ecological fitness-fusing forms

The three forms which merge into ecological fitness:
European/Asian/NY City living
Country living (global)
Fitness (drawn largely from crossfit methodologies)

Brief outline of each:

European/Asian city Living
Travel
The foot as a primary means of daily travel
The bicycle as the secondary means
the train as the third
Gathering/food
the neighborhood as marketplace within range of primary,secondary
Food can come from outlying growing regions to farmers markets
Work/school
Within tertiary range
Social
Public space accepted as extension of personal (sidewalk,park, river, library,museum, pub/bar)
Fitness
Walking, cycling, personal sports (dance, gymnastics etc)

Country Living
Travel
The foot as a primary means of daily travel
The bicycle as the secondary means
the van/truck as the third
Gathering/food
the regional marketplace within range of secondary (with effort) or tertiary
Food can come from outlying growing regions to farmers markets and be at least supplemented by personal gardens and livestock
Work/school
Within primary (uphill ten miles in snow both ways) secondary or tertiary range
Social
Public space accepted mostly as the privet home and idea of guests, farmers market, PO, feedstore,Bar
Fitness
Building/Farming

Fitness
Achieved by using more energy than is needed for the tasks at hand

Problem
How to incorporate fitness into the two lifestyles

some proposed projects for self

Wear 1
suit
trousers
button shirt
tee shirt
underwear
socks
pair shoes
sweater

Put everything else away for the month and see what it's like living at home just as I would on a trip.
Might this help me cull the crap?

ecological fitness

My brother in law (Andrew) and I had a nice time carrying beams up to the house and thinking about fitness, especially as it applies to this type of activity. Five kids under five were running around on the deck and playing, swinging on the apple tree and generally having a five under five type of time. So we are having our heady conversation when two short people poke their heads around the corner and ask what we are doing. "Staking these beams" I tell them" At that moment I realized an opportunity in line with the type of fitness I'm trying to describe. As expected they asked to help. My first thought was, this is going to slow me down, my second was how funny I am. I said sure, you can help, nodding to Andrew, both of us thinking how enlightened we were becoming. Letting go of ideas like mass and time and integrating community, teaching and quality into the concept of fitness. I told them the two to follow me and we could move a long 2x8 tongue and groove fir floor board. They followed, down the slope and over the hand dug stairs. I picked up on end of the board, "you two get this end" I looked up. I saw two backs and a cowlick disappearing back around the stack of lumber. "we don't want to actually" There is another type of flexibility, one that promotes an interest, that emphasizes what is important, but that at the same time recognizes the constructed meaning in all of our actions. I didn't need them to help, and perhaps they new this.
A half an hour latter one of them was back, this time with another friend, a girl and my cousins daughter. They too asked what we were doing and again, we told them we were heading down to the bridge to get more lumber. Would you like to come and help I asked. They nodded and began the trek down the trail. We walked more slowly, Andrew and I slightly quieter, a bit less pontificating. At the bottom I picked out two nice pieces of firewood for them to carry. " Bring this to Adeline's grandma's house OK" They made off, really quit proud of helping. I'll show you were to go I heard the girl tell the little boy as they passed above us on the trail.

ecological fitness

is as new as farming, gathering, hunting- Not new at all. Lift a little more, carry it a little further, feel colder in the morning, and get the warmth your movement created. It has been called everything from life, to country livin or mountain living, back to the land. I think there is a twist. The twist for today is that I'm speaking to those of us whose lives are not ecologically integrated. I can't imagine that is not each of us. Even some solar powered chamie shined anarchist living on bed bugs drove to the "land" they bought with a bond extricated at the top of time. Forget shame but dont sham we are historically situated (I've been told this is so). We have so much delivered to us by near slave labor.
Ecological fitness begins where we are. It doesn't require leaving, and understands we are "in the country" right now, always. So, as much as being a fitness program, this is an attempt at re conceptualizing our articulation with and of the environment. How do we move in our environment? What is both the internal and external milieu, How is it supporting us and we it. Are we it distinctions useful?
What might some basic tenants of Ecological Fitness look like? If you have a wood stove, your workout is getting firewood. If you can carry one piece, that's your workout. If that keeps you warm, an integration has happened. If your still cold, you might continue to collect more firewood, developing fitness in the domain of staying warm. Perhaps you need help getting firewood. Your neighbor might help you. That neighbor has now integrated fitness again, now bringing community and perhaps even caring into the equation. She is now stronger, both of body and whatever name we apply to those other domains. Simply Country living? Perhaps you are hungry in the city. You walk to the corner store rather than drive. Now, instead of conceptualizing this simply as a fitness regime, it is extended. You see your neighbors, they see you. A child sees you talking to his mother and his world is changed. Perhaps on the way you notice some litter. Tomorrow you carry a small bag and pick up a piece of recycling. An integration has occurred. Neighbor(hood)s are connected, body is strengthened, and those other domains, the ones with names like mind and spirit are altered. Ecological fitness is a recognition that the world and ourselves are always already in a natural state. The idea that city and country are somehow qualitatively discreet is dismantled or ignored. The belief that we and our world are either natural or industrial is recognized as the convenient construct that it is.
Might ecological fitness be a movement? Sure. We can create workouts. An example goes something like this. I imagine you can be far more creative. Carry your neighbors groceries home two blocks, or, if you need it, let your neighbor help you. Perhaps talk with one and other en route. Advanced workouts? Boot camp becomes a month long volunteer project in your neighborhood. Do the labor. Feel the labor. Rather than simply trying to get the work done, re conceptualize it. It is making you stronger, it is integrating you ecologically.
Clearly many are and have always done the workouts. As I said up front, this has gone by many names. Most of all I'm trying to create a new conceptual framework around fitness. This new model will include variable long valued and promoted. The only novel idea is that fitness is not only about the the movement of mass over time. It begins to employ or be made up of a more complex set of variables.
You might argue that there is no need for this. It is fine to continue to define each concept in narrow terms. Fine to let fitness be about mass over time, and leave the other stuff to concepts of community, faith, love etc. One argument in favor of integration relates to time. If there is value deemed in community and love and faith, why spend not integrating those concept into our life. Why not integrate?

the end of the great pretend?

what will go by the wayside when the end of the great pretend presents itself with hunger
what will become of trucker caps-key chains-tight jeans-soft hands-rough hair-acres of keds-fix bikes-what will become of art school?
What will become of-bumper sticker toting volvos-navel gazing whole foodies with an egg shell satisfaction of farmers market austerity and sanctimonious would have done it different had I not been finishing that remodel-
What will become of south east Asia- More importantly, how will the kids "really see the world" without it?
What will become of all that volunteer work when it no longer gets you to the front of the professional school line
What will become of professional schools when brain drain starts here and there is one doctor per gazillion.
Who will we be at the end of the great pretend?
I know I know I know a new theater will open, one always does. Some sort of earnest humorlessness probably.
Something must lie between pith helmets and unspeakable worse.

Embracing Cold Hunger and Dirt

The blogcrastinator is back.
So, early in the fall I decided I need to think about and engage in activities and choices that will bring me closer to the title. Well, I live in Canyon and it's November now. My Polarguard 3D red suit is in full use (you either know or you don't). Wait, wearing a warm suit to embrace cold? Right, and I burn madrone too. But cold mornings are. Dirt: Ever been to my house, or walked up the trail through the mud? No hot water heater for the past month. Did I embrace this or did it embrace me? Not sure but I'm lucky th ehouse didn't burn down. I know going to grandma's for a bath is much easier than when I was a kid. And, it is not once a week. My daughter likes bathing there, and she likes the sponge baths I give her. Here is how it works...stand in the bath tub, towel is heating in the oven, and wrap child in a cotton towel that has been soaked in very warm water. Scrub scrub. As it begins to cool, about a minute, get the warmed towel and replace the wet one. Dry dry. Uses about a quart of water, is a bit cozy, keeps the kid clean. That said CPS, she does get her baths, and the towel in the oven thing...just kidding, it's on the stove. My attitude about this follows: We do have hot water, we can heat it in several ways, so what is the big deal about not having a big hot water heater?
Hunger: From 167 to 147? My wife has said "enough, don't loose any more weight", I'm not the man I used to be I guess. I'm at fighting weight I say. I have a one pack if I kind of twist to my left and suck in and down at the same time. A one pack!! really, losing almost 20 pounds when I was not big in the first place is interesting, but what is much better has been my turn to eating real food. It took several months to go from pint of B&J's to horrible fat free sugar free pudding, to a piece of fruit for desert (fuya persimmon). The change has been organic and while I make errors and get super hungry, it happens very rarely. Mostly I ( who love fast food, cookies, ice cream) eat real healthy food. I embraced huger and now I'm not.

In the future things I will think about: Building with local materials. I live in a bay forest and have found that there isa way to build with cordwood that does not require straitght non twisting wood. I plan to build a sauna first to see how this goes, before I make MY castle of trees.

What is the interface between science and art? I am not trying to get at the aesthetisization of science, but an epistomology that utilizes and recognizes art. Not just the aesthtic, the conceptual. Is there a relationship between praxis of caring, epistomology and art?

Canyon

For those of you out there, my many readers who have the book Canyon:last rural community in metropolitan America (notice the acedemic colon), I recommend a few sections. There is an amazing paragraph under Canyon Cinema where it's founder Bill Baillie describes the house we grew up in. He's a good writer adn it's a bit spooky is feelng about the place. But, of relevence to this blog is what another neighbor is quoated as saying in the book. I guess there were some thieving issues in Canyon back then (1960's) and his respose at a community meeting was "don't have anything worth ripping off". Sometimes I wonder if the hippy dream doessn't live just a wee bit in us. As silly as they were, they were not silly at all those parents of ours.
One of my readership pointed out too, that houses are not fortesses anyway. I agree. On a much less idealistic note, or at least a practical one, isn't this what Safes were designed for anyway. So your valuables go into a safe. You can afford it with a canvas house. Being out here in Canyon, my biggest issues are simply put, insulation. Anway, I'm leaning toward Polarguard Delta! These are basic issues that Yurt livers have already been dealing with. Maybe I can get some input from Yurt/Tipi pros?

Next post... School Buses for living...

Just kidding.