This will be my private meditation room most of the year:

And the outside of my 12,000 square foot residence:

It’s a little freakishly remote, and lonely, which is part of why I’m returning to this blog after such a long hiatus. I have a couple more stories from my travels and my father’s wedding to tell before they fade. After that I will continue to update with goings-on in Crestone and whatever else arises…

_____

Geraldine,
you pretend you don’t care

but you do

bruised giraffe heart
longs for ecstatic connection
chopped weepy words
emphasize aversion
you are like a bee running away from pollen
not knowing how sweet it is
Geraldine

Geraldine you navigate so beautifully from the passenger seat
such innovative routes from point (a) to point (b)
should be purchased by the upper classes
hung on walls
scrutinized
talked about
jostled and resold
Geraldine
my fickle beacon

oh Geraldine, that I could nourish you!
I would show you such tenderness
whisper endlessly in your ear
soften those lungs
wet those kidneys
if only I could be your Grim Reaper
your flawless guide as you fall back into the loving embrace of the depths and
arise reborn
as a new
Geraldine
how sweet.

Geraldine
with your talk-damaged tongue
you say, “not that I have anything against ______”

but you do

Play with me Geraldine!
be not a thought of right or wrong
but a person

so beautiful in ambiguity
Geraldine

48 hours since arriving, I am beginning to think they are right. This is the most beautiful and sane city I have ever encountered (at first glance anyway. Admittedly, it’s high summer and any relatively well-off city is pretty joyful place). It’s like a bizzaro America where the fast food and Starbucks are few and far between whilst an infinite variety of local ethnic food, including tons of vegetarian options, litter the commercial district.

Right in the middle of East Vancouver, across the street from where I am staying, is beautiful Trout Lake surrounded by an equally beautiful park. This is place where people of all ages, races, and backgrounds come to enjoy. The runners run, the dog-owners hang at the north end, the ducks splash in the lake, the kids swim in the south end, the young people smoke weed on the secluded boardwalks and make out on the benches. The college kids play hackysack and throw discs. The west end of the park houses a giant athletic center with an ice skating rink, outdoor basketball courts, and more. And then there’s the grass… lots of grass! There’s even a farmer’s market in the lot on Saturdays. Together with all the shops, offices, and markets you could need within walking distance, this is a weirdly utopian urban neighborhood in my mind.

The house where I am staying has four levels including the finished attic and basement and a large backyard with a cherry tree and garden.

My favorite experience of all was lying around at the clothing optional hippie beach (where it was actually warm enough to swim in the Pacific! Yay!) and having random nude men with backpacks wander by shilling cold beer and pot under their breath like they were selling molly in the lot of a Phish show. Naked.

I feel blessed to have made it here. Fate played her ever inscrutable games with me when it came to Olympia. For days before arriving there, I was looking for a host unsuccessfully, only to end up at the last minute with a graduating Evergreen student, as per my last post. The moment I arrived I was pretty beat and told him I would like to take it easy, “No, we’re going to a party tonight, he said.” The debauchery that followed was as epicly entertaining as it was completely gross.

I won’t go into all the details here but there were two nights of partying followed by a sort of recovery day with swimming in a river, all while these kids were working furiously on their final projects. Their energy and resilience was amazing, and far superior to my own.

Most of you know by now that I got horribly sick the evening after I wrote my last post. A fever arose, white and red stuff covered the back of my throat, and I was laid out. I stayed two days with an awkward, inexperienced couchsurfing couple who were sweet but it wasn’t the situation for me. I ended up with an old family friend I had never met in Dupont, WA, a pretty serious military town. She gave me the guest room and free reign in her awesome large house, almost a century old.

There I bathed repeatedly, did crazy natural remedies, and gradually nursed myself back to health over 4 or 5 days. It’s a good thing I recovered when I did because she (a registered nurse) was starting to make noises about doctors and antibiotics. I really did not want to get into how my insurance has a giant deductable and that at this point I would tend not to take a suppressive therapy unless somebody’s life or limb was on the line.

The craziness and week-long detour somehow led up to a perfecly lovely visit in Vancouver that I am cherishing every moment of. I could not have made it if not for the lovely Spanish/Mexican couple who kindly picked me up from downtown Seattle and drove me to downtown Vancouver without a second thought. I even got to play with their 1-year-old in the back seat most of the way! I had been a bit nervous about doing the border crossing as a borderline vagrant because I had read that they give hitchhikers and broke people a hard time, even detaining folks for a short bit and telling their rides to go on without the rider. I came prepared with documents explaining my travels but that turned out to be unecessary. We vaguely mentioned meeting in Seattle and them giving me a ride and I think the custom’s lady got the picture but she was too overwhelmed trying to figure out the couple’s complicated story and paperwork to give me any lip.

So as the bank account ever-approaches rock bottom and I claw my way even deeper, trying to secure a loan for my VTI retreat, I find myself increasingly euphoric and pleased with life.

It is a strange and thrilling thing to be freed of the tyranny of having money to spend. Everything changes. Soon enough I plan to even pawn my laptop in order to fund my debts for the next couple months and to lighten my load the little bit extra that’s needed for me to be fully mobile with all my gear. At that point I will be free to hitch, dumpster, and stealth camp to my heart’s delight without horrible back aches and worrying about anything terribly important being stolen.

Things are looking up, and ever stranger.

Much love to you all.

-Spending those nights drinking with and learning from a bunch of former traveling kids. My driver, who I met via craigslist rideshare, picked up several hitchhikers on our roundabout journey from the bay area to Eugene, OR. My interest in vagabonding was piqued strongly here.

-Spending another night at a geodesic home from the 70s with a couple of middle-aged hippies, their chronically underclothed two-year-old boy, sheep, tenants who lived in a hobbit-house built into a hillside, two giant dogs, and one very loud frog in the garden.

-Hanging out at an old anarchist student co-op in Eugene at the end of their semester. A lot of drama and partying going on constantly. I slept surprisingly well and mostly unmolested in their attic. The variety and immediacy of so many beautiful, young hippie/co-op girls was a bit overwhelming… I mainly hid in the attic.

-Having a meditation friend, Goli, drive  from Davis to Berkeley to meet me after we hadn’t seen each other in a year. We walked the amazing botanical gardens at UC Berkeley and had dinner at Cafe Gratitude there.

-Receiving a text message from the very same friend a week later at 2am telling me she was on a train to Eugene. This, after receiving a voicemail from her that afternoon letting me know she couldn’t take me up on my offer to kidnap her into the woods for the long weekend.

-Staying with Goli at Erik’s parents’ house in the lovely addition they built with him in mind. The Bonnetts were incredibly hospitable and generous. They hosted us for dinner, provided a lot of great conversation, and went out of their way to lend us their expertise and some gear for our backpacking trip.

-Hiking the Mckenzie river trail, a gorgeous 27-mile jaunt accessible by city bus (!) up a geologically unique river. We spent two great nights out in the back-country on this trail. The second night we were overlooking the “Blue Pool” where the water of the lake erupts emerald green and turquoise from a lava rock-wall. It flows through the lava bed, underground, for over a mile upstream from where we camped. The next day as we hiked up, all we could see was dry river bed for quite a while, then stagnant pools, then finally the river slowly reforming above land.

-Spending a day at Clear Lake, the headwaters of the Mckenzie, where everything kept going right. Our plans to stealth camp at the established campground were foiled when we met an exuberant, all-american grandmother next to the site we had been chosen. She insisted on getting the host to let us stay there for free since it had been paid for already but vacated early. She wanted the free parking spot for her son-in-law’s truck anyway. After a little conversation she then offered us their canoe, a first for Goli (much to my delight/horror as a former paddling instructor she insisted on facing me from the bow and paddling backwards for over half our outing because facing the same way was “stupid”). When we returned, our new friend’s crotchety and hilarious husband (they communicated with/scolded each other via walkie-talkie from around the lake) cooked up, for us, two of the twenty-five fish he had caught that day on the lake. There is a picture of him first going fishing on this lake with his dad as a 6-month-old. Around that time their kids and grandkids arrived. We shared our organic pasta & veggies and ate smores with their whole family. The next day was nice and slow as we took a walk around the lake and eventually went out to the highway where we hitched a ride from the fifth car to go by back down to the ranger station bus stop.

-Seriously hitchhiking for the first time. With tales of vagabondry going through my head for the past week and a little bit of internet research to guide my way, I took to the highway onramp by the Gateway Mall in Springfield, OR, Eugene’s sister-city. Another guy was already there. We had some nice conversation, mainly about how I was way more likely to get picked up being young and clean cut versus his dirty, heavily goateed face. Turns out he was right. Shortly after I arrived he accepted a ride going only 30 miles up the highway after being out there for almost two hours. Twenty minutes later I got a ride right to the block I wanted from a woman driving her 2-year-old son to the Children’s Hospital in Portland. She had never picked up a hitchhiker before but thought I looked nice. However, when I got into the car I did have to reassure her that I was not a murderer.

-Staying two nights with a couple in Portland whose main recreation seems to be hosting couchsurfers. Their tiny one-bedroom place was filled to the brim with extra beds and mattresses so that the five of us guests could stay there comfortably. The walls of the living room were covered with quotes, poetry, and art left by couchsurfers. While cramped and busy, the space was surprisingly warm and comfortable. I slept great and met some really nice people. I might have stayed longer but I wanted to make it to the Really Really Free Market in Olympia.

-Being contacted by a host in Olympia the night before I left Portland. I tried to hitchhike again but there were no buses going to the north end of the metro area on the weekend. I went out to a city onramp where I got put in my place by a couple of bums camped out there. They sent me to the greyhound station where I could catch a bus for “$9”. I ended up paying $20 for the amtrak but it was still probably better than trying to hitch the I-5 in the middle of Portland. Eventually I made it to Olympia where I have been staying with a guy named Caleb in his off-grid cabin in the woods outside the city.

-Hanging out with some of the Evergreen crowd. I have had a very interesting few days including lots of time on campus, a couple parties, a bonfire, swimming in a river, and lots of hanging out at a gorgeous, unmarked coffee shop called Sizizis. The Really Really Free market I was so psyched to attend was postponed because the organizers forgot to pull the permit for the park that day.

-This moment of writing while watching seals and waterbirds hunt for their breakfast less than a hundred feet away. I sit on the porch of a beach-house rented by one of Caleb’s friends, where we spent the night. Sometimes the seals come right up the beach under my feet and deer are also wandering about while the tide is low…

Next is hitchhiking across the border to visit sangha friends in Vancouver for a few days and then formally vagabonding my way back down to the bay area!

There I will be staying at wild-sounding co-op and making preparations to go backpacking for five days. I have a whole series of articles on gift economy and relocalization itching to go up. Look for the first one middle of next week before I take off to the woods.

Missing you all!

How each of us interprets these facts is a personal journey. We could have all manner of beliefs about what the future will look like. The system presented here is meant to provide some guidance for how to prioritize action based on whatever our beliefs may be.

This idea was inspired by the work of Chris Martenson, a research scientist and businessman who offers a calm and well researched free presentation called Crash Course. According to Chris, he thinks it is “the clearest and most straightforward explanation of how our economy, energy systems and environment interact — how we got to where we are today, and some reasonable expectations for the future.”

If you have not yet watched Crash Course, I recommend you look into it as soon as possible. It can be viewed online or legally downloaded as a DVD via Bit Torrent. Knowing the information presented therein will make the ideas here much more relevant to your life. When you are done, be sure to check out Chapter 20: So What Should I Do?

Regardless of whether you take the time to watch Crash Course, this pragmatic system of decision making will help you weigh the benefit and risk of pursuing or not pursuing various options in your life. You will see that winning at cards requires precise action based on what one knows to be true about a situation. In all matters, cards included, our evaluations are based on a certain degree of opinion and speculation unique to each of us. But when it comes time to move from evaluation to action, the system poker players use can benefit almost anyone.

Poker is, at its core, a remarkably simple game of making practical decisions based on known probabilities. Movies and television often present a glorified and unrealistic picture of the game being mainly about intrigue, bluffing, and intuition. In fact, 90% the action in poker is boring and straightforward. All it takes to be a decent poker player, even a winning player, is to understand some basic math and to make risk/benefit decisions based on that understanding rather than being dragged around by hope or fear of the outcome. Despite the excitement that luck provides, a successful poker career is largely an exercise in stoicism and prudence.

To better understand what I mean, take the following example.

It is the last round of betting on a hand. This is a classic game of hold’em where each player holds two pocket cards, which are kept secret, and there are five community cards face up on the table. Whoever can make the best five card hand between their two pocket cards and the five on the table wins the pot.

I have a good hand, but not the best. Let’s say I am holding the nine of spades and the king of diamonds. We could represent my hand as:

(9s, Kd)

On the table is:

(10h, 8h, 9d, 9h, 3s)

My three-of-a-kind is a good hand, but since there are both three-in-row on the table (8, 9, 10), and three hearts on the table, my opponent could have a flush or a straight that would beat me. There is also a chance that he could have a full house or a better three-of-a-kind. He could even have the rarest hand of all, a straight-flush. If these terms are unfamiliar to you, then you could either look up poker hands or just keep reading. You need not understand every nuance of the example to appreciate the concept below.

Now, I have to ask myself two basic questions. First, what is the risk of playing the hand; that is, how much do I have to pay in? Second, what would the potential benefit be; how much money do I stand to win? Then, we simply compare the risk/benefit odds (called “pot odds” in poker) against the odds that my hand is actually better than my opponent’s.

In this case, let’s say I have to call a $10 bet to end the hand, and there is $50 in the pot. That $50 represents the potential benefit of calling this final bet, and the $10 is the risk I have to put out there to see this thing through. That means I have a 5:1 benefit to risk ratio. I stand to win five times as much as it costs me to play. These are extremely good odds in poker, a typical finale can offer pot odds of 2:1 or worse. The math says that if I think I have better than a 1 in 5 (20%) chance of winning, then I should definitely call the bet, and maybe even raise. If I think I have a less than a 20% chance of winning, then I should definitely fold. There isn’t really any grey area.

So I estimate the overall probability of all the different combinations of two cards with which my opponent could beat me. Maybe, if I have been watching him carefully I adjust my estimate based on his playing style as well.

My chances aren’t great. I think there is at least a 60% chance my opponent has a better hand than me, but I would need to be over 80% sure to fold this hand. I have to call.*

It’s that simple. Even though I know I probably cannot win, the potential benefit of winning is too large for me to ignore the opportunity. If I call (or raise) this kind of hand every time I run into it, I will lose the hand most of the time but, over time, the occasions when I win will net me positive earnings.

So, what does all this have to do with planning for economic, environmental, and energy collapse? In the final chapter of Chris Martensen’s Crash Course, he invites us to use exactly this kind of logic in planning for the future.

Maybe the chance of government services stalling, or the dollar hyper-inflating to near-worthlessness, seems pretty outlandish to us. We think that there is only a 5% chance that we would “lose” by not preparing for that sort of thing. But wait, what are the “pot odds” here? Consider how much you actually risk by taking steps to build more resilience into your personal life and your community against the benefit you would gain should a major financial collapse occur. If this risk/benefit ratio is greater than 5% (20:1), then the time-tested and pragmatic logic poker players use every day makes the answer clear.

It might seem a little intimidating to think about things this way. After all, aren’t there thousands of little contingencies that we should be preparing for? The truth is yes, of course. This is why we buy insurance or put away savings for a rainy day. We cannot mitigate every possible catastrophe. For instance, in the poker hand above, the astronomically low chance that my opponent landed the straight-flush is never going to significantly affect my decision making. After all, a straight or a flush alone would beat me. When planning for the most likely scenarios we can sometimes also mitigate the more extreme ones.

What we can do is take a good solid look at our circumstances and make evaluations of where we are most vulnerable from the risk/benefit perspective. In any area where the risk of taking action is significantly outweighed by the potential benefit, action is prudent.

For one person this might mean raising awareness of the issues and engaging in re-skilling efforts. For another it might be investing in hard commodities and starting to practice a less carbon-intensive lifestyle. All I ask is this: Whatever your rational evaluation of the future is, act prudently on it, rather than hiding in fear of possible change or grasping onto hope that everything will work out, without you doing much at all.

Given this view, I want to again encourage you to view Chris Martensen’s Crash Course. No, I have never met the guy, and I am not getting anything out of this. He offers this work entirely on a donation basis. I suggest you watch Crash Course because the benefit of what you will almost certainly learn by doing so is way over the top of the risk that you will be wasting your time.

With love in the dark ages,
Matthew

*In fact, in this example I might well raise because that adds the juicy possibility that I can scare him into folding a hand better than mine, but that is a deeper lesson than we need here.

Special thanks to Ethan Kuhlman for proofing this article.

The old Puffington Station in Grand Junction, Colorado, declares “For Sale,” with a bright pink banner over its imposing square doorframe. It is a humble but pretty building several decades old made of light brick and classic western red clay shingles. It announces the same classically American regal yet rustic presence common among municipal buildings in Colorado. Even, or perhaps because of, the peeling paint and boarded up windows, the building displays a kind of quiet dignity unusual among its peers.

The new station next door is of seventies construction with cheap wood siding failing to catch the eye everywhere but the decorative foyer made of bricks that almost, but do not quite, mirror those of the old station. The effect is farcical.

I am stuck here comparing the two because of a delay in my thirty-six hour train ride from Denver to San Francisco. The sun is setting on the first day of my great adventure of self discovery and I am held captive by the jankiest form of tired americana.

The little corner of the town dominated by the train station is clearly the sort of place people only go when they need to: A pawn shop, a knife sharpener, a locksmith, and something called “Carson Memorials.” Off in the distance I can see some colorful western shop faces and a thriving commercial area but the train staff insists that our delay could end at any moment while at the same time professing certainty that it will be at least two hours. We must not leave earshot of the platform or they will just leave us behind.

I call around to various friends and family to fill the time as I try not to worry about the implications of arriving in San Francisco late at night with only an address for the man hosting me.

Epilogue
After a sublimly uneventful two hours the train took of exactly as expected. We made up the lost time and then some as we rolled through the desert in the middle of the night and all turned out well for my arrival. I was happy to keep moving but it felt sad to leave the stately old pioneer building behind…

Thanks for checking in on my new blog.

Here I will be documenting my journies and postings some articles that have been spinning around in my head for the past couple years. There may some other random tidbits like poetry or stories as well. Look for updates on Facebook or the RSS feed and please do comment!

I am exciting about using this format both to keep in commnication with all of you who I don’t talk to regularly and to continue to practice the inspiration and creativiy that too often subside, unfulfilled, in my life.

The format and styling of this site are going to be experiencing a creative process for some time – but don’t be scared if you come back and things look different. The content will all be here!