This Gecko's Family Just Grew Bigger!

October 25, 2019

Recently my wife, Michelle, convinced me to do the Ancestry.com DNA test.  As you may or may not know I was adopted when I was 4 years old and never knew who my birth family was.  I had heard stories and rumors over the years from the DePelchin Faith Home that I was adopted from and my adopted mother, but nothing was ever proven other than my last name at birth.  My adopted mother had heard that my birth surname was either Hill or Wells.  I went to the Terrell Genealogical Library in Beaumont, Texas and researched both names in the Texas State Birth Index that had on microfiche.  It turns out that there was a list for a Billy Wayne Wells born on my birth day, in the county I was born in, and with the same birth number that is on my birth certificate with my adopted name, Billy Wayne Mitchell.

So, I collected my spit in the test tube from the DNA kit and mailed it in to the Ancestry.com testing facility and in about 2 weeks my results were ready online.  With the information it gave me my life was changed forever.  I found not one, but TWO half-sisters, Kelli and Katheryn, from my birth mother's side of a family tree that I could now trace back!  Not only that, but I found out that there was a third half-sister that still needs to be found, Barbara.

It gets even better, though...

Both of my half-sisters live in Baytown, Texas and last weekend my wife and I had to attend a wedding in Houston.  We all got together for lunch the day before the wedding at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Baytown!  I got to meet my sisters in person for the first time!!!

 L to R: Katheryn, Kelli, Billy (me)

L to R: Billy (me), Katheryn, Kelli

Since then, I have been in contact with several other new family members such as an aunt and numerous cousins.  They are all so eager to meet us!

And there is even newer news!  I just came across a marriage license for my birth mother, Mozell Wells and a man named Charles Moore Siedlecki from 1969...I was born in 1970!  This guy could be my birth father!  I got into contact with a guy on Facebook named Louis Siedlecki who might be Charles' brother, but he hasn't responded to my Messenger message yet.  He DID however accept my Friend request.  Better news still....Louis lives right here in my hometown of San Marcos, Texas!!!  Here's to hoping that the search for my birth-father is over!

So to all of you fellow adoptees out there...DNA testing works!!!

August 2, 2019 Gecko's Overlook Dayhike

The Upper Purgatory Creek Natural Area entrance to Dante's Trail has to be my favorite trail section in San Marcos, Texas because it takes me to what local trail maps call 'the Overlook'.  I have renamed it 'Gecko's Overlook'!

*SPOILER ALERT*  In this video I talk about the movie 'Tolkien' and some revelations I have made after watching it.  I also talk about some upcoming video projects that I would like to do, including the Panther Canyon Trail in Lambda Park, New Braunfels, Texas and some trails in Palmetto State Park outside of Luling, Texas.

I didn't mention it in the video, but I'm going to make another video showcasing the ways subscribers and viewers can contribute to my hiking and thru-hiking endeavors, which creates new content for you guys to enjoy.  These modes of contribution include Patreon, GoFundMe, PayPal, my REI Wishlist, and a few others.  I'm continuing to save money on my own but it is very slow going...with you guy's help I can get there much faster!  Every single donation...financial and gear...will be used exclusively in getting me out on the trail which gets you guys more new and exciting hiking adventures to watch.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/GeckosTrails
GoFundMe:  Upcoming
PayPal:  https://www.paypal.me/geckostrails
REI Wishlist:  http://www.rei.com/lists/344344806

So stay tuned!!!  Don't forget to hit the 'Subscribe' button and the 'thumbs up' icon if you enjoyed this video!

Divinum Sustinieri: The Past as a Model for a Sustainable Future

An important part of my personal journey, and an integral topic that I want to incorporate into this blog, is my personal philosophy of Divinum Sustinieri, or 'Divine Sustainability'. This philosophy stems from the belief that the way of life that our distant native/aboriginal ancestors had was far superior that the way of life that is prevalent in the world today in terms of sustainability, social interaction, and symbiosis with the natural world around us. I dare say that I am not the only one who feels that way either. There has been a huge surge in the numbers of intentional communities being created around the world and nature, shamanistic, and new thought spirituality in individuals has been rising steadily since the 1960's creating a shift in consciousness toward global unity, sustainability, and environmental awareness.

I have found many virtual teachers in my journey...my Journey of Infinite Steps, as I like to call it. Topping this list of teachers are Druvalo Melchizadek who has taught me about Sacred Geometry and the Elements, Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton who have taught me about permaculture, Michael Reynolds who has taught me that you can build carbon neutrally with natural, recycled, or repurposed materials, and intentional communities like Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage who have shown me what putting all of these elements together in a community setting could look like. Also, through my own research of essays like "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492" by William H. Denevan and Charles Man's "1491:New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" and by studying the evolution of organized religions versus the consistency of native/aboriginal spiritual belief systems (which will be a topic for a future blog post) has led me to believe that the native/aboriginal systems perpetuate a symbiosis between mankind and the natural world. These people and studies have given me the building blocks that have created my philosophy of Divinum Sustinieri.

As you could probably guess by my list of teachers, the philosophy of Divinum Sustinieri is based upon 4 Tenets: Spirituality, Sacred Geometry, the Elements, and Sustainable Life Practices like permaculture, biotecture, and alternative energy sources. In following these 4 Tenets one can achieve a true symbiosis with the Natural World that they live in. It's not only a philosophy but a way of life.

Tenet 1: Spirituality

Being the first Tenet, Spirituality is the foundation upon which the philosophy is based. It doesn’t matter whether you are Christian, Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, Pagan, Wiccan, or any other religion. Dogma plays no role whatsoever in this philosophy. You only need to have a spiritual belief of some kind. As long as you believe in Divinity, the other elements of the philosophy will fall in line. The philosophy is one of balance and symbiosis.

Tenet 2: Sacred Geometry

The second attribute of the philosophy is sacred geometry. This is a geometric progression beginning with Divine consciousness and progressional movement which creates the Vesica Piscis, the Egg of Life, the Flower of Life, the Tree of Life, and Metatron's Cube (which contains within it the Five Plutonic Solids - the five elements of Nature). This is the geometry of creation itself. It can be measured. It is quantifiable. Whether it is in the natural world around us or in the internal organic body, it all starts with sacred geometry (which is also another topic for a future in-depth blog post).

Tenet 3: The Elements

The third aspect of the philosophy is closely tied to Sacred Geometry, but must be its own subject. These are The Elements - the Five Plutonic Solids of Sacred Geometry (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit - also known as aether or prana). Learning about The Elements can be complicated. There is definite structure related to each element and they should be learned sequentially for optimal understanding. Each element has its own relationships and positive or negative/masculine or feminine properties. In this respect, the study of The Elements is akin to Feng Shui.

Tenet 4: Sustainable Life Practices

The last aspect of Divinum Sustinieri is that of Sustainable Life Practices, such as permaculture, biotecture, and alternative energy. This is where what you’ve learned about spirituality, sacred geometry, and the elements come into practice. Permaculture teaches care of the Earth, care of people, and to share the surplus of what you reap. This is a conscious design of an ecosystem – an intentional design of a person’s environment for maximum agricultural yields for the minimum amount of energy. Biotecture (sustainable building) teaches people to build their homes in a carbon neutral or even carbon negative manner using natural, recycled, or repurposed materials. Some of these techniques are found in Earthships and houses made out of cobb, earth brick, earthbag, straw bale, and cordwood houses. Some alternative energy systems include solar, wind, hydro, and trompes but new methods of sustainable energy production are being invented or discovered at an incredible rate.

Through living these 4 Tenets the philosophy of Divinum Sustinieri can allow you to live symbiotically with the environment in which you reside as humans were meant to. Humanity is just another species of creation like trees, animals and bacteria. We have forgotten this. Humanity has put itself above the rest of creation and tries to bend creation to it's will. There is only one another organism in creation which does this...a cancer cell. We were meant to be caretakers, the immune system if you will, of creation just as our ancient ancestors were. This is the truth that these intentional communities and natural spiritualities are trying to get back to...to save our planet before we utterly destroy it.

It's not too late...

My Idea for a Podcast

Podcast Project

“Why Does Life Have To Be So Hard?!?”

I got the idea for this podcast after watching one of my mentors, Timothy J Ward, launch his podcast for seasonal work life and it got me to thinking maybe I should start my own podcast. So I brainstormed ideas for what my podcast should be about and I finally settled on: “Why Does Life Have To Be So Hard?”

Basically, what this podcast would cover is aspects of life that we as individuals consider hard...the topics that we view as making life hard. These topics would be jobs, mentality, mindset, finances, and the like.  I want to concentrate on the things we can do to make our jobs better, Monetizing our hobbies through Etsy, for crafts and the like, Displate, Saatchi Art, and the multiple platforms that people can use to monetize their photography, blogging about hobbies such as hikers making a blog about their trail notes so other people can enjoy the things that they found on their hikes, and things like that. Other concerns that can be addressed on the podcast would be meditation, mindfulness, frugality, lifestyles such as minimalism, moving to a sustainable intentional community, working in areas such as Permaculture or natural building for their homes and other structures on their property, and the like.

Other things I would like to cover in the podcast are resources that are available for people such as the VA for veterans to maybe qualify for disability, side hustles like usertesting.com or HubPages.com, and other ways to make money on the side above and beyond their full-time jobs, or day job if you will,  to have income streams that are basically passive. Also, there are programs out there I’m sure that I haven’t found where people could find resources for money management, investing, and home/property buying that would help them in their every day lives.

Life does not have to be hard. Life is only hard because we make it so.  If you look at the native peoples and how they lived their lives, for the most part, it wasn’t hard...strenuous yes, but not hard. These people were mostly nomadic.  They followed the game and travelled to areas in which they could forage food easily and grow their crops and what have you.  Their life was simple...yes, but rewarding in its own way and not hard as we modern folk consider hard.

I would also like to introduce people to new-ish and novel ways to invest their money like stash.com, the Robin Hood app, or even places like Stepbet where you join a group that has a goal of walking so many steps for a certain length of time and then the people that meet that goal or exceed that goal share in the money paid into it, which should be more than they invested into it as a way of generating a passive income doing what they do every day.  Also, I would introduce people to apps like Achievement, which also monetizes your healthy lifestyles from the websites and apps that you already are a part of like MapMyHike, MapMyWalk, MapMyRide, and the iPhone health app.  It takes those steps or endeavors and turns them into points that you can trade in for a PayPal payment or a gift card.  There are places like SwagBucks where you can take surveys or watch videos and get points towards gift cards and payments.

I’m sure there are all sorts of other things that I could cover in this podcast that would help people out.  In the state of Texas we have a bill called the Hazelwood Act where Texas veterans are eligible for up to 150 credit hours of college tuition paid for.  It’s basically a bachelor degree for free!  I’m sure other states have similar programs or if they don’t now they probably will in the future...some sort of way to help veterans obtain a college or university degree or even trade school certification.  People have forgotten that trade schools are out there for people to learn a trade.  John Deere has a trade school for fixing and repairing tractors and stuff.  There is a motorcycle mechanic institute, or whatever it’s called, to fix motorcycles.  It’s not a college degree program yet it’s a way for people to learn a trade that they can find a job in.

I want this podcast to be something that will help people in their daily lives to where they can realize for themselves that life doesn’t have to be hard.  It’s only as hard as you make it!  There are tools and resources available out there that can make life easy.  There are different websites you can go to to to plan things.  There’s other websites out there like flylady.com that help you manage your home cleaning and household tips to make living in your house easy.

So that’s just a few of my ideas for my little podcast “Why Does Life Have To Be So Hard?!?” and of course, as I said before, it’s a trick question...it doesn’t!  Please leave your thoughts about this idea for a podcast in the comments section below.

Introduction to the Life of a Gecko

While growing up I could never have imagined having the goals and dreams that I now have. When I was young I wanted to be an astronomer or an archaeologist.  I grew up with movies like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Star Trek...so I guess it only made sense at the time.  Now, however, it's a different story.

I have had many jobs in the course of my 48 years on planet Earth...stocker, retail sales, roustabout, technician, merchandiser.  And that, of course, was after my stint in the United States Army where I served as a Light Infantry Soldier in the 10th Mountain Division.

I was born in 1970 in Houston, Texas and placed in the DePelchin Faith Home for adoption.  The family who adopted me, the Mitchell's, took me in when I was 2 years old and adopted me at age 4.  I guess I have always had an incurable case of wanderlust because I would constantly be roaming the neighborhood...much to my mother's horror.  And if I wasn't wandering about I was up a tree.  Needless to say I'm sure she would be justified in claiming that all of her gray hairs were because of me!

In 1976 we moved onto a 127 acre forested lot 16 miles north of the small town of Silsbee in southeast Texas.  For our first year there we lived in campers while our house was being built, hauled our bath water in pails to be heated over a fire and dumped into a corrugated tub, and dug trenches in the woods where we would use a portable toilet seat chair to do our business.  By Houston city standards we were roughing it.  To 6 year old me...it was paradise!  I had a whole new forest to explore with my older brother and sister, Teddy and Deneen.

Throughout my entire youth, I was constantly outside roaming the woods and roads around our land.  Our nearest neighbor was 4 miles away, so it was safe to say that I never actually bothered anyone doing this.  I was always curious...always exploring what was over yonder. In high school, had some friends that rode the same school bus as I.  During the summers it wasn't uncommon for we to walk the 6 - 8 miles to their houses to hang out or go fishing at Beach Creek nearby...and then walk home again.  And then I'd do it again the next day.

After graduating from high school I joined the Army as a Light Infantry soldier.  This kicked my wanderlust into new gears.  I got to travel to places like Germany, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Panama, California, Virginia, Georgia, and New York.  It was truly awesome!!!

When I left the military, I kind of left all of that behind. I traded it for jobs that still let me travel, like being a Technician for a company that cleaned condenser tubes in nuclear and fossil fuel power plants and a Set Team Associate working a company that performed new store sets and re-sets for Walmart.  Yes, I got to travel, but I couldn't explore what I was seeing.  It was maddening!  It was like having a cookie dangled before you as a 4 year old child and then having it thrown in the garbage.  It felt akin to the torment of Tantalus...the man in Greek mythology who was cursed by Hades to stand in water that receded every time he tried to drink it...everlasting temptation with no satisfaction.

I eventually decided to go to college, so in 2010 my wife Michelle, our three kids, and I moved to San Marcos, Texas where I could study Geography and Sociology at Texas State University.  At this point I only need 1 credit to graduate but do not have to financial ability to make that happen. I have exhausted all my avenues of Financial Aid.  I guess that is why I am currently working as a Merchandising Associate for Sam's Club making $12.50 an hour while my wife, who has a B.S. degree in Nursing, makes more than double that.  It's enough to make someone feel like a complete and utter failure.

Three years ago it happened...I started watching a series of videos on YouTube.com by a guy named Joe Brewer from Backcountry Banter.  It was a vlog of his thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail.  Oh my God, I couldn't believe what I was seeing!!! I had obviously heard of the Appalachian Trail, but I had never even given it a second thought.  It was a place were mountain men abducted young women who were never seen again...at least that was what I had always heard.  His journey was nothing like that though...it was AWESOME!!!  The next year Joe decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, which I had never even heard of, so I had to watch it, too.  I was completely blown away by this new trail!  Walking the trail through the desert, the Sierra Mountains, Yosemite, and the Cascade Mountains....pure eye candy!  Then he finally decided to hike the Continental Divide Trail, which I had never heard of either.  It ranged from the Mexican border in the deserts of New Mexico, up through the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, through the Great Basin and Wind River Range in Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and Glacier National Park to the Canadian border. By doing this, he would complete his Triple Crown...that's what hiking all three of these National Scenic Trails is called.  It was about this time that I learned that there were dozens of the long distance trails in the US and even more worldwide!!!  I was absolutely hooked!  I started watching other peoples thru-hikes on YouTube...Dixie from Homemade Wanderlust, Reddmage from Target Katahdin, EarlyRiser71, Bigfoot, Darwin, Apache, Google from Saunter Beyond, Chocolate Balls from Sloanybones, Nightcrawler, and many, many more....I loved them all!!!

That was when I decided that I must experience these trails for myself...and someday I will.  I love to catch and play with lizards and geckos...I always have.  My wife started to affectionately call me her "Leezerd" and that kind of morphed into calling myself Gecko and eventually Cosmic Gecko on all of my hiking related posts on my very own YouTube channel "Gecko's Trails".  This is where I video myself hiking the local trails here in San Marcos, Texas at the moment, but eventually I want to vlog my own thru-hikes of the Triple Crown and more.  That's what this blog is going to be all about.  I'm going to chronicle my goals, thoughts, and adventures for you guys...the rabid readers. The topics will range from hiking and travel to sustainability, permaculture, biotecture, and intentional communities.  Those are my more prominent interests and goals.

I hope you guys stay with me for the journey.  It's going to be a wild ride!!!