Yes, I did it.

It is the new year and I have given in to peer pressure and made my first solo blog. I am a writer for A Voice of One's Own But I figured the raw, cranky, and lazy Three Feathers could live here, post my stories, plays, ideas, and vomit political ideology.


So, It is the new year! Happy 2011 folks. It is January and the ground is not covered in pretty snow... I miss The north and I miss snow.

Last year at this time I was living in Vail, Colorado surrounded by piles and piles of lovely fluffy precipitation. I didn't snowboard at all this year and probably won't. But, Baltimore ain't that bad, granted it is a city and I would prefer to be in norther New England where the air is crisp... and breathable. But here I can finish trade school and my bachelors as well. So, hopefully I will be finished with this city once and for all in about 3-4 years... but perhaps sooner if I find the means to complete my undergrad up north.

What Three Feathers? You're 23 and you still haven't finished your undergrad?!?!?

Yes, well, bit of a story there. I went to collage when I graduated high school like most folks but two years in still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and (aside from my three roommates) very much disliked the place I was. So of the four roommates, two of us dropped out and one graduated that year. So after messing around doing nothing, I started working on a farm on a whim and The rest of the story I can quote directly to you from my first entry in A Voice of One's Own:

"... [from then on] I want[ed] to be a farmer. I love digging my hands into rich, healthy soil. This is something I would never have thought remotely desirable shortly before I found myself doing it. After I left school I had no idea what I was going to do with my life or more importantly what I wanted to do with it. I was offered a position on a farm and I took it thinking it was a good in-between job because I had landscaped for years and worked briefly on a farm during high school; so I figured it was something I could deal with while I sorted things out. It was here I fell in love with the earth in the most amazing way. I always considered myself an environmentalist but it wasn’t until this time I felt the closest to the classical understanding of Gaia, the ancient Greek word and divine being of earth. I hadn’t realized what beauty there was in the cycle of plants and animals. I guess I always knew it intellectually but I hadn’t actually felt it until then. My boss and mentor’s philosophy was that we were stewards of the land. He showed me the patterns and the natural cycles taking place and when we let them take place we would benefit most. This meant considering and taking care of everything; including the soil and surrounding forest, as well as our plants and animals.
I’m afraid I might have lost you, so I’ll paraphrase Michael Pollan, from his book The Botany of Desire, in which he talks about how one spring he was in his garden planting potatoes, watching the bees take advantage of the blossoming apple trees. It was then he realizes that he is just like those bees. The bees don’t know or care that they are pollinating the trees and flowers, they assume they are getting the best deal; after all they are in it for the nectar. Just as the bees are in this larger system so are we. It is naive for us to assume we are ever in control of the earth, we are merely contributors to this larger system we may never fully see or understand. When we grow food for ourselves in the most beneficial way, we are promoting the rest of this system. So, It is in our own interest to be stewards, we need to stop removing ourselves from our picture of earth and realize we are children of Gaia.
One July night a few other farm hands and I returned from a bonfire party and decided to spend the rest of the night in one of our fields. Staring at the sky, being held up by the ground I had a major encounter with the infinite. The only way I can describe it is as a “holy shit” moment. When you are so overcome you can only put forth those very limited and unflattering words, even in your head. Laying on the ground with fellow “land stewards”, surrounded by living things we helped raise, it was hard not to feel the miracle we were participating in. I had found my bliss."

So Thats it, I still want to finish my undergrad for myself but I discovered what I want to do with my life, and it took dropping out of college to do it. I'm not encouraging everyone to drop out of school all I am saying is that in my personal case I felt I needed to do so in order for these events to transpire the way they did.

Well I'll leave you with that. Peace, Love, and Hope.
-Three Feathers