Sunday, December 28, 2008

Winter camping in 33 below F and the Barefoot Revolution

One of the biggest challenges to winter camping, or even just prolonged recreation in sub-zero temperatures, is the strain it puts on our bodies. My mandatory daily chores are cutting and hauling wood for my fire, and then keeping it going. Every couple days I haul 2 seven gallon buckets of water from Tim's on my cart or a sled. I drag it into my kitchen and once inside I pour portions of it into my stove pans and use the rest to top off my drinking/freshwater container. I dip water pitchers in these to fill my sink pans and my coffepot, etc. (and I forgot to list water pitchers as very essential tools in my supply list I posted here earlier this month). I haul my dirty sink water outside in an old 5 gallon metal milking can for my "drain." Then my honey bucket has to be dumped in the outhouse about 50 yards away, as often as needed. (I'm using an old Army cooler this winter and with plastic bags inside it's a heck of a lot easier to keep it clean.) Then there's the dogs' daily upkeep, which includes soaking their feed in a bucket of hot water first and delivering it to them once it's warm. (In the summer I fill their water cans every day but in the winter it freezes before they can drink it.)

The reason I live this way is so that I can research and write full time. Lately I've been so cold, tired and wore out after doing just a couple things that I didn't have the energy left to do much ACL work. I was starting to have a weird numbness on my lower left side and in both my hands. I began to wonder if I hadn't had a slight stroke or something. My back has been killing me for months even though I am fairly strong for my size and used to lifting with my legs. Every day it's been progressively harder to get up and start my daily routine all over again. I try to stretch and dance a little every day, and that used to be enough. I also lose my appetite when I'm alone and some days I totally forget to eat unless there's easy muchies at hand. I've been living in tents on and off since January 2002. I've been thinking that maybe I'm getting too old for this rural camping lifestyle I chose and wondering what it will take for me to readapt to living in an urban ghetto and working full time for pay so I could afford rent on a "real" place.

I've also been getting slammed lately for not talking or writing about my "faith." The fact that I don't call Jesus the "king" and I call the Talmud a foreign concept that has no place in American politics is all making the religious people nervous. One lady at Constance's blog wondered if I "pray" before I write. Some are saying that they cannot trust me as a source of information because I don't claim a spiritual existence that jives with their concept of God. I tried to explain it once in an article but apparently it didn't really explain much about what I "believe."

The idea that I have to preach salvation, follow a book I don't trust or go to a church with people I don't respect to "prove" I have a spiritual side is pretty amazing to me. My relationship with my creator is in everything I think and do. I believe our thoughts and deeds are what brings us into harmony with the universe. I don' trust the New Age concepts of God any more than I trust a book written by Caballists. I'm not seeking a spiritual path that can be found in any book. I don't want to be a preacher and I don't want to be preached to. But I DO pray, all the time to whatever good source motivated me to follow my own path. I ask for daily guidance, I do an inventory of my actions and thoughts and deeds, and occassionally I just cry for the people suffering in the religious wars and beg for their protection. I don't have a "name" for my creator, all I know is I have one who expects me to do my best every day to overcome my flaws and show up in life and do whatever is put before me. I don't lie, I don't cheat, I don't steal, I don't get welfare or food stamps, I don't maim or murder or covet other people's things. And every time I hit a low point, when I'm ready to quit the ACL and let the world figure out communitarianism without my assistance, something wonderful and right happens to set me back on track.

This time it came in the form of a new technology called the Barefoot Revolution.

I've been sleeping on my donated Earthing pad www.livingearthed.comnow for the past five nights, ever since I learned the snow would work as a grounding for it. I pulled back the wall insulation by my bed and shoved the rod out into the snowbank. And now, I'm so grateful, I'm sleeping so much better and the numbness is gone from my left side and hands. My back barely hurts, my stamia is increasing and I've been doing a lot more every day (including new research and videos!). I feel so good one of my friends asked me during a phone conversation two days ago why I was so peppy and cheerful. When I told him I'm recconecting with the earth's natural electrons he understood it immediately and said "yeah, I always feel better when I walk outside in my bare feet." (He also wants to order an Earthpad for himself now..heh.)

So I'd like to publically say thank-you to Barefoot Bob. Your generous donation is an answer to my prayers for better health and endurance. I'm guessing there may be an Iditarod musher or two who might want to try this on the trail next spring.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are young. Strokes generally occur later in life. It might be that you are experiencing panic attacks. Numbness is not uncommon when you are getting too much oxygen into your system but I am not a doctor. This is just something I have experienced too. At one point I could not even feel my own body. I am 25 years old. I thought I was having a stroke. I fell down and was taken to the doctor. It turns out that when you panic or have too much stress you breath too much because you think you are not getting enough oxygen. I started meditating because of it and this has allowed me some measure of control over it. I would say seek help whatever it is. You are under a considerable amount of stress out there and have no community to shore you up. That is a very difficult situation. Best wishes to you. I will pray for your healing.

Niki Raapana said...

Thank you Bird. You are very sweet and I appreciate your comments here. I am 52 so not as young as you but it's nice that you think I am.:) I do have a few very close friends here, they check my smokestack every day to make sure I have a fire going and sometimes they come by and chop a stack of wood or split kindling. It's 40 below tonight and you're probably right about the stress that causes me. I'll pray for you too. Yeah.

Anonymous said...

You are truly amazing, Niki. I don't know how you can actually live in those conditions in a climate as rugged as that one is. It is admirable and (while I agree with you on EVERYTHING you write about religion here) it is very similar to the patriarchs of Biblical times, to the Essenes of the time of Jesus and indeed to the Pillar Climbers in proto-christian hellenism, where they were influenced by the philosophies of Greece, Judaism and the epistles of Paul. They would seek the isolation in order to put order into the various external systems and then be able to reach a better awareness, as well as be able to avoid distractions that would divert their concentration.

Although, you have to focus on a dozen very draining tasks... I wish that you would get a gigantic research grant and then study in a warm place where you didn't need to collect the wood to heat you or the water to drink.

Anonymous said...

Hi Niki,

I have been following your work for a few years now since I saw what you write about actually happening in my Gov't job. I was fired for not assimilating to Communitarianism. That was fine with me because I am free of it and I work for myself now.

I was wondering what you meant by a book written by Cabbalist? I assume you mean the Talmud which is indeed evil and filtering into all Christianity.

What do you think about the Bible? This is not a Cabbalist work even though they interpret the Bible with the Talmud. This is the error today.

I pray for you, and your work.

Edith

Niki Raapana said...

Mary that's funny, but it has a ring of truth for me, because I did go away from people in order to think more clearly and listen to my heart as well as my head. It took years of camping to shut down the babbel of TV and fake news that resided in my brain after a lifetime of exposure. I find the silence of isolation comforting. As for a gigantic research grant, I used to hope for that too. We have received many monetary donations over the years that saved me from starvation. Right now I'm dead broke again but I have a warm hut and electric and nobody is dropping bombs on me, so I feel fortunate.

Edith, thank you for sharing your experience. I would love to hear more about what happened to you!

My reference to the book written by Caballists is the Bible. I'm sorry I can't believe in it as coming from God anymore, and it is true that my despair over that began with my understanding of how exegesis is used to interpret it. The most painful thing that's happened to me in my work has been the realization that whoever Jesus was and whatever Jesus said has been edited for us since the beginning by Etzioni's brotherhood. The only way I was able to complete my work was to step out of the religious dialectic. I still pray to the idea of Jesus because He has been my inspiration to do good my entire life. But I won't promote it. I am fully prepared to stand alone before my Creator and accept the consequences of all my actions and choices. If I am condemned to everlasting hell for refusing to join the organized Church, I won't be condemned for bringing anyone along with me.

Please share more about how you identified the communitarians and why you chose not to accept it. Te human interest side of my work is sorely lacking.

Anonymous said...

Niki,

Thank you for responding.

This is my point exactly!!! I am no longer part of the religious "church" because truth has been changed into a lie. Now I believe the BIBLE, the Holy Scriptures were written by holy men of God...He gave these prophets to warn the people. God warned the Israelite's time and again NOT to follow after false gods. The Bible tells us this. The Israelite's turned away from the God of Abraham and chose to follow the gods of Babylon. When God sent them into Babylon as punishment they went further into the religion of Nimrod. When they came out, they brought that religion with them...thus the mysteries or religion of Freemasonry. In Ezekiel it describes the religion of Freemasonry and sun god worship which God hates. God divorced these people as his own. They were cut off for lack of faith. The true Israel of God is true Christians. There is only one bride. The Talmud is evil and this has infiltrated into the churches and churches today are nothing more than Judaism in the name of Christianity.

I agree with you 100 percent. I love Jesus and I read the Didactic King James version although it is not perfect due to the attempts in translating to confuse the masses. It does not weaken my Faith in Jesus of Nazareth and who HE is. The Jesus of today's false christianity is the jesus I want nothing to do with because it's the New Age Jesus as only a man, and only a prophet.

All the newer Bibles such as the NIV are pure Communitarian New Age thinking and I reject all of them. They were translated out of the corrupted Alexandrian Manuscripts. The King James was translated out of the Textus Receptus.

Jesus told us to come out of "her" my people. Her being Mystery Babylon aka the church of today. Real Christians are coming out as you have and as I have. I do not listen to man's interpretation of scripture anymore. They all have their owns twists. I read it for myself with the help of the Holy Ghost and Jesus has brought profound understanding to my heart. My mind is free of the Dialectic. I fought the dialectic at my job and I won. I lost my job but gained my sanity. Thanks to Jesus Christ and the Word of God he brought me through four long years of sheer torture to my mind. I suffered intense headaches from what they tried to do to my mind using the Dialectic and group think, and peer preasure.

I have tried to write about my experiences in the Federal Government. I worked for the US Department of State for 20 years. I saw the takeover. I saw the old order being torn out from under me and the new replacing it. It is very difficult to write about, and very hard for me to explain. I will share what I have written with you. I have links in the paper to your site...:o) What is your e-mail address? You can fix it up and share it with whomever you wish so long as my name is within it. I am not ashamed of my experience and I love to expose the enemy.

I believe the Lord Jesus helped me to see what I was experiencing. I found several sites that helped me to know what was happening all around me. I understand today some of the sites are actually part of the Dialectic and are fronts to try and snare people.

The Lord Jesus will help you Niki. Trust in Him alone and you will be okay!

Edith