Loose Leaf Notes

1. Irie is Jamaican for Aloha.

2. My motto is that there are two ways to be rich. One is to have a lot of money and things. The other is to have few needs. We have jobs to make money so that we can buy what we need. Mostly what we need is food and shelter. I consider family gardening and chopping wood for heat as ways to provide for some of our needs directly, which is why I love living in the country.

3. Gardening for food, keeping chickens, having a hand pump for easy well water access and living with a partner who keeps a shed filled with firewood and a freezer stocked with venison is my idea of being rich.

4. I think of my favorite belongings (items of clothing, furnishings etc.) as an extension of myself, and so I would mourn the loss of things I feel are part of me, things that bring comfort and express who I am. I feel you can take that way of thinking as far out as you like. Nature on this planet and the universe are a further extension of me, or belongings, but the personal belongings are more close in and maybe show what belongings can feel like.

5. I’ve started a folder of my most favorite life-changing poems written by other poets. When it comes to poetry, I’m not so easily pleased. I currently only have only about four in the collection. This week I found one by David Whyte that knocked me out, called The Shell, excerpt below.

6. “…to feel the hand of the wind / laid on our shoulder / reminding us / how death grants / a fierce and fallen freedom / away from the prison / of a constant / and continued presence, / how in the end / those who have left us / might no longer need us / with all our tears / and our much needed / measures of loss / and that their own death / is as personal / and private / as that life of theirs / which you never really knew… David Whyte

7. It’s a curious thread / with a dead end / like a loved one lost / living fine without me / like a morning hangover / with a black-out message / I wrote to myself / but can’t read. Read This Dream in its entirety HERE. 

8. “Being Visible – Please consider becoming more visible as you age. Find your voice as an aging person and give that voice to the world. Become a game changer in your home, neighborhood, community and culture. Become visible about your age. Go inward when you must, and return outward with art and life that others can see and learn from. The world needs you as a person over 50 to guide and shape it.”  – The Wonder of Aging

9. It was billed as Sky High Reggae in the Park, an extension of our Small Town Summer events, but the temperatures outside dropped and the live music and dancing moved inside Dogtown Roadhouse. That’s where things heated up… It was a community event of positive vibes and love. Five hours of live music, the Sky High Reggae event page read, but we only made it for 4 because we danced non-stop.  More HERE.

10. One of Saturday night’s reggae bands, Mighty Mystic, was from Boston, my home stomping ground.  The lead singer was from Jamaica, and we learned from the woman working the bands merchandise table that his brother is the Prime Minister of Jamaica. I looked it up when we got home and sure enough, it’s true.

11. Posted on Floyd Group’s Facebook page on Indigenous People’s Day: “On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day give a thought to the people who lived in what is now Floyd County before European settlers. There have been people here for something over ten thousand years, but permanent, year-round villages were a relatively recent development, perhaps from 1600’s, with the cultivation of corn and beans. The people who lived in these villages called themselves the Yesan , a tribe of the great Siouan who today we call the Tutelo, probably the first to live year round in what is now Floyd County.”

12. Some states have chosen to mark the holiday Indigenous Peoples’ Day to recognize the mistreatment of Indigenous people and honor their history, but 16 states still exclusively call it Columbus Day, according to Pew Research. California and Delaware, for instance, have dispensed with the holiday entirely, while Maine, New Mexico, Vermont and the District of Columbia still view the day as an official holiday, but renamed it Indigenous Peoples’ Day.  It’s a federal holiday, government entities like the DMV, libraries and courts are closed. – CBS News

13. Winter is coming.

_______Thirteen Thursday