Take the Fucker Down!

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance
#1

I just wanted to say that. No but seriously…

My parents names me Peter Bauer.

Peter comes from Petros, which means “rock” or “stone” of “fossil.” Think Petrafied wood. Or Petroleum.

Bauer means “Farmer” or “Peasant” in German.

Put the words together and you get “Rock Farmer.”

My fathers, fathers, fathers father moved to Portland in 1882. As a child growing up I noticed the name “BAUER” etched in many of the sidewalks here in Portland. My father always told me that it came from a relative of ours. I did some research a while back and found out that the cement pourer had a first name: Peter.

Cement Pourer, Rock Farmer? Hmm. So this distant relative of mine, Peter Bauer, layed many of the foundations of this city, over 100 years ago, and now I, Peter Bauer have come to tear up these foundations.

This brings to mind Derricks idea from Endgame:

Renew locally, Dismantle both globally and locally.

On some level… I feel that this does not seem like a mere coincidence, but that I should actively seek to find both legal, private and subversive/invisible ways to both metaphorically and physically tear up this concrete.

I’ve always taken my name to simply mean, “Earth Caretaker.” What forms the earth, but rock… What does a peasant do, but look after the land.

Anyone know what their name really means? Anyone have random coincidences with their names like this?

#2

I love the connection you made to tearing up concrete.

My parents named me Rebekah after a women in the bible. I believe she gave Jesus a drink of water at a well. Quenching people’s thrist. That’s pretty cool.

I looked my name up a few years ago. I think Rebekah means “to tie or to bind”

I’m not sure about my last name Ranes.

#3

Bauer = farmer. I get it. Like the Bowery in NYC was the road going to the Stuyvesant’s (new amsterdam “royalty”) farm. And in scottish, the byre is where you keep your livestock.

Peter Bauer = “earth caretaker”. I like that. Not for the farmer = caretaker aspect. The earth doesn’t need us to be caretakers. (That was one of the realizations I had that helped rush me out of christianity’s doors.) What the earth needs is for us to be responsible consumers. Like I just heard Derrick Jensen say on one of his Engame talks (thanks for pointing it out in your blog, Curt), it’s okay to consume as long as you contribute to the health and development of the community you’re consuming.

You could think of the rock farmer in this way though: Farmers abuse the land until it is worthless–you could try to bring about the downfall of the concrete world until it is worthless–at which point, the natural, sustainable communities of plants and microorganisms and animals (hopefully including us) take over.

My name has always felt pretty racist: Rix White. Nee Richard White. Richard = lord, ruler, king. White = white. So, I’m the honkey honcho. The cracker king. Or maybe just the light-skinned leader.

#4

Hmmm every name search on the internet for my first name yields a different meaning which leads me to believe someone made them all up. My last name, Porter, most people know is a person who carries stuff, though the old meaning seems to be “door keeper”. I don’t know if it relates. I hate carrying stuff. Even a water bottle is too heavy for me. That’s why I’m a scout!

#5
Like I just heard Derrick Jensen say on one of his Engame talks (thanks for pointing it out in your blog, Curt), it's okay to consume as long as you contribute to the health and development of the community you're consuming.

You’re welcome Rix! I’m really glad that you found it useful.

Curt

#6

[quote=“Huby7, post:5, topic:178”]You’re welcome Rix! I’m really glad that you found it useful.

Curt[/quote]

I really do appreciate it. I tried to read the Endgame volumes, but between working and raising a toddler and trying to actually learn some skills, reading has taken a very backseat. So to be able to listen to Jensen while I work on other things has been a real gift.

If anybody knows of any other audio or video sources out there, I’d really appreciate it, as that’s the only kind of “reading” I can really get done these days.

#7

Here’s another resource for yah!

Urban Scout Rescues Derrick Jensen

#8

Dude! That’s fucking hilarious. And informative. And then hilarious again.

#9

He’s got a greatcoat just like mine…

#10

Haha. It’s a comedy sandwich with some civilizational bashing in the middle.

#11

Ha! Could I get mine on “wry”?

#12

Nice one!

But I don’t think it comes with this much cheese.

#13

Me to :slight_smile: waves

Infact my whole name can be said to mean “keeper of the door to liberty” :smiley: which I reckon is a pretty wicked think hehehe

#14

Keeper of the door to liberty. That is cool!

#15

in hebrew derik means the way. this makes sense to me as a new way will emerge from the ashes of civilization (the phoenix).

i recently did some genealogy work and came up with some interesting and frightening info. first the frightening. in derrick jensens book end game he talks about james watt. it was this man who made the steam engine usable on a mass scale. it was this man that gave the spark for the industrial revolution. jensen classes him as one of the top ten most atrocious people in history. i am a direct descendant of this man. this makes me want to vomit. im with you urban scout in tearing apart what those before you built. fucking industrial revolution…why did it have to be my ancestor? this has played on my conscious ever since i learned of it. fucking james watts. i will spend the rest of my life undoing what he did.

next the interesting…
very recently i was talking to someone about my link to mr. watt and was curious of the exact genealogy so i went to talk to my mom. as we were discussing, my grandfather came up and she mentioned he was part native american. i had never known this until maybe a month or two ago. i really wanted to know what tribe so we called my aunt. she said i was cherokee indian. my moms side of the family is english. the cherokee faught for the english in the revolutionary war. im seventh generation cherokee, and for anyone who knows anything about native prophecy seventh generation is real important. it is the generation that will bring the second coming of the human species. everything done by natives is done first by thinking how this will affect the seventh generation (i.e. those who have yet to come).

this has literally been a mind fuck for me. not only do i have the actions of destruction hanging over my head, but the responsibility of righting those actions (as all of us do).
from now until the crash happens, every day, every moment, every thought, every action will be directed at TAKING THE FUCKER DOWN!

#16

hmm…
My first name means ‘of the royal forest’ + ‘meadow’ and in some cultures ‘crowned one’
My last name comes from the mountains of the Dark Forest in Germany. Whether its the name of one specific mountain or a chain of them I am unsure.

Seems to be a definite theme going on here…

#17

I admit, I give not a good golly gosh about my monicker, for all I know it means ‘furious sweetmeat of the piping cherry jellybean’. My parents didn’t know when they named me, nobody I know knows, nobody for the last few centuries aside from the occasional specialist has known, and I have the feeling this information is small potatoes and has no bearing on my life whatsoever.

HOWEVER, I did go to school with a rather rambunctious and peppy fellow by the name of Harry Lichter. His first name, Harold, according to some site, means ‘leader of the army’, and his last name is one of those that denotes a certain profession. Much like everyones favorite fantastic cannibal, Lichter is a variation on Lichtor, the title for the station of Roman magistrates responsible for executing criminals.

and how everyone laughed at this darling bird of paradise, HARRY LICHTER, not knowing he was in fact Leader of the Army / Executioner.

what does this have to do with rewilding? whisper his name 3 times to a plant and the buds will thicken and blossom more fully, the sap will intensify in potency, the roots will gain that extra umph neccessary to sunder boulders.

really. The spoken Harry Lichter is powerful stuff.

#18

Michael Paul Fay = totally awesome dude.

#19

My name means, God is my salvation. Joshua. My brothers name, “Isaiah” means the same.
These names come from a culture with a deist point of veiw.
Many christians teach that God is omnipresent.
Whatever God means to you, If God is omnipresent then I can intrepet that to mean God is in all the elements.
So I could say, the Earth is my salvation.
My last name “Brown” a color. A leaf,tree trunk,or the earth I walk on.
ofthewood

#20

[quote=“Urban Scout, post:7, topic:178”]Here’s another resource for yah!

Urban Scout Rescues Derrick Jensen[/quote]

and salmon