BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Clairvoyance Visions and Preparation for the Future

Networks, yes, icp. I can't stress that enough. Our organizations are far too dependent on the "rules of the road" and what I feel anyway is that those road rules are going to change. So you're going to need that look in the eye type person. The one you just know a truth when you look into their eyes.

You'll need to know that look to get through the changes where people will just say about anything. Not only because they may want something but because they are lost too and may believe one thing when just the opposite is needed to survive. Their passions may not be the truths of survival, but more of something they'll go to every extent, to their last breath believing.

Elleise makes a very good point. When we're out making new friends, unfortunately we have to be a little "picky" about the ones we include in our support network. Trustworthy and honest people, those you can look in the eye and who look you in the eye, these people will be good in your network.

Keep your "gut gauge" activated. If you get a "hinky" feeling around someone, there's a reason for that. They could seem, or actually be knowledgable and resourceful, but there's that little voice in the back of your head saying "wait a minute," or that strange feeling in your tummy when you're around them. Pay attention. I'm not suggesting not associating with them on any level. You might learn some valuable things to share here. It's just they may not be well suited for your core network.

It's exciting to make new friends. We get to know each other and share things. This is another point of caution Caulbearer11 raised. If it's known you're stocking up and preparing, guess whose house gets looted 1st in a crisis. It's unfortunate that secrecy must be a part of our preparations, but it is a necessary part.

This exact precaution is openly stated on survival websites. I've added the Crisis Cooker to my wish list. It's a small grill/oven/heat source that uses propane, charchoal or wood. Their website cautions customers to buy charcoal in small amounts over a period of time to not raise suspicions.

When the same advice comes from multiple, unrelated sources, I value and heed it.

I had some things come together today and just had to share. About time I added some positive vibes here.

I had posted in other topics of plans to contact the county emergency management director and sheriff, using hurricane preparedness as the basis of discussion about county-wide security. Our county is unique geographically, a good bit rural and with only 3 major roads. With minimal man-power, the roads could be completely cordoned off. Yes, I've thought about this, and it could provide additional security and time for all the residents.

Our Emergency Management Agency is relatively new. Talked with the director today and he was more than receptive! He remembers quite well the horrendous evacuation in the late 90's. HE broached the subject of our county being overrun with evacuees from the large city nearby. Apparently, NO ONE in his office has lived through a hurricane, or any other major crisis, OMG!!

His secretary had been out sick and returned today to face an avalanche on her desk. I suggested we meet next week when things got caught up. Monday is a holiday, he wants to meet Tuesday! There was an distinct urgency in his voice, and he thanked me several times for calling. I don't know how that pump got primed, but I'm so thankful. Ran into my boss at the grocery store and asked about sharing the brochure I've been working on. She completely agreed!

AND, I added a couple, very good friends, to our network. In the midst of this I had to run an errand and was channel surfing the car radio. The beat of a song caught my ear. Have no clue the artist or name of the song, but the words of the chorus were

"I know these pieces will fit"

I was a stunned, a "good" stunned. I've been working at this large puzzle for over a year, trying my best to find pieces, not yet even concerned if they fit. Today, a guy singing on the radio tells me they will. Some might think it completely coincedental and I'm way too presumptuous. But I don't believe in coincedence and can presume all I want.

It was a Good Day!

Excellent work, lcp! What a great idea to contact your emergency management team and get them involved...your boss, too! I'm always wary to bring this stuff up to people...where we live it's such a safe little bubble, especially for the locals who have no idea what the "real" world is like -- this includes my family members, unfortunately. I wonder if our emergency management people would be open to it...sheesh, now that I'm thinking about it, I don't even know if we HAVE one!

My boss, is much more a friend. I work part-time, mostly from home. Last year when my dreams returned, I was preparing for a trade show. She knew something was wrong. But, she was also receptive and is preparing. She attended a seminar on how to use coupons and sales to stock up on groceries/supplies affordably. With her huge baseball card book of coupons, she did VERY well yesterday, saved over $90.

I've been wary about bringing this up with local officials. Done it twice and both times received the "crazy person" treatment. I was immediately, but respectfully, dismissed. Those specific issues had to be addressed directly, no way to start with a general discussion.

However, the civil unrest, violence and devastation so many have seen in dreams and visions could be started by various events. This provides generalities we can use in discussions with the locals. If we approach them with a plausible concern for the area and be willing to help, we can't be so easily dismissed.

The easiest for me is a hurricane. We have a history. I'm prepared to address this specific event to establish credibility. Then I can gradually expand to other scenarios. The EMA director was very interested in my experiences after Hurricane Hugo. This covers the "re-active" part of his job, dealing with the aftermath. My goal is to get him thinking about the "pro-active" part.

He's already started, giving preparedness seminars. If he will include other possibilities in these presentations, I can reach out to many more through a conventional and accepted source. Caulbearer11 has shared that things will get bad in the large cities very quickly and spill into the surrounding areas within hours. Living in a surrounding area, quick response with pro-active measures is of great importance to me.

If your city or county doesn't have an emergency management division, it's probably handled by the fire chief, police chief or sheriff. If you contact them, begin the discussion with a crisis that already has, or could easily affect your area. Be prepared with thoughtful questions and most importantly thoughtful answers and suggestions. These civil servants don't readily accept information from "unconventional" sources. They are not trained for it, and have their hands full with information from conventional ones.

So be a conventional source, a concerned, helpful citizen with reasonable questions and suggestions. Please remember, the instant you mention dreams or visions, their eyes will glaze, ears close, brain shut down and you will be dismissed.

So true lcp I know that glazed look well. And useing the psychological approach, what people can handle, is the perfect thing to do!

I have to use the same approach if I have a dream about someone's family. I take the approach of starting with a person's strong points and enter in a potential issue that may end up affecting them in the near future and ways it could be handeled safely.

occasional lurker here... When I read:


Keep your "gut gauge" activated. If you get a "hinky" feeling around someone, there's a reason for that. They could seem, or actually be knowledgable and resourceful, but there's that little voice in the back of your head saying "wait a minute," or that strange feeling in your tummy when you're around them. Pay attention. I'm not suggesting not associating with them on any level. You might learn some valuable things to share here. It's just they may not be well suited for your core network.



It really struck a cord with me.
I used to ignore that gut reaction and try to be friends with everyone but after being burned or let down so many times I don't bother anymore.
I meet people and have an immediate distrust of so many of them so I just mentally block them from my life. I pretty much ignore them and go about my day, and hope they will do the same with me. Probably not the smartest move when I work with them but I haven't figured out a better way to deal with them.

Sharpiegirl, you've raised a good point. There are people who can be useful, but not a good fit in your network, for any number of reasons. For me, the primary attributes I'm looking for in potential network members is trustworthiness, honesty, open minds and level heads.

When working with people I feel uneasy around, I place boundaries around my personal life, and interact only with work issues. I don't ignore them or personal questions, just respond vaguely and change the subject. Some would much rather discuss themselves or gossip about others. I let them rattle on and listen closely. You can learn so much about a person listening closely.

I've made this mistake, so please consider it. I was in a work situation which included those I felt uneasy with. It was the situation, not necessarily the people, that triggered the gut reaction. I got it confused, a mistake not easily recovered.

There are 4 things we need to sustain life.
Air, Water, Food, Shelter

Here's some items and information which may be helpful.

Air - Do you have any face masks? I have chemical sensitivities and clean up fire/water/trauma damage, so I need them. The ones you use for spray painting can be helpful for air-borne viruses, nasty smells after a storm, traveling through smoky areas. Can you imagine how bad the smell is in a refridgerator after 2 weeks with no power? Take my word - it's awful! These are inexpensive, available at any hardware store, and even cheaper when you buy a large pack.

Water - Do you have bleach? A gallon of water can be purified for drinking with only 8 drops of bleach. Let the water sit for an hour or so and the smell and taste will dissipate. There is a website with additional information.
I still haven't figured out how to put links in a post, so bear with me, copy/paste and add the www's.

csgnet.com/h2oemergencypurifycalc.html

Boiling is best. 1 minute does the trick, 3 to 5 minutes at elevations higher than 5000 ft. This website has a lot of information, worth reading and printing.

Food - I'll split this into 2 categories
Emergency rations for evacuation and Long-term supplies

If you need to evacuate, you'll need water and food/snacks that are easily transported, pre-packaged, and will satisfy your hunger. Traveling to your safe place will take much, much longer than you think. You will need food. I left early for my parents' house the morning of Hurricane Hugo. The normal 2 hour drive took almost 6 hours. That was easy, even with a toddler. When we evacuated for Hurricane Floyd, it was a 4 hour drive that took 13 HOURS! Had I not known some backroads, it would have been 5 hours longer. Some were stuck in slow moving traffic for 20+ hours. Others drove as far as they could and then slept in their cars.

I'm not sharing this as a deterent to evacuation, by no means. It could save your life. The point is to prepare and leave as quickly as you can. Even though our area was spared damage, I would rather evacuate than face again the aftermath of a Category 3 or 4 hurricane.

With the threat of a crisis, grocery stores are emptied in hours. If transportation is compromised, they won't be restocked and emergency aid will be delayed. The other night I watched an episode of Globe Trekker on PBS. It showed Amish people shopping in a grocery store. That surprised me. We are so dependent on stores and many don't have more than a few days of food on hand.

If you live in a safer area, not close to a major city, STOCK UP. Not only with processed foods, but also staples and seeds. Most seed packs are for a certain growing season. The majority are hybrid plants and the seeds they bare, more than likely sterile. There are several "vintage" seed companies which sell non-hybrids, but these too are packaged for a specific growing season. However, the seeds they bare will reproduce if gathered and stored correctly. There is also a company selling non-hybrid seeds, packaged to last a LONG time and still produce. They are a little expensive, but I'm saving up. The name is Survival Seeds.

When you stock up on food, storage and rotating your supply is very important. Why spend the money if it spoils. This takes some time, space and planning. I have an open cupboard in my kitchen and I keep a minimal amount of food in view. I have another larger cabinet in a different part of the house for the majority of my supply. I mark each can with the month/year of purchase. It's easier than trying to find and read the tiny expiration dates. The new items go to the back of my larger cabinet and the older stuff is placed in the open kitchen cupboard.

For boxed items, each is placed in a ziploc bag and sealed. This provides water resistance and discourages bugs being attracted to the cardboard. I've noticed it also helps the product stay fresher.

For staples like sugar, pasta, rice, grits, flour, corn meal I use clean peanut butter jars, or glass cannisters with the locking lids and seal. Glass is best, but my husband loves peanut butter, so I use what I have. As long as the plastic containers are kept out of sunlight and in a cool/dry place, they should be good for a while. You could also use the larger mason jars. I fill each up to the lid to minimize air. Make sure the containers are clean/sterilized and your cabinet is STURDY!!!

I started thinking about the pre-packaged meal kits and mixes I buy. For many, you must add things other than water, i.e. milk, butter, eggs, etc. Then I started looking for alternatives and found some. There are inexpensive mashed potato pouches and muffin mixes for which you only add water. Extra bonus - they are good! The expiration period is long and quite a few fit in a gallon ziploc bag for convenient storage.

We've grown so used to these mixes and kits, many of us don't even know how to cook from scratch. I lucked up a while back and found a few cookbooks from the 30's, 40's at a thrift store. The information in these little treasures is amazing. I know how to pluck and clean a chicken, which months in the year are safe to eat squirrel and coon and have recipes!

Have you considered MRE's, they aren't just for the Army anymore! "Meals Ready to Eat" were developed years ago for the military. As a teen, my Mother would bring them home occassionally. They weren't that good, but it was a fun novelty.

Good news, they've gotten a lot better tasting and are now available at most Army/Navy and Hunting/Fishing stores. Hunters use them a lot, and they can be prepared with minimal resources. They are packaged to fit anywhere, survive, and are formulated for nutrition, except for the preservatives. A few MRE's in your "bug-out" bag could get you through several days with no other food source. Preparation kits are also available.

Along with food requirements, we must also consider how to prepare it. Any period of time without electricity or natural gas renders all appliances useless. We have a propane grill and a Coleman camp stove. We chose a camp stove which can use both Coleman fuel and unleaded gas. But in a crisis, gasoline will be far too valuable to cook with and our propane supply won't last long.

There are alternatives and I've already mentioned the Crisis Cooker. This small, portable grill/oven can be fueled with charchoal, wood, or propane. It is very efficient. The website states you can cook a meal with just a few pieces of charcoal. But with any grill, you'll need to start a fire. Elleise has already suggested stocking up on cigarette lighters. Also consider waterproof matches, or the kind which can be struck on any surface and seal them in a ziploc bag for weather resistance.

If none of these are available, do you know how to make fire? Do you know what "tender" is? Tender is anything easily combustible with a few sparks. The peeling bark of a cedar tree, pine needles and dried leaves/grass are excellent tender. Gather some tender, pine cones, small and large sticks. Dig a shallow hole, or place rocks in a circle for the fire. Wad and bunch your tender into a ball, like a bird's nest. You need some fibrous material to hold your tender ball together. Build a little tepee with small twigs in your fire circle. Now the hard part

Banging rocks together will make sparks. Flint is best, is hard, and a small piece will start many fires. If you only have wood, use the "Rub" method. This takes time and energy, but does work. Get a small sturdy stick and make a slightly pointed edge, like a dull pencil. Clean the bark from a larger, wider stick or limb, and carve out a shallow, thin channel about 10 inches long. Use dry wood, not something fresh off a tree. Your stick should fit snugly and smoothly in the channel. The slightly pointed end increases contact area and efficiency. Have your tender prepared and close. Vigorously and firmly rub the small stick back and forth in the channel.

The rubbing generates heat and shaves off bits of the sticks which accumulate at the end of your channel. When it's hot enough, you'll see little wisps of smoke and then tiny embers. Gently place your tender ball over the embers and blow lightly. Once the tender is burning, carefully place it in your fire circle under your stick tepee. If needed, add a little more tender and pine cones. Save your fire sticks! All that rubbing has hardened them. Starting your next fire will be a little easier.

Another type of the "rub" method is using a bow drill. Native Americans have used this easily assembled tool for eons to start fires and make beads. Instructions for making and using them can be found at eHow.com

Building a fire is like feeding a baby. You have to be patient and slowly work up to the bigger limbs. Wind can blow out your efforts to make fire. Have some way to shield the area you're working in. If you're safe and staying put for a while, please remember this. It's much easier to keep a fire going than to start another one!

Also consider security in deciding where to put your fire circle. A camp fire at night is visible at long distance. If there is no way to shield the light, dig your fire hole deeper.

A fire can be started quickly and easily with these 3 things: a car battery with just a little "juice" in it, 2 pieces of wire and some steel wool. Wrap the bare wire around the battery ports, touch the bare ends of the wires to opposite sides of the steel wool. Protect your hands! Use insulated wire with just the ends stripped bare, or wrap bare wire with something that doesn't conduct electricity well, like cloth. Steel wool is very thin, will heat up fast from the current and ignite. Use the red hot steel wool to get your tender burning, then extinguish it to use again.