Thinking about Pi

I wonder how many of the young men living at the sanctuary are serious about the whole neo-pagan thing. I imagine that for many of them it is just a safe place to live for a while. I know adult gay men who go camping there during the summer or attend an "event" every now and then, just for fun.

On the other hand, it is close to the pacific northwest coast. There are probably quite a lot of people who are sincere about it.

Carl certainly is. He was telling me today about on-going discussions among the group about whether women should ever be able to live on the land. Carl is in favor of it. He says that he thinks that the land is crying out for balance and harmony. At the moment he has the most horrible hair cut because he cut off the sides to throw it in the fire during a cleansing ritual. None of this surprises me. Carl was reading books on eastern religion while he was still living here.

The sanctuary is a perfect place for him for a couple of reasons. One of course is that he loves being immersed in this spiritual life.

The second has to do with being young and not college-bound. Privileged kids get to go to college and live in dorms. They may be going into debt to be there, but at the same time they don't have to deal with all the adult stuff. They don't have to budget money carefully so they can pay the bills every month. They don't have to get meals cooked on time. They are removed from parental supervision, but yet not really needing to be adults themselves.

College does many things, and one of them is to function as a half-way house between childhood and adulthood. The sanctuary is doing that for Carl. He is officially a caretaker. That means that in return for taking on responsibilities he gets free room and board. If he does not have a job, he does not have cash, but he is always warm and dry and fed.

Many of the young men who live there stay for a year or so. Carl is settling in though. I can easily see him staying there for much longer.

You may have figured out that I really like that he is there.

I have also come to a decision. Thought I don't bother to type the quotation marks all the time, the names I use on this blog are all fictitious. You probably already noticed that they names go in alphabetical order. It does help me keep track of which name I am using for which kid. On the sanctuary though everyone picks out a name. Carl recently changed his. He is now going by "Pi." This is, by the way, the number not the main character in The Life of Pi (although I am absolutely going to buy him that book). I have decided that to start using that name here on the blog.

It fits him much better than "Carl" does anyway.