LETTER FROM SALUDA 43At “Getting Your Head Right,”
Benjamin Raven Pressley wore an ol-
ive vest with spangled wings on it,
said he was part Cherokee, and
called himself a “spiritual guide
coach.” At “Gold and Silver,” Keith
Iton, one of two African- American
presenters I noted, urged us to collect
gold and silver for the End Times. At
“Homestead Herbals,” Suzanne Up-
ton free-associated about which
herbs were good for which diseases.
Basil for high cholesterol, Spilanthes
for numbing, bloodroot for warts,
dandelion for the liver, pine pollen
for androgens, sweet gum for the
lungs. And so on, for an hour.
Finally, at the “Sun Cooking”
demonstration, there was the week-
end’s first (and, it turned out, only)
discussion of concerns outside the
scope of the individual. Paul Mun-
sen, president of Sun Ovens Inter-
national, showed off his miracle
cookers, which need only solar heat
to work. In addition to his descrip-
tions of baking bread and boiling
eggs with the sun, he talked about
climate change; deforestation; and
the fact that 2.5 billion people to-
day still cook over fires, which takes
a huge amount of time, contributes
to environmental collapse, and
gives people respiratory diseases. He
had met Nelson Mandela and spoke
fondly of him. He even said the
word “progressive” as though it were
a good thing, bless him. I was shak-
en to realize that this was the first
discussion of climate change I had
heard all day; that though there was
plenty of talk about defense against
kidnappers and nuclear, biological,
or chemical warfare, the actual ca-
lamity bearing down on humanity,
that great elephant in the room
pressing us all to the wall, had been
almost entirely ignored.4.I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist,
that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the
cent, I give to such men as do not belong
to me and to whom I do not belong.D
uring the brief dinner break,
I went with a misty head to
set up my tent in the over-
flow campground. The other prep-
pers were just hanging out; they
watched without speaking as I strug-
gled with my equipment. I tried to be
as quiet as possible—a mouse. God
forbid they search my camp when I
was gone, I thought. They’d find books
of poetry. I began to think that it was
perhaps an oversight to have brought
no weapons, not even a multi-tool, to
this place that now seemed very obvi-
ously teeming with them.
Because I didn’t trust myself to
make a campfire while others were
watching, I had brought food that ISource photographs: Paul Munsen and Richard Cleveland.
From Business Insider © 2019 Hilary Brueck/Insider Inc.