Yurt Style: Life Updates from Victoria
My partner and I built a yurt in November, here in Vermont. Living here, and going right into winter, has been full of challenges—and surely, growing opportunities. It’s a lot more snow than I’ve been accustomed to. As Slava Polunin (the poetic Russian clown) has described, snow is a symbol of everything we fear, but it is also magical, renewing, happiness.
There is an outdoor compost toilet here. There’s also an outdoor shower on the property; still no indoor shower. If the temperature is above freezing, it’s actually quite pleasant to shower among the snowy conifers. But I definitely miss having a hot, cozy shower whenever I want it.
I sense my comfort level adjusting in some ways. At first I almost missed “normal” toilets. Now I feel totally confused by “normal toilets,” not knowing where my poop is going. It’s nice to know my poop will turn into compost here. We haul a lot of water, which discourages us from wasting any. We chop wood for our wood stove, which lets us cook and stay warm. The trees, and the alchemy of fire, gifts us so much. Not that it’s easy—we have to spend a lot of time doing chores, but there is satisfaction in knowing more about the resources we use, to feel a bit more directly the ways our bodies depend so preciously on this earth. I have a lot to re-learn, still, as my body just barely begins to un-learn some of the postures of urbanized life. We’re still pretty “on the grid” though, for now. I'm in my "Saturn Return," so life itself feels very experimental and a little chaotic. Oh yeah, maybe also because of the pandemic!
I rang in 2021 by foraging Chaga on a nearby walk. This was my first time finding it for myself, locally. This powerful immune medicine emerges as a result of natural wounds in birch bark. Rumi has said (supposedly), “the wound is where the light comes in.” I guess it is also where the mycelium comes in!
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