to live more natural and spiritual lives. As people do not naturally drop all of their old ways and habits in one big swoop, it was only natural to slowly, calmly and methodically allow the new systems to find their place in our lives in a natural way. While we may methodically implement new systems over time, seeing a vision of a new way of life and committing to making it a reality often comes in a flash. Here is a story of one such flash and the confirmation of it nature provided.

A while back I was having trouble starting our truck. While I was working on the engine, it ran out of gas. A couple of days later, I filled a gas can at a gas station and brought that home in our van. While driving home, the whole van smelled of gas from the very toxic, unhealthy fumes. Gas is just nasty, plain and simple. Right around this time, I also changed the oil in our car and van. This just reminded me of how nasty motor oil is - especially used motor oil. If you slip and spill any on the ground, it basically stays there forever contaminating everything it touches.

As I worked and learned about our truck’s radiator system, I was reminded that the combustion engine in itself is remarkably inefficient. Combustion engines generate power from a great number of small explosions which produce a lot of heat and toxic waste. Looking back, we can see that the dawn of the combustion engine made eventual wars for oil inevitable. The whole oil industry has become, for lack of a better word, evil. The warlike behavior associated with the extraction of oil is continuing to foment in the world side by side with the inescapable fact that at some point the oil is going to run out. These two factors and more make Leslie and me want to leave an oil-based lifestyle behind as soon as possible. Leslie and I even briefly talked about using a horse drawn carriage to shop in town. However, we figured it would take us around 2 hours just to get to Floyd, never mind the towns we have to go to down in the valley, so realistically this was not an option. We figured that at least for the time being, we were going to remain dependent upon oil whereupon we promptly ran out of heating oil. It was particularly cold that day and we were already experiencing serious financial hardship.

Later that day we begrudgingly ordered 100 gallons of heating oil at $3.16 a gallon. I really believe that heating oil should cost no more than $1 a gallon. The whole system is extremely inefficient and harmful to the environment so it should at least be affordable so that we have the financial breathing room to come up with better solutions. Due to our small house and our frugal use of heat, we will make it through the entire winter on only about 250 gallons of oil but most people need much more than that to get through a winter even though their houses are empty for most of the day. 500 gallons at $3.16/gallon is nearly $1600. That is a small fortune and the price is only going to get higher. Leslie and I both agreed that the current oil based system is on its last legs and that, meanwhile, we need a hedge against a system that is only going to become more and more expensive. In other words, we need to come up with a better way to heat our house.

So that cold day we ordered more oil and then attempted to get back on schedule which meant running errands with the four younger children. We had planned to go to the library, feed store, supermarket, the health food store and our local Mennonite run farm store. After going to the library and grocery store, however, we were so tired that we discussed whether or not we really needed to go to both the Harvest Moon and The Bread Basket on this particular trip. Thinking over what we needed to purchase and when we absolutely needed those items by, we finally made one of those small, mundane decisions that end up having a large impact on your life. For whatever reason, Leslie and I both felt compelled to bypass the Harvest Moon and go straight out to the Mennonite run farm store, The Bread Basket. The last time we were there, we found an ad for the hens we later purchased. Leslie and I both felt like we needed to return there.

We first encountered one of these Mennonite farm stores in Madison County, VA, by the way, called Yoder’s. The people who owned and lived at the store were very down to earth. They had farm animals right there which our children loved to see. We shopped regularly at Yoder’s about two years before we started our homestead. Going there frequently gave us a nice introduction to what is now our now daily life. One day we even saw one of their goats kidding. A week later one of the cows across the lane from our home delivered a calf right in front of us and we all watched that. A month later we moved into our new house in Louisa and we starting turning that place into a homestead about a year after that. Since we had such a positive association with Mennonite run farm stores, we were deeply pleased to find that Floyd County also had such a place.

As soon as we arrived at The Bread Basket, everyone’s energy picked up. It just had the feel of one of those special moments where something is going to happen. I asked Anna and Will to pick out one of the refrigerated blueberry jams from the fridge so they could practice their reading. As they returned with the jam, I told them that it was made by the lady we purchased our hens from. Just as I said that, I looked up and that very lady was waving to us from back in the baking area of the store. She apparently works there one day a week and this turned out to be her day. In talking with her, she told us that she had seven hens left for sale which she would sell us for a bit cheaper. (We did go pick those up a few days later.) She also told us her milk cow that was having health problems calved unexpectedly. She looked out the window one day to see a brown dog in with her cow. When she went out to chase it away, she discovered that it was a heifer. This is a very similar story to our experience of our cow Pezra unexpectedly calving last year.

At some point while Leslie and this woman were talking, I wandered over to the other side of the store where I happened to see an old fashioned wood burning cook stove. The moment I glanced at that cook stove, it became crystal clear to me how we should proceed. This is where the narrative came together in my heart. All of these apparently unrelated events suddenly gelled into a cohesive story. Here are the jumble of ideas and experiences that all fit together to reveal a path.

• â—¬ The oil industry is corrupt, inefficient, polluting our planet, war-generating, finite and running out. To follow our natural path rigorously, we feel it is in our family’s best interest to wean ourselves off of all petroleum based products to the extent that we can and in keeping with the Pockets of the Future mentality. Oil is not a POTF commodity.
• â—¬ The forced air heating system in our house is extremely inefficient. When we turn it on, the house quickly becomes too warm and we feel like we are suffocating from the explosion of hot air. However 10 minutes after the heat is turned off, the house is cold again. We need a radiant type of heat source.
• â—¬ All the aforementioned experiences with gas and oil plus us running out of heating oil during a cold winter brings it home to us that we are depending upon a flawed system.
• â—¬ Our house is located in an area where electric service can be interrupted for days at a time. The way this house is currently set up, without power we are also without heat, water or the ability to cook until power is restored.
• â—¬ Leslie has long wanted to learn to cook on an old fashioned wood burning stove, as well as cook outside on an open fire and bake bread in an outdoor oven.
• â—¬ We are always looking for new and efficient systems so that we are less dependent upon our current unnatural and fragile systems. Plus due to those same unnatural and fragile qualities of present systems, we are constantly looking to expand on our Plan B or back-up way of life.
• â—¬ Leslie has researched building an outdoor earth oven and has at least one book with instructions on how to build one on our shelves. As a matter of fact, we have long been anticipating building one. ( I am currently reading the book.)
• â—¬ Years ago Leslie’s brother sent us a survival package for Y2K which included a variety of butane burning camping products including a butane stove. This one burner has served us beautifully many times when we have lost power in the past.
• â—¬ It appears that there used to be a wood burning stove in our kitchen. There is still a vent in the chimney where we could simply hook another wood burning stove up. In fact the house was designed for a wood burning cook stove.
• â—¬ Our house does not have air conditioning. Cooking and baking inside in the summer makes the house extremely hot.
• â—¬ We had a visit from a nearby family that has built a straw bale home that is solar powered. The father of the family told me that the batteries that are charged by their solar panels can provide power for up to two to three days but if he runs their electric stove off of them, the batteries are drained within an hour. Stoves use so much energy that they even need different outlets. A few days ago we visited a horse and solar powered farm that is completely off the grid. I asked one of the owners about solar powering an electric stove and he said that it is very difficult and that they use a propane stove.
• â—¬ We need more counter space in the kitchen.
• â—¬ Something special drew us to that particular store on that particular day and made all of these pieces come together into showing us a new direction.

As we drove home from The Bread Basket, I told Leslie about the idea that came to me while in the store and started to lay out a plan of action:

• â—¬ We sell or give away our old electric stove that came with the house.
• â—¬ We purchase a wood burning stove to cook on.
• â—¬ We build the outdoor earth oven (and see Greg’s Earth Oven) in the courtyard of our soon to be meditation room.
• â—¬ We also build a fire pit area there for cooking with cast iron.
• â—¬ We purchase a portable cook stove, or possibly find a movable cook top for in the kitchen.
• â—¬ We purchase and store fire wood.Now here is how it could all work. We could put an extra countertop in the kitchen where our electric stove is now. We would keep the wood burning stove hot all winter and cook on that and heat the house with it. But in cases where the oven wasn’t hot enough or during the summer when it wouldn’t be burning at all, we would have the portable cook stove to cook on. In the summer we would also bake in the earth oven and use the outdoor fire pit for cooking, thus keeping the heat out of our house.

When I sketched this out for Leslie, she immediately got on board. Not just because of the words or the plan but because something had shifted that day. We have talked about all of these ideas separately in the past, all of them perhaps but the one about getting rid of the electric stove altogether. All of these projects were already on our to-do list but now all of a sudden there was new energy or life behind them and they all fit together as a cohesive solution to a larger problem, i.e. moving away from a petroleum-based lifestyle. Leslie could feel that something had shifted and that this plan was really becoming a reality. Just as Leslie and I became the most painfully aware that our system of heating our house and preparing our food needed to be changed, on that very day a plan or solution emerged to take us away from oil-based dependence.

There is one more part to this story. I have long looked to our interactions with animals and nature in general as a way to guide or confirm a path for our family. God is in everything so no small part of our daily experience should be excluded from our assessments and narratives. I have found over and over again that when there is a significant energetic or vibrational shift in our lives, often an animal will appear right at that moment indicating or confirming a new direction. This very thing unfolded here too:

• â—¬ Just before we arrived at the Mennonite farm store, we passed a large flock of wild turkeys. Turkeys were viewed as being auspicious by various Native American tribes.
• â—¬ We made arrangements to purchase more hens while we were talking with our acquaintance at The Bread Basket. These hens will put our egg production over the top for the foreseeable future and give us some breathing room until we are set up to raise chicks. As with the abundance symbolized with the turkeys, these few extra hens will give us the abundance of eggs we need so that eggs are never on our shopping list. (Taking items permanently off of our shopping list is a big deal to us.)
• â—¬ About halfway home while I was talking in detail about the new plan, I saw a kestrel hovering next to a tree by the road. We often see kestrels hovering over our back field but we have never seen one so close to the ground before. Kestrels are the smallest of the birds of the prey. They have really exceptional wing speed and eyesight. They hover much like hummingbirds 100 or so feet in the air where they use their ultraviolet eyesight to see the urine trails mice leave behind. The kestrel then follows the trail to their meal. So given its ability to hover in mid air and see from a far distance, a kestrel is a great omen for anyone looking for a vision. In heraldry, the Kestrel symbolized that the bearer recognized life’s opportunities and acted upon them at the most precise and correct moment like the kestrel does in hunting its prey.
• â—¬ A couple of miles down the road after seeing the kestrel, we passed a farm with a creek close to the road. Right there near the road, we saw a Great Blue Heron. I stopped right next to it and we gazed at it as if we were on a lion country safari. The bird stayed there about 20 or 30 feet from the car for a minute or two. Then it opened its large wings, took off over us and flew down the road in the direction we were headed. We followed it for about a half a mile, just behind and under it, until it crossed the road and settled in a pond near the road on our left. Herons are considered patient birds who wait for food to come to them much as we should wait for true teachings and inspiration to come to us. They also suggest “a creativity that is at home in two realms, the airy world of everyday action, and the inner floating world of the daydreamer, source of inspiration”.
• â—¬ When we got home, we found that everyone was exhausted. It had been a rigorous day and we were still without heat. While we were at the library, I had found the movie the Cave of the Yellow Dog. We already own and love The Weeping Camel made by the same director so I figured we would enjoy this movie also. As it turns out, we liked the movie so much that Leslie reviewed it in another blog post but in terms of the day, there was a significant scene at the end of the movie involving vultures. Vultures are seldom considered auspicious but they do serve a vital purpose in our world of cleaning and recycling. Although physically powerful, they live without using their power to kill any living thing. Equipped with excellent vision, they are able to detect hints of death before death actually occurs which is often a critical skill to have. Vultures are again another bird that is patient and eats what appears before it. Seeing a death before it actually occurs is a startlingly apt approach for thinking about our petroleum-based lifestyle.
• â—¬ A day or so later, I took the children with me to buy some hay. On the way home Faith spotted a red tailed hawk which flew over our car and landed in a tree next to the road. Here is a long and interesting page discussing the symbolism of the red tailed hawk. It includes ideas about being aware of the big picture, guarding the earth and using acute vision to create positive change - all very apropos to the shift we are trying to make.
• â—¬ Just before we arrived at the Mennonite farm store, we passed a large flock of wild turkeys. Turkeys were viewed as being auspicious by various Native American tribes.
• â—¬ We made arrangements to purchase more hens while we were talking with our acquaintance at The Bread Basket. These hens will put our egg production over the top for the foreseeable future and give us some breathing room until we are set up to raise chicks. As with the abundance symbolized with the turkeys, these few extra hens will give us the abundance of eggs we need so that eggs are never on our shopping list. (Taking items permanently off of our shopping list is a big deal to us.)
• â—¬ About halfway home while I was talking in detail about the new plan, I saw a kestrel hovering next to a tree by the road. We often see kestrels hovering over our back field but we have never seen one so close to the ground before. Kestrels are the smallest of the birds of the prey. They have really exceptional wing speed and eyesight. They hover much like hummingbirds 100 or so feet in the air where they use their ultraviolet eyesight to see the urine trails mice leave behind. The kestrel then follows the trail to their meal. So given its ability to hover in mid air and see from a far distance, a kestrel is a great omen for anyone looking for a vision. In heraldry, the Kestrel symbolized that the bearer recognized life’s opportunities and acted upon them at the most precise and correct moment like the kestrel does in hunting its prey.
• â—¬ A couple of miles down the road after seeing the kestrel, we passed a farm with a creek close to the road. Right there near the road, we saw a Great Blue Heron. I stopped right next to it and we gazed at it as if we were on a lion country safari. The bird stayed there about 20 or 30 feet from the car for a minute or two. Then it opened its large wings, took off over us and flew down the road in the direction we were headed. We followed it for about a half a mile, just behind and under it, until it crossed the road and settled in a pond near the road on our left. Herons are considered patient birds who wait for food to come to them much as we should wait for true teachings and inspiration to come to us. They also suggest “a creativity that is at home in two realms, the airy world of everyday action, and the inner floating world of the daydreamer, source of inspiration”.
• â—¬ When we got home, we found that everyone was exhausted. It had been a rigorous day and we were still without heat. While we were at the library, I had found the movie the Cave of the Yellow Dog. We already own and love The Weeping Camel made by the same director so I figured we would enjoy this movie also. As it turns out, we liked the movie so much that Leslie reviewed it in another blog post but in terms of the day, there was a significant scene at the end of the movie involving vultures. Vultures are seldom considered auspicious but they do serve a vital purpose in our world of cleaning and recycling. Although physically powerful, they live without using their power to kill any living thing. Equipped with excellent vision, they are able to detect hints of death before death actually occurs which is often a critical skill to have. Vultures are again another bird that is patient and eats what appears before it. Seeing a death before it actually occurs is a startlingly apt approach for thinking about our petroleum-based lifestyle.
• â—¬ A day or so later, I took the children with me to buy some hay. On the way home Faith spotted a red tailed hawk which flew over our car and landed in a tree next to the road. Here is a long and interesting page discussing the symbolism of the red tailed hawk. It includes ideas about being aware of the big picture, guarding the earth and using acute vision to create positive change – all very apropos to the shift we are trying to make.

Living in the country we have interactions like this somewhat frequently but we have certainly never had so many in such a short period of time. There are many ways of interpreting such things and many might consider all of these sightings just random coincidences. However in applying the art of listening to nature, we understand that within this connected universe every interaction carries potential significance, guidance and opportunity. The meanings peoples have traditionally attributed to these particular birds through long observation all point to this being a good moment to start implementing our plan to switch from oil to wood for heating and cooking. They also indicate the death of the system we are now dependent upon and the abundance that will flow from shifting to a more natural, local and self-reliant approach for meeting these needs of daily human life. I can say that now we are definitely locked into this project. There is a sense of urgency behind it. It is not just something that we want to do or would like to do but has become something we now feel we must do.

In a few years people might ask us, “How did you come to choose a wood burning cook stove, and an outdoor earth oven and fire pit for cooking and baking?” We would probably respond with talk about the merits of each and perhaps mention how we are working to eliminate our dependence on oil and so on. As you can see, though, there is actually a much deeper story behind these decisions. It was most essentially an organic and energetic process that closed one door and opened up another.

Nature is guiding us. We need only follow.

All the best,

Paul