Fire Speaking

2009-11-14T11:03:00.000-08:00

max.firespeaking.com

After many years of maintaining "firespeaking" as a blogspot "blog"... I am jumping onto a new platform..... Please visit max.firepeaking.com to see its new incarnation. If you are a "follower", consider subscribing to the new on-line journal. See you soon!

Complete Cob Workshop at the Cob Cottage Company

2008-07-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

The bulk of these walls, gateways, and space for a future bath house were all built by instructors and students in a nine day-workshop called Complete Cob at the North American School of Natural Building. Some finish work, mainly plaster, was done by subsequent participants in a workshop on natural plasters, sculpture, and finishes. These photos were taken by the wonderful Eva... check out her blog too: evalarevolution.blogspot.com .

:the beginning of the process:

:the finished arch:

:wall detail:

:wall detail:

:wall detail:

Información sobre Estufas de Albañilería de Alto Rendimiento

2008-05-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

Amigos,

Acaba de terminar de leer un libro fascinante sobre el asunto de estufas de albañilería de alto rendimiento y pensaba tratar de compartir algunas de las conclusiones y algunos planos. El libro se llama ¨El Libro de Estufas de Albañilería: Redescubriendo la Calefacción a Leña" por David Lyle (espero que el autor no se enoja por el uso de algunos de sus dibujos! Le agradecemos). Si alguien quiere aún mas información sobre el asunto, con gusto se lo podría mandar. (Por favor, si alguien tiene ganas de corregir mis errores ortográficos bienvenido sea. Recuerden que pueden clik-ear los dibujos para verlos mas grande )

El libro cuenta del desarrollo de la estufa desde sus principios en el "descubrimiento" del uso del fuego. Por supuesto, en muchas culturas este uso es considerado un regalo y hasta en algunos un conocimiento robado de los dioses. El hombre hizo sus posos para el fuego, puso piedras alrededor para mantener y emanar ese calor mejor, y lo empezó a envolver con piedras y barro para mejor contener y aprovecharlo. Descubrió fundir hierro con las mismas llamas para hacer artefactos para el fuego y mas o menos llegó a la mezcla de calefactores y cocinas que conocemos hoy en día - algunos que son enteramente de hierro y otros que son de piedra, ladrillo, barro, etc.

Quisiera primero resumir algunas conclusiones generales que hace el libro y luego compartir algunos diseños interesantes.

El mensaje mas importante del libro es que estufas de albañilería hacen un combustión mucho mas limpio y aprovechan hasta 2 o 3 tres veces mas la leña que las estufas de hierro que hoy en día solemos ver. Entre 1/2 y 2/3 del valor calórico de la leña está en gases encerrados y líquidos volátiles. En cuanto mas alto la temperatura de la combustión, mas se queman estos compuestos. Y esto nos muestra una debilidad principal de las estufas de fundición que es que irradian el calor tan rápido que la temperatura en la cámara de combustión nunca llega a subir a temperaturas que permiten una quema mas eficiente. Por supuesto que en ambientes visitados menos frecuentes, como podría ser un taller, donde uno quiere un calor rápido, no hay nada como la santa salamandra!

Las estufas de albañilería están diseñadas para hacer quemas puntuales, uno o dos veces el día, en lugar del régimen como con las de fundición donde uno esta alimentándolas constantemente. La idea es hacer una quema rápida en la cámara que llega a temperaturas bien altas y luego transmitir ese calor de a poco. La quema tendría que ser eficaz al punto que no se tendría que poder ver humo por la chimenea, después del principio, ya que la combustión llega a quemar casi toda la materia. Dice el libro que uno tendría que evitar la tendencia de hacer quemas largas y lentas porque es menos eficiente y ensucia los conductos. Este dato me sorprendió ya que las pocas estufas rusas que conocía en El Bolsón solían ser alimentado de a poco. Parecería que el asunto de tener puertas que se sellan bien es mas importante para lo que es la retención del calor para evitar que haya un flujo de aire dentro de la chimenea que lleva el calor por la chimenea. Por eso también casi todo los modelos tienen registros que se cierren casi por completo en la salida de la chimenea.

Otro dato que me resultaba muy interesante es que el material mas usado para le mezcla tanto en la antigüedad como ahora por albañiles de estas estufas es arcilla. Al usar arcillas que son parecidas a la con lo cual están hechos los ladrillos, uno logra una dilatación bastante parejo. Queda mucho para investigar sobre el asunto de los materiales aptos y ideales para construir estufas de alto rendimiento con menor costos pero por ahora será suficiente decir que uno no tendría que limitarse a solo los ladrillos refractarios y cemento refractario. Se ve que se esta usando bastante en los EEUU un cemento refractario aquí llamado "encofrable" que permite a uno hacer losas o piezas de mampostería a medida para usos puntuales. Podría ser interesante averiguar con una fabrica como la de la Avellaneda para ver si esto sería un material con lo cual uno podría contar para usos especiales.

Varios diseños:

El sistema "Ondol" de calefacción por debajo de los pies:

Este es un sistema bien antigua de hace mas de 2-3000 años en Korea y Japón. La cocina se encuentra debajo del nivel del estar y los gases de la combustión pasan por debajo del estar. Un posible dibujo del sostén del piso visto por arriba sería:
Parece que los romanos muchos siglos después también desarrollaron un sistema parecido. También hacían que el humo se divide por pequeñas chimeneas dentro de la pared usando ladrillos huecos para sus construcciones. Uno de los asuntos muy importante para tener en cuenta con este sistema es la posibilidad de que pasen gases tóxicos al ambiente por grietas en el piso. Esto se evitaba en el oriente con una capa de papel (tipo carnicero) embebido en engrudo entre el sostén y la terminación del piso. Los romanos solían tener pisos de suficientes capas y terminados con mosaicos de manera que no había filtración de gases.

En El Bolsón, donde están muchos de mis queridos amigos, está muy difundido la estufa llamada ¨Rusa¨ que se encuentra bien explicado en un folleto del INTA (de Argentina). Pero poco información existía sobre otros modelos (de países donde también unos cuantos se deben haber cagado de frío!).

Existe, por ejemplo, la estufa finlandesa. A diferencia de la rusa que aprovecha el calor del fuego haciendo pasar al humo por recorridos horizontales, la finlandesa tiene un sistema de conductos verticales. Aqui va un dibujo bien ilustrativo:

Este diseño tiene el aspecto interesante, entre otros, de tener una chimenea interna. Al tener un tiraje vertical sobre el fuego que además es envuelto por conductos que mantienen su calor, se debe lograr una velocidad de flujo y temperatura muy interesante a dentro. Sería interesante tener un ¨bipass¨ donde termina el primer trecho vertical para cuando uno empieza el fuego.

Para alguien que estaría interesado en construir un modelo como este, sigue un plano mas detallado. Note-se que tiene un horno y una cámara para mantener comidas caliente que son opcionales y no pierden el detalle de las puertitas de limpieza que se ven en el segundo y cuarto dibujo. Este es el modelo mas sencillo y es impresionante ver hasta que complejidad se ha logrado concretar modelos de este tipo con mas de 16 conductos que van y vienen por todos lados:

Los sigiuentes dibujos son ejemplos de estufas rusas que varian de la que enseña el INTA:

El dibujo siguiente tiene algunas variaciones del ultimo dibujo y también muestra una estufa/horno rusa tradicional donde el humo pasaba por dentro del horno. Me parece que como mencioné arriba, quemaban bien fuerte y cuando ya quedaban cenizas en la cámara principal, podían limpiar el piso del horno y hornear. Me parece interesante notar la puertita que tiene estas estufas que debe facilitar tanto la limpieza de la chimenea como permitir le puesta del famoso bollito de papel y/o el aún mas famoso soplete mágico para hacer andar el tiraje.

Y el siguiente muestra una estufa rusa parecida a la del INTA pero lo incluyo porque muestra la opción de orientar el horno en manera distincta y también tiene un lindo dibujo de como se podría orientar la estufa dentro de la casa para aprovechar el calor entre varias ambientes.

Una de las cosas que empecé a investigar antes de partir del Bolsón era como modificar estufas de fundición para aprovechar mejor el calor. La opción mas sencilla es hacerle una pequeña pared de piedra y barro alrededor de parte de la estufa para mejor retener el calor que genera la estufa. Otra opción seria envolver por completo una estufa aprovechando de la buena construcción de la cámara que tiene una estufa de fundición, como una salamandra por ejemplo, y agregándola masa térmica para su retención (y subiéndole un poco las temperaturas logradas dentro de la cámara). Un desafío técnico en este caso es el de las distintas tazas de dilatación que tienen los materiales que podrían generar grietas importantes. Agustín Porro ensayó esto en su albergue nuevo y habría que ver como le está yendo. Aún otra opción, como se ven en algunos libros chilenos, es crear un sistema de conductos con la cañería de manera que emanan mas del calor antes que escape por la chimenea (la meta siendo que los gases salgan a una temperatura mínima). Esto se puede lograr agregando vueltas (con un ¨bipass¨ para el arranque) o soldando mas superficies al caño principal.

El siguiente dibujo muestra una idea muy interesante que es envolver una estufa con mampostería pero dejar que haya un espacio de aire entre la estufa y la mampostería (significando que sean estructuralmente independientes). Noten los conductos de aire. La idea es crear una corriente de convección que calienta el aire y lo hace circular por el ambiente y a su vez cargar la masa de la mampostería.

En el dibujo, se ve un intercambiador de calor (se llama asi?) hecho de fundición atrás de la estufa pero esto se podría remplazar con vueltas adicionales como tiene la rusa. Este diseño es un híbrido interesante para investigar ya que combina un calentamiento rápido del ambiente con el almacenamiento del calor. Además uno podría aprovechar del noble salamandra que tiene por allí.

Queda para otro escrito entero el asunto interesante del sistema del ¨Rocket Stove¨, o estufa roquete (o cuete?) que ahora ví en distintas aplicaciones en la llamada Escuela de Construcción Natural en el pueblo de Coquille, privincía de Oregon.

Espero que haya servido este escrito para algo y espero poder mantener el dialogo mientras vallamos descubriendo nuevas (y no tan nuevas) cosas.

Amazon Consciuosness

2008-04-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Two friends of mine, Matt and Ank, have been developing this idea of Amazon consciousness for a while now. Two years ago they had the good fortune to be in the Amazon jungles of Brazil together and from what I gather, when they refer to Amazon consciousness they are referring to a state of being in which the stimuli around you is so powerful and overwhelming that your feeling of "I" lets itself go involuntarily into the voracious rythmic pulsation of insects, weaves itself into the infinite intertwined love-holds of plants, vines, roots, soil and the life below the visible... and I imagine that the lingering humidity that soaks the body-temperature air makes the "you" feel a part of "it".... like you are actually swimming in that dream, in that reality..... in this world.

I've never been to the Amazon and I'm only beginning to understand what they mean by this more general idea of Amazon consciousness. For our sake here, we could call it Earth consciousness. Or Mother Earth consciousness. Or Pacha Mama consciousness.

The trick is for us to recognize that the Amazon mind is always present wherever we are.

A personal anecdote: I've just arrived in the United States after living the last seven years in Patagonia. I've been living as close to the land as I can since I realized it was important and have observed with a somewhat distant eye how new technologies like smaller flashier cell phones have been arriving into the valley where I was living. The classic anecdote that my brother and I share is that he had to make it to town to call a campesino neighbor on his cell phone so that he would come to till the earth with his team of oxen. So there I was thinking I more or less knew what the modern technological world had to offer and trying to choose differently and I get on the plane.... Woah! Hey there! Woah... what's THAT!? And THAT!? All these little gadgets started popping out of people's pockets and bags once we had successfully taken off and soon I was wide-eyedly observing as folks "plugged" things into their ears and awkwardly scrunched over very small big screens with all the visions that they were generating. In some ways, it was like a jungle for me... a jungle of creatures with strange appendages and unusual ways of being in this world.

And I guess this is the point.... we are always in the jungle. The Amazon is always present. I think back to the last time I arrived in this country and remember walking through a part of Brooklyn, New York that had still not been transformed by bougie-fying real estate tendencies to find refuge in Matt's appartment. It was high noon and hotter than hell. I was the only white person in sight amongst the many African-Americans (who actually use the sidewalks and streets like they belong to the public), had a big camping backpack on my back, was lugging a guitar case in one hand and generally feeling like Prometheus did with his rock.

This is they're jungle, I thought. Of course, if you grow up on asphalt streets and amongst concrete buildings than these are the plants of your jungle - of your mind. And just like you might learn to be a bad-ass hunter or have your senses honed to split-second dances around venemous snakes in one jungle... so might you learn the elegant agility of false-stepping your opponent and taking the ball gracefully to the hoop in another.

What I'm getting at is that we all live in the jungle. That shiny military-looking vehicle that some guy was driving yesterday on the streets of Berkeley was made out of metals mined from mountains that may well have had jungle or forest covering them before. And no matter what we eat... even if it has more chemically synthesized components than not... continues to always be some glorious transformation of the earth's offerings. Amazon consciousness recognizes that EVERYTHING comes from the earth.... even those things that are bought at IKEA. I suppose that one of my main observations with these still fresh eyes of life in America is that everything is so polished and the materials in which we live generally so processed that it might be easy to forget that they are made of compressed fibers that were once standing trees, latexes that might have flown in the sap of forests or petroleum products that were actually pumped from some underground reservoir.

It's interesting to observe that green consciousness seems to be a big thing. It was the cover story in the Continental in-flight magazine, for example. I guess I am afraid that it might be taken as one more in a series of games: who can be most eco-friendly might be considered like who can make lots of money: a strange form of competition.

This ain't no game. This is the woven web of this wonderful reality and the truth is that in huge countries like Argentina and Brazil they are continuing to chop down jungles to plant soy so that people around the world can eat big steaks and now run their cars on this short term fertility. A jungle eco-system continually recycles nutrients so its richness is in the dynamicness of this exchange. Current economic practices with respect to the land are more akin to mining where you exploit it and then its gone.

So the main thing I'm trying to share is the reminder for us to all be grateful for each and everything that we "have" in our lives. And especially for the sparks of life which are the people that surround us in our environment and accompany us in this dance.

It is Fall in the southern hemisphere and friends are celebrating the harvests by drinking from the gushing spout of newly pressed apple juice. And spring has come to bless the northern hemisphere where seeds of hope are being planted so that life can continue to be a blessed journey for yet another year around.

Fireplace, Mass Stove, Oven, Water Heater, and Staircase all in One

2008-04-29T16:01:00.001-07:00

So this is the latest project that I worked on. It is an open fire place that turns into an efficient mass stove when the doors are closed and the flu direction changed. The backside of the fireplace is actually an oven when viewed from the kitchen (as seen in bottom photo although the oven has not been installed yet). Hot water pipes run through the firebox and feed a hot water tank on the second floor which works in parallel with a solar heating system. And the whole structure is part of a staircase.... the wooden part of which has yet to be built and will serve as a big box for storing wood under too. Claudio drew up the plans (which I will put up as soon as I get to a scanner) and I built it during the month of April.

Recycling takes time but is worth it!

2008-03-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

This is Mauricio and Gilda's floor that I just finished. Included are photos of the general sections of the floor and details of the initially awkward spaces that I had to fill which turned into abstract homages to elements of nature and our ways of interacting with it. This project was a good experience in the age-0ld idea that limits can be boundaries which encourage creativity. Mauri and Gilda did not buy even ONE ceramic tile. The tiles you see are all recovered from the trash piles of the three main hardware supply stores here in town. Some come from incomplete boxes and most had broken corners which a normal mason would not consider working with. While I'm at it I'll include photos of their bathroom I created some months ago.

The Sun Shines on Where We Live

2007-12-05T05:14:00.000-08:00

The photos for this entry were all taken by the wonderful photographer Eva.

Hey folks! Spring is full action so there's little time to stop to sit down at the computer... luckily the beauty all around us offers plenty opportunity for reflection:

This is a boat that floats in the pond outside our house. Translated, its sail says "Of what there is, nothing is missing". It is a mantra for meditation and a tool for revolution in front of a culture of consumption.

The first floor of this building is the ceramics workshop where we are working and the second floor is where Eva and I lay our sleepy heads to open ourselves up to the dreamworld. Somewhere in between and all around is where our life is happening and therefore we are grateful to call it home.

This is Mauricio Petinaroli's bathroom in the process of being born. Eva has some great photos of it at http://evalarevolution.blogspot.com/ .

A bicycle powered flour mill that Simón VandenHeede and I have built to take out to the Rio Azul for Alex to use. I am excited about mills in general and want to learn more about making rolled oats. I think these processes are so important for circumnavigating the "market" and being able to harvest, process, and nurture ourselves with gifts from the soil.

Some of Eva's work in the workshop. I spent the last month working on tiling jobs and am really excited to now have time to dedicate to making ceramics pieces.....

Here Claudio and I are working on the kiln (about a month ago). It is basically finished now and we are waiting for it to dry and finishing pieces in order to do our first firing. Claudio and I designed the oven so it is a prototype and we will see when the good day comes how well it works.

In general things are great, more soon!

Colors and Textures from Eva and I's Trip to Catamarca

2007-11-12T13:41:00.000-08:00

The photos for this entry were all taken by the wonderful photographer Eva.

Another oven is born.....

2007-11-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

Another oven is born.... mud, stone, salvaged metal and human love come together.

Solar Ovens and the Infinite Possibilities for Possibilities

2007-11-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

Solar ovens.... they sound pretty outlandish don't they? They are one of those great things that you've got to experience to believe (like many great things in life!). On a relatively sunny day, without either wood or gas, it is possible to cook grains, beans, sweet treats and always have hot water on supply for cooking or cleaning. Being able to cook without having to use earthly resources, whether they come from the forest backlot or municipal networks, feels good... feels non-violent.... feels liberating.... feels hopeful. It is one way we can tangibly receive the celestial energy that the sun sends us on every revolutionary day of our lives (if the clouds are not winning the cosmic battle!)

The basic design for the ovens comes from a publication by Aprovecho, http://www.approvecho.net/ . The main design challenge that I dealt with on this series was making the assembly and dis-assembly of the large reflectors easy. In our daily use of the one we have in the Azul, we found it to be a tedious, but often necessary process when big winds come, to take the reflectors off and then put them back on again when wanting to use the oven again. I went with a compound system of hinges that allows the whole reflective surface to fold down and protect the glass surface when the oven is in storage. I would call this design change a good improvement and a good step towards making the oven a smooth-functioning and perhaps some day a more main stream part of life.

I am very enthusiastic to hear about other experiences in solar cooking and would be happy to publish them on this site. The following photos are different views of the ovens. In one you'll see the probes that Alejandro, our good scientist friend, has installed to study the performance of the ovens. (The photos don't show clearly that there is a door on the back wall for placing pots and pans).

Cooking with the sun... why not? Yet another of the apparently infinite possibilities in which we may interact with reality in this miraculous life we are given. Recently, I have received many reminders of how important it is to start every day with openness.... to recognize that our habits are helpful but can hold us back from new ways of being in this world. It is so important that we continue to experiment and feel the freshness which each new breath offers us!

Footsteps

2007-08-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

Our footsteps can neither be too complicated that we don't get where we want to go nor can they be so simple that they are irrecognizable in the paths of time........

This last project was an interesting one because it came with the realization that when one is designing a space, especially a living room/kitchen, it can't be overcharged with a fixed image (or even a fixed allocation of physical furniture). A living room, which seems to often workout to be the same space as the kitchen for the exact reason that cooking and life go hand in hand, should be flexible. It should offer for the opportunity for the people who live in it to enact an infinite possibility of activities and it should be rearrangeable to re-create the space and continually create inspiring newness in our lived environment.

So the challenge here was to do something artistic, but very subtle, something that would remind one of the uniqueness of the space without limiting in any way the infinite possibilities of identities of the people withing nor of their activities. My friends Marie and Tomas with their sons Gaspar and Maná will be moving in in the next week or two. May their lives in the building be blessed!

(Before and Afters)

Processes

2007-05-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

This time the spark is back and it's time to write about processes.

Do we sometimes forget that it takes 6 months for the wheat that we eat to grow?

And what of the clay that our plates are made of? How many million years did it take for the natural processes of erosion (be it wind, water, frost, or earthquakes) to grind the mother rock of mountain valleys into particles so fine that even their electrons are exposed and in their nakedness naturally search attraction which gives to the soft, kneaded belly of clay its stickiness. What creative dreams the goddess of ceramics must have, she whose braids are a trinity of intertwined clouds, to have the strength to grind with the pestle of time these valleys or mortars of process in which we live.

Do we forget that time and weather are the same in many a native toungue: tiempo, temps (for we are natives too, don't forget!)? And so how do we choose to measure time? - by day and night? by season upon season? by the steady swing of a pendulum? or by the dithering tempo of a crystal of cuartz whose caffeinated dance is codified into human caligraphy on liquid crystal displays and electron bombarded sheets of melted sand which freeze into glass? What seas of truth might we be screening ourselves from?

Recently I've been trying to figure out why it is that I always feel so rushed, so in a hurry, and so often dissappointed by what I was not able to accomplish in the day. For this reason I wanted to share these new processes of creation. If it takes millions of revolutions areound the sun to create the clay that was used to make these tiles, perhaps I can take another few moments of eternity to partipate in its evolution.

If almost all indigenous cultures (this includes the judeo-christian) measured time by phases of the moon, might we say that we have placed that moon on to the butchering block and split it into 24 exactly equal pieces? In our kitchens, do we each futher cut the passage of seasons into 60 exactly equal parts to serve a sixtieth of that as hors-douvres (sp!?) at this human cocktail party? Waith a second here, have we collectively slaughtered time?

Will the earth have to shake with frustration if we don't learn to let ourselves be wrapped up in the soft white blanket of ocean spray and allow the lapping lullaby of waves upon the shore sing to us of eternity?

Until the next time we can light a fire and sip warm cinamon-scented apple juice from this year's harvest together!

Autonomy + Natural Materials + Indigenous Wisdom = .....

2007-02-09T05:21:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of January, Alex (my brother) and I traveled five hours south to participate in the inauguration of an autonomous Mapuche-Campesino school followed by a 10 day workshop in natural building that we facilitated along with our dear friend and teacher in life Jorge Belanko. The photos that follow, in my mind, are testimonies of hope, resistence and the recuperation of ancestral knowledge. They are also an example of what can be done with a budget of $100 in materials and many hands fueled by desire.

Mapuche Youth... Hope... Resistence... Earnest quest to maintain ancestral knowledge...

Wisdom of the ages... "Nunca he ido al doctor; me he curado de puro yuyos no mas!"... Testimonies of brutality, injustice, perseverence....

Getting down to work... bringing clay from nearby with oxen and cart... collecting cane, dry tree trunks, sand from the river, stone, and native grasses to build with...

Process....

After 10 days... closer to a finished building.

Inside....

The group....

If the damn project goes through which a multinational company is in the process of studying, the place where these events happened would end up 60 meters below water. And huge megaprojects aside, this is a community in resistence who faces daily the prospect of being removed from their community land. The details and complexities are too overwhelming to include....

Kindergarden

2007-02-09T05:09:00.000-08:00

The work of many hands and hearts created this building, the kindergarden of a parent-cooperatively run Waldorf school. It was born from a 10 day workshop that we put on with Janell Kapoor from Kleiwerks in the summer of 2005. A few of us, along with the help of many volunteers and curious passer-byers, continued working on it until one fine autumn day its doors opened and the sound of kids laughter filled it....

Our new oven!

2006-12-30T09:33:00.000-08:00

During a weekend workshop we built this oven and then filled in the walls and put in the window during the following days. It is part of a slow but exciting transformation of the "ranchito" into our community center.

We didn't have any idea how much building this oven would change our life! There's the obvious luxury of now being able to bake bread, pies, cookies, etc., - we've also discovered that by shortening the long fire box by placing bricks just inside, we can transform the oven into an open fire place. This oven is built around a modified metal oil drum (hinges, shelves inside) and combines both cooking from the direct heat of the flame into the barrel tempered by a layer of the sand and the slower cooking of the entire mass as the whole oven heats up (like the traditional hornos)

The process of building this oven and recently another one at our neighbors´ reminds me of what a great addition to community living an oven offers. Both the process of building and the weekly or semi-weekly firings are events that bring us together and feed us in one way or another.

A vision flowering

2006-11-17T13:37:00.000-08:00

This is a living sculpture Cristian and I designed at his house in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Words, images, and our laughter
like the flat surface of water
that is held up by the leagues of mystery below it.
In a hot firey birth
The One created the colors of the tropical reef
with all its intertwined sensuality.
And when s/he too was afraid and alone
the large ocean-going fish were born.

The willow tree makes windows between her branches
so that I may see
that what is outside
is also inside of me.

Esperan lluvia en el monte
todo callado
cada gota una bendición
un universo.

What is culture? It's what makes us feel good.

It is the handshake, the bow, the kiss on the cheek that engages us with others.

It is the repeating pattern elaborated onto a cloth that weaves us into the warp of the universe.

It is the healer of many faces.... the one with a degree who sells pharmeceutical drugs and the salvage whose refined knowledge of the plants, rocks, and mountains and the music they make attempt to create harmony where the delicate equilibrium of life has temporarily been thrown off and that pain has been stored in some part of the body.

It is the mask that lets us see life and death behind the suede cloths of the theater stage.

It is a short solo, a rhythm that briefly emerges from the overwhelming symphony of divine creation - it is the clapping of rocks on the shore of the river, the beating of animal skin around a fire, and the flight of a violin like a kite in the wind of a moon-lit night.

And so it is our great challenge... to create the culture of new villages. Gatherings of people, families forming family. It is neither the city nor the solitary hut of the hermit. They are the new villages that are born on private land, far enough away from urban centers to pay the same taxes, have the same singular title deed that one family would. But as it is the evolution from within a system towards new ones, people begin to gather together there and live in a radically different way to its appearance on paper. These villages are close enough to the land to grow almost all their own food. This is the heart of the village's connection to the land on which it has settled - too often overlooked by the pride of man to already build its buildings, the mere skeletons of the true vitality that is found in fields of grain waving in the wind to the sky and turning gold, distilling light, like the sun.

We work with rhythm, with a humble dedication that is not fueled by Starbucks nor any other stimulant.

As I write, I am healing myself. Learning. And now I must go until next time.

Mosaic at Ana Santinoli's House

2006-10-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

More sharing of things I love to do (and would like to continue doing!)....

Some Recent Artwork

2006-08-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

The Apple: An Alquemist´s Guide

2006-07-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

This is a rough draft of a small booklet/'zine I hope to materialize in the coming months.....

Every day I am more convinced of the beauty that emanates from simple peasant wisdom. Everything from simple tricks of daily life, conversation, folk music and dance, to dreams are imbued with this knowledge that is passed on from generation to generation and between people like you and me.

Apples, apples..... a source of life to many, a form of enchantment to others, the hidden temptation that produced the fall, Johnny Apple Seed, Snow White, Adam and Eve and hot baked pies on Sundays in the middle of winter.

"You are the apple of my eye"
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away"

What follows is an alchemical text, from one alchemist to another, about the processes we can employ to enter into contact with this gift of nature and transform it into different forms within this reality - possibly even more precious than gold! Read on my friend!

Song of the Apple

The trees are in flame with another summer gone by.
All the sweetness, all the substance of a season
Has plumped up them apples on the tree outside the kitchen door.
And so I search into the halls of peasant lore
To find what recipes of food and fancy we can share.

It takes great imagination to see an apple tree
In the quiet stillness of a seed in your hand.
And luckily less to hear in the autumn breeze
That the laden apple tree whispers:
Eat me as I am.
Dress me in honey.
Make of me a pie, a strudel, a spice bread, or a cake.
Cut me in slices, dip me in water tinged with lemon or salt,
And sew my heart with string so that I may sing
As I dry over the stove and become snack for months to come.
Mix my dried flesh into porridge or granola when
Memories of my tart crispness have long gone up in smoke.

Discover in my juices the fountain of sweet abundance….
Drink me fresh.
Leave me a couple days for your effervescent bliss
Or let me bubble for weeks to further ferment in your head!
Don’t think I’m through – leave my cidered self out
And I will turn into a sour vinegary shrew!

Cook me cut into chunks and pass me through
The old food mill tossed in grandma’s basement
And I will make you an apple sauce worth
Preserving ´till next year I abound.
Spice me with cinnamon and thicken me further
And the cows will moo for want of more apple butter!

Let the Greeks sing to Dionysus as they sip their grape wine.
I assure you, kind soul of cold climate but scalding desire,
That Johnny Apple Seed also sat upon Mount Olympus
And that in me you will find freedom from the
Earthly chains that bound mortal Sisyphus.

Left: Different alchemical transformations of the original apple (from left to right): apple juice in two different bottles, hard cider fermenting, apple sauce, vinegar, fresh apples for keeping and dried apple chips.

So much can be done with an apple tree laden with fruit. Here come details to fill out the lacey framework of the poem.

Mainly I want to describe how we made apple juice this year since I found it particularly practical, especially as we tread through this transition towards neo-peasant revolution. The traditional way of making apple juice involves two basic implements that I believe were very common on farms not too long ago but seem to be harder to find now: 1) a type of “crusher” or “grater” that turns the whole apples into a crunchy pulp and usually involves a large funnel made out of wood and a system of two metal combs (made of nails or thin rebar, one fixed and the other rotates by motor or hand-crank) 2) a typical press.

Well, the way we did it combined two modern machines that would seem to have nothing to do with making apple juice… a wood chipper and a spin-dryer for clothes. The wood chipper is a basic tool that landscapers and foresters use to turn branches into wood chips. The spin-dryer predates the modern clothes dryer in that it uses centrifugal force to get as much water out as possible before you hang up your clothes to dry, especially useful when you have to hang them inside to dry during the winter. Describing such a machine almost seems silly except that, at least from my personal experience, many useful tools like these have been overshadowed by modern versions to the point that someone of my generation living in the dominant modern globalized urban paradigm might not even be aware of their existence.

The basic process begins by turning the apples into pulp. It is important to know that unless an apple shows signs of rot, pretty much anything goes: earwig, stems, etc. We realized that it helps a lot for an apple harvest to have cut the grass (or let the sheep in!) below the tree before the apple tree is ripe for the pickin' and that it saves time to put a tarp down below the branch you shake in order to collect the fallen apples. I was told that it is better that leaves don’t make it into your pulp as they can make the juice bitter. But it bears repeating: don’t fuss about bug, holes, or those “scabs” you see on the apple skins – they are all part of organic life and add protein to the final product! The point is for what you’re dong to be efficient enough to be a subversively viable alternative to commercial sweetened drinks, alcohols, vinegars, etc.

It is helpful to have a piece of wood to push the apples into the jaws of the machine which is big enough that you don’t run the risk of shredding it. The pulp comes spewing out the bottom where you have placed a small plastic tub or wide-mouthed bucket to collect in.

This is really where the magic is. And really the only secret is to use something that lines the inside of the spin-dryer so that only the liquid passes through the holes and out the spout at the bottom. We used a pillow-case shaped cloth of a material akin to a thick cheese cloth or a thin cotton linen. We filled the pillow-case inside the dryer up to three quarters full, twisted it closed, and then let the machine spin. Within seconds juice comes flowing out into the receptacle you have placed below the spout.

Truth be told, making the juice is only the beginning of a plethora of possibilities. Of course, it is imperative to have a cup at hand to celebrate the fruits of this labor. And then one must decide how much of the juice will be destined to be enjoyed fresh, how much of it will be pasteurized and stored in bottles for keeping, and how much you want to let develop into cider or vinegar.

Apple Juice and Its Transformations
It is good to understand the natural evolution of apple juice to be able to alchemically transform it into the forms that you would ultimately like the juice to take. Depending on the temperature where it is stored or whether you put in the refrigerator, apple juice will be apple juice for anywhere from a couple of days up to a week or two. Left to its own desires, the juice will begin to develop a sparkle which then evolves into a bubbly edge with hints of alcohol. I think this stage between effervescence and full on pressurized bubbling is what’s commonly known as “sparkling” or “soft” cider. My intuition suggests that it is probably best to either drink the cider at this stage or leave it for about a month until it is fully transformed into an alcoholic “hard” cider since I would imagine that the in between stages contain more live yeasts than our bodies would happily know what to do with (any more information about this would be helpful).

So the simplest form is, of course, to drink it fresh or funnel or siphon the juice into bottles and store it in a refrigerator for drinking during the following week or two. In order to have apple juice for the rest of the year, it is necessary to pasteurize the juice and store in sterilized bottles. I was given a whole range of suggestions on the subject ranging from very meticulous and surefire to faster and “pretty sure to work”. Of course, one can happily work on the premise that the worst thing that can happen is that the juice turns into hard cider, and in the very worst outcome into many bottles of vinegar to trade with friends and neighbors for other useful things.

In order to keep apple juice as apple juice for months to come, it is necesary to pasteurize the juice. Pasteurizing involves raising the temperature of the juice to 85 degrees Celcius (how many Ferenheit?) so that the yeasts that are abundant around apples are killed off. I was told that it is important to not let the juice boil since boiling changes the refreshing bite of apple juice into a cooked-compote taste. The most standard procedure is to transfer the juice into well-washed bottles, top the bottles (either with screw tops or bottle tops and the right equipment to secure them), and then putting the bottles into a large(and I mean LARGE!) pot filled with enough water to cover the bottles. Bring temperature up to 85 degrees and maintain for 20 minutes (double check!!) and then let bottles cool on wood or cloth (they might break from thermal shock if you put them on to a marble or tile surface). This is the most surefire way of keeping apple juice. (A note on the large pot, if you don’t have one it is well worth your while investing in one if you are interested in preserving food since it is useful for so many other canning recipes like keeping fresh tomato sauce! A cheap and interesting alternative is to use half of a 55-gallon drum suspended over a fire.)

We experimented with an alternative process which involves using the same big pot but actually filling it directly with the juice, pasteurizing it (20 minutes at 85 degrees) and then siphoning the juice into well-washed bottles. The bottles need to be very clean for this method since any leftover bacteria inside the bottles could contaminate the apple juice. I recommend washing several times in soapy hot water in a bath tub, using a bottle-cleaning brush, and rinsing the last round with hot water and a couple of cap-fulls of bleach.

After capping, it is good to label the bottles and store in a dark, cool place. The juice can be enjoyed cold, at room temperature, or for an extra-special treat in winter, heated with a touch of cinammon. Try it!

If the juice is not pasteurized, it will continue evolving into cider and then, depending on the conditions, into vinegar. A sparkly cider can be made by filling plastic pop bottles with the fresh juice and screwing on tightly the cap (watch out! there might be a lot of pressure in the bottle when you go to open it) or storing it in a fermentation vessel or carboy w- air-lock. The initial fermentation will take about a month.

In order to turn fresh juice into vinegar, pour juice into an open-mouthed container (a clean bucket is ideal) and cover by tying a cheese cloth over top. Stir once a week or when you remember. The yeasts in the wai will turn the sugars in the juice into alcohol which vinegar-making bacterias will descend upon and transform into vinegar. The open mouth and stirring encourage maximum contact between the life that is in the air everywhere and your evolving concoction. The cheese cloth is so that critters higher up on the food chain - mainly flies - can't get into the brew.

These are the basic steps for making apple juice and its possible transformations. But don't stop there.

Making Apple Sauce
I am going to describe the way that I made apple sauce this year which worked well. I suspect that there are home and farm-scale methods that are even more streamlined.

You will need:

As many apples in relatively good shape as possible - a mix of varieties is ideal to get a whole mix of sweetness, tanginess, tastiness and all-around goodness in each bite.
An apple suace mill or an "apple-peeler-corer-slicer contraption" - these are very useful tools but don't let not having them stop you from going ahead.
A masher (also helpful but not imperative)
Cinammon (gives optional spice to the sauce)
A large pot to cooke the apple sauce and either the same or even larger pot to sterilize the filled fars.
Clean jars and lids
A ladle or large measuring-cup-type pitcher

Method: I put some good music on and started running the apples through the little counter-top hand-cranked mechanism I have to peel, slice, and core apples at one go. Once I had filled the big pot aobut half-full, I poured some water in, enough to assure that the apples wouldn´t burn at first, and put the pot over two burners on the stove - stirring periodically. I continued throwing "meats" in until the pot was three-quarters full and let the whole mix cook, stirring and mashing periodically, until it looked like the apple sauce I had wanted it to be. One might leave it cooking longer (always stirring occasionally to avoid burnt disaster!) for a more concentrated , thicker sauce or less time for a more liquidy texture depending on one´s tase and what they will be using the apple sauce for. This is the time to throw in cinammon to taste if it is your soul's desire.

I'm not exactly sure what it is or how to use an apple sauce mill but its name suggests to me that it would be a handy tool. The mill and the above-mentioned magical peeler-slicer-corer apparatus (for the uninitiated, you've got to see it working to believe it) are affordably accessible at rural-type hardware stores (or dare I say it! - on the internet - but really, it's so much more fun to onder the aisles of the hardware store and imagine what all those tools and materials could be turned into!).

Have the clean, dry jars and lids ready before-hand. Using a ladel or open-mouthed pitcher, fill each jar, leaving enough room to assure a little airspace between sauce and lid. Screw the lid on while jars are still hot. This airspace is important so that as the jars cool, the cooling air reduces in volume and sucks the lid´s seal on to the jar - assuring air-tightness. There's so much poetry here I think it would take Mr. Wizard to properly decipher it all.

Since the jars are hot, you want to make sure that you have a kitchen towel or two on hand. AND - very importantly - it is necessary that the jars are filled on a surface that doesn't conduct heat away too fast (like glass, metal or tile but especially marble) becuase it might lead to the jars cracking from temperature extremes in the glass. Another one for Mr. Wizard to explain. This goes for any sort of canning or jam-making where hot contents are being poured into jars. Covering any surface with cloth or using a wood surface will do the trick.

The last step is sterilizing the jars so that they´ll last until the next time apples are ripe on the tree. Bring enough water in a large pot to boil to cover a full layer of jars (you can check this by actually checking with the jars while the water is still cold). Place a kitchen towel, pice of cardboard or something of the kind that will pad the rattling jars as the water boils. Place the jars and keep track of when 20 minutes has passed from the water starts to boil again with the jars in it. Remove jars using a ladle and kitchen cloth or some other creative manner to not burn your fingers.

Some ideas for serving apple sauce:

by itself as a snack or dessert, with extra powdered cinammon on top
in place of yoghurt, with granola
as a substitute for eggs and as a natural humidifying sweetener in baked goods
as a substitute for sugary jams on top of home-baked bread or hot capatis

Drying Apples

Ya just gotta do it! Find the warmest, dryest place in your house - usually above a heating implement. If you don't already have drying racks - make yourself some. The easiest way is with four pieces of wood, an empty onion sack, a dozen thumb tacks, a couple of nails, and four hooks.......

You'll be able to dry vegetables, muchrooms, fruits, herbs, etc. on this drying rack. Opinions vary from home to home on the best method. Some slice thin so that they dry quickly and crisply, preserving color and assuring that they dry well before any curious funguses in the air come upon them. Others cut thicker, searching fo rthat perfect soft chewiness.

Some put the slices to dry as they are. Others dip them in water witha small amount of lemon juice or citric acid powder in order that they maintain their light color and not oxidize. Others still swear that dipping them in a light saltwater solution does the same and even accentuates the sweetness. The moral of the story is experiment.

Once completely dry, store in either paper bags or large glass containers in a dark, dry place.

Some possible uses:

as a snack as they are
in granola or trail mixes
reconstituted in porridges or cakes

A Japanese couple who live nearby use dried aplle slices as starters for sour doughs or bread sponges, because apparently yeasts are parituclarly present on the surfaces of dried apples.

Chapters and Sections still Missing:

Apples in poetry (Neruda, Shakespeare) and mythology (Adam and Eve, Snow White)
Storing apples for the winter
Recipes: Towards a no-sugar apple spice cake recipe, A basic apple pie recipe, Apple Crisp, Apple-Garbanzo Curry, Millalen's Apple Bread Recipe

Signing off,

Perspectives of Summer

2006-03-23T11:23:00.000-08:00

These are photos taken by an angel, Ryan Daly (ryandaly1@yahoo.com) who came, lived and worked with us for two weeks. More photos from his trips and other adventures live at http://www.geocities.com/ryandaly1 .

Sculpture on side of the one little shed that we inherited from the previous owners of our community land. This is an earthen plaster on a bamboo weave over the old boards. Long live wheat, the noble seed that accompanies us and sustains us daily.

This is the cabaña that Alex, Denali, and I lived in during the summer. The horses are our neighbors' and are as much a source of awe and inspiration as they are a source of frustration. The mix of big animals and old traditions with aspirations of orchards and green growth can sometimes be difficult. The cabaña now has a chimney spewing smoke out of it and Alex has set it up really nicely to be able to spend the winter there. What vision and dedication the young lad has!

Our solar oven.... quiet conspiracy with the heavens. We were cooking brown rice and beans almost daily during the summer in this little box of alchemy and always had water ready for maté in case someone came to visit.

Ines's unfinished house up on the hill. We just found out she's pregnant.... another member of the tribe on the way! Let's hope the house is done by this coming summer to shelter the new family.

A view from Ines's house down on our gardens, the shed, the river and the forest. We thank god for such beauty and dedicate our lives to manifesting this grace in return for all that we have been given.

The first post of Alex's house in place. Wow, what a long time things of true and lasting value take time to come to be... and that is not even to speak for the millenia that have formed these mountains, rivers, valleys... and the song of the stars? How long has that harmony been composing its self? (This is a good shot of the layout we used to figure out where to put the posts)

Eva, the fiddler on the fence. One of our many blessed visitors this summer who brought their song to the choir.

Om shanti, shanti, om. Till the next fire circle.

Where Baskets are Woven and Floors are Waxed

2006-03-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

Whew!.... life times pass by in so little time. But I guess that isn't out of the question if one, looking into the reflection of a pearl of dew on a squash plant, finds that it also contains the whole world. And then there's the fact that not only one cabbage can come from that small black speck which is a cabbage seed, but also the truth that saving seed from the cabbages that have the most vitality by simply letting them go past the point of harvest so that they may flower and be genetically woven by bees amongst each other to then mature and give forth into this material reality thousands more small black specks like the first one. Everything tightly folds into the compact nothingness from which everything is born again- and so the end of some things slips into the beginning of others like one patch on a quilt is sewn to the other.

My brother and I have realized that basket weaving is one of the great metaphors in life. We start with a simple, but solid framework. We add cross-pieces to fill in that structure, and then continually add smaller pieces as we give it more and more structure and beauty. The process is infinite, like jumping into a fractal... until we say we are finished and what we have made can hold ingredients for the next baskets we want to weave.

Well, what to say?... building a house is like giving birth, it is quite a consuming process. That's mainly what we've been up to as of late. The building enters into your dreams and I have been discovering that dreams can be a really interesting place to learn - to receive teachings. Sometimes they are very specific - a dream describing how to resolve the next step in the carpentry that we are doing - and at other times they belong to that incredibly nebulous mix of memory and things yet to come that intersect in a puzzling place of fantasy.

Having plotted with my mom behind the translucent veils of internet cafe computer screens, we were able to pull off the grand event for my brother (Alex) of her arriving wrapped in her orange tent tarp as a surprise for his birthday. It was amazing to see how large a gaping mouth can get when the realities of time and space are bent to bring our mother from Singapore to a Patagonian homestead in the amount of time it takes to unwrap a present.... and very lucky that the present was out of earshot when Alex asked with a befuddled excitement if we had brought a stripper all the way out to the land!!!!! (Thanks to Sal for all the logistic manoeauvering to get her there).

Anyways, it was amazing to be an even bigger family on the land than we already are, and especially to come back from working on the building to find incredible food with spices brought from the "exotic Orient".

Ma reminded me of that section of the feminist activist, Betty Freidan (who passed away last month) writings where she says something like with a paraphrase of a paraphrase: The more attention you put into waxing your floor, the more beautiful that floor will become to you. My interpretation: Whatever we put out heart and attention into will be filled with our essence of life and in turn reflect vitality, in other words beauty. It is for this reason that I find so much beauty in the joints we are making in the wood to weave Alex's house together. I'll be damned if I don't find beauty in them after spending all day working on one connection after the other.

There's so much to say about the building process - it obviously taps veins of archetypic experience probably not expected by even those who have been through the process even many times before - but I will not bore he or she who is equally immersed in a completely different task and is similarly polishing away at his or her floor. We will find beauty yet in everything that we do.

The weather is just too good to be able to justify writing for too long and my mom´s going away dinner is soon upon us. I will try to pick up next time with thoughts about the "corn people" that arrived from the travel tales of a friend in the cold, candle-lit darkness.

(I´ll have to upload images another time)

Small Twigs Start Big Fires

2006-02-26T15:25:00.000-08:00

A good day to start.... Carnaval!

We marched, danced, play drums and generally made merriment on the main streets of town as we headed towards the main plaza. There, different groups, mainly "Murgas" which is a form of street parade troupe mixed with theater, dance, music, and social protest, sang their songs and generally elevated the spirit of those of us standing in the center of the plaza to that sense of unified rapture that had us all dancing and smiling each other with out an ounce of effort.

It is in this spirit that I start this "blog". Even the word gives me a slightly bitter taste - something like a weak wormwood tea. You know it's going to be bitter but you also know its medicinal (anti-parasitic, even perhaps narcotic, the base for the famed drink absinth). And so... here we go.

This comes from the desire to communicate. To share the excitement for the changes that we are living and that will be coming. A good place to start to save a whole bunch of background is with an article that some friends sent me today. It pretty much sums up where I'm coming from and thus allows me to just talk about where We are going:

http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/022006_world_stories.shtml#5

This week, we've been working on Alex's house....

(the structure of Alex's house to date)

and had an amazing community day in the garden: harvesting and hulling peas and favas to save for the winter and for seed for years to come, storing the mint and nettles we had dried by stripping the leaves off their stems and putting them in paper bags that keep them dry, and transplanting chard for fall, winter, and spring consumption. More photos of the garden promised in posts to come.

There's a lot of hope in the air despite the shortening days as summer gives way to fall. Somehow we're going to find a way to adapt to the new conditions of less material abundance and greater internal, social, communitarian, and ecstatic rapture. It's like a global process of preparing for winter. Finishing our shelters with care, harvesting and storing what nature has given us, and preparing for a deep time of introspection.

But there's still lots to do.

(Alex and I working)

Speaking of which.... if you are reading this, you need to check out Ank's recently published book "Cooking com Bigode". The title roughly translates to the little cookbook of cooking and living in the global jazz nouveau-peasant revolutionary style. The site to get more information and order your copy is http://www.somethingconstructive.net/jamanta . The book was written and published by Ank, produced and printed by Matt Coffman, and has some illustrations by your's truly. For yourself, as a gift for others, to be made available in local libraries.....

Night descends over the valley and I must be on my way, until the next time the fire speaks.