Shift Happens
The first thing I said to Joe when I woke up Sunday morning was ‘What would we do without water?’ He answered, “Shrivel up and die,” as I took a big gulp from the cup on the bedside table.
Later in the morning, while drinking my tea, a thought ran through my mind: would I give up this life as I know it, would I give up my computer and all of my plugged-in conveniences if I could be assured that no deadly uranium would be mined in Virginia, that no more nuclear power plants would be built, that no more water would be contaminated and no more mountain tops would be removed for coal?
It’s easy to answer a hypothetical question. I said ‘yes,’ of course.
I had been thinking about the expense of nuclear power, both in money, environmental degradation and lives, before the radiation leak at the power plant in Japan because of a story I wrote about a new push to mine uranium for profit in Virginia. Many years ago, I followed the work of Dr. Helen Caldicott, a medical doctor, acclaimed author and speaker who is anti-nuclear power and vocal about it. I heard her speak at VA Tech and was inspired. But that was long ago. Now, largely because of my local journalistic work and the events in Japan, nuclear power and the mounting surplus of its radioactive waste is weighing heavy on my mind once again.
The night before I spontaneously posed the question about water to Joe, I was listening to an interview I had recorded for a story with Jajadisha, a nada music yogi and teacher in Floyd. At the end of interview he said, “Everybody needs food, shelter, clothing, and camaraderie. That’s it. Needing to own things is an illusion. You can’t own the earth. What is real? What can we take with us? That’s what we need to find out.”
I’ve been steeped in the stories I have worked on. They have been aligning themselves in front of me. Stories on local food, sustainability, mindfulness, simple living, and the loss of honeybees have been causing me to question, ‘what does it all mean, all our flitting and fretting and continued collecting of stuff?
I remembered that I moved to Floyd with my first husband and young sons more than 2 decades ago, in part because of Edgar Cayce’s readings about Earth Changes (and not because of the fear of nuclear war, as was recently reported in the Floyd Magazine visitors guide). Cayce predicted that the earth would shift on its axis and that lands would sink and rise. It was the same prophecy that the Hopi and Mayans also made. Cayce claimed the mountains of Virginia would be safe. We were reading Mother Earth News at the time, wanting to be more self-sufficient and find a like-minded community of people. Back then, the prophecy date of 2012 seemed so far away.
Housing was hard to come when we first came to Floyd. One of the first places we lived was a large unfinished house that was being built as part of a community in Indian Valley. The owners had been following the work of Al Miner, a clairvoyant they believed to be of the caliber Cayce who also predicted the Earth Changes. But they ran out of money and that community never happened, although others in the county were more successful. We were young back-to-the landers interested in homesteading and ready for everything.
But I had forgotten all that, especially after storing food for the Y2K catastrophe that never happened. Life took over and as my idealism faded, denial and lethargy crept in. But never completely. Inner work, personal therapy and dreamwork have been shaking me up, simmering and deepening me all along.
Joe came home from a meeting about taxes Sunday afternoon and I said this to him: “Today my whole life changed.” I explained that I had watched THIS video sent to me by an old Floyd friend. I didn’t want to watch it but I did.
Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t, but the shift I felt inside myself was real. I called Fil from Green Power Company (who I also met via writing a story) and asked him to come give us an estimate for getting off the grid.
March 29th, 2011 8:40 am
I watched this too and it brought me similar thoughts. I’m not sure I need to get off the grid, though I’d like to but I am planting and canning as much food as possible these “last” two seasons. Living in the now.
March 29th, 2011 9:05 am
The reason we want to get off the grid is mainly so that we can access our well water, water being the most important commodity when it comes right down to it.
March 29th, 2011 9:11 am
I remember all this Coll. I have never forgot it.
I too, got caught up in life as we know it and I still am.
I think it will help to express and then go from there. I live one day at a time and not project…..if I did I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
March 29th, 2011 11:31 am
I have written a business plan to develop a wind farm in my hometown in WV. It would cost $10 million upfront to get 10 turbines up and running, and hooked into the grid. That is where my progress has stopped. I can’t find a way to get the funding.
If you go off the grid, please leave me an address so that I can mail you poetry once in a while!! 🙂
March 29th, 2011 11:35 am
I hope you do.
If I go off the grid my electricity will be from sun and wind so I will still be online. If the shift hits the fan and we all go off grid, I’ll be mailing you blog posts too!
March 29th, 2011 12:14 pm
Thanks Colleen. I’ve sent that video to a lot of my old friends as a potential idea they may not be aware of. I also sent info on how to get iodine to deal with radiation (which apparently is here already in small amounts from Japan). The attached link has good info on short term antidotes to helping our bodies get through ionizing radiation. Most of these items take some forethought, they are not readily available at the convenience store.
March 29th, 2011 12:15 pm
whoops .. the link:
http://doctorapsley.com/RadiationTherapy.aspx
March 29th, 2011 1:23 pm
Everything you say is laudable and I wish we could go back to the simple life.
The fact is, we can’t.
What mankind needs to do is find a way of supporting the lifestyle we have now without killing the earth in the process.
Having said that, there are ways we can all reduce our carbon footprint. Start at home and go on from there.
March 29th, 2011 10:39 pm
I’m off to watch that video.
March 30th, 2011 7:56 am
I think we’re all re-evaluating and re-thinking. Getting off that grid seems to be one option..for sure.
March 30th, 2011 12:01 pm
I started watching the video last evening and then got called away but I’m going to go back and finish it. I’m wondering why you need to be off the grid in order to access your well water? can you not access it w/o electricity now? the Amish merely use those old hand-pumps. I joined the Preparedness Society a year ago and it’s quite the group of people. sometimes I think that I want to be prepared in the event of “the end of life as we currently know it”, and then other times I think not. I think I wouldn’t really be all that interested in sticking around. that’s pretty dismal thinking, huh? I recently watched The Road, and if it would be anything like that, well…..I don’t want to survive! I couldn’t live w/o sunlight or growing something. you’ve given me a whole lot of food for thought here. have a glorious day Colleen.
March 30th, 2011 3:25 pm
Out in the country we have wells and it takes electricity to bring the water up. I wish I had a hand pump but don’t and I’m told they are not something you can add easily to an existing well. Many properties have springs on them but ours doesn’t.
I started reading The Road a while back but it was just too heavy for me and I put it down. My reference is the made for TV movie on nuclear meltdown that was made years ago (can’t remember the name but it still haunts me). I agree that the scenerio might be so bad we would not want to be here but what if we are. I don’t let the thought of it run my life, believing for the most part that what will be will be. It could just as easily not happen in our lifetime, or it could.
The second video is the one that get into it more.