CURRENT MISSION

create gardens and participate in community everywhere i go . . .

ABOUT ME

i'm not sure i can fit it into a short an easy quotation . . . . i thrive on new information, i can't stop migrating, i get along with all kinda of people
...
Raised in a log cabin, Aero is both a Mennonite & a Wood Elf at heart -- a stranger existing in the foreign world of smoggy cities, deadly culture, and excessive consumption. He has been learning what it takes to cultivate a sustainable lifestyle, in whatever big or little ways - possible to fit anybody's life. Growing up he worked at many retail businesses, including ownership of a fair-trade & natural gift store. However, he left it to pursue more organic matters -- needing to know what it really meant to live in balance & harmony with the Earth.

After one year of college on the deans list, he became nomadic - rejecting mainstream society and undertaking migratory work-trade & traveler student relationships most of the last 12 years (except for a brief stint operating the small business). channeled from one adventure to the next, each experience gave him pieces of the Big Picture: deeper looks, wider perspectives, and better vision. after reconciling with the worst he sees in humanity, and with himself, he is back to teach what he has seen and learn from you the things he missed.

He has now traveled the united states extensively - participating & learning the untamed ways of the wild, compiling years of hard work on many organic fruit & veggie farms, going to farmers markets, wild-harvesting gourmet & medicinal mushrooms, going to more farmers markets, eating wild plants, working on edible landscape gardens, living in a teepee, a tree-house, an RV, many cabins and tents off-grid. Now after much independent study of sustainable New & Olde Ways, he has found himself back in the Big City - brimming, bursting, ready & eager to share & impart knowledge from more than a Decade Long Quest. Yet amongst all these blessings of life, his greatest accomplishment is his daughter; though he is a discerning libra and a sturdy mountain goat, he sees she is already much wiser and stronger than he.

Aero is a no no longer an apprentice - yet not quite a master, who knows that gardening (at its essence) is an incredibly viable form of alchemy. where else in your life can you transform any kind of garbage at all, by (1) take rotting substances, (2) put it in a magic bin/spot/pile for a few months, (3) transfer that slop into your yard, and with the (4) help of the primordial elements of fire (sun), water (rain), air (wind flow), and earth (soil) create unique and entirely new forms of life & existence -- and then (5) consume it inside your body to make it a new part of you!?!?

Wow!

Content with knowing he will never really know, he is still eager to acquire information and sort thru it for the best possibilities, hopeful that he will have some kind of information to share with you to benefit your life as well. These days Aero is paying attention to the balance in the cycles of natures, and how they operate to create new life in every moment -- and hopes someday you will too! he especially likes being around trees, foraging for wild goodies, espouses alternative energy possibilities, knows many natural housing options (straw-bale, recycled, etc), loves cooking, craves live fermented & sprouted foods, desires more juices & smoothies flowing thru his veins, needs more community & cooperation in his life, is interested in medicine from cultures foreign to our own, and lives knee deep in the Earth: radiating, reading, philosophizing & writing -- and he wishes luck, love, light, leaves, and laughter to you!

i don't travel, so much as i migrate... I have done new things every year for the past ten years. I have worked on organic farms in wisconsin & california, lived off grid in the mountains of oregon, picked gourmet mushrooms over a few years, done various work/trade situations, traveled and taken seasonal labor here and there, landscaped a yard so i could live under the redwood tree, & basically trying to stay out of monetary systems as much as possible, while maintaining a healthy body and mind. I still play soccer games, i just learned ultimate, but i really really Really need to do more yoga (but its tough on the road). I would like to learn more about permaculture and biodynamics, but i have a pretty good idea already. I think almost all landscaping ought to be edible, medicinal, or compostable.
...

although at times i enjoy the ability to sit around and do nothing, i am not one of those people who "spare changes" -- that is not what a 'dharma bum' does, a 'dharma bum' is on the path to enlightenment (and/or is partially enlightened already). a bodhisattva hears the never-ending humming of the all-pervading Tao, and has no choice but to abandon a 'civilized' life, following heart over mind, always learning, always working... chopping woods, carrying water, doing the work somehow without being involved...

however, it is important to see who and what one is working for. therefore, my decision to forgo the currently currency monetary system. most of the money i have had i spend on organic foods, because we vote with our dollars, it is good for you and good for the planet, it is good short-term and ever better long term, and that is about the most easily attainable remedy for our ailing planet.
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click on "my website" (on the left column)
to find me on facebook :p

PHILOSOPHY

row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream
merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
life is but a dream........

"KNOW THYSELF"

"no eternal reward,
will forgive us now,
for wasting the dawn"

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness, in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"It is not enough to have the courage of your convictions, you must also have the courage to have your convictions challenged." ...Christopher Phillips

"one fast move or i'm gone" ~ kerouac

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

if only i would have known about this site earlier . . .
i've always traveled and couchsurfed... but i've never used this site, but i'm attempting now... it does open up many more possibilities and better networking.

*HOWEVER, i have no real experience with it. I have been to get-togethers a few times, in san francisco, but it seemed like there were more than a few folks, um usually guys, kinda just looking to get laid, or at least desparetely keeping that possibility open. The other half of the folks i've talked to in america don't seem that interested in hosting another american -- they are just looking for foriegners, which i understand to a certain extent, but some of these people don't even understand what is going on in this country . . . i carry new possibilities... without new ideas and new experiences life becomes an extremely boring and toxic blob!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

... was hitch-hiking across wyoming and idaho throughout a thunderstorm, got dropped off in pocatello, ID at 1 am, hung out for less than an hour, and a friendly local picked me up and let me crash on his couch for the night - then hooked me up with his friends who were going to the same remote location in the national forest that i was... things just have a way of working out sometimes :)

Interests

life!

oh so much to be interested in . . .

community!
self-sufficiency!
smoothies/soup/salad/stir-frys & steamed
music!
redwoods
organic/biodynamic/permaculture gardening
(lucid) dreaming
traveling
crystals, gems, minerals
yogas
entheocentric salons
books/information
philosophy/psychology
archeaology/paleontology
anthropology/sociology
secret history
herbal lore
D.I.Y.ism
orgone generators
arts
evolution
2012
brain chemistry
mysticism
hidden info
astrology
ley lines
massage/bodywork
free energy (tesla/reich)
communities
animals
love, peace, compassion, truth,
collective (un)consciousness
john lilly, dolphins, the CCCC and ECCO!

• animals
• arts
• culture
• writing
• books
• perfumes
• dining
• cooking
• organic food
• yoga
• working out
• gardening
• boating
• shopping
• reading
• traveling
• magic
• music
• hiking
• soccer
• anthropology
• business
• chemistry
• history
• medicine
• physics
• psychology
• sociology
• hitchhiking
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

ravi shankar
dead can dance
thievery corporation
balkan beat box
the moody blues
the beatles
old and in the way
yonder mountain string band
old school ska
john browns body
STS 9
velvet underground
tool
rocker t
.357 string band
david rovics
skankin' pickle
rainbow family jams
mozart
LIVE MUSIC!!!
(rock, folk, bluegrass, world, reggae, ska, funk, electronica, punk, classical, etc.)

some favorite books:

the dharma bums
on the road
secret of the soil
secret life of plants
seat of the soul
sacred journey of the peaceful warrior
the four agreements
cosmic trigger
2012: the return of quetzecoatal
the tao of physics
the prophet
light: medicine of the future
living with the himalayan masters
black elk speaks
Chaos, Gaia, Eros
from the fryer to the fuel tank
siddhartha
demian
catch-22
food of the gods
the invisible landscape
mycelium running
the hundredth monkey

a few movies:
baraka
koyaanisqatsi
the healing power of sacred art
DNA Pirates
Gathering of Shamans
PI
Manufacturing Consent
the Corporation
Into the Wild

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

just one?

:)

there is nothing more amazing than catching my daughter in a home birth!

but... I also:
camped out & worked on an organic farm for 6 months without going to a city more than once . . . got super-tuned into the stars ! ! !

hitchhiked across nevada, wyoming, idaho, and montana to get to the 2000 rainbow gathering near Dillon, MT

brought relief supplies and volunteered in new orleans after hurricane katrina with food kitchens

was at both "crownings" of G.W. Bush to observe and energetically "jam the gears" . . . super intense vibrations in the air . . . and energy vampires abound.

hung out with dolphins in the ocean . . .

ran a gift shop / fair trade store at one point in life

i did see this UFO one time, and got a bunch of friends to witness it...

Teach, Learn, Share

astro-gardening
philosophy/psychology
quantum physics
energy work
gems and minerals
animal massage
hacky-sack!

Countries I’ve Visited

Mexico, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States