Here, fishie fishie fishie...

Kirsti and I leave on June 16th to go on our annual fishing trip, which always means there's a lot to get done before we go. Since she's working at a labor-intensive gardening job and I'm telecommuting, that means that I usually break my work alternating between a few hours of 'net and an hour or two of housework throughout the day. We've still got six cords of wood to stack (and build racks for), restringing fence near the new backyard fencepost, excavating and hauling quartz to line the new garden beds, finishing a screening job for some neighbors, weed-whacking our Zone 1 & 2 fire regions regularly, and all the regular house-husbanding. Generally I keep myself busy -- I don't have a whole lot of idle time, and as a workaholic I don't really like having idle time. That's what fishing is for, regardless of how good or bad the catching is any given year. I'd figured out that between the programming and housework to finish before then, I had barely enough time to get it all done.

But that's hard to do when you can't use your dominant hand.

Sunday I was working on that screening project, fiddling with my knife on a plastic widget, and just as I realized I probably wasn't doing it in the safest way -- well, that's usually when one finds out why. I managed to stab myself with the serrated blade of my leatherman in the fleshy web between my right forefinger and thumb.

The shock reaction was worse than the cut, but the cut is pretty good, too. It's about 1/2" wide and 3/4" deep, a muscle cut. I managed to miss the tendons and any minor arteries, though I bruised one tendon with the back of the blade. I can finally use my bandaged hand for more than picking up paper, and even do some light typing for a short while, but for the most part it's put a damper in everything. Programming is painful; yardwork is impossible; all my time-killing hobbies lately (cut-and-pierce coins, wire jewelry, small hand-sewing) are also dexterity-based.

I managed to avoid infection. It was a good reminder of exactly why I clean, sanitize, and sterilize all of my blades whenever I'm done using them. The muscle seems to have rejoined quickly, but the fatty layer between it and the skin will take a while longer and probably scar nicely. Stitches wouldn't hurt, but I've been sticking with a regime of butterfly tape, gauze, and athletic tape, and am doing nearly nothing with my right hand except hold it above my heart. It throbs whenever I forget that.

For as ridiculously high a pain tolerance as I have, I can be a right bitch when I'm in constant low grade pain. I'm also a bitch to be around when forced into idleness with a long list of things still to do. Luckily, I suppose, I spend 90% of my time home alone, so the only one who has to suffer me is myself. It's all a great exercise in centering and grounding, acceptance, and meditation with pain for my point-of-focus.

It's the best wound I've managed to give myself in years. With a little luck I'll be healed enough in time for hooking my first salmon on the 18th. If not, the trip may consist of me piloting the boat (left-handed) and looking at whales and eagles and forests and waves while Kirsti mans both our poles. My greatest danger will be wrestling with a fish on the line and tearing open the muscle underneath once the surface has sealed up -- internal muscle bleeding several hundred miles from everything is not my idea of good safe fun.

That's the thought that's kept me from pushing it. But even this typing -- hunt and peck and slow as it is -- is pushing it now, so I'll just finish up and promise to write more once I can touch-type again. And go elevate my hand and finish my coffee and stare at all the work I still can't do.

I'm really not good at this "idle" thing.

Tags: fishing, health, life, work
Current Location: Blue Sky House, Boulder, Colorado

Well wholly chao. I can't remember how long it's been since I had an empty e-mail in-box. It feels... odd. Of course, that's only my work/biz/finances account and not my personal e-mail, which is finally down to something like 600 messages to sort through...

One step at a time.

Tags: computers, life, random

Yeeeeeehaw! We got our first solid contract for GorillArts Group. I'm doing the web development for a community-oriented site for the new Student And Teacher Training (SATT) program for the Vajrayoga Institute in New York. Now that's a fun way to start. This means that I now need to migrate and launch the new GorillArtsGroup.com site early this week, finish the Annwfn.org site and go live next week, do a theme design for a potential contract for each of the websites for a solar company's new power generation installations, start on this new SATT contract, and, somewhere in there, keep plugging away at the ChaosMatrix.org redesign, my personal FenwickRysen.com site, the website and paperwork for ChaMEO (Chaos Matrix Educational Organization 501(c)(3)), and the Church of All World's website (once Annwfn's site is live.)

Boy howdy. My plate suddenly got very busy in the last few weeks. But it's very fun working as a web developer again, especially as part of a best-of-breed team where I can hand off branding, logos, photography, design, and marketing to our in-house experts. It let's me put my energy where it's best spent -- into the code.

I realized a few weeks ago that I've always loved programming because I regularly hit Flow states with it. Whether it's going good or bad, the hours simply melt away and I enjoy myself. I build things and watch them come together. I love tweaking code and watching it form beautiful sites. And I'm not getting distracted by having to complete the parts I need to put it together -- I just get content from the team, plug it in, and make it dance on a pinhead.

And telecommuting is awesome. Ah, how I've missed it. I rise with the sun and get in some of my best hours; I work in my robe and slippers as long as I want; I look out my window over gorgeous mountains; I take breaks from staring at the screen to garden and play house-husband while mulling over hard programming problems; I can code late into the night which is when I write my most creative code.

It's the same thing that I loved about making wine for a living -- when you work at something you love, it's not really work. I suddenly feel like I've got more that enough lovin' from work to keep me happy for quite a while.

It's also been wonderful to see news that, after long and painful searches, several of my friends are also finding work again in fields that they love. At least in my closer social spirals things are finally working out well for folks.

This is fun. I'm enjoying it. And now I'm off to play with more code again...

Tags: flow states, gorillarts group, life, work

Hmph. I should add a sign to the site: "The only thing worth hacking here is your mind."

A part of the reason that Chaos Matrix has stayed a static archive for years is that I needed it to be secure if I ever did anything fancy with it. Sadly, for some reason, there's a sizeable fraction of the online occult community that not only thinks chaos magick is cool because it scares people in suits. And, also sadly, there's an overlap there with people who think it's cool to hack into websites just because they can. You know, that same anti-authoritarian attitude that makes someone scream, "You can't make me!" and do everything possible to buck the world -- like look to magick for an easy way to sex, money, and power. And boost their egos by cracking easily-cracked websites with their m4d l33t skilz and a warez site full of tools they couldn't program themselves if their lives depended on it. (I stereotype, but I've met just a few over the years and they've usually proven why there's a stereotype.) So, no surprise, a few times a year someone tries to hack Chaos Matrix.

But hey. I keep logs. They flag things. I read them. Every few years I've had a really good laugh, especially at the folks who spent so long trying to get in -- and sometimes did (I had a skilled and serious fellow make planned attacks for the better part of a year) -- only to discover that everything is already accessible on the site via public HTTP. Hail Eris and Bless Murphy, I didn't even get a defaced front page on their way out. I spent so long watching a hacker crack in I almost felt cheated when nothing was done.

Well, some kiddie-scripter out there spent yesterday afternoon using a moderately creative webster program to try out a bazillion potential subfolder names at chaosmatrix.org to find unprotected ones. It found the drupal installation I'm building -- which is in a protected directory of rather obfuscatory name -- and kept on going.

"Nope," the server'd been told to say, "No directory by that name, either." Log, flag, bring to my attention. But even if someone had gotten in, all they'll find is -- yup, you guessed it -- copies of everything that's already accessible via public HTTP.

I'm happy with the security Drupal comes built-in with, and I've been making good use of it to dole out permissions to my editing team and user-account roles with miserly contemplation. I knew people would try to abuse and break it. But I honestly expected it after I'd launched the new site. I suppose there will always be someone willing to give it a try just because they can. Even when the site's been a dead static archive for seven years.

Mostly I'm just amused. I'm looking forward to much laughter in coming years as folks continue to try hacking a website whose mission is to publish information that wants to be free.

I don't think any of these hackers realize the irony in that.

Tags: chaos matrix, hacking, websites
Current Location: Blue Sky House, Boulder, Colorado
Current Music: The coffee pot finishing its brew cycle! O Sacred Caffeina!

Life is going well. Things are still hectic, crazy, and financially tight, but they're going well. I've enjoyed settling into my house-husband routines at the Blue Sky House, having taken over a lot of that with Kirsti working full-time at her gardening job. She's been working long hours during planting season, to the point I've often joked that I know what it's like to be a Crush Widow, now. That's the term bestowed upon the sweeties of cellar rats who may as well be widows for all they see their partners who are swallowed whole during Crush season when the grapes come in hard and heavy. It's an interesting role reversal for me.

Most of my time has been going into updating my web development skill-set, which is out of date from my five-year hiatus to learn wine-making from the cellar-floor up. I'd still have a long way to go -- a lifetime, really -- to be a top Wine Country winemaker, but I learned enough to satisfy myself and make wine that's better than 95% of what's out there. It's nice to be a snob who can ferment to my own standards. (Which reminds me, I should start the batch of peach melomel soon...)

I've mentioned that I'm working primarily in Drupal for web-dev work, and with each passing week I am constantly boggled by new functionality I learn of, new modules I find, and the elegance of Drupal core's design. I used to write, maintain, and support custom CMS and CRM applications by hand, starting with TowerRecords.com in '99-'00, which was a spaghettified mess of more than a billion lines of code. It's soooooo pleasant to work with a CMS that is small, clean, secure, efficient, and infinitely extensible.

The Annwfn.org website has been my main test platform, serving a dual purpose of giving me a feature-heavy site to teach myself on and providing that community with a modern website they desperately need. It's nearly identical features to what I need in the ChaosMatrix.org redesign as well, and FenwickRysen.com will be a simpler subset of the same features; both of those are languoring behind income-generating work, though. Last week and this week I've been doing three sites for my neighbor Jim which I hope to have done in the next few days -- they're much simpler -- and yesterday we got our second strong bite for a potential job. This week we're hoping to turn one of those two into something solid. I've also been finding paid Drupal development jobs almost at my level of knowledge -- another two weeks and I'll be able to respond with proposals, turn them around in a reasonable time, and start generating more cash for the household.

It's very pleasant telecommuting again. I adore working in my bathrobe and slippers all morning if I want to. I have an office set up in the small back room, with a view out over our back yard, the new garden, and the Twin Sisters Peaks and Roosevelt National Forest beyond. It's quiet here -- no road noise, no highway hum, no sirens, no cell towers. (Kirsti and I both are sensitive to high-EM environments, and cell towers are one of the worst for it. If you want a highly educational but frightening read, pick up The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life by Robert O. Becker, M.D. for the science of bioelectromagnetics and follow up with Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age by Dr. George Carlo and Martin Schram for the politics of pull.)

We have two hummingbird feeders on the front deck, which has been re-dubbed many evenings as "the flight deck" while up to eight hummingbirds of three different species fight for territorial control of the good stuff. The rabbits and chipmunks are bounding through the yard most days. The mid-back and side of our property is a deer highway, and occasionally an elk thoroughfare (not many of them here so far this year, though.) A few herds of turkey wander locally, and might become dinner one of these days. Careful attention on hikes down the back or out to the reservoir often yield tracks and scat of fox, bobcat, lynx, mountain lion, and bear. A few days ago as Kirsti and I drove down to town we came across an adolescent bear in the road, crossing to Lake Kossler. I've only ever seen bear as a moving spot on a distant hillside before; I was thrilled. I snapped some good photos I'll post later.

My writing is going well, too, even if only for a few hours each week. (Slow and steady wins the race.) I'm stuck on the magick book, Scientia, Magica, Mystica -- I've done as much as I can until I ship my library out here and can start pulling primary references from the three crates of books set aside for that purpose. But it's really nice to set that project down and feel it brewing in my subconscious; occasional free-writing bubbles up for that notebook.

My first book of post-apocalyptic Discordian sci-fi trilogy, The Terrans, has taken on a life of its own. Hail Eris and Bless Murphy! Characters are renaming themselves and stubbornly refusing to do what I want them to do -- because they'd do something different. Cultures and languages are taking solid shape as I better understand the world and the forces that would have shaped them. The back-history is filling in to such a point that characters a century dead are becoming major players in the plot. And many of my early technology McGuffins -- a space-time based holographic computer architecture, a new kingdom ("Techne") in biological taxonomy for advanced VNM/AI nanotech, an experimental HoSap genetics program that was mostly wiped out -- have entrenched themselves so deeply that they're no longer McGuffins; I couldn't extract them from the plot if I tried. And I know better to try. My characters would kill me -- or, more accurately, their ghosts would haunt me.

My second fiction project, The Cellar Rats, calls me once in a while when I feel like working on a dialogue-driven tale of the wine industry and the people and passions that drive it -- that's how I get my wine work fix these days. With more than a hundred tangentially interacting characters, I half-jokingly call it "My Russian Novel." It's an odd style to work with. But very fun.

Most afternoons I play in my garden for a bit. There's nothing in the new garden box yet, but I have start trays I coddle and coo to each day. I'm most excited about my sunflowers -- I got a packet of Mammoth Russians this year, and look forward to those tiny seeds (which are now 6" tall) shooting up 10-12 feet. They're part of my mountain sunflower genetic breeding program -- I've got several other types with different traits I'd like to cross-breed in attempts to make my own varietal of sunflower.

The tomatoes (two lovely Sweet 100s) are happy in their bigger pots; trays of crenshaw melons, scarlet emperor pole beans, and hybrid kale should send up their shoots any day now; the tray of spinach, starting late, is in a cool spot in the house to germinate and will follow them out later. It's strange to me, growing a garden in the Rockies -- I feel like I'm starting so late, but I also know the summer sun is much more intense than anything I've gardened in before.

Odd projects fill the sides. There are a few odd jobs I'm doing for neighbors; mostly the kind of fifteen minute around-the-house repairs that most people don't have the knowledge or tools or time for. I'm making a sundial from marble tile that casts a slit of light rather than projecting a shadow. I enjoy making my cut-and-pierce coin jewelry for a break some days, and will eventually have enough to make it worth tossing a blanket out near downtown or the CU campus and sell a few. I keep looking at the jungle growing in the creek down back and the massive deadfall cleaning operation to do -- and wondering if I really want to try to tackle that alone like I have been. And no, I really don't; I could do it but it's five times easier with just one more pair of hands, so it may wait.

I finally sold my truck, the one in California with the shot engine that I'd been keeping in storage. Eventually I'll get myself a good 4x4 for mountain life, but right now it's not something I need or can really afford. That's another reason I enjoy the web-work; it keeps my life-infrastructure costs down, which are pretty much down to just my cell phone. I like it that way.

Most of the time, I'm very happy. I'm living in a gorgeous, quiet, mountain home; keeping home for my lovely fiancee; working on projects I enjoy, doing work I like doing. I still feel overwhelmed many days -- there's always lots to do -- but it's pleasant work. And it's nice, every evening, to stand on the back deck and watch the gorgeous sunsets we get here as the sun dips down behind the Continental Divide. I miss the redwoods and the ocean, but there are some natural wonders here that are pretty hard to beat.

Which is all by way of saying: Life is good, going well, and keeping me pretty busy. I like it that way.

Tags: blue sky house, life, work
Current Location: Blue Sky House, Boulder, Colorado
Current Music: Love & Rockets, "Lift (Malibu Mix)"

I'm truly overdue for a major update here. There's been a lot going on. I keep thinking that someday my life will slow down, but when I analyze that I discover it's mostly wishful thinking. Since returning from Annwfn I've been working with my neighbor Jim as the chief webgeek for GorillArts Media Group; I've been learning Drupal and been absolutely thrilled to see Open Source CMSs approaching the level of usability of the CMS and CRM applications I helped write for TowerRecords.com in 1999-2000. In many ways they've surpassed them. It's been exciting -- I've been teaching myself by creating a personal site for fenwickrysen.com and finally doing the chaosmatrix.org redesign I've been talking about for seven years; that knowledge is going straight back into Gorillarts to do their site and two of Jim's photography studio websites.

I've also taken on a volunteer project -- redesigning and webmastering the Annwfn.org website. I have spent much of the past month since returning to Colorado doing a lot of soul-searching regarding my relationship to the Annwfn community, and what I wish that relationship to be. I was a Caretaker there for about five months in 2005 with Steph, the first new caretakers the land had seen in a very long time. Tensions with Jack and Tamar, the head caretakers, did nothing but rise during that period. They were not sane people, and Tamar is one of the most bitter and caustic people that I have ever had the displeasure of living with. When it became clear to me that they were mismanaging finances, taking credit for work Steph and I had done, and thought Annwfn was great because "this place has gotten us all laid at least a hundred times", the honeymoon was over. The tension rose to a crescendo when we tended our two-week notice of resignation and it became clear, less than an hour later, that we had to leave that night. We told them that the reason we were leaving was them, and them alone. Within that hour, they rewrote their own reality and had the gall to tell us (and repeat many times) that, "The Land just sometimes rejects people." It wasn't their fault -- it was the Land's. Boy howdy, if that wasn't a classic example of the kind of insanity that was the reason we left, I don't know what is.

Leaving Annwfn was difficult for me. I nearly broke up with Steph to stay; she was already past her limit. But when I saw fully, stepping back from myself, that I was displaying all the classic psychological signs of abuse (who, me, abused? no, not me!) it was time to go.

( Long rambles regarding my history with Annwfn, recent soul-searching, and decisions about how to reclaim my personal power. )

I'm finally finding my peace. I'm not spending time tearing myself up over the issues. I have something to do, that I can do well, that's needed desperately. I think I've finally found a place in the Annwfn community where I can fit, and be happy. And if it gets to be too much down the road I'll be able to hand them a top-notch site with a clear conscience that I've done what I could, and wish them luck.

But it's my hope that they'll rise to the occasion. They just need the tools to do it.

And those, I can provide.

Tags: annwfn, coven nemorensis, life
Current Location: Blue Sky House, Boulder, Colorado
Current Music: John Denver, "Rocky Mountain High" (on random -- my ipod has a sense of humor)

Sacred Garbage The Remnants of Annwfn Beltane 2009. This is how the community treats its sacred land. And many then wonder why the caretakers get upset.

An Open Letter to the Annwfn Community

Monday 04 May 2009, the morning after the Beltane Celebration weekend in the Upper Meadow. Caretakers were in the Village running shuttles and pulling vehicles off roadsides while everyone left. All the revelers gone by sundown Sunday. When they finally got a chance to survey the Upper Meadow, this is just a part of what was found.

Open garbage bags. Recycling mixed all through, including toxic waste such as batteries. Buckets of rained-in compost left open to rot. Perishable foods left scattered. Tents and gear loosely bundled under tarps that weren't sercured against wind and rain. Food tossed on trailsides. Bits of paper and plastic litter fluttering away in the wind to hang up in the woods.

Is this how the community treats their sacred land? "We'll be back to clean up our stuff next weekend," many said as they left. Those who said they'd be back Monday to clean never showed or called. And then they wonder why the caretakers get upset.

I was a caretaker at Annwfn in 2005. It took five months before things like this drove me away. The caretakers volunteer their time, live with the barest of amenities, must still work to support themselves, and care for the land with minimal fiscal and physical support.

When I made a return visit to Annwfn at the beginning of April, I stayed to help prepare for Beltane and, ultimately, to help run event support. Rather than clearing out my storage unit to move back to my own land in the Rockies -- my nominal reason for being in the area -- I ended up extending my trip and volunteering over 300 hours of labor (at least half of it hard labor) to help prepare for the event and help with property maintenance and forest management. Even told I had earned more than my fair share in work trade to get in to Beltane free, I still paid half as if I'd put in my four hours and no more. I did so because that is what it takes to keep Annwfn running. TANSTAAFL -- There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Many of the community are brilliant, vibrant, fabulous souls. I do not want to impart the impression that this problem is universal. However, the bad apples in the bunch -- and sometimes they are simply lazy apples -- expect the caretakers to be their personal servants, slaves, and janitors.

Exhibit A: Witness the garbage left on the land.

The standard policy has ALWAYS been to pack out what you take in. There are wild animals in the woods that will happily tear through it all; the deer already are, and there are bear on the ranch that would love to track the smell down to this tasty cache.

This alone would be enough to disappoint, but the tale could fill a large chapter in a book about why it is impossible to be a caretaker at Annwfn. I had returned hoping that, after four years, things might be changing for the better. Many things have been bettered on the land, and most of them hard work at the caretakers' hands. But I must say, when it comes to the maturation of the community surrounding the land, that I am utterly disappointed. And, sadly, unsurprised.

* * *

It is easy to turn a blind eye to the negative aspects of the community. It is easy to ignore it, to choose to say nothing, to stay ignorant in order to not have to do anything. Doing something about it is hard. Calling people to task for their actions is hard. Writing this post, my first words to the community since I left in 2005, is very difficult. Once I have said my piece here, I shall leave you all to yourselves once again.

I love Annwfn. I love the land. I love many of the beautiful spirits and souls I have met through it, and they have many times changed my life. But to see the land so casually trashed after a party I couldn't attend because I was working so others could enjoy it is... difficult. To see the sacred beast of the feast, her carcass so casually discarded in a pan to be rained on, is... disturbing. To see that, after five years, this community is full of those who feel entitled to everything when they have contributed little or nothing is... disappointing. To see a community of people who claim to worship the Earth speak so much more loudly through their actions that they do *not* is... well, it's beyond my capacity for words.

Is this how we care for the earth? Is this how we tread on Gaia? Is this how we honor our Mother?

Apparently, for many of us, it is.

I do not know when it will happen, I know only that if things do not change it *will* happen and everyone will be surprised when it does: the caretakers will leave, burnt out and abused, asked to give and give until there was nothing left to give. I suspect that Annwfn will continue to burn through caretakers, and I know that the caretakers Annwfn is blessed with right now are the luckiest break the land has had in a very, very long time.

I will be here some days yet, caring for the caretakers and helping clean up the sacred garbage for a party I could barely attend. I had hoped for the best, but once again walk away from Annwfn utterly disappointed. I am glad that so many people had a good time despite the rain; that joy alone is my reward. And, once again, I expect to be demonized and rumor-mongered about for putting myself in the spotlight and stepping up where others failed; indeed, I know first-hand that it already *is* happening. Such are the rewards of hard work here.

I hope that my disappointment is understandable.

I bid my farewell to Annwfn.

I wish all of you the best of luck.

You're going to need it.



Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often,
-Fenwick Kaidevis Rysen, KSC

Tags: annwfn, beltane, paganism, pictures, travel

Well. No one would believe my trip by Greyhound from Denver to Ukiah if I wrote it as fiction; it would be considered too contrived that that many things could go wrong on one trip. I want to write it down soon -- it really was hilarious, in a train-wreck kind of way -- but let's just leave it at that for now.

After Greyhound stranded my sorry ass in San Francisco without warning I worked my way up to Annwfn and spent a wonderful two nights seeing my covenmates and helping out. It was a work party weekend (Beltane prep) and I was the only person who showed up -- and I came by bus from Denver. There's something really wrong with that.

Sunday I came down to Graton to stay at the Leahy Castle where I've been helping care for my friend five23 after he had sinus surgery for a deviated septum and polyps; my storage unit is about three miles away so I spend a lot of the day sorting things to ship. I've got it about half done, I think. Lots to trash, sell, donate, etc. And I pulled out several valuables that I'll be selling off to finance the rest of this trip.

Friday I head back up to Annwfn again, will do the E-bay and CraigsList and selling that next week, and spend a lot of time helping them out up there. The Caretakers have done a lot up there, but there's always more to do. Lots more. Like splitting the wood at the Blue House, it'll be my break when I'm too mentally frazzled to keep sorting out what stuph I own and what the heck I'm doing with all of it.

Speaking of escapes, it's nice to finally write a quick update; there's way too much going on to have any hope of tracking it all right now. Still way too much to do. So, back to it I suppose. Onward, then...

Tags: annwfn, life
Current Location: Leahy Castle, Graton, California
Current Music: Concrete Blonde, "Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man"

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Tags: lj