Let's talk about subtexts: prejudice and bigotry?

 

This is a thread of comments on the recent article in the Mail Tribune.

 

Darryl-

Sorry, your lifestyle is illegal. Get on the consumption/destruction bandwagon like everyone else. Don't you want that big expensive house and the tax bill that comes with it? Don't you want to buy a house and see it's value drop in a few years to half of what you paid? Sure you do. Welcome to the new America....

 

 

Commentsviewer-

No Darryl they want others to provide for them. Donate to buy them land. I have heard about how they have totally trashed the land they are on. Take a drive up to their camp. They have no respect for the land. They just want to live off the grid. That's fine. Just don't expect the tax payers to provide. Let them set up in your yard Darryl. I'm sure you won't mind cleaning up their mess....

 

Ed Keller-

I have visited the Tipi village on several occasions over the years and I can say they are immaculate in their Care for the Land. The above hearsay about the Tipi Villagers "trashing the Land" is absolutely ridiculous. Completely unmerited. That is why the previous landowners were happy to have them there, for YEARS, taking very good care of the land and actively managing the forest surrounding them.
I am curious where Mr/Mrs Commentsviewer got these false reports and the idea that somehow tax dollors are to support their project. Again..inaccurate.
A non-profit trust collecting donations for a land based project is as "Normal" and respectable as any mainstream project. These folks seem to have a different outlook (as is satirized in darryl.edingtons comment) that they have no desire to buy into the mainstream debt-based lifestyle. That is commendable in my opinion....

 

Land Liberation Project-

Thanks for extending the invitation to come visit; Tipi Village is open to all! We are happy to provide for ourselves and we ask for the basic human right to subsist and access to the land and means to sustain ourselves. We are happy to help anyone who wishes to learn how to make themselves a home and grow themselves food.
We have not trashed the land. Over the years hundreds of people have experienced first hand, deeply, for more than a few minutes of prejudiced perception, the powerful beauty of living together with our planet, through the place held open by Tipi Village. The people who have complained have never addressed complaints directly (to me, anyway) and seem to have had some personal agenda as to their entitlement for giving a public review of my home and life. It would be mean spirited and uncaring if I were to go to your home, 'commentsviewer' and decide to trash you, publicly, about how you live.
I, personally, have taken truckloads of trash out to the transfer station, most of which arrives at hunting season and also a lot that was here when we first came to live here. I have also taken trash away from others, not accountable to Tipi Village, who have decided to camp (usually in a 'nylon nightmare' tent) nearby or out of season.
Furthermore, the other parties interested in buying the land upon which we live intend to sell it to the BLM, thereby restricting access to all of us whilst giving us, the taxpayers, no choice in having to buy it.
Feel welcome to bring up any other pretexts, once we've addressed them all we can begin to talk about subtexts: prejudice and bigotry?
-Ande

 

 

  

 

Ideas brewing to include you....

Ideas are brewing for the Hearth Tidings, Autumn Issue 3.  There is an idea to include words from the greater community, meaning you.  We are looking for engagement.  Maybe through a 'letter to the editor' or 'ask a villager'.  Are there any curiosities or questions you have about year round nomadic tipi life?  Send them in!  Even if it is challenging or contentious, please, engage us!  Perhaps you have spent time here and may feel inspired to write something about it, a poem, an essay, an art piece.....Send us entries by October 20, 2013.  Looking forward to hearing from you.
Kayla

landliberationfund@gmail.com

Win this Trike!

 

People of Ashland!  This trike is a stylin', fun and practical way to get around town. 

 Enter our raffle with a chance to win it!  Condition is new. 

 Names will be called on October 1st, 2013 in the Big Lodge at Tipi Village. 

 

Tickets are $3 for 1 or $10 for 3 (coyote pricing.  Hey, it goes to a good cause!)

100% of funds raised go to the liberation of land

for you, me, our children and future generations! 

 

 

 

                                              

Please include your name, phone number, email, and the words Raffle Entry with your payment.

Thanks and good luck!

 

Another article in the local Sunday paper

Yet another article in the Sunday Mail Tribune.  When the author, Mark Freeman called on Friday, we didn't give him much.  We have had a surprising amount of prejudice come our way. There was a hesitancy in speaking with him.

 

Is it possible to fall back off the
radar?

It's an alright article, but it in no way paints the beautiful picture of this life or this time of migration (and its uniqueness in not knowing where we are going) or the process we are involved in with this land beneath our feet and homes, or the way the weather is our 'boss', or the changing of the seasons and it goes on...... 

I think Mark did alright considering he had so little from the brief phone interview. 

Have a read.  And feel free to help with the moral support and leave a comment there, maybe even reply to the prejudices if you are inspired....

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130922/NEWS/309220322&cid=sitesearch

There's still time! Make your donation.

The PayPal button is now fixed!  There is still time to contribute in any amount!

The Land Liberation Project extends far beyond the current summer lands with its October 1st deadline.  Since the launching of The Project, much momentum has been gained.  It is a start with a powerful intention to, basically, make it possible within the industrialized world to subsist and to re-introduce humans into the wild. 

100% of funds raised will go to the liberation of land wherever the possibilities present themselves.

Join the raffle.  It's one way to contribute!  Tickets are 1 for $3 or 3 for $10 (special coyote price.  Hey, it goes to a good cause!).

                                                


If you are buying raffle tickets, please include your name, phone number, email, and the words Raffle Entry with your payment.

Some prizes have the option to be shipped, others not.  It's best if they can be picked up.  Good luck and thanks!







 

Finding Place

With regards to the liberation of the summer and winter ranges of Tipi Village, the situation would appear - especially to the left brain- dire.
For this land that we love as the places on earth to which we can point out and show our children the exact spot where some of them were born, it would be inappropriate and disrespectful to squabble over it like immature, placeless adults.
Because what we have found is a sense of place in the order of All That Is. That is the gift of this land and the process unleashed by it and that is our debt to this place.
There are connections within that understanding of place which are difficult to accommodate; whether praise, admiration or criticism, admonition. Both extremes require being met with equanimity.
There was the 'hunter' from the town of Rogue River, perhaps sixty miles away, who was so appalled by our presence in the wilderness that he wrote to the editor of the Mail Tribune. He claimed his family have hunted where we now live for over a hundred years. Although he didn't say what they hunted, in that time when bands of families still roamed these mountains not only hunting but gathering, tending the wild, living, subsisting for millenea before the arrival of a people also displaced. I don't know if those displaced people asked if it was alright if they could stay and hunt and  be entitled to replace. By all accounts they didn't ask and they perceived godless savages scrabbling in squalour.
This was before the land needed liberation, because it wasn't claimed yet.
There are those who tell us we're pioneers; we're at the leading edge of a movement beyond politics into the realm of the physical, blazing a way forward for humanity to begin to integrate and re-integrate with the whole.
There was the reserved man one day when we were tabling outside the Ashland Food Co-op , troubled because, he said, for thirty years he's swallowed what the banks have forced on him so that he can own his place. If the Land Liberation Project catches on then his land will be worthless, he said, he'll have spent most of his life in vein. His one precious life.
Then there are the 'deep ecologists', some of whom project that humans are alien to Mother Earth, we have no place here, we're just messing things up for every other form of life on earth.
It's easy to get hung up on structures of complicated political thought and the state of the status quo. What's real for Tipi Village is the weather is changing, the rain has come, the geese are flying calling their longing for winter place and here we are, a tiny culture of new old beginnings, like a rabbit in the headlights of the juggernaut of mainstream industrialised America. Surrounded by thousands, tens of thousands of uninhabited acres of world. We don't know where we're going for winter range and the left brain is freaking out a bit so the process requires a constant letting-go to intuition, feeling, always deeper to a place where unfolding happens.
So we're stuck because, politically, a few people are bothered by how we are inspired to live. It appears to challenge the sensibilities of the camo-clad weekend hunter from town, perhaps expecting to see manicured lawns and white-picket fences, buildings or perhaps, more to the point to see nothing so he can have the place to himself a couple of weekends a year. Or the deep ecologist, given up on life, alienated from an integral and intimate process of humanity and world, perhaps afraid of death; the feeling of the safety of soft earth falling on our spent bodies, her reclamation of matter borrowed by spirit. There is also the fear of 'property' losing value, individual monetary value, which has only ever been an illusion since the Land Enclosures in Europe. There is a greater value in land that is culture and place within that web of  myriad interconnectedness, the relationship with money being only one strand in that web. Remember this. The inherent value of everything in reality is diminished when we ascribe  to it only monetary value.
The primary value of land is culture and we can grow great and powerfull when we integrate the true richness of culture, of relationship, relations, of working out and becoming conscious of the names of those relationships and honouring them for what they actually are. When we find place then we cease to be displaced. Few people, especially in America, are not displaced culturally or physically. Those who know your place, you are the richest people on the planet and you have more to share than anyone.
Sinking deeper into understanding the forces of displacement, it is beneficial  for the greater good if we can understand the individuals with personal agendas. The value of their 'property' and the fear of it being diminished. Their desire to be 'alone' in the 'wilderness'; alienated and disconnected from a confrontation with their own prejudices and inadequacies in the face of a life-way with an intention and practice of integrity, directness and open honesty.
America will truly be the 'Land of the Free' when the basic human right to subsist is, at least, not blocked and at best, encouraged as a way of respectfull, accountable living. When, culturally, an aspiration towards sustainable relationships -physically, socially, spiritually- is allowed, encouraged and accepted. When we can move away from patterns of life which displace us into becoming dis-connected fragments of the machine of industry.
"It is easier to contemplate the end of the world than it is to consider the end of capitalism"
And here we still are at an elevation of five thousand feet and already the days are shorter than the nights. And as I write this I don't know where we'll be migrating to for the winter. Happy equinox!
Ande
   

The Morning After the Benefit Gig (an audio clip)

The Benefit for the Land Liberation Project was a success on many levels.  It began with delicious food and drink (despite the fact that much of it was forgotten at Tipi Village, only to become a feast for the squirrels).  A panel discussion came next, which had it's awkward moments.  The stage, microphones and bright lights are unfamiliar territory (to many of us), but that was slowly overcome.  What was more difficult I think was keeping a focused discussion between the villagers and the audience.  Good beginnings of a public discourse around 'place' for so many displaced people right now and bringing it home, close and personal.  Much was learned about the art and craft of presentation/discussion and we are looking forward to organizing a proper, solid, focused presentation and panel.  Folk stayed late while musicians brought a wonderful life to the event.  Thank you all who participated.

Click the link below to listen to a piece of conversation between some villagers the morning after (Helena, Kayla and Ande).  It begins with the question 'why is there an inspiration to share about Tipi Village and the Land Liberation Project?"
   

http://archive.org/details/LandLiberationProjectBenefitDe-brief


And stay tuned for details of the upcoming Land Liberation Project presentation and discussion by co-founders Ande and Kayla Blanchflower.

An edited Open Letter, re-posted.

Following is an edited open letter to one of our neighbors, re-posted.  It was respectfully and regretfully taken down by Ande following a request and threat of a defamation lawsuit. I feel that some of the words have a wider relevance and powerful message to the industrialized world.  It may be a beneficial public conversation. 
Kayla 
 

 

Dear (names removed),

I am a participant and founder, though not a representative, of Tipi Village. The intention of this letter is to facilitate and foster open dialogue between the families and individuals currently striving (in the face of great attrition) to maintain and honour our connection with our homeland over the past six summers, and you.
Recent attempts by us to communicate with you, through email and phone calls have had no response. Now the only avenue for communication appears to be publicly, which is slightly regretful because out of respect to you and the process in which we are involved together, we have striven to keep your names out of the newspapers and off the airwaves. For the love of all that is dear to us, and following recent interactions with the county, who are only complaint driven, this has now changed as we have a whole culture and way of life, to which our children were born, to defend.
Following will be some questions. If any of them are assumptive, please let me know; I'm trying to make sense of the information coming in and work out why such prejudice is being leveled at my community.
Why are you harassing Tipi Village? This harassment, through the channels of county protocol might be 'legal' but it is incredibly distressful for the people and children who live here and whose home and life-way is under threat.
Circumstantially and most recently, following a visit from a county representative, it has come to our attention that the complainant about Tipi Village had hired a lawyer to have the county code 're-interpreted' to, basically, make it illegal to live in tipis in Jackson county.
We have also heard, from members of the Mosby family, the current land owners who are in deep financial difficulty especially since the death of John Mosby, that you have threatened to delay the sale of this land until they have had us removed. We migrate in the autumn anyway and you are fully aware of this. It's unnecessary.
What is your agenda with this place on Soda Mountain, widely known as the summer lands of Tipi Village? Why are you putting so much effort into displacing a peoples and a culture? Are you trying to make us homeless?
Do you care for this place, this piece of Mother Earth and wish to see it thrive, to hear the songs, cries and laughter of the children echo through the mountains. Do you care for this place to maintain and even increase it's current bio-diversity to how it was before settler consciousness arrived? The touch of millenia of human interaction still resonates through this land, in spite of exploitative logging, over-grazing and over-preservation. Preserving is what we do with fruit when we put it in jars. As people we have always been an integral part of our environment, even since the onset of industrialization, when we seem to have become blind to our impact. The land and the people thrive together.
Many times I have invited you to my home for tea, even for dinner. You have been invited to find out what is actually going on here. The only time I have seen you here on Soda Mountain was one late spring a few years ago in your little golf buggy. We were bringing a first load up for the summer migration, you said you were hunting for morels. We caught you! You are still welcome to come and see, feel, smell, hear and taste the reality of life here. As is anyone.
If you care for and love this land and recognise the potential that is unfolding here as much as we do then we can work together.
If, however, you care only for your selves, for the glory of being praised as great, magnanimous people, as preservers of wilderness, although at the expense of the people.
If you care only for your own quiet retirement, to live your unsustainable ways in the midst of the wilderness, all to yourselves, fishing your imported trout from 'your' lake.
If you care only to disregard and discriminate against the handful of lodges of men, women and children who all put together would still have a lower impact and smaller physical and carbon footprint that you only two people in your little mansion, that is only there next to (name removed)Lake because it's 'grandfathered' in. If these are your cares, then we are in opposition. And you are opposed to all and any other with a bright mind who doesn't have the decadence of money to throw at anything with which they don't agree. We have culture. We are happy just simply getting along with our lives. We are not the aggressors . We don't have a private plane to fly to LA and spend half of our time there. We are here and we always have been and we always will be. We practice and ask for the basic human right to subsist and to continue to subsist without aspirations towards extractive, unsustainable consumerist ways of living; to practice and cultivate humane, human ways of being, respectfully to all, even our adversaries!
 (Names removed), please stop indirectly harassing us! Be accountable and responsible with your complaints and concerns and bring them directly to those whom they concern, honestly and openly, so that they can be addressed and inspected and we can find out if they are valid. Stop fabricating bogus reasons for whining at the county like spoilt children and getting them, with your political and financial influence, to do your dirty work.
Furthermore, join in, participate with the Land Liberation Project, be remembered as a major part of the sea-change that is occurring now. The Project has a really good idea and a lot of experience of a viable way of sustainable living for all with the inspiration, to truly begin to re-member our wild and powerful places.
As Yosemite burns right now, consider why that fire is so catastrophic. And in that consideration, feel the millions of individuals making up families, bands, tribes, who were and still are being removed, displaced and even killed in the name of preservation and conservation. People, humans just like you, today, now, being forced economically, physically violently or otherwise from the place of their birth and tradition and culture and into unsustainable lifeless fragments of the machine of industry. This is a moment in the story of humankind where our actions will resonate through the ages, and long after our flesh and bones have returned to the dust from which they came, future generations will remember. Which way will it go? Our actions and intentions are defining us. This is where a few can make a difference for the benefit of countless many.
For the love of our world, all of our children, and our future.
Thanks for reading.
Ande Blanchflower

 

 

 

Conversation With a Passer-by

 

The Ashland Food Cooperative has kindly hosted the Land Liberation Project many times now.  The hours spent outside our local food coop have led to some great connections and ideas, money in the magic hat, and most enjoyable, many interesting conversations.  Here is a brief snippet of a conversation with a passer-by (click on the link and then press play).

 

http://archive.org/details/ConversationWithAPasser-by

 

 

 

 

  

Benefit Agenda, simple and lively!

6pm- Open hearth dinner.  Dance by Child of the Wild.
7pm- Panel discussion on the basic right of subsistence, human displacement and inhabiting the wild.
8pm- Folk music and dancing till late!!

Land Liberation Benefit Gig

With The Land Liberation Project receiving plenty of press these days, there is much public interest in land based living, nomadism, un-owned land, conservation vs. human inhabitancy in wilderness, communal living, the right to subsist etc.  This benefit is an opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas regarding these matters with some of the time being focused on an open panel of villagers and other guest speakers.  May this be a benefit for all.