Lehmputzen in Austria

Just to make it cyclical, this is the last post of this trip abroad. I return to England next week for the winter, exactly 12 months from when i left. I have no breath left for words here, just a hankering for home.

the west wind blows and when it rains it POURS

Alora, la mia 'crossroads' a transformata a un croce - curcuvint, a confluence of valleys where weather rules, and passo monte croce in vicino, passage to austria
Im in the top right hand corner of Italy where 3 countries adjoin, including also Slovenia...and with all this possibility, how can i decide where to go? 

Filling holes between stones in the cantina, with lime and straw

Final coat with sand we dug from Torrente But, on cimento...oooo

 

 

What i feel regarding my original 'mission, for this voyage, is disillusionment with self described intentional communities, whilst keeping them in mind, like i was drawn by didnt attend the GEN conference in northern Germany. Cohabiting between mountains with a more elderly ( far fitter than me!) couple, who lead a focused, productive and communally efficient lifestyle, i find that other types of community are more suitable for me right now. I have autonomy, collective strategy and environmental urgency;  an integrated work-life-day structure that pleases me in ways living in a fully mutual housing cooperative didn't. But it suits the current residents, so.

Cascata on the way to MontAsio

 Ive not found the dream natural building site to work on or teach at, even though ive spent hours on computers searching a place. Poor stuck-out-lip-me. Im learning to self accept and accept what happens, that i can wait; its an upgrade in attitude. Improving my scything, sharpening, doing my first haycut (fienoge) largely with wooden rakes and pitchforks- 14 hour days under a burning sun, in as little clothing as possible in a small rural village. The place morphed into an alien dimension for those precipitous weeks, whose inhabitants sprouted rakes for arms and tractors out of their bottoms, a peculiar brand of vehicle called 'Ape', dinky and 3 wheeled. Nervewracking, weather dependant. Demystifying dairy in production and cooking and eating - spots return, a memorable but repressed plague. Harvesting many soft fruits every morning before 7am including jostaberry and mulberry and a japanese raspberry.

A herb garden border i made at the house in Cadore

Two animals have been sick to the point of dying since i arrived. The pig died after a week of not eating and was then unceremonially buried under the manure heap. Now the caprone - male goat billy goat - is ill and on his knees. I feel uncomfortable but unsure how to engage with the situation - are the hosts responsible entirely or should i intervene? Am i uncomfy thinking theres something more to be done to relieve pain and suffering, or just with the presence of death, in my modern day western society malaise way?
Itìs a time of acquisition - material goods, especially those i have needed for some time: waterproofs sandali etc, and tokens unexpected - toy lion, bracelet, face cream of sambughe and patate, a wooden ladle.

Revarnishing the exterior wood of the balcony, in harness...

Luxurious accomodation not ecobuild, but the people and their work ethic are more important. Space to breathe and be fatigued and ill, with many machines and resources i can freely use, for sewing (im producing skirts, vests and fixing my poor ruined harem pants) , skype, washing machine, robust material and a pattern for making moccasins, a network of close friends who exchange with one another. learning italian unexpectedly quickly.

Our house...

The idea of not choosing, of somehow unconsciously yet deliberately inundating myself with choice to the point of overwhelm, inaction - easier perhaps to maintain the status quo and blame the world out there for not offering me the right decision on a plate. i treat each decision like it will be irreversible and life-changing, paralysed by its importance. An utter FOMO.
Im proud of how my drawing practice has stabilised, ill try to upload the last 3 months worth of pink book A5 scribbles to the Flickr page, starting from when i entered the grounds of Bezalel art college, Jerusalem.
Many people try to 'destroy the ego', meditation is staunchly popular and accepted in the west as necessary and desirable for emptying the mind and centering oneself, and yet i berate myself for how little i have to say or decent thoughts in my head, how singular and immediate i can be. Numb often, operating mechanically as a golem or zombie. In more positive frames of mind this is treated with elation, as it enables me to experience the world joyfully and appreciatively, i am in that elusive moment. Weeding potatoes endlessly, clocked in and out by the church bells.

All dancing at Manuelas birthday festa, pizza oven behind

Experiencing strong fear of the dark at night, fear someone or an animal will enter the room and hurt me, scared to look out the window or over my shoulder. Where is it from in my life?
Also a massively impacting- physically, nightmare with the overwhelming lasting impression i am wronging someone i care about, or those i care about generally.
Me piacce cuesta paese, tante. Mangiare insieme con li altri personi, la cibo obvio, pausa, vino y formaggio, la lingua, cuesta paysaggio  gli montagni
Hitched an hour squished sideways into half a front seat of a Panda, with a bicycle and a young piedmontese soldier. The day previous having been picked up by an artist organiser of a small local arts festa en route 'home' from Cadore, and spending the night in a garage in this village speaking italian listening to sweet teenage cover bands and experimental psychedelic rock and singing teh hebrew shabbat dinner song in a cafe.

Sightseeing Trieste, with Silkes family

What an exciting newness of extreme sportive activity and music - first doing a via ferrata on Col dei Bos by Passo Falzarego, 2 and 1/2 hours of climbing up sometimes sheer rock wall above thousands of feet of thin air, and then, driving lots up winding hairpin bends into clouds singing my lungs out to queen and rolling stones and van morrison and john lee hooker and miles davis, dancing as much as i can whilst sitting and restricted. but suzanne vega! oh my! how did i not know you? and tabla beat science, phwoar!

Now - content to plaster the cantina. Next week i cycle off, north. Thats all.

Calce Argilla Apiccicosa

The last month was intense. I ran out of money and started relying totally on the generosity of others. I left Israel, and had a weeks holiday on an idyllic Greek island with a close friend from home. Then boarded a boat to Venice, a journey of almost 48 hours,during which i met a family of angels who helped me buy a bicycle and invited me to their home. I hope to take them camping. Then i cycled through a land of vineyards to permaculture centre LaBoa for an EU funded training course -im now qualified to facilitate courses in natural building finishes, ie. lime and clay plastering. I arrived in the night, in the rain, to find 2 friends from England there as fellow participants! Every night i stayed up talking with somebody, drinking Limoncello or gorgeous next door wine, we made yoghurt every day from the other next door dairy, and one night there was guitar ad voice improv. My understanding of the mediums is much improved - its like i had large particles of knowledge (coarse sand) that needed the spaces between filling up with the glue or smaller particles (fine sand and lime). I regret using hydraulic lime at Random Camel now. Working with japanese trowels, and with clay...oh...how sensual. And exciting to play with the boundary between structural and decorative, plaster and paint. In the cities of the Veneto, grape pomace (pulp) and brick dust were used to colour the walls of the houses. We visited a clay factoryand limekiln, ooh big machines. Not so complicated...neither is slaking lime - i want my own slaking pit wherever i work. Everything can be a pigment. One day i helped weed the vineyard of Il Barone, and he paid me partly in wine.  I found a dead jay by the road and plucked the sparkling blue feathers to make jewellery.
The photos below are from Xesus, thankyou, theyre of the LaBoa house and course.

My girlfriend Su came to visit me, and we made a giro (cycle tour) up to the Dolomiti mountains, camping in breathtaking countryside, staying with people we met along the way. Mechanics in bike shops saved us when our machines broke down, which occurred regularly. Su is an excellent emergency mechanic herself, sporting the facial bike grease in evidence. We drank orange coloured spritzers in funky bars in Venice city, prosecco for a euro a glass near the Piave river, and instant coffee from our own campfire, from my portuguese little blue pot. It was startling to recalibrate to anothers company while travelling, and im hungry for that feeling now, to be together on a journey with someone who loves you. Im deciding when to return to the UK.
Perhaps i start cycling now, visting those friends i made in other countries along the way.  Its a crossroads - any recommendations? 

Also ://www.flickr.com/photos/gemfromhome/sets/

Reed mat walls for practicing plastering and experimenting with materials

Mixing straw with lime putty to full holes in the straw bale walls

At the lime kiln - this is the fuel they burn the lime with. Sawdust they produce from waste wood.

Rialto

other peoples' photographs

teaching & learning textile crafts at an alternative market at Chavat David, on a moshav near Tel Aviv

relaxing on the heated bench of a rocket mass stove we built the previous week

just a day in jerusalem by the old city wall

NIB, from the middle east

Whilst its shameful to give you a bullet point list; I have been:
creating relief sculpture of a helios on the wall of Ilan's mudhouse. he wants me to come back and make more!
decorating Mudi's apartment for his birthday party, using branches and mushroom trays with tealights in, hanging from the ceiling. dancing til 4am, the last one standing
printing my drawings and foliage onto t shirts i find in the street. modifying them on various sewing machines, wearing my art and getting praise for it. yellow and green ink all up my arms.
finally finishing the popper pants whose pieces ive been carrying around all this time! red and purple ones, lacey, but also bodged at the sides where i mucked up the pattern and had to extend with more velcro...'scotch' in hebrew.
endlessly trying to find a non-air route out of the country, including turning up at the port of Haifa in person
introducing Israelis to the delights of British cuisine, including cream tea and welsh rarebit
fixing up old sewing machines, weeding and mulching veg beds, bagging straw for horse feed, cooking for starving artist Burning Man organisers on a moshav north of Tel Aviv
going to Tehila's housewarming party and spilling lentil dhal all over the road
hitchhiking successfully with interesting drivers!
being invited to a million homes - the Israeli numbers on my mobile now outnumber all else
contact dance at weekend retreats in the north, classes in Katamon and randomly with strangers at 3am
feeling lonely, not myself and rejected. feeling revitalised with the vigour of spring! making floral wreath headdresses for a spring equinox celebration at an eco artists community and getting a bonfire going. falling down a deep hole wherein i lost my shoe, Jon Halls' sandals that have accompanied me for 6 months...now sadly interred. ill put up a gravestone. now i have some green converses! and an exciting scab on my knee.
getting drunk on my own building-site brewed ginger beer at Purim, and taking part in the most riotous street parties by night and day that ive ever seen - my favourite were the aquatic themed costumes, in particular the stingray! my costume was made from ironed together plastic bags, which laminate beautifully into a flexible yet stiff material, you can burn holes into it like lace or embed other flat objects between the layers...ooooh!
experimental fermentation with flowers of the desert hillside, and zaatar, and grapefruit tree leaves
planning an itinerary around the arab parts of the country, via couchsurfing. wanting to see the gorgeous landscapes on offer here, and hear arabic spoken. joining the Freedom Bus solidarity action near Bethlehem.
preparing for my natural building course in Venice in a months time, mostly redoing paperwork. and looking up places to build and farm in Italy and Slovenia. trying to meet up in Greece for Easter with my friend Si
pretending to have moved to Jerusalem, that im studying at Bezalel art college on Mt. Scopus. coming up with an original answer every time someone asks me "so what are you doing in Israel"...
eating shakshuka for breakfast. becoming a proficient dumpster diver.

photos soon.

Preoccupation

Israel is a massive culture shock for me, coming from Europe, which i now see in comparison as liberal and almost limitless. More impactful than anywhere i've been so far, a challenge.
I'm staying in the street pictured, in the German Colony,when i'm in Jerusalem. It's the home of the friend who invited me to the country.
I've been introduced to a build site in the northern Jordan Valley,literally overlooking Jordan.A stunning landscape to wake up to and watch the sun set over. It's a small new Jewish settlement called Rotem, an ecological-intentional community of both religious and non religious. www.rotem-yahad.org
I'm working on finishing a spacious mudhouse for a family who want to move in within 3 months. They have already constructed several mud buildings on the site, and us volunteers use them to sleep and cook and relax in. We are right on the edge of the hill forming part of the West Bank.

This is the Other mudhouse up the road - i dont get to play with this one, shame!

I've seen herds of deer on the slopes below us, and gazelles. Birds accompany my mud plastering on ladder-top in the morning as they sing from the metal girders holding up the roof. Lights of the Arab villages on the valley floor opposite shimmer in the nightime, parallel to the bright starscape above. There are bees in the blue and magenta bushes of flowers, giant black millipedes, and zaatar grows all around. There is a plant on the hill called Rotem akin to the cayumba burnt for the chiscos of Spanish fiestas, and the perfume of their white flowers is strong in the wind. At the bottom i see spiky purple bushes, what are they? Do they fruit?

8 hours a day i rekindle a familiar pastime; wall staring. Camels will know what i mean. Its when you apply fresh plaster to a wall, or have to destroy bits of wall and prepare them for such activity, or then spend days retouching the plaster to get  it smooth and flat and level... Anyway im paying alot of attention to walls, trying to get them perfect, at least pleasing to the eye.

And this is very appropriate because i just found out that my course in Italy,in April, will be going ahead! The one entitled; Natural Finishes for Facilitators. It means i will be better equipped to teach people how to use lime and clay for their self builds. As part of receiving funding from the EU for my place, i promised to hold workshops across the lands,to disseminate the knowledge and inform a better practice among modern self builders. This is super exciting to me, ive been waiting all winter for confirmation, and it helps me imagine a potential livelihood and future path for myself.

Because coming to Israel hasnt turned out quite as id dreamed. Ive felt alternately,trapped, lost, extremely uncomfortable, unwanted, ashamed, bored, out of my element, foolish, overwhelmed...preoccupied. Id like to maintain an objectivity for this place, 'the Holy Land' which is so struggled over and sought after, riven. Except i believe what ive read on International solidarity websites and seen in documentaries about 'the Conflict'. I see the grey innocuous snake of the separation wall on the east side of mt. Scopus and the mt of Olives. I pass through checkpoints on the road. There are giant yellow metal gates not just at jewish settlement entrances but also villages on the west side of the green line, operated by soldiers in guard posts. The bus to Rotem is entirely patronised by teenage soldiers on their way to bases, all staring into smartphones with earphones in. Opposite the mudhouse i spend the days plastering, in the same frame as a childs swing and a garden thriving on greywater from the kitchen and solar shower, i see a tall wire fence partially surrounding the village.

I notice segregation, between Arab and Jew, between Orthodox and non Orthodox, between the nationalities Jews living here previously belonged to, between men and women in the synagogue.

In response, i yearn to hear different points of view, see behind and beyond the walls, to go where i am told it is dangerous.  Where are the projects that unite, and illustrate our similarities? That prevent, witness, or ameliorate the effects of atrocities?

And as usual,these more worthy streams of thought lie beneath my main preoccupation; that of my own personal relationships. Who loves me?  Why is my love so often unrequited these days? Am i truly loving.

Ode to the aerial

This is prompted by comedian Louie CK, who i was introduced to last night. I haven't ever bought a flight of my own, as an adult, and am usually the first to decry flying as a means of transport. However last week i did, and in communicating this someone bluntly upbraided me for my sinful action - what a reversal! Anyway, the flight was truly awe inspiring and i'm going to transcribe what i wrote from the plane window:

There is heaven, above the clouds. A frozen stampede, innumerable fluffy amorphous clumps like an Ice Age herd of migrating herbivores - the sky-herd; herd of herds. Heading, seemingly sunwards, past me and the passengers of this airplane.
Some isolated, others stacked up, toppling over one another in their hurry, tails petering out behind. Yet, a silent, unmoving tableau, somehow operatic, classical. Forms found in biblical paintings, those of ancient myth and pantheons.
Gilded water below, a luminous skin on a hot milky drink, again removed from its assumed real state - it looks dry, still. I see the ripples of waves and  their white crests, but....frozen.
Now, above an island; Sardinia? Clouds are tall, great columns here, blown out of first cumulus shape, casting huge shadows on a land of sinuous contours. Green fields, few towns. Who will look up at me?
The clouds are finite, concrete, palpable. Pompous, joyous, curious and gregarious. another plane trails to our right, slightly behind - we race, toys.
Sunlight illumines the nebulous gases, bright lines of the child's landscape we traverse.  Suddenly a scalloped coastline of shallow beaches, and an ultramarine pristine surface again
The island behind silhouetted in shape, gold sea sharply outlines.
On the southern horizon banks of cloud appear as Antartica, as glaciers, and icebergs.
Humans are amazing to have created this mode of travel, allowing such privileged perspectives.
A wispy plateau of white obscures the Tyrrhenian Sea. Even more opaque white on the ground; snow on Italy's mountains. Long arched viaducts, bridges. Topography is blatant, some trickery transmittable in 2D visual form. Water finding it's way, always spreading, diverging, the fractal of leaves.
All Greece is a blanket of pale, mix of cloud and ground, impenetrable.
Reaching Istanbul is the most dazzling sight: descending after twilight succumbed to true dark, upon a bejewelled kingly robe cast over the land. A myriad coloured lights, strewn baubles shimmering, the wealth of a history of empire. And I myself am from Ruby; making sense of my own name, a precious jewel. I set myself in the city.

Delia's new warehouse for her tiles and workshop machines - we spent last Friday helping her clear the old space

a new wwoofer friend taking advantage of her height

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picking lemons wow

orgva's twin church towers

sunset from the ridge above our finca

and us gawking over the other side

Respite in spontanaeity

Now i'm in Espagna. I left Portugal, and readily admit i felt the saudade, the pang of remorse for a country i've grown close to. I don't know why but there's a bias in me against Spain, something silly and teenagery, about not wanting to like what everyone else likes. The language is easy enough to pick up, just the basics, but with my 'pouco' of Portuguese im quite bewildered about pronouns and conjugating verbs.
 The day after xmas, after the epic flooding, i fled Nagodinho on a bus south, through Lisboa and ending in Faro. My parents both gave me some money for a xmas present, so i decided to use it on a holiday in civilised warm cities, paying for my accomodation in cheap hostels. A friend called Galia, met in Tamera, was in Faro, and we frolicked together in bars and markets, trying on shoes as though we hadnt spent 3 months on farms under layers of grime.
Another bus took us across the border to Sevilla, a city of indescribable grandeur, a marvel of architecture round every street corner. We ate delicious  tapas every day, we wandered and gawped, drank tinto de verrano in Triana quarter. In the Plaza Nuevo we fed one another a grape for each chime of midnight of the last night of 2013, danced the new year in then stuffed ourselves on churros and belgian waffes dunked in chocolate. It was sublime, such a relaxing break. My estimation of the advances we've made as a race in order to provide hot showers in most buildings has skyrocketed.
On New Years day i hitchhiked to Granada, first with a moroccan who bought me orange juice, who i spoke french too, and then with a catalunyan couple. It was a great confidence boost to me, im a little nervous to hitch alone in a foreign country. I was elated afterward. The aim was to reach my friend Jons friends house, as he was passing the holiday there, him and his brother and partner. I got to celebrate it with them all, make a new friend for myself, and feel safe in the company of known parties again. And in so doing, found my next place; here, La Granja.
It makes so much difference to have met the owner of this farm beforehand, that she is a friend of the woman i stayed with, Delia, who introduced me to her. Instead of turning up at an unknown place with no idea how it is.
There are quite a few of us here, wwoofers - 9 maybe. And half of us turned up this week, so we have the chance to get to know one another and create a community. We're also largely the same age, but one couple who have been at the farm for months is in their sixties, and awesomely inspiring - they live on their bicycles, and tour europe very summer. In the winters they occupy a campervan in New Zealand. Another encouraging individual cycled halfway here from Sweden. I had to leave my bike at Fundao in order to escape rapidly on public transport, and i regret it now. Im sad to have left it behind, especialy here where the weather is so much better.
The finca is down in a deep valley in the Alpujarras, so - south of the Sierra Nevada, you can see the snowy peaks from our place. The sun doesnt shine on us till 11am, but on the other side of the sierra lujar, or in Orgiva, the nearest town, its been boiling all day these weeks - bikini weather. WWOOFers all have their own self sufficient accomodation, which is strange to me - we are provided a brunch and lunch which we eat together, but otherwise we cook our own meals on our own fires and are separated. The plus side to this for me, is that the first time i my life i am living truly alone. And way out from the other 'casitas' too, at the bottom, by the rushing water, and under 3 trees: sprawling smooth fig, ancient gnarled olive, and soaring eucalyptus. The moon shines bright 4 days from full, through twisty horror film branches.
The work seems nothing compared to last month: 6 hours a day, with weekends completely off. And much reduced urgency, no stress to it - a much more sorted and established place. Wow. Ive been skivvying on the build of a hexagonal solar shower block, at the stage of sawing and fixing canas - canes - to fit each underside of the roof. Today we put up the plastic membrane, just before it started raining, lucky. Ive done some hefting of olive branches for the future wattle and daub walls, where we will use the grey sand and clay extracted from the asequia - the giant Moorish-made irrigation channels bringing water from the snowmelt up top. This grey clay - lauma or launa - is the topping of the flat pueblo casa roofs here too, edged in broad stones, sometimes made entirely of these stones atop rafters of chesnut or eucalyptus. The roofs step down the steep hillsides, everybodys roof terrace atop the next lowest house. All the casas really are limewashed white, standing out against the scrubby dull mountain vegetation.
My casita is tiny, with a gas cooker and woodburner, table, chair and bed. All to myself. Ive taken in commissions for baked goods, including gluten and sugar free cookies, made of almonds i crack from farm grown nutshells, and dates and carob - algaroba. Squishy and yummmmy. Its interesting to discover what routines i make for myself, by myself, just the daily chores. I wash up after every meal, sweep up every day, - i want to cook on the fire so the landowner lends me a pot that fits the top hole, which i take up to her house every morning, bring down every evening. I read every night, and while i eat my fresh fruity muesli in the morning. Normal things, that reassure me, that i allow myself to enjoy, to notice in their simplicity. On Sunday i finished sewing a pretty bag i started in Lisboa, just laid in the sun all afternoon sewing the trimmings by hand. Plunged into conversation with a woman who has a parallel journey to me - hummed along to a guitar playing strummer. I still give myself a hard time imagining i Should be running about doing everything there is to do: climb a peak, visit Beneficio the hippy village, draw draw draw.
And I've bought a ticket to fly to Israel...