Day one: Loaded up for the 9 day row – Kingston-NYC for the preliminary voyage of the Two Row Camp: keeping the flame alive. The on-going mission It is not about campaigning for rights but about educating and living a way of life that supports and respects all humans and their ecosystem for a better quality of life. We travel along the river that goes both ways in peace and respect for the earth and all it’s people and their cultures.

We stuffed the car full of seedballs, mudballs for bioremediation education, bokashi,1 bike, 2 kayaks (thankfully taken by others), 3 humans, 1 dog, 1 kitchen, tents, food…

We arrived at Maria’s, our host for the first pot luck dinner and night. She owns the flower shop here and BnB.  We had Anne’s yumm ratatouille and potlatch gifts from others. (I just learned the term: a gifting gathering). We discussed plans and logistics with Andrea and Andi, who will be peace walking.

In the morning we all made a delicious breakfast then went to the Kingston Farmer’s Market to replace the local eggs with which Maria generously fed us. The Kingston Market is a good place to start gathering interested folks for the porto piazza next year at this same time.

We met many people and set some ground for next years launch/potluck from Kingston. The start of a network of possible ephemeral porto piazzas– commons — on former trading grounds. MoS’s interest is to revitalize the decadent by-products of such vibrant spaces along the river. The more like-minded people on and around the river will bring attention to making it healthy and beneficial for the human ecosystem.

Every camp stopping place is a potential commons for the campers, the town and other participants. (Maybe Sloop Clearwater or Vermont Sail Freight potentially will join us)

Next years potluck in Kingston was initiated today! We invited many venders at the Farmer’s Market. We didn’t have a chance to meet w all of them. We talked with the Revival Farm’s Sarah and Philip for awhile. If you know anyone who is interested in this area, speak to Sarah or Philip or contact MoS : next Aug is coming up!

We met Andrew the granola maker/biker, peanut butter maker, veg growers, Highland Farms for better meat, Acorn Hill Farm for goat cheese and milk and Sandies Sweet Shoppe. The stops down the river build a network of ephemeral community commons’ on the water but only once a year. The citizens of that community might be thinking the same thing so why not just start. Maybe eventually we will be landing on abundance of food, hospitality, greater networking, more exchange of beneficial succession goods and services.

MoS aims to create permanent commons that builds community through symbiosis; their bi-product will be bioremediation — the beneficial succession of air, water, soil and self. Also Seedball has the agenda for the “commons” meaning for local laws. I can’t address that here. Not quite sure the right wording.

The planning decisions on the waterfront right now looks as if the edge of the river is being developed for residential, side walk cafés and parks. They are still not being used to their fullest potential. The next obvious step is creating vibrant village port to bring in food and natural goods in small local quantities and scale at the serene ecologically restored habitats. There cab be a network of vibrant markets, transport via sail freight and the flow both ways. It can all be sustainable small scale connectivity.  Yes we should contact the Transition Town/permaculture people in each area.

We are talking about using a platform called “reclaim”. Apparently that can be used instead of facebook. We will make tworow.camp/kingston, tworow.camp/stonypoint… ect. The villages can organize themselves for the Two Row Camp there.

Now to Pow Wow to give invites out for the camp and educate w beneficial mud balls and seed balls.