Walking in the forest between Santa Barbara, Quail Springs, Spirit Pine and elsewhere-- between 4/25 and 5/30

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Colin Leath

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Nov 27, 2010, 4:59:17 PM11/27/10
to Ben Bingham, Betty Seaman, Jan Smith, Stru...@yahoo.com, lp...@googlegroups.com, lux...@hotmail.com, Heiko
Ben, Betty, Jan, Ahni (I hope), Andy, Heiko--

Please begin to consider the possibility of walks in Los Padres
sometime between the end of April and the end of May (if not other
times as well).

Maybe we can get a group together to do one or more of these walks at last.

(I know I'll be free between 4/25 and 5/30, which is why I'm
suggesting that timeframe)

For further updates, consider subscribing to
http://groups.google.com/group/lpws -- for the most part an
announcement-only list.

I'll be back in SB between 12/1 and 12/14 if anyone wants to get
together for a short (or long?) trip.

I've been really wanting to travel outside the US recently-- and got
to looking into the peace corps. I just found out about
http://peacepedalers.com/ -- which seems to combine both travel and service.
I love how they used tandem bikes and gave people rides among other service.

Perhaps we'll all get to travel together or visit at least in 2011!
best wishes and blessings,
Colin

Colin Leath

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Mar 20, 2011, 3:50:33 PM3/20/11
to Ahni Radvanyi, lp...@googlegroups.com
Ahni, LPWS, and Ben--, 

Here are the days I could walk this spring--

I could walk to Quail Springs beginning Monday May 2, after the SoCal Permaculture Convergence.
Possibly: At Quail Springs by the 6th or 7th and at Spirit Pine by the 12th or 13th.

I'm checking with Jan and Betty to see if this would work out--

but somewhere around these dates may be when I'm hiking!

I hope you and others can join.

Colin

Ben Bingham

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Mar 23, 2011, 2:50:58 PM3/23/11
to lp...@googlegroups.com
Dear Colin, 

I am sending you a copy of my correspondence with Chelsea, to see what you think of her, and her boyfriends journey....


Ben


Ps I am interested in hiking somewhere to look for a village/community or lifestyle, or life experience. 
But I don't think I want to hike to quail springs, just to walk. 

Pss I just got back from an amazing retreat called Food, Faith, and Farming it was in Oxnard.  I would love to tell you about it in person. 





----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dear Chelsea,


This message was really inspiring.  I am moved, that you are motivated enough to find community, and a future for mankind, that you are willing to take these kinds of risks. 
I would like to meet you and your mate, and hear/share fellow journey's/stories. 

My past is fraught with much of the same experience as yours.  Having looked, I know exactly what is out there, and what is not out there.  It exists mostly within, within our hearts you know?

I feel your homesickness, and the damned frustration of being stuck in a civilization when it as so much rains. 
I don't imagine that natives were bothered much by rain, as their buildings, (tipis, cob - cottages, and huts) would have been designed to meet the weather.  Very unlike our ridiculious modern paper-plastic, that makes up a nilon tent!!

I too have felt a pull toward Oregon, though I am in search of human connection first, and vast wilderness second.  I have found that for myself personally, if I just get the wilderness then I ussually experience a profound loneliness.  My journey is about people, and village, and community, and of course those realities are best achieved in intimacy, and in the wild. 


There are a few contacts in this area that I want to feel through, and see what my future holds, and then I will make a decision about walking to Oregon. 

I am hesitant for the same reasons you just mentioned.  The frustrations of being stuck between modern life, and wild places.  It seems even when living outside, there is civilization to disrupt the rythemn. 

I know the feeling of homelessness, and it's not the same thing, as being wild, or free at all is it?


May this message offer you some cheer to your spirits.

Sincerely
Ben Bingham



Ps  Right now there are two people in the Northwest that I would like to meet.
I would be interested in hearing more about the farm that you loved in Oregon?

Pss  I would be happy to include you, and invite you to any group gathering, village that feels like home.  From the sounds of it, we are much on the same journey. 





--- On Wed, 3/23/11, Chelsea DeBaun <mirro...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Chelsea DeBaun <mirro...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Hello Los Padres Walkers
To: "Ben Bingham" <benbin...@yahoo.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2011, 5:07 PM

Ben,
   We got quite a heavy dose of that rain- what a way to start a journey! For about four hours of our first night at Leo Carillo it was beautiful and balmy, and much celebration was had, but then the rain came in and did not let up until Monday morning. This all sort of discouraged us heavily- not just the mud, puddles in our tent and stir-craziness, but all the realizations of our predicament in trying to do this in Spring and with a dog, on the verge of social upheaval and possibly an earthquake?! Too much! Sunday felt like a bad trip, and come the clarity Monday morning, we packed up all our stuff in a flash and hit the PCH to hitch rrright as the rain came back in. Luckily we caught a ride fast with a woman headed to San Francisco, which we ended up taking all the way for lack of a better plan. So now we are in the Bay Area, riding out the rain and trying to meditate on what we really want to be doing right now.
   Which brings me to your question about the purpose of our wandering. Longer history shorter, we've been traveling for a year and a half in search of community, practical skills in gardening/food forestry, animal husbandry, natural building, radical social organization, etc. We've visited quite a few communities and farms, and though it has all been very educational, nothing has felt like home, stirred us quite, because it all seems like variations on the same euro-american, human-centric theme. I guess the vaguest way I can put our predicament is that we aren't interested in gradually evolving the same predictable, conceivable reality, but in revolutionizing all the everything of modern existence into something way more amazing and suitable for the next age of man-as-animal with the Mother... but where is it being born? Who's trying? I look and ask everywhere for a community who are taking the risks and experimenting and creating anew, but have so far not met much of anything- at least not that is easily accessible to the public. So, by the end of this winter, we weren't sure where we ought to place ourselves next, so we decided to walk up the PCH, toward a loved farm in Oregon and, ultimately, the Rainbow Family Gathering in Washington in July. Since the amazing technicoloured internets couldn't provide the answers, the hope was that by wandering, with a destination of one big, beautiful network of people, we might find what we were looking for along the way. 
   Now it seems some divine intervention whisked us out of Malibu- and a campsite that flooded hours after we left- and back into the homeless home-base to refigure ourselves. So, here we are, for a week or so, deciding how to move forward. Wander we will, most likely northwestwardly. Sorry we didn't get to meet while we were nearby, but if you travel north we may find ourselves that way again, so let's keep in touch on our travels, yeah?
Chelsea Rose 

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 12:35 PM, Ben Bingham <benbin...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear Chelsea,
 
I hope that you are out of the rain right now.
 
I was thinking of an April 1rst date for possible departure. 
 
It sounds like you will be here sooner than that. 
 
It will be the easiest for me to meet you at the beach in Golita which is just past santa barbara.  (5- 7 miles)
 
I am working a lot next week, but I want to meet you and see about teaming up. 
 
Colin is also interested in going north, but I don't know if he will be ready so soon.
 
 
In any case here is the address where I work.
 
5924
Daily street.
Golita, Ca
 
Ben
 
 
ps what is your purpose for wandering, walking ect??

--- On Sat, 3/19/11, Chelsea DeBaun <mirro...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Chelsea DeBaun <mirro...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Hello Los Padres Walkers
To: "Ben Bingham" <benbin...@yahoo.com>
Date: Saturday, March 19, 2011, 12:03 AM


We are currently in Dana Point, Orange County. Saturday we will kick off our trek in Topanga Canyon with a dear friend celebrating her birthday then separate from her and start walking/hitching north. I think we will hit Santa Barbara in around a week if not less, with four parks between here and there- maybe we could all meet, and if the desire to pick up strikes you strongly come along, or meet up when you are ready? Some friends intend to do so further north, as we head towards central Washington for the Rainbow gathering... or cut south east come June for Wild Roots Feral Futures? Its up in the air some but I think northwardly for the next three months is sure as the sun.
On Mar 16, 2011 7:15 PM, "Ben Bingham" <benbin...@yahoo.com> wrote:




--- On Sun, 3/20/11, Colin Leath <colin...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Colin Leath

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Mar 27, 2011, 6:13:01 PM3/27/11
to lp...@googlegroups.com, William Toner, Ahni Radvanyi
LPWS, Ben, Ahni, Billy--
just an update on the planned QS-SP hike--
it looks like Jan and Betty will be along for the QS-SP part of it!
 
And also there's a chance Bill & I & others could do an overnight warm-up prior to this.
 
I'll keep the LPWS list posted of what happens (and those of you who are not on it who want to be informed--Ahni, let me know if you would.)--
Colin

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Colin Leath <colin...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 3:05 PM
Subject: Re: Walking in the forest between Santa Barbara, Quail Springs, Spirit Pine and elsewhere-- between 4/25 and 5/30
To: Betty Seaman <cobbetty at gmail.com>, Jan Smith <jan at quailsprings.org>,


Jan and Betty,
I guess you both know you're planning to walk from QS to SP?
And Betty, perhaps more?
 
Well, I wanted to let you know that I'm excited about that--
 
Let's try to set more solid dates by 4/24--or just agree to be somewhat flexible.
 
Possibly: At Quail Springs by the 6th or 7th and at Spirit Pine by the 12th or 13th.
 
I'm working some trips and will not have good access to email between now and then, but when I do I'll be sure to respond.
 
Here are some links that may be helpful:
I may be having a short warm-up or overnight with Billy Toner-- prior to this trip-- I will let you know if that looks like it will be happening.
 
 Colin!
 
  
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 8:00 AM, Jan Smith <j...@quailsprings.org> wrote:
 
Dear Colin,
 
You are welcome to stay here and bring guests. I would love to walk the leg from here to Spirit Pine. I'm hoping Betty may be able to as well. I'll check in with here and get back to you on that.
 
Talk soon.
 
love, jan
 
Jan Smith
Quail Springs/Farm and Garden Apprenticeship Coordinator
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2011 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: Walking in the forest between Santa Barbara, Quail Springs, Spirit Pine and elsewhere-- between 4/25 and 5/30
 
Oh, I meant to say please and thank you too! Thank you for your encouragement earlier, and I always understand if things change for whatever reason.
 
 
On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Colin Leath <colin...@gmail.com> wrote:
 
Jan and Betty
I could walk to Quail Springs beginning Monday May 2, after the SoCal Permaculture Convergence.
  
If you know of any one who would walk to hike these sections at this time (or about these times), please let me know.
 
And let me know, of course, if I and one or two other hikers could stay at QS/SP for a night or two.
 
As always it may be me alone who arrives-- but we'll see!
 
Looking forward to folllowing this trail--if it opens and is at least somewhat clear (metaphorically speaking).
 
Colin
On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Colin Leath <colin...@gmail.com> wrote:
 
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