I've officially landed in nonworld. I've yet to be able to escape. The questions is... is that a good thing or a horrible thing? Who knows. Either way, its a whole different planet than what most people live on and I'm excited to find the rocket that takes me back to planet earth. I assume it'll appear right after the March on Blair Mountain?
Anyway... the past month... in photos!
Mo and Ivan helping me learn the poster better by marking all the plants in the poster! So cool!
EKs folks came by for a weekend- and helped celebrate Nicks birthday. Yay parents!
Our doughnut man came to visit again. But the visit was short, and we were disgruntled. So, naturally we hid his suitcase in an attempt to prevent him from leaving. EK hid it outside on the back porch (it actually took the doughnut man a while to find it). Here- he spots the suitcase!
Attempting to get the suitcase- without getting locked out on the porch.
A failed attempt to block the door open...
In a last ditch effort he ran out the door grabbed the suitcase... and as you can see... had the door slammed in his face and locked. Did he end up being able to leave? Well--- yes. He climbed down the balcony and scurried to his car. Trickster.
Fern took Becks and I for a hike- and pointed out some wild edibles on the mountainside. Like... greenbrier shoots.
sassy pants.
During a Blair Crisis- we did the responsible thing and took the day off! We went to the New River Gorge for a hike, and tried to go to a coffee shop (tho- it was closed). On the way home, Katey and Rhodi snuggled in napland on the way home. Cutie Pies.
Fern took on an archnemesis. Why? I have no idea. But she likes it. One day, we woke up to this sign on our porch- "Dear Fern, Go Suck An Egg. Yr Wrst Enemy" Yup. its strange....
no words.And then... I left my home on the mountainside to jet into columbus and do a beehive presentation at the Columbus Christian Academy HS, see my family, see some friends, see mattie... all of it was great, none of it was long enough. same old story. Then! I jumped into an airplane and headed to ME for a week and a half of meeting prep ad]nd Beehive meetings.
Arriving in Maine- it was still early spring there. Things were just thinking of turning green (vs WV which was so full of life it looked like mother earth was puking flowers everywhere). I had the great chance to have a bus ride from Portland, ME to Bangor with Agent M- then got to add Matt to the mix for the ride from Bangor to Machias. It was so nice to come back to one of my homes and see so many great people! Unfortunately, my head was left about a week behind and was still in WV doing work for the march- but I got to catch up with some folks a little bit.
Kyle put on his sassy apron and kept us well feed all week! It was so great, and so helpful!
One night at dinner, we did a show and tell about our springs. Lots of cool things and small stories were shared- giving some pretty lovely insight into highlights of our springs :)
Tyler brought us all little zapatista dolls home- a gift from the midwest- which now sit on our mantel. Sometimes, the irony of our mansion house is just... nonworld?
For 'reportbacks' we decided to get creative and practice our roles as story tellers- by doing sharebacks on our spring! Erin decided to do a skit--- including using masks of all the main characters from the Gulf Coast tour. If you know Erin, you know this was super hilarious! She played all of these people- plus herself- and narrated! Whhhaaatt??
Midwest team... took our 'no charts, graphs, or official-ness' norm and threw it in the trash. Charts you see here? A line graph about fun levels, a Pie chart on types of food eaten (i think burritos were the most common thing eaten), and a totally make believe chart of intoxication (oh tyler, so wasted all the time...). Also notice the confetti and cans of food representing oil rigs left over from Erins shareback.
Agent drew up a really amazing and shocking natural resource map of the west (her re-found homeplace). The struggles the west are currently in and the struggles to come... are... shocking. Heartbreaking. Coal, Uranium, Natural Gas, Oil, Water... you name it... they have it being privatized, extracted, and abused. Uh.
A mid meeting break- jumping on the trampoline! First step: sweep off the slugs. GROSS!
Erins Bus- all set up for making art work! Yeah yeah! Looking good. Plus, she made an etsy account with all sortsa cool handmade things- so check it!
Erin Loves Molly! Molly Loves Erin!
This wagon holds like 7 people! Including these funny two backwards seats.
During meetings, we decided to do some minitraveling and change up our meeting spaces. Matt took us to a beautiful house in the woods- about 20 min away from our home. He helped build the house and currently caretakes it when folks aren't renting it- it was SO beautiful! Here, Erin is being a weirdo (shocking?) and looking down the ladder that leads up to this little room at the tip top of the house. Super cool.
That little room leads out to a 360 degree balcony that looks over the very pretty, very evergreen forests and you can see the ocean, too! Dreamy.
Snacks. All the time!
Calendar time for the next 5 months... all the way up to Sept! Wait? May is over and June already happened? Or- something. NONWORLD!
Tyler explains the very complex machine he drew to help us learn how to make better financial choices. Lots of gears and turning and spitting out and going back in... ending with sound choices! We weren't up to decision making- but it was cool to hear about possibilities!
And we also went to another really amazing spot for meetings- at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts- located on Deer Isle. They were so lovely to have us, we got to sleep in their dorms, eat amazing food they made us in their kitchen, use their meeting space, and of course- enjoy the scenery!
Heading down the stairs- which leads not only to the dorms- but also to the ocean!
Our dorm room- Dorm B (Bee?)- which was overlooking the ocean and for the first time in my life (that i remember?) I fell asleep to the sound of the ocean waves crashing against the coast. So lovely!
Meeting in the dinning room...
Meeting in the dorm room...
And one of the reasons we were hosted at such a lovely spot, was because we were invited to participate in a community event- called Pecha Kucha- at the restored Opera House! Pecha Kucha is a fast paced presentation- where each presenter has 20 slides, with 20 seconds per slide.
Per usual, we stole the show- by taking up a large amount of space with all of our freshly printed posters! During the presentation- we had 10 of us bees all presenting the full story of who we are- in only 6 min! We each took 2 slides/20 seconds. It was amazing and totally fun!
Distrrrooo.
That night, we stayed at Haystack and in the morning- took some time for a foggy shoreline hike.
Heading up the stairs...
meetings in the meeting space...
Food overlooking- what else? the ocean, of course!
Brohive lives on! Travelin' safe.
On the way back from Maine, Tyler, Kyle and I stopped in Boston to do a workshop at a youth climate conference. It was super cool, and all the young folk at the workshop were incredibly smart! From there, we drove to a small town near Hershey, PA- where we stayed with Kyles totally hilarious and wonderful family... before driving into columbus. Whew! on the move.Once in columbus, i rested my head for a brief moment, spent hours and hours on a computer, and then... hit the road again.
After spending my morning in a staples (in columbus), my day in a car, and my afternoon in front of a computer desperately catching up on work (or at least trying to)--- and then getting lost... I was feeling a little stressed (and a lotta tired). Then... as I found my way and drove up the mountain into Mountain Justice Summer camp in Letcher County, KY... I got to see this amazing sunset as the clouds settled into the valleys. Worth it.
Camp Schedule! Yup, I helped craft that megababy-- whew! It was a great year for camp!
I lead my first ever workshop on facilitation. I think it went pretty well, and I feel like I learned a lot by doing it. Win win win!
The movement will not be malnourished! Thanks Seeds of Peace and friends :)
Napping and giggling during a quick break during MJS.
I got a chance to briefly help out with the art build to make signs and puppets for the March and party to show oppositoion to the permits to blast Ison Rock Ridge- in Appalachia, VA.
We also took a little field trip to Jeff Chapmans studio- they are really amazing folks and it was so great to see their beautiful art!
Evening music--- with that beehive banner at work!
Camp photo!! yeeaah Mountain Justice!
Those signs we made at work...
Yeah, Yeah! Rockin MJ volunteers heading to WV with us to do some mega work and help do work in prep for Blair! Did you register for the march and get a phone call asking making sure you have all the info you need? You can thank these fine folks (and some more!).
catching some zzzz's in the backyard...
And here we are. Moved into the March on Blair Mountain Headquarters in marmet. Working all the time, like crazy people. Crazy people working really hard together and gearing up for something really amazing and huge! I feel incredibly excited for the march... and incredibly humbled by the amazing people I am working with to pull off this momentous event! It's amazing.And yesterday, we reached 500 registrants. The numbers keep growing. Amazing.
