Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009

About Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009

2009-05-11T00:06:00.000-07:00

About Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009

Unite with new friends, reunite with familiar friends and reunite with nature

v Learn about creating a Healthy Future

v Learn how to immerse yourself in nature

v Learn something about Permaculture

v Explore sustainability

v Get in the flow of a more physically active lifestyle
v Enjoy an early morning walk along Panther Camp Creek

v Jump into a fun and educational work project

v Listen to the Veery trill, spiral up and down

v Take a night hike with us and learn to cultivate your night vision

v Work in the organic garden
v Learn how to close energy loops for our low energy future

The near future promises many changes: we have passed world peak oil production,and gasoline shortages are inevitable, the dollar is on track to become worthless, food shortages (yes, in this country) are probable. How to we plan for a vibrant, healthy future? How will we care for each other? What positive vision can we create?

Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009 will be an event of joy, sustainability and unity. This will be a 'primitive' event: no cell phone reception (we do have limited DSL service with WiFi capacity in the cabin, the DSL/WiFi is limited to emergencies); we have minimal solar-generated electricity (used primarily to run our modem and laptop); our (really good!) water is obtained from a hand pump well; we use a "humanure" composting bucket system: everyone can look forward to tent camping during this event. Think "Rainbow Gathering", back to nature!

Immerse yourself in healthy simplified living!

Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009 will take place at Entropy Pawsed in Summer 2009. Entropy Pawsed is a nature-linked low energy living demonstration site in a rural remote valley of the Yew Mountains, 25 miles north of beautiful historic Lewisburg, West Virginia.

Panther Camp Creek Valley. EntropyPawsed is just left of and below center

Location of the Event: Entropy Pawsed, HC 67 Box 550B, 697 Panther Camp Road, Renick, West Virginia 24966
Date: Friday, June 12th, 2009 through Sunday, June 14th, 2009
Fee: Free of charge. Donations are greatly appreciated and encouraged to cover food expenses, but not at all required.

For more information you can also call us from 1pm-1am EST (We Stay up late..and we have free long distance after ), 7 days a week at (360) 561-1447 and we would love to talk with you.

Do you want to talk about this event, or other topics directly or indirectly related to creating a better world? Then join the Peace Communities Social Networking Website and Online Community with Member Profiles, Blogs, Discussion Forums, Event Listings, Photos & Slideshows, Custom Video Players, Real-time Activity Stream and much more! Its better than myspace and facebook combined, its free of charge and it has no multinational corporate advertisements. To join the Peace Communities please go here: http://www.peacecommunities.ning.com

Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009 is brought to you by Entropy Pawsed, Peace Communities and independent individuals who are helping to create a better world.

To register please go to the contact page to telephone us or send an email.

Contact us

2009-05-10T23:49:00.001-07:00

Location of the Event: Entropy Pawsed, HC 67 Box 550B, 697 Panther Camp Road, Renick, West Virginia 24966

Fee: Free of charge. Donations are greatly appreciated and encouraged to cover food expenses, but not at all required.

Are you interested in attending?

This is what you should do:

For more information you can also call us from 1pm-1am Eastern Standard Time (we stay up late), 7 days a week at (360) 561-1447 and we would love to talk with you.

You can also send us an email at LaurenRRR2009@dsame.com

If you do not have free of charge long distance telephone service, we will be happy to call you back. Thanks.

Please do not contact Entropy Pawsed directly in regards to registering for this event or your email and telephone calls may not be returned. Please only use the above contact information. Thanks.

Conference Highlights and Schedule

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FRIDAY, 12 JUNE 2009

Welcome
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Welcome! Set up your tents and sleeping bags to get ready for a wonderful sleep in the beautiful surroundings of Entropy Pawsed.

This is a particularly special evening for all of us to come together because June 12th, 2009 is the sixth year anniversary of the International Couchsurfing Day.

SATURDAY, 13 JUNE 2009

Tea, Coffee and a Self-Guided Walk in the woods for Early Risers
7:30 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.

Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009 Grand Opening
Brunch
8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. (The main course of Brunch will take place from 8am-9am, and fruit will be left out from 9am-10:00am)

Personal Introductions and Networking Circle
10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Light Snack to Go
11:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

INTRO to Entropy Pawsed, the site of Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009
12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Photo: Dr. Bonnie Gifford of Entropy Pawsed with Students

Entropy Pawsed Mission

The Entropy Pawsed mission is to offer educational opportunities demonstrating simplicity in living with a deep ecology perspective so that we may leave a reasonable world for all children of future generations.

Entropy Pawsed Vision
At Entropy Pawsed we endeavor to develop a strong positive vision of the future and the personal qualities of strength, courage, wisdom, and perseverance necessary to make a positive vision reality.
Presented by Dr. Bonnie Gifford and Frank Gifford, of Entropy Pawsed.

Workshop: Beyond Reporting the News: Is the second stage of the progressive movement to help create independent, self-sustainable activist communities rather than to simply criticize our oppressors?
2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Description of workshop:

Has the use of progressive, independent media to simply criticize our oppressors causing globalization to decrease? When we witness that 51 of the world’s largest economies are now multinational corporations rather than countries, the answer becomes self-evident. In this course we will cover four elements. First we will briefly cover the collectives and communities which live and work together that have used Media to empower their communities rather than to simply criticize the unjust power structure of globalization. Second, we will discuss how creating multiracial, multicultural communities and non-traditional cohousing activist groups may be the most effective means of using time, rent, utilities, gas and volunteers in long-term organized resistance activities. Third, we will cover the need to internationally network those groups in order to prevent the traditional fragmentation amongst community-based media activist groups in order to enable those communities to most effectively confront the pillars of globalizations. And fourth, we will have break out action groups and an open forum to discuss some of the most effective methods used to create a multicultural, multiracial community-based media activist group. This session should also particularly benefit those who desire to learn about financially realistic means of increasing multiracial diversity in their communities and organizations worldwide.
Presented by T. Love of the Peace Communities

Paradox, Prevention, and Poetry
3:45 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.
Choose two words that have absolutely nothing in common. Galaxy and automatic? Yogurt and puffin? Epidemiology and poetry? Let's make a connection between those last two. Do you think we can? After a year of public health graduate school, something I learned in the first week is still on my mind and I'd like to share it with you. There's honest to goodness good news in the realm of prevention; no jaded outlook or low expectations are necessary. It's empowering, energizing, intuitive (sometimes) and we're going to use Latin poetry by Horace to help us remember it.
Presented by Lauren Sontag

Amazing Campfire Dinner
6:00 pm

SUNDAY, 14 JUNE 2009

Keeping it Loose
9:00 am to 11:00 am Programming based on participant interest. Possible topics include details of our various systems - rainwater collection, humanure, mini-solar power: small scale gardening; food preservation techniques; wild edibles; chicken husbandry; heating with wood; water conservation techniques.

Group clean-up
11:00 am - 12:00 noon

Magical Wrap up, Photos
noon

Head for Home
12:30 pm

The Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009 Conference is officially over at 12:30pm.

After the conference is done, conference participants have the option of independently taking a self-guided trip to the World Famous and Magical Blackwater Falls of West Virginia.

Driving directions from Entropy Pawsed to Blackwater Falls
Blackwater Falls State Park Map & Trail Guide (PDF)
Blackwater Falls State Park web site

Blackwater Falls is named for the falls of the Blackwater River whose amber-colored waters plunge five stories then twist and tumble through an eight-mile long gorge. The "black" water is a result of tannic acid from fallen hemlock and red spruce needles. The falls, as seen below, are one of the most beautifully exotic waterfalls in the world.

Video: Dr. Bonnie D. Gifford, M.D., presenter at Reuniting, 2009

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Video: "EntropyPawsed on Health & Dis-ease" by Bonnie D. Gifford, M.D., presenter at Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009

By Bonnie D. Gifford, M.D.

Bonnie, as seen in the below video will give a presentation at the Reuniting, Recreating and Relocalizing 2009

I am a physician, thoroughly trained in science and Western medicine. I am a graduate of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, board certified in Internal Medicine, with over 25 years of practice experience. The experience has been varied (and sometimes overlapping): 5 years caring for patients on an alcohol and drug dependency unit, 7 years of occupational medicine, 15 years in various urgent care and primary care settings. I am currently the medical director at a minimum security prison for youthful (18-25 year old) offenders who are participating in educational and vocational programs.

I think my career journey as been so peripatetic because I have been so dis-satisfied with the health care system in this country. It is a system based on a business model, focused on technology and drugs, a system that promotes patient powerlessness and provider greed.

Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary defines “health” as “physical and mental well-being; soundness; freedom from defect, pain or disease.” Although cited as “obscure,” in the same dictionary the first definition of dis-ease is “uneasiness; distress.”

I have seen much dis-ease over the years that, in my view, is directly related to dis-connection from a sense of place, from Mother Earth, from each other, and from our inner emotional and spiritual selves.

Most Americans are dis-connected from everything essential for survival. We have lost meaningful connections with the sources of our water, food, shelter, clothing, with our fellow humans in community, with those we love, with The Mystery of Life. No wonder we feel dis-eased!

M. Scott Peck, M.D. (http://www.mscottpeck.com/), author of the best seller, “The Road Less Traveled,” describes psychological distress, including depression, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc.... as “a descent of grace”. The message of the distress is that something in our life is untenable, and we need to make significant changes.

However, most humans living in modern cultures are so dis-connected and so blinkered in world view that the grace and need are not perceived. Instead, either licit or illicit drugs/substances are sought to numb the dis-ease, and no real change is accomplished.

According to a 2004 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov), at that time almost half of Americans used at least one prescription drug (a 13% increase from 1988-1994), with one in six taking three or more (a 40% increase). Use of antidepressant medication tripled during the same period.

A 2007 Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (www.samhsa.gov) report said that “24.3 million Americans aged 18 or older experienced significant psychological distress” during that year and “16.5 million Americans suffered at least one major depressive episode during this period.”

In his book “Care of the Soul”, Thomas Moore interprets Robert Sardello's work as follows: “In Sardello's description of disease, our bodies reflect or participate in the world's body, so that if we harm that outer body, our own bodies will feel the effects. Essentially there is no distinction between the world's body and the human body.”

So if health is freedom from dis-ease and dis-ease is the result of dis-connection, how, and to what, do we re-connect so we can find health?

I think considering and answering the following questions could be therapeutic:

From where does your drinking water come? A lake or reservoir? A river or deep well? Who or what is upstream? How is the water treated prior to entry into the delivery infrastructure? Where does it go after you use it?
Where does your food originate? No, I don't mean what grocery store. Where and under what conditions was that apple or cow grown or raised? You don't care? Now, there's an example of dis-connection from your body.
Of what is your residence built? Did components come from old growth forests? Do any of the building materials off-gas?
Are your clothes made of natural materials (cotton, wool, linen) or synthetics? Where were the garments sewn, and were the workers paid a living wage?
Who do you love? Where are they now? How do you connect with them?
In what “community” do you participate? How does your personal ethic direct your interactions with that community?
What happens after death? How does your view of this effect the way you live?

In future blog entries and videos we will explore each of these questions and share our perspectives. [Note from T: Those future blog entries will appear on the Entropy Pawsed blog found by clicking here].

Originally posted on the Entropy Pawsed Blog