A Living Magazine - Tap Root: Days 293 to 295 - Colors in the Forest--Day and Night

While I was putting up the blue tarps as windbreakers a few days earlier, I was a bit disappointed at the way it looked. It reminded me how synthetic poly tarps made things appear so cheap over the winter. I wanted a purely organic looking property. I didn't want to be one of those people with tarps all over the place; didn't want to give the impression of a hoarder-in-training. I grew up with a hoarder and would be mortified to see myself go in the same direction.

Yet, by this day, while surveying the current set-up, I didn't think things looked so bad after all. Where the starkness of blue plastic against the bare trees and grey skies of wintertime had looked chintzy and junkyardish, this tightened up and cleanly cut version seemed a coordinated contrast mixed with the young green leaves as it reflected the azure blue of the sky... 

Not So Bad?

The orange and black of the tent was benign enough. These were the colors found in living natural world. The blue of the new windbreaker/canopy fit right in somehow, though, perhaps, in an ironic way. Blue is the least common color found in nature. Even most flowers that are blue were originally selected by humans to be that way. Indeed, the color blue was not even recognized by humans in ancient days. There is no mention of it in any ancient text, not in the Bible, nor in Hellenistic or ancient Chinese literature! For a great explanation of this, check out Radiolab's excellent episode about colors...

Radiolab - Colors

This is actually a very fascinating subject. The perception of color is not at all what you might think it is. Separate colors do not even exist outside of the human mind! This is not a theory. It is a physical and quantum mechanical fact. Moreover, all stimuli coming into our minds from the outside world is ONE THING (not light, not sound, not, taste, not, touch, not smell). The only reason we see reality separated into parts is because our minds cannot comprehend reality as it Truly is. 

Therefore, our five (plus?) senses make what is outside of our bodies comprehensible, describable and communicable (the words "outside" and/or "inside" themselves, being concepts that have no meaning on higher metaphysical levels). Blue is my favorite color in our common and more simple way of thinking. And, despite my early hesitancy about erecting the windbreaker out of winter's left-over tarps, on this day I could not think of a more appealing color to blend with everything else around me. Plato said that time is the moving image of eternity. I would extend this to say that what we sense as an outside world is actually our dumbed-down and primitive perception of the felt presence of physical Unity.

Most people know that this last Maine winter was unusually harsh, with over a dozen large snowstorms and brutal temperatures. However, the stick-fencing and tree arches I had created before snowfall, somehow were all still completely intact! The arches themselves (consisting of young, entwined maple, ash and elm trees) were perfectly health and pumping out new buds, due to be even more prolific than last year. This was very heartening. Slowly the property was becoming a single unified and living "basket" of inter-growth and embellished beauty... 

You Can Get an Idea About How This Wooden Framework Will Someday be Clothed in Plant Life

Walking around the yard, I found (and still find) no end to the preening and primping that could be done. Sticks picked up here, dead branches removed there, stones dug out... Paths made muddy by rain I filled with leaf litter and wood chips, while absorbent paths choked with leaves were raked clean. Roots in the way of future planters and garden spots needed to be cut and ripped out. I had to chuckle, viewing my behavior as if from above. I was the human version of the male bowerbird! 

If you have never seen this little guy in action, while he hyper-obsessively gathers interesting tidbits, flowers, and other bright colored objects, which he careful piles up, readjusts, and hops around to view them from every angle...all to attract a fickle and picky female, you have missed one of the greatest natural wonders. Watching him do this though, one gets the impression that his love is really more focused on his work that his desire to mate. Hummm... At least at this point in my life, I can see where he's coming from. Ha! Check him out in this video by the greatest of all naturalists, David Attenborough...

Master Builder - The Bowerbird

  

Up to this point, I had spent my evenings plopped in front of the fire, using it as my primary light. But now I wanted to see what things might be like if I utilized my many LED lights, flashlights, and candles. And, I was thrilled at the results! Most of all, I wanted to experiment with how much battery power would be used if I were to run all the lights I had--while charging computers and phones. The following pictures are deficient and not great examples of what things really look like (due to the limitations of my cheap Android phone camera), but they do give some kind of idea... 

See How the White Christmas Lights Reflect the Blue of the Tarp, While My Desk Lamp Shines

Purple Flames

Illumination of the Future Greenhouse

A Nighttime View of My Rainwater Jug System (More About That Later)

View Up From the Fire Pit Toward the Tent and Canopy

A Bright Candle

I walked down the driveway a bit and peered back at the property. It looked like rave, filled with colors, flames and smoke. When I finally grew tired I sat by the fire for a long while and watched it spit out Sparks into the Universe...

The Primordial Fire

Leaves Reflecting the Luminosity Back Down from Above

I can't wait to have a few people over now. It would be great to hold a cookout, drink some beers as the sun goes down and then share a bowl of good cannabis around the fire, under the stars, while the maple smoke rises into the night and the colored lights are amplified by our collective perceptions--friends in a beautiful place--making pure LOVE. Truly, it will be a small taste of heaven whenever it should occur. Here are a few more shots that I took before turning in...  

I snuck a peek at the power meter before turning everything off. It showed that I had plenty of power left! I was greatly reassured by this. Imagine how much power is consumed by the average house. Then compare that to my 1--100 watt, 12 volt DC solar panel, charging a small 12 volt deep cycle, golf cart battery that powers a 600 watt, 30 amp AC inverter...

In layman's terms? This all simply means that for the amount of energy needed to light 1--100 watt light bulb in your house for several hours, I can have all of my needs met, every day! And my power is free. Truly, I am proving that less is more.