Will The Good Old Days Have A Renaissance?

There is a chance that we are moving into a time again where knowing about the "old Days" could come in handy. I grew up very simply and I so appreciate that way of life and the knowledge I got from that time as a child. Here is a little glimpse into that way of living!

Hands on Time:

Growing up on a little farm in Germany in the country was great, at least for the kids in the village. For the adults it meant hard work every day. I think this might be better in list form so here are the bullet points:

© Water: Way back we had to carry the water from the stream near by, but eventually there was public water from a faucet. My mom always tells the story that the day after giving birth to my brother in 1959 she would carry a huge bucket of water in each hand from the stream to the house. We had no hot running water. Cold water would be heated on the wood cook stove in the kitchen and bath day, which was Saturday evening, meant every pot was filled with water on the stove. A big metal tub was brought in and filled with the hot water. It was changed a couple times for us 3 kids and 2 adults. A big to do!!!

© Toilets: Until I was about 4 we had an outhouse. Exactly, no indoor plumbing baby! I remember my grandfather ripping newspaper into the right size to use as toilet paper. In the winter it wasn’t that much fun because you had to go outside across the front yard to get to the outhouse and you thought about it twice before you would go! Finally when I was about 4 we got a septic system and a flushing toilet INSIDE the house along with a real bathtub (which was TINY) and a wood fired hotwater boiler to heat the tub water. My sister and I, who usually had to bath together, would try to get it hot enough to blow up but it never did!

© Food: Now this is a two point answer. There were the animals, a few cows, a couple pigs and a bunch of chickens. Sometimes we also had ducks and geese. All of them except for the cows would eventually get slaughtered on the farm and eaten. Needless to say that contributed heavily to my becoming a vegetarian/vegan. I hated slaughter day. The animals always knew that they were going to get killed and were in as much or more fear and terror than me and I was always beside myself. I think that is why the saying “If Slaughterhouses had Glass Walls Everybody would be a Vegetarian” is really true! If everybody who eats animals would have to kill them themselves veganism would go through the roof!

The other food source were vegetables, my favorite food as a child and still to this day. We had a few fields with grain, wheat for flour that the miller would mill for us. We also had a huge field with potatoes and when it was time to bring in the potatoes it was all hands on deck. There would usually be between 10-15 people, all kinds of relatives and one day we would all pick here, the next day we would all go to the next field. It was a big event and lots of fun. Riding on the tractor with the wagon full of potatoes in the back was certainly the apex of the day! They were stored in the cellar underneath the house alongside the apples and cabbages. We had a good size veggie garden, which was mostly filled with root vegetables. Carrots, beets, kohlrabi, onions, no tomatoes or peppers, I didn’t even know those until I was a teenager. We also had some fruit trees and when the wild blueberries were ready we would spend many hours in the woods collecting them. They are so different from the ones I know here in the US. They were small and almost black inside. Bursting with flavor and everything that came in contact with them was tinted black, tongue, lips, teeth, fingers and mostly my whole face since I always ate more then I collected. My mom canned a lot of them but she would also sell many pounds so we would have some money.

For the most part we ate what we grew ourselves with the exception of a few things.

© Bedding: Yes this is a whole bullet point by itself! Remember I told you about the ducks and geese? Well since we killed them and plucked them ourselves we would collect the down feathers and they would become our pillows and comforters. They were so thick and in a house where the only room that had heat was the kitchen, they came in very handy at -20 degrees! Eventually when I got married my mom took the old beds and had the feathers washed professionally and then filled into new fabric. It was a present for me moving to the US. I am sad and ashamed to say that I got rid of them somewhere along the way.

© Medical care: You had to be extremely sick to call the doctor. He would still do house visits and would come day or night but there was an understanding that you better really be super sick. Dentists were optional and I remember my dad pulling my grandmother’s abscessed tooth with a pair of pliers. My brother and sister were of course delivered at home with the help of a midwife and a doctor wasn’t even a consideration for a birth unless there were complications. I was a complication and was born in the hospital via C-sec. There was no way I was going to come out into this world on my own!

© Buying stuff: That was a very rare occasion! Things were being mended, repaired, repurposed, reused and eventually ended up as toys if adults really couldn’t fix it one more time! Buying clothes was only on special occasions, which were all souls day (November 1st and everybody goes to the graves of loved ones), Christmas and Easter. You had to have nice clothes for those special days in church and it was not up for discussion. So basically everybody had one nice set of clothes for summer and winter, the rest was worn endlessly and washed, mended and eventually used as rags.

© I have to talk about handkerchiefs for a moment. I LOVE THEM! My grandfather always had one on him. ALWAYS! It was usually in his front pocket of his pants and it was heavily used for either blowing his or my nose or in the summer for dealing with the sweat running down his neck and face from working outside. Still to this day I use handkerchiefs and I have a little stash of them. I don’t like paper products, except for toilet paper, and think they are terribly wasteful. My dear friend Annie knows because on Thanksgiving I wanted to put a roll of toilet paper on the table since it is the only paper product in the house but them somebody brought napkins to Annie’s great relieve.

Now if all that sounds horrible to you, it wasn't and isn't! We are still living extremely simply and of course with some luxury but I love the simple life.

We are moving into a time of great change and nature will be our guide threw the near future. Get close to it and listen carefully to your inner guidance and to what the spirit guides are telling you. Our lessons are different for each person so everybody will have a very different experience of the time to come and of life in general. Be mindful with your resources and be kind to all the beings around you. Find people that are likeminded and if you like post in the comment section about finding each other.

The Church of the Raging Light is a place to find your tribe, to find each other and to find yourself.

Welcome to the family!!!