First Steps

Everyone in my immediate family has at least one tattoo. When I turned 18, it was expected that I would also get one, but I had never been crazy enough about any particular design to get one permanently inked into my skin… until the fall of 2009. While looking at a display of Celtic jewelry at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, I came across a tree of life. I became enchanted with this symbol which communicated the interconnectedness of all living things, and began sketching my own version of the tree because I knew that I had finally found something worthy of a tattoo.

The tree of life describes so much of what I value as a person, but unfortunately a tattoo on my back is not enough to keep me from getting caught up in the daily races and occasionally forgetting my place in the grand scheme of things. It’s so easy to get lost in all the noise. I want to live quietly: I want to be less offensive, selfish, and obnoxious. I want to live more peacefully, simply, patiently, and deliberately. Therefore, I will be walking my talk this month by taking time every day to meditate. I’ve already started to practice clearing my mind by doing this inside, but next week I will be moving out of doors so that I can more easily reflect upon my place in the natural world. Awareness and appreciation are the first steps in acting responsibly toward the environment and my fellow living beings, right?

If nothing else, at least Neil deGrasse Tyson also likes being connected.

Gardening The Future.

I have now presented my poster to the class about my window farm. Thanks to everyone that stopped by to learn about window farming. Showing my window farm to people gives me an opportunity to educate others about creative gardening and producing/buying local organic food.

I was asked many times today about what I was going to do with window garden now that the class project is over. My garden will live on so do not worry. My window farm will be moving with me to a Boy Scout summer camp that I run. There it will hang in a window in the dinning hall. With this prime location I will have around 1500 people walk by it during the summer and I am sure that many of them will stop to take a look.

The possibility of having 1500 people learn about local food is an exciting idea that I cannot turn down. Exceptionally sense most of that 1500 will be middle school kids. Teaching kids at a young age is the easiest way to make meaning life changes.

And after camp the garden is moving with me to Chicago where I hope to expand it.

I hope that many of you are think about making your own window garden, and if you do please let me know. Here are a few things that I have learned from making my own can could help you.

First, herbs are the best to plant in a window garden because many of them do not grow to big. This style of gardening is not good for large plants. Also herbs allow you to continually harvest them without completely killing the plant.

Second, do forget to water them. The bottles themselves are not very big and with that they cannot store a lot of water. I have to water my garden every two days or it will quickly dry out. I learned this the hard way and my lettuce has not fully recovered from it yet.

Last, come up with a design of your own. You could simply build one close to mine or you could be creative. Being creative with your garden makes this project such a fun to do. A good friend of mine is now making one out of old sections of plastic plumbing of different sizes. Some of the pipes even have right angles in them so he can be even more creative with the design. He is planting wild flowers in his.

Over all this has been a fantastic project. I have truly enjoyed designing and building my garden and learning about environmental issues at the same time in class.

I’m Ready!

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

            According to my handy-dandy study Bible the apostle Paul wrote this sentiment in his letter to the people of Thessalonica in 51 A.D. – clearly, the notion of living simplistically is not a new one. Paul is considered by many to be the father of modern Christianity (aside from God and Jesus, just for clarification…) and a theme of living in a simplistic manner to please God can be found throughout the 13 epistles credited to him in the Bible. In Catholicism, avarice, envy, gluttony, and pride comprise the bulk of the seven deadliest sins of all, yet those are the principles upon which our culture and economy in the U.S. are founded. If Christianity and Catholicism, the most prominent and influential faiths in the U.S. and most other Western “civilizations”, advocate a life lived simply, why didn’t this become our standard of living? When did so many people agree that the pursuit and accumulation of STUFF, a stuff whose supply is limited and finite and whose production indelibly oppresses a silent majority for the comfort and benefit of the powerful minority, was the ultimate in human accomplishment and the answer to achieving satisfaction?

            I bring this up because I have spent a lot of time exploring my faith this semester. This class has been extremely challenging to me on a personal level because it has caused me to turn a critical lens on myself and my egregious over-consumption and wastefulness. Through this project of imagining how my life would have to adjust should Manhattan be affected by peak oil and global climate crisis I have discovered that I am capable of learning the necessary skills to lead a more simplistic existence. However, while a peak-oil crisis scenario is looming and may very well become a reality someday soon, right now my reality is that continuing a pattern of lazy over-consumption and wastefulness is the most convenient option, and despite all that I’ve learned, convenience is still too powerful a temptation for me to resist. I found that I needed another motivator, something to make simplistic living seem worth the trouble. I know that sounds terrible- the fact that I’m helping the environment and ceasing my participation in a violent and oppressive globalized capitalist system should be motivation enough, but it’s not. I have to alter my mindset, stop thinking of transitioning to a life of simplicity in terms of what I would be losing or sacrificing, but in terms of what I’d be gaining. Recently, it hit me. I’d be gaining an opportunity to rely more on my faith for strength and comfort.

            So, in the last leg of my project, this is what I have been working on. This wasn’t originally part of my plan for my project- working on my spirituality wasn’t on my to-do list at first, at least not for this class, but it ended up becoming a natural and necessary by-product of my explorations. I felt like I needed something to replace the sense of satisfaction I used to get from buying things, from driving for hours wasting gas, and from going out to eat every other night- again something that would make the “sacrifice” worthwhile. I decided to turn to faith, which I am learning leaves me so much more fulfilled than any of this other junk. After a while, my mindset is starting to shift and some of the other benefits of living simplistically are becoming more apparent and appealing:

Health: avoiding restaurants, especially fast-food, and processed foods shipped from who-knows-where will inevitably lead to healthier eating habits. Additionally, reducing my use of my car for transportation means more exercise and a happier, healthier heart.

Community: I have had to rely more on the people around me when I wouldn’t allow Target and Walmart to be the answer to all of my needs, which gave me the opportunity to get to know and find new appreciation for people in my life, like my house mother and cousins who raise goats and the interesting people who come to the Transition Manhattan meetings at UFM. Growing up, I never know my neighbors. You didn’t need each other so you just ignored each other. Looking back, I’m sad about this. Now, I’m so excited about the prospect of being connected to a community!

Time: As has been pointed out in class, living simplistically is actually quite time consuming. However, it gives you a chance to spend your time purposefully so you get more enjoyment and fulfillment from your daily activities and responsibilities. This applies too to the leisure time you are afforded. When I’m consciously working on living simply, reducing my energy usage, my free time activities are much more rewarding than staring blankly at a television screen or scrolling mindlessly through my facebook newsfeed.

Spirituality: As I said, this has been a big one for me. It has offered me a motivation and incentive for working to give up those things that are not only destroying the planet and oppressing millions of people, but also distorting my sense of purpose and self worth. I can re-examine what is truly important in the short time that I’m allotted and I can see how the pursuit of stuff becomes a huge distraction in living how I want to live and being who I want to be.

            Here at the end of my project, I’ve learned how to maneuver Manhattan with limited vehicle use, to sew and mend, and to cook from scratch. Now that I have the knowledge and I know I’m capable of learning the skills, now there is a matter of choice. I don’t want to wait until Manhattan HAS to transition to adjust to a crisis- I’m ready to begin transitioning myself, little by little. It’s a scary prospect, but I’ve found the motivation I need to start. I am in a place where I truly believe I could be happier living simply than continuing on the wasteful pursuit of stuff, and I’m excited about that.

For GREAT information on transition initiatives, visit http://www.transitionus.org

Talking about a revolution…

This is my farewell blog. Earlier in the year, I talked about an elderly woman who lived behind me, who I had met because she saw me over in my yard planting plants. Well the other day I was outside getting something out of my car and she stopped me and said she had a paper of mine that had blown out of my yard and in to hers, she had seen my name on it and remembered me from the day we had spoken. We got to talking and soon enough I learned that she was taking care of her son who is going to die any day of pancreatic cancer. I told her if she needed anything to let me know and we parted ways. I’ve had a lot of people who have been close to me die from cancer, including my Grandma Jeanie, who I was unbelievably close to. I know the helpless feeling and to watch your son go has to be nearly unbearable. I got home and decided to cook some dinner for her and her son. My father had been doing this since I was a child, if someone had a problem he always brought them his famous rigatonis.

So I looked through my cabinets and decided to make some potatoes, give her a vegetable tray my Grandma had given me that was left over from Easter, a loaf of fresh bread, and some bow tie pasta with homeade red sauce. I cooked everything and carried it across the alley over to her yard. Needless to say, it was an emotional visit to her house. As an elderly woman on the college side of town, she doesn’t get a lot of respect from the people around her. She just kept thanking me and we ended the visit with a hug.

This is a prime example of why I love gardening and farming. I would have never met our neighbor if I would have been inside all day watching TV. Instead I got a chance to not only meet her but help her, this is something that a numeric value can never be placed upon. My plants might be dead (with the exception of the tomatoes) but I think that I’ve learned some really great lessons from this project regardless. Simple things are the most valuable. Watching the food that you eat grow from a seed, putting time and effort in to your basic needs, and a simple supper for a neighbor in need are all things that NEED to make their way back in to societal norms. Maybe that is why I am partial to communal living as an alternative living style. The thought of people working to help each other survive in a simple form is, for lack of a better word, absolutely beautiful.

How many cans can a co-ed crush, if a co-ed could crush cans?

Anyone can create a found object art sculpture. “Found object” = something you found, simple. Well I didn’t find the items that I’m using, I would love to create more works from found objects in the future, but for the time being we’ll stick to waste. Waste in this instance is coming from my household. I live with two other girls and one guy. So far, I have collected two bags of aluminum cans alone, they were sorted out the last two times that I made recycling runs. The last time I made a stop at Howie’s was over a week ago, and for some reason our recycling bins are not full yet. WHAT?!?! This is new, we usually fill up those suckers in five days flat. I hold the weekends accountable for our surplus of waste. We live in a spacious pad and folks like to come kick it, so we oblige. With them, they bring their beer cans and beer bottles, soda bottles, pizza boxes, wrappers of all sorts and once even a mannequin head was found in the fireplace. We kept it, named it Marge and she resides on the mantle (or occasionally in the cupboard as a nice surprise to those of us intending on getting a dinner plate).

Anyways, this project is deeply tied into a personal and spiritual stance I have towards the footprints we leave on Mother Earth. I would prefer my footprints to be decorative and vibrant, like a drag queen, only minimal and calculated. In my personal opinion, reusing waste can work to to renew experiences and perspectives. If art is a reflection of ourselves, meaning we project ourselves onto the artwork of someone else, then our interpretation of the art is based off our own lived experiences and perspectives. By creating art, you are participating in the transfer of visions, ideas, and a legacy of potential new stories to be told and shared with future generations. Through this creation, I have become closer to the objects I use.

This project has been a labor of love, it has been meditative and conducive to relaxation techniques. I have also forced more accountability onto myself when it comes to my waste habits in particular. It has helped me to rethink consumption and adjust my lifestyle with personal changes. The time and dedication that this project is taking, makes it more than a chore, it has evolved into a new way of life. Consider this: no new clothing (GASP!), reducing purchasing in general (YIKES!), reusing more, creating a budget, planning for future expenditures (WTF?!), limiting/managing impulsive buys (I can be an impulsive shopper), et cetera….

Taking these things into consideration has led to a more creative approach to how I address waste and other things that seem to have lost their value;  through this new outlook or lens per se, new worth can be created for these items. Its personally revolutionary when your previous way of life is strictly cradle to the grave, it brings new meaning to “value” and getting your money’s worth.

Below are some EXTREMELY cool links that demonstrate how others around the world are reusing waste, creating art (quite officially) and taking part in a more renewable and titillating array of options when it comes to waste/recyclables. Take a peak through the ones that interest you The description of the site is below the link.

*If you can’t automatically click on the link, hit Ctrl and then click it.

• Waste-Free Lunches: Recycled Art Projects (for kids primarily)

Recycled Art Projects

Involving students in art is a great way to instill an awareness of how discarded items can be used again and again for many different purposes. It’s also a great way to help students realize that “new” is not necessarily “better.” We can bring beauty into our lives through art and musical instruments created from salvaged materials. It helps kids (and adults!) understand how much we throw away in the course of a day, a week, a month, and a year.

• http://scrapreusedandrecycledartprojects.blogspot.com/

Blog: ~ S.C.R.A.P. ~ Scraps Creatively Reused and Recycled Art Projects. Scrounge art projects that reuse and recycle items into Art.

• http://current.com/items/89013248_indian-art-movement-lets-things-get-reused.htm

Indian art movement ‘lets’ things get reused

‘lets’ is an Indian collective art movement that seeks to reuse things that were thrown out.
It’s a physical manifestation of the adage ‘one man’s trash…’
There are some cool refurbishments.

• http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7

Running the Numbers
An American Self-Portrait

Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month.

This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the roles and responsibilities we each play as individuals in a collective that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

~chris jordan, Seattle, 2008

• http://www.takepart.com/news/2009/12/24/from-art-to-refuse-just-say-no-to-plastic

From Waste to Art: Using and Refusing Plastic

For artist Dianna Cohen, a leftover plastic bag is a piece of her art. And now, it’s not only her canvas but her vehicle to alert the public about the dangers of the ubiquitous material in our lives–synthetic organic amporphos solids–better known as plastic.

• http://littleecofootprints.typepad.com/little_eco_footprints/2009/07/waste-as-art.html

Blog: an urban family trying to have… little eco footprints

I’m Tricia. I live on a small urban block in Newcastle (Australia). I once dreamed of living closer to nature; having space to grow food; having a teeny little ecological footprint; and being part of a community. I thought that meant leaving the city, but now I know I can try to live that dream right here. We don’t have Little eco footprints yet – but we’re having fun trying.

• http://www.hweg.com.au/

Hunter Waste Education Group (HWEG)

The Hunter Waste Education Group (HWEG) consists of local and state government educators from within the Hunter Region, NSW. These educators work in the environmental field, specifically in waste and sustainability education.

HWEG members work together to identify, develop and foster regional partnership project opportunities for member organisations. HWEG members also share information and resources. In this way HWEG can offer better-resourced and more regionally consistent education projects to members of the Hunter community.

• http://www.netwaste.org.au/projects/wasteToArt.htm

A NetWaste initiative and proudly sponsored by SIMS Metal, WASTE 2 ART is a community exhibition and competition that shows creative works made from reused and recycled waste materials. The purpose of the project is to encourage the concept of REDUCE REUSE and RECYCLE whilst changing attitudes about ‘rubbish’ and what waste we all create on a daily basis.

Upcoming post will include PICTURES and more information on the progress of my project. Till then,

Peace.

eat rice have faith in women

eat rice have faith in women
what i don’t know now
i can still learn
if i am alone now
i will be with them later
if i am weak now
i can become strong
slowly slowly
if i learn i can teach others
if others learn first
i must believe
they will come back and teach me
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
slowly we being
giving back what was taken away
our right to the control of our bodies
knowledge of how to fight and built
food that nourishes
medicine that heals
. . . . . . . . . . .
eat rice have faith in women
what i don’t know now
i can still learn.

-fran winart

And now its time to Say Goodbye!

Im actually quite sad to be finishing with this project, I have really enjoyed learning a lot and sharing it with all of you. It has been really nice to ready comments and get another perspective on my research. Thank you everyone who took time to read every blog and especially to you who made comments.

Sooo after these last couple months I have learned a LOT. When I first started this project I had most of the same stereotypes in my head about Wicca as the average person. This research has been the most refreshing research I have done in a long time!

At the beginning of the project I had talked about exploring this religion to see if I feel a true connections. Now that I have learned so much I feel that I have most definatly found a closer connection to the Earth. Many of the Wiccan beliefs are things that I have been passionate about my entire life. Things that seem almost everyday to me. I think this may be one reason why my project seemed to be so easy and natual for me. I felt as if everything I read was already in my head. Alll of this has almost made this all seem unreal though. I have tried to make a significant change in my life so I would feel more Wiccan, but like I said it just felt to natural. I am not trying to make this all seem bad, because it is absolutly good. I have been able to open my mind to new ideas and it has not been chalenging to accept many beliefs, such I feel is often the case in other religions. So after all of this I would have to say that I most defenatly have Wiccan beliefs. I think this is for me and people like myself.

So from here….I fell that the next step for me to take is to do some signficant research on witchcraft. At the current time I am in no way, shape, or ablity ready to attempt magic. Magic is not to be taken lightly, there can be some very bad things happen very rapidly. I am not so much wanting to learn magic, but am for sure interested in it and the beliefs that surround it. I feel that especially in my young Wiccan life I do not even deserve to make such attempts. I have a few books that I plan to read over the summer, and a lot of topics to specifcally check out. And any suggestions PLEASE recommend any text you feel is realivent! Thanks!!!

I hope everyone learned at least one thing new, after all my post, or at least realized Wicca is not at all bad. Its been great guys. HAVE A WONDERFUL SUMMER!

Witches and Witchcraft

Another common misconception people have about Wiccan is that they are all witches. Reality is that not all are witches, the ones who practice witchcraft are of course witches (if they care to so call themselves) and the ones who do not practice witchcraft are not witches, but still Wiccan. To explain a little about witches in the Wiccan religion, with a strong moral code witches are offered a peaceful universe that allows followers the ability to tap into a supernatural force of power and use it to benefit mankind. Being a nature based religion, these witches believe they can tap into this energy source that is naturally occurring in the world around us, merely they want to channel it in the correct direction.

This peaceful magic they are performing is believe to be White Magic. White Magic is Good Magic—opposed to Black magic which is very negative and can be harmful. Black magic is against every moral of the wiccan religion. Witches have to be very careful when casting spells or tapping into this natural energy, often they become oblivious to the possibility for harmful and negative energies, ones which have the possibility of being very violent and dangerous. Simple protection spells can be placed to ward off harmful or “bad energy”.

Witches are very careful to plan all witchcraft according to the phases of the moon. Is is an important source of natural enerdy that is essential in magic, if performing spells in the correct lunar phase. Casting a spell during the wrong moon phase can produce no result or something much of the wrong or unexpected outcome. This is a very possible way to interact with negative energies. Above is a picture of the different moon phases that occur.

The most commonly followed calendar of the lunar phases it the Old Farmer’s Almanac.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac has a great sight on the internet that I found that is very informative about the exact lunar phase. It is free to access at http://www.almanac.com/astronomy/moon/calendar/index.php.

I also wanted to talk a little about an experience that I had this past weekend, I attended a festival called “the gatherin’” This is a Celtic festival that is celebrated every year at Cedar Bluff State Lake, near my hometown. It is similar to a Renaissance Festival, but on a much smaller scale. This is an event that I have attended for a few years now, but only this year felt as if I actually belonged there. I was able to meet up and talk with a large group of Wiccans. It was so meat to be able to talk to all of them and not only explain to them what I was doing for this project and why, but also how it has changed my outlook on the world I live in. They gave me a lot of advice and a couple thought it was really cool that I was attempting such a public journey through this experience. I was able to observe and participate with them in some rituals. It was also kind of cool to see my boyfriend (who I made come with me to check it out, and just give it a chance) who was somewhat freaked out at first, but slowly opened up to what was going on. He didn’t get involved at all but he did observe everything that was going on.

Sources:

http://www.almanac.com/astronomy/moon/calendar/index.php

http://www.wiccawitchcraft.net/

http://startswithabang.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/moon_phases.jpg

Easter…

Happy Easter to all!  Today I wanted to take a little bit to talk about
the origin of Easter!  Now this is not Wiccan Holiday, but its origins
are Pagan.  I talked about Pagan religions just a little in a blog
introducing the connection with Wicca. So I wanted to shed a littlelight on this pagan holiday, which by many is assumed to be a Christian
Holiday.  The Christian Belief of this holiday is that Easter marks theday that Jesus Christ was resurrected after spending three days dead in
his tomb.  Looking back Pagan is a much older religion and Eastercelebrations were held hundreds of years before the Christian Christ
was born.  This festival was of spring honoring Eostre, the greatmother goddess of Saxon belief, in combination with honoring Ostara
(the Norse equivalent) whose symbols were the hare and the egg.  Asmany have probably already put together, from this we come up with the traditional Easter bunny and Easter egg.  I

would also like to share a couple of other Christian Easter Traditions that are derived from Pagan traditions.  The Sunrise Service is derived from the ancient Pagan practice of welcoming the sun on the morning of the Spring Equinox,thus marking the beginning of Spring Season.  Many also believe Paganreligions in the Mediterranean area had a major seasonal day of religious celebration on the Spring Equinox.  The Phrygian fertility goddess, Cybele, had a fictional consort who was believed to have been born from a Virgin.  He was known as Attis, who was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the Easter festival.  Attis was a god of ever-reviving vegetation, signaling the start of spring. 

Spring is the time for regrowth or sprouting of new crop, and the balance of day and night time.  SO my thoughts on this all were how perfect is the weather, this rainy weather is  perfect.  We have seen
one of the most important factors to the success in crops, come in thelast few days much more than we have lastly, as we experience this
drought.  Another thing there is unmistakable similarities between this
information and what little I know about Christian Traditions and
beliefs.
So here I am reading all of the previous comments, I’m thinking to myself why are Wicca and other Pagan religions in the minority and looked at to be lesser?  I perceive this to be like a double standard that the religions in the majority use.  In the eyes of a Christian it’s not “okay” to practice these rituals of pagan, but it seems alright they are able to base some of the most significant events that formed the Christian religion on these such events and beliefs.  Also I
type my blogs in word before posting them online and one thing that is
really starting to tic me off is Word keeps correcting me if I spell
christian as such it wants to capitalize my C; although went I type
wiccan or pagan in lowercase it doesn’t even prompt me to make a
correction.  Are things such as this contributing to the oppression of
these minority religions?

where is my mind??

My final outdoor meditation session was at Rocky Ford Rock Quarry. I have to say that this was my absolute fave place to meditate. The rock quarry is located off of Barnes Road in between Manhattan and Tuttle Creek Lake. When you drive up, there is a place to park your car and you must then walk to where the water is located (I’m not a geologist by any means, so my description of the area will lack any sort of “proper” terminology). The area is a wide creek (or small river) with rock bars (as opposed to sand bars). The rock bars are large enough that you can walk out a considerable ways and you can also sit or whatever. There are alot of fisher-people that come out here as well to go fishing.

When I got there, I walked around a bit. All my life, I have always liked “nature adventures” and anytime I am presented with the opportunity to explore in nature, I take it. So after checking out the scene, I decided on a spot that would suit me and began my meditating. Now, there is alot of noise in the rock quarry–there is running water. It is precisely this reason that this was my favorite place to meditate. The sound of the running water made it a whole lot easier to focus for me. Instead of battling with the silence and the constant infiltration of thoughts into my psyche, the sound of the water running and crashing over the rocks flooded all this out. I really felt like this made my meditation effortless. It did not take long for me to get into my groove, and the most remarkable thing was the length of time that I was there. It did not seem as though I was there very long at all. I figured that my “nature adventure” and finding a spot to meditate lasted about 20 minutes, altogether. When I went back to my car, I realized that I had been out there for a little over an hour and a half! According to my calculations, that means that I was out there meditating for at least an hour. I had to double check my times and phone records to make sure that I had actually started at the time that I thought, and after double-checking, I realized that my times were right.

It was this “meditation time warp” that made me think of how privileged I am to have the ability to lose track of time this way–that my schedule is flexible enough to allow me to absorb this with little to no repercussion. I am sure that if I had to work at a typical, 9-to-5 job in order to support myself and my son, my schedule would be a lot more restricting. I also felt privileged to be able to access area with its running water. There were no fences for me to jump, no rules or laws that I had to break–the area was there for my enjoyment and use. This made me think of people that live along the coastal areas in South America who rely on the ocean for their livelihood. There have been businesses who have into these coastal regions, bought up the coast from local peoples using trickery and deceit, and will not let the local people access the coastal waters anymore. In most areas, they have put up fencing to keep locals out of the areas.

Just as chanting helps me to stay focused while meditating, the sound of the running water acted as a sort of “chanting” (nature’s chanting) to help me keep thoughts from entering into my mind and taking over. The sound also had an amazingly calm effect on me. I left the quarry feeling really fresh and renewed–kinda how you feel when you have just taken a shower after a few days of not being able to (I’m thinking of the times that I have gone camping). I am sure that I will return here to hang-out and meditate again.