Catch 22
Catch 22 (wild food year week 9)
Nature's abundant treasures, the heart's treasures as well as the infinite wealth of time - both everywhere and nowhere, throw up a reality at once both as rich in meaning and significance as in the solidified phantoms of an anxious mind.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner: What will they be? Where will they be found? How long will it take - today, tomorrow, the next day, next week, next month? Relentless! Relentless! Relentless!
Catch 22: I have no money. Foraging takes a long time. I need somewhere to live: I can't afford the rent and am in debt, therefore I have had to put on extra foraging courses and write more magazine articles in order to pay the rent. Having put on more foraging courses to pay the rent I now have no time to forage. Not putting on more courses and writing more articles would, of course, free up plenty of time for foraging but, then, no money and, hence, nowhere to live. Catch 22. The project is over.
A Buddhist parable.
Sometime long ago there was, there still is and, sometime in the future, there will still be, a poor and very troubled man. He had grown so deeply and inescapably in debt that in sheer mad frustration, exasperation and desperation he ran away to hide in the wilderness. One day while wandering there in search of food he came upon a large chest that had been filled with rare, beautiful and exquisite treasures. Whoever had placed the treasure inside the chest had also attached a large and brightly polished mirror to the inside of the lid. When the poor man saw the chest he was overjoyed. Without hesitation and with great excitement he immediately set about opening the chest, but as he lifted the lid and pushed it to rest upright on its rusty hinges he saw his own face and become agitated and extremely frightened. He nervously wrung his hands together and said to the face before him, "I thought the chest was empty and did not belong to anyone. I didn't know that you were inside. Please, sir, I beg of you, don't be angry with me. I shall leave you in peace with your amazing treasures and be immediately on my way." He then dropped the mirrored lid and with even greater desperation than before, fled further and deeper into the impenetrable wilderness.........
The Mirror in the Treasure Chest, adapted from the Bayu jing - the Chinese Buddhist One Hundred Parable Sutra
posted by Fergus @ 1:26 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Try foraging for money - stick up a PayPal donations box and see what comes your way :)
But I would have thought that when you are doing the foraging course you are foraging and would have your food from that?
Hope you manage ok.. it would be a shame to abandon your Wild Year.
Thanks Emma. Don't know how to do such technically proficient things! Anyway, stopped the project now so.....
Lyssa, if only it were that simple. There is a big difference between educating and entertaining people in the context of running a course and collecting and processing for yourself. Also it takes 2-3 days of prep to run a good course. Thanks for the support but, alas, the project is finished. I may still continue the wild food blog at intermittent intervals....
Fergus x
Oh no!!! That is such a shame... maybe think of this as your trial run... if it has failed... have a look at why and spend a while thinking of ways around it... maybe better preparation? Nothing about "living on wild food for a year" says it has to all be freshly collected... you might be able to collect and preserve for the remander of this year and keep to use when you try again... try not to give up on it completely as it is a loverly idea and it opens so many people watching you as you go along to also forage for their lunch.... certainly has inspired me and I've spent alot more time searching... even rubbed off on my 5 yr old.. we only just make it to school intime as she insisted on collect a whole load of edibles that she the insisted on taking into school to show everyone, lol.
And do please keep the blog updated... especially the photos... so many of your photos I suddenly recognise something I've seen and not realised I could eat, lol!!!
I admire you for even attempting this, Fergus, especially on your own. It seems to me that it would be much easier to do with other people, both for moral support and to help with all the labor.
I look forward to the day when the inhabitants of Earth go back to working together, instead of living in isolation, believing we have to go it alone. It is my hope that we do this by choice, rather than being forced into it by catastrophe.
Thanks so much for your inspiration! I first got into foraging because of you.
Whitewave, you are surely right. I couldn't agree more. Community level cooperation is the way forward - by choice. I have my I on somewhere.....See my friend Mark's inspirational blogs; in regard to what we're saying his latest one especially:
Sat Sept 12th blog:Life in an intentional community
http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/blog
I enjoyed your friend's blog, thanks. I'm floundering around in between worlds right now wondering how I can take the next step without money. It's encouraging to know there are people out there living my dream.
Consider a boat...
You can pick up a small yacht very cheaply, look out for cheap/free moorings, put in a wood burner, lots to forage on the sea shore. Think the winter would have been hard for you without a prior season foraging and storing like someone else said. We forage quite alot, but I agree, its very hard t survive, we just dont have enough wild areas to forage anymoe!
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