Saturday, February 25, 2017

To live to long too remote can make a person a little Feral

Of Course there are all kinds of people. Some people likely would stay exactly the same as they ever were (like Astronauts) wherever you put them on earth or in space or even on another planet. However, for most people this is just not true of.

So, being mostly raised in Suburbia in Glendale in the Los Angeles County area of California I always was traveling to the mountains, deserts, and sea shores and sailing out to sea on races to Encinada from Long Beach and things like this or flying planes with my father's friends growing up. This was just how I was raised. So, weekends camping in the mountains or deserts with or without a tent was normal for me. So, because nature and places like Yosemite became my favorite church in which to worship God this was my retreat into the wilderness which healed my soul and healed me from all my intense anger I felt about being raised in public schools in the Los Angeles area and having to defend my life on many occasions in the 1950s and 1960s the way public schools were then. Luckily, I didn't get killed or have to kill anyone else even though I was raised in the city. Not everyone can say this. And somehow I stayed alive through all the insanity of public schools. I was amazed just how happy and peaceful private school could be when I was sent to a private church school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I didn't have to verbally spar with anyone nor have to fight anyone for my personal survival or have to protect others from knives or pipes or chains or whatever either which was very peaceful and happy this last year in School to experience this for the very first time.

So, I graduated there in Santa Fe, New Mexico in May of 1966 when my parents came for my graduation from High School then.

But, I still felt a lot of anger at what had happened to me growing up from whooping cough and childhood epilepsy. You know, I just had a lot of anger and testosterone like many young men have in their late teens and early twenties. So, finally around my late 20s I was raising my son alone after divorcing my first wife and got married to another lady raising 2 kids from her first marriage too when I was 32. We then took our savings and bought land for cash (2 1/2 acres and built an A-Frame where we home schooled our children and I found my anger at what I experienced growing up finally staring to fade away by living out in nature remotely and home schooling our children starting in 1980. By 1985 I realized I was becoming a little feral from retreating from the world sort of like a married monk in some ways and practicing my spiritual practices like a householder Yogi then.

We then lived 10 miles from the nearest gas station on a dirt road a couple of miles from the nearest paved road and without an electrical or gas line and without a phone but with water and a septic tank for a toilet and it was an amazing life where we would often get 7 feet of snow at one time during the winters in the early 1980s there at 4000 feet elevation with a perfect view of Mt. Shasta up close from our windows on the end of our A-Frame home then.

So, in 1985 our oldest child (my stepson) was 12 and he wanted to return to school. So, we bought a business in the Greater San Francisco Bay area and returned to a more suburban life on the ocean there. This likely  could be seen as the beginning of the end for my marriage, however, because when we left the land we were never happy as a married couple really ever fully ever again. Our life became working very hard to maintain our 3 then 4 children because teenagers are very expensive if you have ever raised them especially if you are living on the coast of California.

So, the point I'm making here is living remotely can heal your soul if you are like me from all the damage city life can do to you growing up. But, at some point you might want to go back to suburbia if that is useful for you as it definitely was for me.

However, the idyllic 5 years we spent so remotely with bears and deer and fairydiddle squirrels flying from tree to tree living the remotely sometimes in 7 feet of snow where we had to use a toboggan to carry our groceries to our house while towing it on cross country mountaineering skis was just what I needed to heal my soul from growing up in the city to feel like I was okay as a human being and as a spiritual practitioner the rest of my natural life.

In other words, If I hadn't taken the time to heal my soul from the damage done to me I don't think I could be where I am today traveling the world, not worrying about money anymore and mostly just worried that our children will still have freedom and a democracy to live in when I get really old or pass away.

So, heal your souls but remember not everyone is suited to living remotely for a lifetime.

By God's Grace

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