whisked away to stillness

Can we find lasting peace in our lives if we don't continually do the inner work of learning to accept and love ourselves right we're at in this moment? I ponder this, as I chew on some tall stalks of grass out at the farm at the edge of Guelph. I'm here for a few days to see friends and pack up some things, and I felt an urgent need to visit the farm, where I have helped my friend harvest grains and also raised two summers' worth of gardens. Today is impeccable - soft blue skies, fluffy clouds sliding across the sky on a steady breeze, trees in full splendor of summer foliage. It's probably 23 degrees and the air is light. I look out over the barn to a hundred acres of soy, gardens, some blooming mustard, and fallow greenery. I can't help but feel some peace and a desire to reflect on where I'm at, where I've been, and where I may go.

Sometimes in my blogs, I feel a bit like Cheri Huber. Cheri is a Zen monk who writes Buddhist-inspired books that you might call self-help. The one I love most is There Is Nothing Wrong with You, where the title tells it all but it is still a worthwhile read. She has many other books, such as Be the Person You Want to Find and How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. Why do I feel like Cheri? Her books touch on many themes in life, but after you read a few it becomes clear that the message is the same throughout. It basically comes down to practicing being calm and centered in the moment, and letting go of the stories we tell ourselves in our own heads about how we're not good enough, how we might fail at our undertakings, how we just need to wait a little longer to begin living, etc. It comes right from Buddhism, though she packages the messages in a broadly approachable way for a modern audience.
Love yourself. It's going to be okay. Everyone has fears and doubts about themselves. Acknowledge the fears, see them for what they are (insubstantial), but pay them no attention. Get back to loving yourself. A good way to do this is to sit and practice calming the mind. Carry this practice into your life. Interact with others, be a light in the world.

These are my own take-home themes from Buddhist writers as well as my own spiritual practice.



So when it comes down to it, my blog is me recycling old themes in new packaging. (Perhaps all writing is this - different people at different times working with variable degrees of success to tap into the themes that speak to their audience.) When I write, I like to focus on specific topics, from global politics to resource scarcity to personal growth. However, I really like to get back to basics as often as I can to convey the message that we are empowered to live beautiful lives. I know from my own experience that lots of information about the world is often not useful if I don't also have a context for seeing how it relates to my life and more importantly what I will do with this information. In the end, this feeling of empowerment is the thing that I want to convey to everyone who reads these posts.

What does all this have to do with me strolling down the tan earth lane in the slanting sunshine? I've been getting a lot of wonderful life this spring from sharing honestly about where I'm at inside. I try to do it more, even when people I don't know make a casual inquiry. While aiming to not overshare, I do try to accurately describe what I'm feeling and what I'm working on. For me this is a big step forward in owning and treasuring my life while learning to love myself. It really seems to begin with accepting that where I'm at is where I'm at. I want to "be here now" as much as possible, instead of thinking about how I might "be there then" and losing sight of my experience right at this moment.

I think I've just figured out why I'm writing this now (which is good, since I'm hundreds of words in and taking up your life :-) I just want to share that it feels like a long road, but that I'm on it in a good way. After my last few posts, and talking with many friends about my inner work, I have been deeply humbled and heartened to hear that lots of folks have taken my work as inspiration to go deeper, further, and in new directions in their own journeys. When I hear these things, I feel a clear sense of camaraderie and companionship with all of you as our paths unfold. And this in turn makes the long journey seem feasible and worthwhile all over again. Because I have to admit that in spite of tackling so much good stuff in my life recently, I do have plenty of moments of darkness and doubt where I get wrapped up in old stories that aren't serving me, and I can flounder there for sure. In spite of working to help others feel empowered and enlightened, I still need some help myself a fair bit of the time, and you my friends are wonderful at helping me out.

So this is a thank you card, an update, and a slice of my life. The feeling I want to convey is walking under the walnut trees with the tall grass brushing under my palms. The sun is perfect, the gardens smell rich and earthy, and it feels like the safest place in the world to walk and ask deep questions of the heart.

Rolling out a New Project

The time is now. Can you feel it?

I can.

So, as promised in my last blog, we (my friend Nick and I) are rolling out the alpha version of our project, Shake Up Your Life, and we're pretty excited. You'll find all the details at

shakeupyourlife.org

When you first arrive, definitely check out the link that tells you about the background of the project.

If you're reading this post, I also ask a favor of you. After you see what we're putting out there in the world, please try one of the experiments, or your own version of one, and put your experiences up there. If you're not familiar with actually adding content to a Wiki format, it's one click away at the little "edit" button on the right side of each entry. Take it from there and run with it :-) I know that as this project grows, it will take on it's own life. This is our dream for it. If you do just one, even with a small entry, this whole thing will take a huge leap forward, all due to you.

We know it's rough and bare bones, but we're excited to simultaneously use it while also evolving and enhancing it with feedback from you. We're already thinking of appearance (color schemes and formatting) as well as content (enhancing the entries with background info). We're thinking about the language of the entries, how to help you feel invited to participate, how to grow it, and more.

If I write more, it will only be clutter. This is all for now. Visit it, use it, let me know how it handles. Thank you!

juicing the long days for every drop of goodness

This is the summer of my life. If you had to choose a word to emphasize in that phrase, "my" might be it. It's less of a statement where you are 18 years old and about to drive across the country with your boyfriend, and you're going to have the summer of your life taking pictures of yourself at Car-henge and The World's Largest Ball of Twine. It's more about me choosing, me doing things that I've been reluctant or afraid to do, me keeping it real and lively and engaged, me coming out of a long winter of struggle, me honoring everything in my life that has led up to this moment by doing my best. It's that kind of summer.

What am I up to? I just had my first Rolfing session an hour ago. Rolfing is a form of deep tissue massage designed to loosen up and realign your body's structure to move more freely, upright, and in harmony with our design that evolved under gravity's constant presence. It's 10 weekly sessions, and it's really intense and painful sometimes. But I feel great already, and I'm psyched for more.

I'm going to travel down to San Diego and learn to surf with my friend Sam. I hope to do this on a roadtrip with another old friend, living the American dream of Californiating myself in the sun and sand. Perhaps we will pop in to Mexico and say hi.

I'm doing a Gestalt therapy intensive weekend session in August. Gestalt therapy is working with a group of other people, facilitated by a few leaders, so as to become mirrors for each other. In doing so, we build trust to allow others to see us more clearly and also share our insights about them. I have read the pioneering book about it that lays it all out (from the 1960s) and spoken with a practictioner in Toronto who's been in a group for a few years. It really speaks to my soul, I think, so I'm eager to check it out.

I'm going to increase my tai chi practice, with the aim of learning to be a full on teacher. Tai chi feels so important and relevant to me that I really want to share it with the world effectively. I have thought about this for a few years, and I'm glad to be moving in that direction.

I'm working on writing an essay that I want to get published in a magazine. I can't say more, for fear of taking the wind out of my own creative sails, but I'll let you know when it happens.

I want to do a wilderness backpack trip, either with a small group or solo, to reconnect with the wilderness. I like the idea of a challenge by heading out on my own, and I also like the idea of doing it with friends. If you're interested, contact me.

I've started a weekly group doing meditation and pancakes. Saturday mornings, if you're in the Bay Area. Check it out in Palo Alto.

These things all spring from my desire to show up for my own life. Someone once told me that is the secret to life. I like the idea of it - showing up for your own life. I've definitely had times when I've shirked being an active agent in my own life, and let the tide carry me where it wanted. I like the feeling of engagement much more, and I'm really getting a lot of mileage from facing my fears and doing these things anyway.

Which brings me to my challenge to you. (This is where you sweat nervously and wish you had never taken that stupid advice to always sit in the front of the classroom so as to learn the most.) Because I'm a co-dependent friend with you if you're reading this, I want to challenge you to do something you're afraid of this summer. I'm thinking less about risky daredevil adventures and more about something you've been putting off doing for yourself for a long time because... of whatever reason you have in your head. Take that class, learn to make pottery, ask that barista for a date, whatever it is, do it. Feel that fear and do it anyway.

In tandem with my own summer work, a friend of mine and I are launching a website in the next week about shaking up your life. (Okay, realistically, I sort of spun out this idea while we were chatting and then he had the ganas to go home and set up the website so that when I looked at my email the next morning, it was fully up and running. He's that kind of guy.) I'll make a product launch here on this blog by July 1st, because that's my commitment to myself. It won't be flashy, but hopefully substantial and usable.

Wishing you all beautiful summer days, wherever you may be...

Sunlight in the Shade

In spite of the claim in my last blog entry that I want to write more, I haven't posted here in nearly two months. What's up with that?

Well, I've been doing some heavy thinking about what I want in life, and unfortunately no easy answers came. I have given up for now my community in Guelph, Ontario and instead embraced the familiar feel of the Magic community in Palo Alto. This process of trying to be kind to myself has been very difficult, and tends to still be a wild ride from time to time. I haven't had many moments of clarity where I can sit down and generate good material to share with the world. I've been down on myself, down on the world, or just feeling down without an object, and that has been hard. So that's part of my excuse. The other part is that I have been doing lots of writing, just not here in the blog. But let's stick to the important stuff.

In this dark night of my soul, I've been often unable to reach out for help. Why is that? Well, I often have this feeling that the rest of the world (i.e. everybody I see in my life on a regular basis) has it all "figured out." To me that means they've got the answers to their questions, if not chiseled in stone then at least adhered to the stone with a durable marine epoxy that's going to last a long time. Do I know that they have it all figured out? Of course not! That would only come from me asking them, "Hey, do you have It all figured out?" and them saying, "Oh yeah, I wrapped up the package of my life a few years ago and now I'm just crossing T's and dotting I's. Why do you ask?" But when I feel stuck and fearful inside, like I'm never going to be able to figure MY life out, find peace, or be able to answer the question How much is enough?, then I project my desire for inner peace on the rest of the world by imagining that everyone else is at peace with all their choices and has a smooth plan for near 100% life satisfaction into the foreseeable future.

Do I know that this is a false projection? Yes. I often get stuck in my fearful little reptilian head, though, and can't easily get out of the illusion that I'm being left behind by my peers as they settle into marriages, houses, parenthood, careers, etc. It's a tough illusion to crack, especially when I'm less interested in telling the story in my head that they are wrong, but rather just want to be okay with a different path for myself. I mainly want to be okay with not quite knowing yet how and to what I want to commit my life. I know that I am doing it by all the choices I make. From the outside, you can truthfully say that I'm committed to a life of:

working part time - 25 to 35 hours per week
not accumulating much money
not spending much money
self and social experimentation
traveling around the U.S. and Canada
staying connected with diverse groups of friends in many different cities
swinging between serial monogamy and non-exclusive dating
constantly diversifying my skill set
being a generalist
reading and writing a lot
social rather than financial capital

These are some of the hallmarks of my life. I want to get to a place of either feeling at peace with my choices or changing my life so that I feel better about them. Right now I often feel stuck in between. I think in many ways my choices are reasonable. I like many aspects of my lifestyle, and I think our culture needs another competitive, narrowly-focused white male like we need a hole in the ozone layer. But I know that I get afraid sometimes because we, in our North American affluent society, value money and the accumulation of wealth more than an experimental life that may not yield the same type of capital security.

Every lifestyle has benefits and costs. I'm working on accepting the benefits of my lifestyle choices so far (more time freedom, more life spent with loved ones, more recreation) and finding peace with my trade-offs (less money, fewer stamps of approval from mainstream folks). This work is where the rubber is meeting the road of my life, where the real action is at.

Beyond all these worries, I've recently been reading and thinking about some ideas that I find compelling and useful. In the past few days I have gotten a lot of mileage from thinking about fear. I like the idea that we all live our lives in the face of fear. Any big or small action we take is scary to some degree. Big fears, like abandonment or failure, can rule our lives if we focus on the fear. What I've found liberating is the idea that fear is never going to go away. We always need to take action in the face of fear. Waiting for our fear to disappear is to wait forever. Instead, we can live much better by recognizing that we will be able to handle it if the thing we're afraid of comes to pass. If we fail in our marriage, can't close the deal, end up working way too many hours each week, or can't afford to own the house in the long run, we will be able to handle those things as they happen. We don't need to focus on them as likely possibilities. We can simply acknowledge the possibility of their occurrence and take action anyway. This may not be rocket science for you, but it feels like a big step forward for me. Perhaps I've known it all along, but now I've found it at the right time and it jives with my needs and hopes.

Some other useful ideas... hmmm... I think we really benefit by being in touch with wilderness. I think that's why most of us feel something intense and at least slightly pleasant when we're at the ocean. It is wilderness for sure. It may not appear as highly differentiated as a mixed deciduous forest, but it is large, powerful, and indifferent to us. In spite of our highly effective impacts on the life in the ocean, the sound and the feel of the waves when you sit on the beach is still amazing. Each one is unique, yet also just like the billions that have come before and will come after. The sound is perfect white noise, varying yet constant. It is a place to be so as to remember our connection with the Earth as part of us and vice versa. We are not in control and nature bats last, for sure, but we are still steeped in this illusion of control in our lives that comes with living in a rectilinear world designed mainly by human minds and hands. Returning to wilderness, whether a the beach, dense forest, or somewhere else, is a return to a feeling of connection with the world larger than us. It is therapeutic. We can heal ourselves with such contact.

Thanks for reading this. Thanks for being out there, doing your own thinking and processing. I take heart in our journey, in loving ourselves and being kind to each other through such dark times as my own recent trouble. Let's push on into the mystery. How can we be there for each other?

chambers and champions of the heart

courage: (noun) the quality of a confident character not to be afraid or intimidated easily but without being incautious or inconsiderate. (the italics are all mine :-)

It's time to think about babies and courage, at least for me anyway. And I'm not just talking about the courage to open up that diaper after you just felt the H-bomb of a solid-food palpable poop drop into the diaper like your kid just laid down the heavy science for you, although that takes real fortitude so props to the parents out there.

I'm talking about courage in the face of our unknown future. Has Chris been reading articles about the accelerated pace of increasingly unpredictable climate change? Heck yes. Is this going to be a doom-and-gloom blog about diaper dumplings hitting the proverbial fan, during which you'll get depressed and wonder whether you actually want to think about it? Hopefully not. I haven't gotten very far yet, so stick with me my campesinos and campesinas.

What do I mean by an unknown future? I mean the sea levels are likely coming up, but we're not sure how soon and how high. I mean hurricanes are supposedly going to get stronger and more frequent, yet we're still allowing new people to settle in Florida and we'll likely as taxpayers (yes, I actually paid taxes this year too) cover the costs of cleaning up the next big one. (Actually, just looking at bang for your housing buck, now IS the time to go down and scoop up a condo in that crazy, depressed market known as the Sunshine State. Pennies on the dollar, that's all I have to say... oh wait. Houses on big stilts. I need to throw that in there too as a public service announcement for real estate speculators.) I'm talking about the ever-present threat of nuclear weapons, which don't get much press coverage but get an awful lot of geographical coverage when deployed. On Fox News and other quality media outlets, we're usually looking at what the left hand is doing over in North Korea or the Pakistan/India border, while the right hand is maintaining thousands of warheads throughout the Western world as well. (Nukes creep me out, and if they creep you out too, go to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation website and see what you can do to help). Food shortages, water wars, building nuclear power plants to fuel the extraction of oil from dirty sources - the list is long and I don't want to go there right now 'cause it's late. These are factors in our present reality, and they stretch into the future like a freight train full of wheat and corn syrup crossing the Prairies bound for North American mouths and bellies.

There's the 3 Tbsp. of gloom and 2 tsp. of doom to get things rising. So what's the murmuring about courage related to? I feel like courage is a/the key element in how we get from automatons to radical, peaceful throwers of monkeywrenches who can deconstruct our trends and break through to new ways of being. It's the power to shrug off our chains (real and imagined) instead of shrugging our shoulders.

Why do I use the word "courage?" I don't know about you, but I find it hard to swim against the stream of just doing our thing, keeping our nose to the grindstone (there's an interesting image that I think we don't usually visualize when we hear it), and not rocking the boat for fear of falling "behind." The etymology of the word is that it comes from the Latin root cor for "heart." We need that bit of heart, just like the cowardly lion was seeking, to speak about this stuff. We need it to remind ourselves that we can speak about this stuff and still have a good time in life. We certainly need it to do things that might be labeled deviant, difficult, strange, inconvenient, or other terms meant to dissuade and intimidate us.

Where do we find courage? Good question. A few folks have told me that they find courage reading this blog (one of the best compliments ever.) I find it in talking with other people who seem to have cool, inspiring ideas about how to swim against the stream and yet are able to smile, be pleasant at the party, and don't have to corner the rest of us to unload diatribes and hard-edge worldviews. I find it occasionally in works of art that inspire me. When I'm seeking courage, I can usually find it around town in a few places.

One of my main motivators to courage recently is spending time with babies. I feel like I'm in the baby boom of friends and peers close to my age. It seems like I woke up in a tent in the tundra one night, and instead of being surrounded by 10,000 migrating caribou cutting a swath through the scrubby vegetation, it was a stream of babies from friends all over the country. There's Asha, Maya, Gwendolyn, Gwendolyn, Cohen, Indy, Lukas, and lots of others... It's been a big year for birthin' babies.

I'm not sure about you, but when I'm holding a baby, I like the idea of being able to say that I did my best that day to make the world a better place for him/her. I have trouble saying that when I've been driving all over Creation, chucking styrofoam in the trash like there's no tomorrow, using mondo amounts of electricity from (regardless of those TV ads, not-so-clean) coal, buying sweatshop clothes, or any other of a number of things we all do from time to time. I do find, though, that I can call upon a reservoir of courage, that I sometimes forget I even have, to go the extra mile (by bike or bus or foot) and be a little more of an Earth steward than I might otherwise. I find that I can get a lot of umph in talking about living lightly and taking action when I do it in the context of helping future generations. It makes it easier to spend a few cents more on fair trade coffee/bananas/sugar/teas/chocolate/clothes/whateva. It keeps me warm when I'm biking on a cold fall day. It helps me feel appreciated even if I haven't been thanked for much in the past few days or weeks for anything. It helps me stay up 'til 2 a.m. writing these blogs... (no, wait, that's an ill-timed cup of coffee.)

For me, thinking about these babies also inspires me to talk more with other folks in an encouraging way rather than spreading the guilt-and-shame cream cheese on the everything-is-hopeless bagel. I feel empowered to ask about how much is enough, and follow that beast from the tail back close to the head. I feel encouraged to have deep converstions with my mom about my hopes and fears, so as to have a deeper sense of connection in this one life that we've got. I can ask myself what my heart longs for, and be patient waiting for an answer. I can make changes in my life with less begrudging and fear that I'm going to give things up, other people won't, and the planet will get screwed anyway and I'll miss out on the fun that I could have had by trying to help in an effort that was futile. (Is that just me? Someone get back to me on that one.)

So for me, tonight, under the near full moon, babies and courage go hand in tiny hand. If you have access to a baby, or even a small child under the age of 8, visit him or her and try this experiment. Look them in the eyes and say, out loud preferably or just in your head if you're shy, "I'm doing my best to make the world a better place for you." How does it feel? Important? Honest? Sad? Uncomfortable? Take that feeling and run with it. I guarantee it will give you wings.


(On an unrelated note, I'm attempting to reach a broader audience with this blog. If you like it, can you do me a small favor? Take a moment right now and send an email to someone who you think will enjoy it and give it a small endorsement to them. I know this seems like vanity (and I admit to a bit of that), but I'm actually trying to a) get more feedback, b) fortify my mental process by imagining a broader audience of readers, and c) inspire myself to write more so as to work towards generating longer, comprehensive piece(s). If you have an entry from my backlog that you like, recommend that too. I know I can be a hit or miss sometimes. Thank you!)

Volumetric flow rate, or the Curious Incident of the Blog at the Right Time

Recently in Manhattan, a small Filipino woman was standing on the corner of 59th and Lexington, a little overbundled which can be forgiven for a small Filipino woman placed in that concrete jungle in early March. She was holding a bundle of flyers in one mitten-clad hand and waving them furiously with the other, getting just inside the comfort zone of each passing pedestrian in a small, sad effort to get him to take one. I say him because she was passing out flyers for Buy 1 Get 1 Free Mens Suits, which I think lent to the vague impression that she was targeting men more than women. Only by volume is she effective - 50 attempts at each cycle of the light, maybe one person takes it, out of those takers maybe 1 in 50 goes to the store (not such a far fetched idea in the shopping district near the original Bloomingdales). The store has turned a wad of tree pulp and ink, plus 8 hours of her nearly invisible immigrant life, into a few sold suits.

We live in a world where the sheer volume of things must be taken into account as an important aspect of any deep understanding and analysis. Everyone knows that the Earth can't support a growing Chinese and Indian middle-class with eyes for meat, martinis, and a Mercedes Benz. It's not the individuals, it's the group. Wait, hold on... I guess it IS the individuals who make up the group. Wait. Those two are different somehow, but I can't put my finger on it. Sheer volume....

The Dalai Lama speaks and speaks again, travels and smiles at crowd after crowd. Millions of people people have the shared experience in their lives of feeling his beaming presence, his quiet hope, his thoughtful approach to human suffering. The Tibetans and their plight are not forgotten. Buddhism ebbs forward. Sheer volume of time and exposure. Hundreds of thousands of university students in North America and Europe, photo spreads in yoga magazines, stickers on water bottles, small percentages of profits going to support the Free Tibet movement. Ripples of peace and love from a life of myriad contacts with people looking for a deeper connection.

A tremendous amount of life devoted to a single purpose can produce amazing results on the individual level too. Malcolm Gladwell poses the idea of a 10,000 hour rule - that's how long you need to do something to be great at it. Bill Gates working on computers for decades, the old Chinese man who I practiced tai chi with once who had been doing it for 8 hour days for 60 years, Miles Davis for 40 years on the trumpet, Lance Armstrong biking for 8-10 hours a day for a decade. The numbers are arguable, but the concept seems to emerge as clear. Sheer volume of life devoted to a single purpose can yield extraordinary results.

AIG. Decades of your life spent immersed in a culture of incredible material and monetary wealth. Living surrounded by wealthy individuals and those who serve you. How many hours can you hear that you deserve it and are right in pursuing it single-mindedly before you feel a sense of entitlement? How long can you live a life immersed in greed, without an outside reference point in the reality of others, before you feel untouchable? Sheer volume of feedback. One day a few billion dollars doesn't seem like so much anymore, either to take in bonuses or to gamble with even if it's not yours.

Sheer volume of ideas, urgent messages communicated in surreal soothing voices and homogeneous scenes, coming over us in waves of advertising. TV is ever more finely tuned to tap our subconscious desires and fears so as to manipulate us into consumer action. Billboards tell us we could be home by now when we're stuck in traffic. Our email programs scan our words and use our own fuzzy logic against us to suggest things we will want to buy that perhaps we hadn't thought of yet. At at time when we will do well to slow down and question our actions that have brought us to this historic intersection of ecology and economy, we are also pushing forward technology to more seamlessly integrate ourselves into convenient, subconscious consumption and subscription.

This is all stuff you think about in the crowds of Manhattan, when the headlines hint at the Depression even though the losers didn't see it coming, when the urban population beats the rural, when the information about climate change is increasing yet we can't agree as a planet what to do with our agreements from years ago, when we still mistake the environment for an issue to be concerned with among others instead of reclaiming the holistic view of ecology, when there is too much information to process as you think about making a tiny path for yourself winding through the three-dimensional world. Sometimes there is so much concrete, glass, and negligence that I can't feel the harmony, the joy of doing the things I love, and the peace of finding real grounding in myself. So I write to get it off my chest. And now, for some disc golf. Be well, take care of yourself, and keep at least some of yourself small and beautiful.

Speaking of small and beautiful, check out this picture of me and my niece Gwendolyn. Making cute look easy...

Difficult to believe story

In a slightly unusual vein, I'm including an excerpt from an article in The Economist that I just read moments ago. It's just a terrible thing, and I feel a need to make note of it for the public record, no matter how small. It's from the first week of March, 2009.

"Earlier this month, two judges in Pennsylvania's Luzerne County admitted sentencing thousands of children to jail in return for kickbacks from a prison-management company. Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan received a commission for every day they sent a child to private juvenile detention centers run by Pennsylvania Child Care and a sister company. The pay-offs came to $2.6 million over seven years."

Words can't describe this. These two guys took money from PRIVATE PRISONS to send kids to those juvenile detention centers, aka prisons. It's beyond insane. Keep your eyes and ears open.

My next post will be warmer and more self-reflective, I hope. I think it's important, however, to occasionally point out gross injustice and low points in humanity, such as these two judges and everyone else involved in paying them, as well those who support privatized prisons in general.

Be well, live loud and peaceful...

Amble on down the road

Often I feel like I'm just passing through, this life a beautiful and bittersweet stretch of time, on lease perhaps from someone somewhere or Someone Somewhere (I may never know), perhaps I am an incarnation of something whose form has passed and the predecessor of something to come, a life as yet unknown, (I secretly harbor aspirations of a wild and beloved golden retriever on a farm deep in the middle of nowhere San Luis Obispo)

I shuffle, stride, or run down the alleys and sprawling boulevards of the days and seasons, moving through snow, fallen leaves, or the delicately rich feel of Kentucky bluegrass under my bare hopeful summer feet

I mean no harm, and try to operate from a place of giving and simple loving, my own panacea recipe for meaning as I watch our civilization slowly crumble and the stars still shine bright in the cold sky but from such an inaccessible distance, an inch or a million light years is the same beyond my eager fingertips

So I search here for meteoric remnants and find them in eyes and slanting sunshine and supportive hands on my shoulders and the first steps after last tears and the smell of thousands of years of low technology summed up in a freshly baked loaf and the sound of a small gong with hot tea

Each 365 1/4 brings aches pains experiments triumphs connections and it keeps spooling in my heart almost but not quite entirely unlike the World's Largest Ball of Twine because my story and song move in four dimensions, I dig deep with books and therapists and map myself anew on top of memories I thought were secure in the safe deposit boxes of Been There Done That

I want Something to mean Something Definitively, but alas the sands shift and from above what just resembled Michelle Obama's face now looks like three scoops of mind-defying sugar-free ice cream and wait now it's a little brown jug, but then the loop goes back to the beginning and it's all what I project, looking out the window peeking from behind thick lace or tacky venetian blinds the World Out There is simply a reflection of My World In Here, once again responsibility and freedom tango forever onwards and it is mine to create the world through my lens

My list for Santa didn't yield much this year, probably because he doesn't exist, but the carbon copy which I keep under my pillow includes less fossil fuels, more smiles, an explanation of why anyone would shoot John Lennon, warmer toes, enough patience for me and all my friends, sense of clarity that persists, 7" statue of the Buddha in gold leaf detail to go with aforementioned sense of clarity, whole grains, world peace, accurate accounting of where all those zeroes in bailout money are headed, bone marrow matches for those who wait each day, voluntary population reduction plans, a national holiday where everyone hits the yoga mat, time to read with jasmine tea, an apology from Big Brother about killing public transit back in the 40's and 50's, bigger libraries with old leather chairs, and kale and sweet potatoes for dinner as often as I want it

As always, this is an invitation, hopefully leaving you feeling a bit like you stepped into a high-quality reproduction or perhaps even an original Salvador Dali painting, but in a good way

Take that Road Less Traveled By

I had a dream last night, beneath the soft marmalade pool of the sodium streetlight, somewhere between here and a beautiful future of global cooperation. On my thin, pale sheets, snuggled under a thick spread of pillaged goose feathers, I dream of charting a new course for our culture on the rocks.

I dream of converting auto factories into bicycle manufacturing plants. All this talk of subsidizing the auto industry to keep it alive kind of makes me ill, not the least of which reason is that for several hundred years, western capitalist advocates have jeered and pointed up the failures of other systems' failures, from Maoism to communism to fascism. Now, when you can see the nails popping and the plumbing leaking in this shaky suburban tract house that capitalism built, the old white guys get together and say that we need to bail it out to keep it afloat. Watching rich people help out their other rich friends who just recently were involved in fraud investigations makes me a little ill. It seems extra-infuriating because Marx predicted it over 150 years ago, when he said that capitalism will follow a path of ever-deepening crises if everyone is allowed to maximize his or her own personal wealth and self-interest.

Back to cars. Why subsidize a dying industry, that is increasing the rich/poor divide while manufacturing the instruments of climate change that we are all shamefacedly addicted to, when we could forge a whole new direction? Imagine what a beautiful thing it would be to turn out thousands of well-made, moderately priced, mechanically simple bicycles each year in the rusty heart of an empire dying from its own antiquated excesses. No one has to lose their job after 20 years on the line machining engine blocks - teach 'em how to weld tube steel, aluminum, titanium. Let their powerful hands true the wheels and work the handlebars of our transportation successors. Cuba converted much of their petroleum transportation to bicycles in the wake of their sudden loss of oil imports after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, with pretty amazing results. The automobile has made us fat, paved, asthmatic, and frustrated - what do we owe it? Melt them down, roll them up, and lug weld them into real two-wheeled alternatives. Ride on the Ford forks and Saturn seat tubes. Steal the tires (can you rework vulcanized rubber? I don't know, someone tell me), cut up the leather from the BMW luxury sedans for some fine saddles, and take the Porsche bucket seats for your baby bike trailer. Imagine a new Flint, Detroit, Cleaveland, Pittsburgh, all turning out the soft click of freewheels that take to the streets of America and the world. It'll be like some fairy tale - just like... the Netherlands. It is time to think outside the four-wheeled, oil-powered box.

I've got other crazy ideas that might just make sense. How about getting a discount on the amount of taxes you pay into health care based on how much distance your feet travel each fiscal year? You could have a pedometer that simply tells how much you walk each day, and if you meet a minimum you get a tax break. You can earn more if you're even more active, up to perhaps a regular marathon runner who might represent the upper limit. Am I just saying this to subsidize my own gym membership? Heck yes, and to be more scientific in the fact that exhaustive studies show that we are healthier when we're more active, and therefore cost The System less in the long run.

How about electricity costing MORE for each unit more that you use? Right now it is often the opposite - after a certain amount of time it gets cheaper for the additional kilowatt hour. This is not really helping us into a conservation frame of mind. Pricing schedules like this reinforce our illusions that resources are limitless and relatively inconsequential. If we treat scarce things like they are scarce, I know we'll beat a more direct path to a better future.

I have other dreams that may take a little longer to bring into being, but will be nonetheless satisfying and worth the effort. I'm excited for real dialogue around energy, pollution, resources, and whether or not we actually have a large-scale social contract that seems to be working for everyone. Recently I've been seeing ads on the TVs at the gym (oh there's another wish for my Christmas list - gyms without TVs... mmmm...) that tell me about clean energy options for the future. You want to know what they are? Coal and oil. Hello?? I thought I grasped that concept really well back in... let's see... kindergarten. Coal and oil release climate-changing greenhouse gases when we burn them. Our sandy castles are built (literally) on the non-thinking premise that there will always be an infinite, relatively cheap supply of these. Recently we have discovered that the crazy, bearded, wild-eyed guys who have been writing for decades about peak oil aren't as quite as mad as one of Dostoevskey's characters. Now we are slowly beginning to face the truth that all the black stuff in the ground will run out sooner or sooner, and we will do well to plan with that in mind.

SO... what's with the pictures of kids running through green meadows in white cotton dresses, smiling and tumbling in the daisies while their parents loving stroll along like L.L. Bean models? It's not just for dish soap and feminine hygiene products anymore - coal and gas are the new clean energy. We need to sit down and have a real talk with ourselves about the difference between 'clean' and 'not quite as dirty.' If you catch a few more particulate pollutants on the way out of the smokestack, and bury the CO2 in the ground using an untested sequestration technology that many experts have questions about, does that make you 'clean'? I've got questions. And watch out for the nuclear folks - they're waiting in the wings for their renaissance, and it's on the way. Does it count as clean if you bury it really deep in the ground? How about we build their CEO's mansion on top of that mountain first, and wait to see what happens?

Where was I before this sidetrack? Oh yes, public dialogue. If you take the box we're so often stuck in in our thinking, and set it on the ground, it makes a mighty fine podium for local get-togethers where we can all share our ideas. Let's talk about where our water comes from and whether the aquifer or snowpack is a safe reliable source. How can we make it more so? Do we want to sell it or dump paper mill effluent in it? Or do we want to kick back and read our Danielle Steele novels by the lake while our kids swim in the clean, blue goodness of it?

Let's talk about buying local goods. I'll sign the letter to China where we assure them that we mean no ill will towards their fine people who produce EVERYTHING that we eat and utilize, but that in this less-stable 21st century they will surely understand our move towards local resiliency and self-reliance. We'll post pictures on our blog so they can see our projects, and we'll look at their pictures too. It'll be great. Say it with me... bicycle-powered grain grinders. You'll grow to like having quads like Lance Armstrong.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room too - population. Yes, there are a lot of us on the globe. Yes, perhaps with some heavy-duty tweaking of the whole global system of food production and distribution, we could get food to everyone who needs it right now. My big question is: Do we want to do it into the indefinite future? It seems crystal clear to me that our system is overburdened, and will continue to be even with serious redistribution measures. Do we want to maintain the current population? How about if we don't have any global agreement about growing the population? Do we still want to support everyone who wants to have four or five kids in their family? Do we want to address the inequality that exists now globally as the result of hostorical oppression, slavery, and exploitation? I'm not lining up to be the first to force other people to behave a certain way. However, it seems that as the global population swells, and the voracious middle class bloats along with it, our lifestyles and the number of people who live in affluence are affecting everyone in more and more interconnected ways. The poor folks in Africa aren't using reams of bright white, perfect paper but they've got dioxin in their blood from the mills just like we do. We don't have to live next to the crowded Beijing factory neighborhoods, but their pollution comes across the Pacific and ails our lungs while brightening our sunsets. Steel is expensive because everyone in Asia wants it too. Vietnamese coffee is so successful that it flooded the market and it's own price bottomed out, so the American guzzlers get it cheaper while the farmers get poorer (this is an advertisement: buy fair trade coffee, and drink it in moderation). The web of connections is vast and runs in all four dimensions - three in space and one in time.

We are linked even if we don't want to be, and that is becoming a huge problem. Why is this problematic? Because we don't have any agreement about how many of us we want to feed, how many of us get to have their own automobile, how many of us get to live in a tract home with a chemlawn, or how many of us get to have cork floors or copper plumbing. Now, I'm not talking about rectifying this with all the terrible ways that humans have invented to wipe each other out. If you're still feeling on edge, read that sentence again and repeat until you're not thinking of fascist Germans, crazy Cambodians, or gritty Rwandans. What we need, however is to at least TALK about it. The link between population and resource use is the major one facing our planet today. In many ways, it is the root of other problems like global warming and food shortages. Let's talk amongst ourselves, and see what we can do to CONSENSUALLY and THOUGHTFULLY address this problem now. If you think it doesn't affect us here in the developed world, think again. This is the problem of expanding cities/pavement/electricity use, the loss of farmland, the increase of acid rain, the price of our food, the decrease in measurable happiness over the last generation, the feeling of more competition and less cooperation, and numerous other shadows in our lives.

Whew! That was big. Where to begin? Smile and breathe deep. Yoga and tai chi are nice. Regular exercise gets us feeling better and thinking more creatively. As we take care of ourselves, we live richer lives and are more able to imagine positive and optimistice possibilities. We don't even have to sit and bit our nails about this stuff all the time (those of you who know me are possibly laughing right now... I'm working on getting better :-). Just being aware and informed is an infinitely better place to be than with our heads in the sand. Those of you who are excited to see Obama take the reins from Bush know what I mean. The road may be long and rough, but we'll make it. I just think it will be easier to face that long, quiet highway if we've got friends who share common ground and a bike trailer full of wool sweaters, rice cakes, and peanut butter. May it rise up to meet you...

inward ode

Still morning holds the cold
green leaves and bright grass,
seen through the steam off
my mug.

My pen wags the dog
these tired,
beautiful days.

I'm sifting, sorting,
composting my inadequacies,
shredding my tell-tale
documents of doubt,
kept under my bed in
the dark
like a plaid canvas
suitcase from my dead father.

I think of snowy summer
mountains out west,
and my own space-time
stretched like taffy
across 3000 miles,
thin as a spider's silk
between my memories
and who I am.

If it snaps, I'm sure
I'll be lost
as old lovers and
well-worn friends
float away, untethered
by my clinging.

My four walls collapse
outwards, and silence
comes over me as I
step out into alpine
meadows of melting
ice and rich purple flowers.

Stuck in solipsism,
I picture myself
alone,
free to be me with
the small, infinite
price of solitude.

Love and Home take a chisel
to my stone mountain,
driving steel all flesh
sweat brown toned
muscular singularity

and chip away
at my old reality,
the song of the steel
welcome like a
terrifying healer,
to sublimate my
winter into a
new spring.

A Prosperity Calculus

The automaker GM lost $15 billion in the second quarter of 2008, the headlines read today. The Gates Foundation is endowed with billions of dollars to fund the fight against infectious diseases in the developing world. AIDS is on the comeback again in rural southern States of the U.S., often cited as the result of lack of education about how it spreads and how we can prevent it. Rich patrons in Asian restaurants buy sharkfin soup for thousands of dollars a bowl. I've met Thai farmers who are happy without two nickels to rub together, and we've all read about multi-millionaires who couldn't resist cheating on their taxes to keep even more of their money.

In the endless hamster wheel that is my brain, I've recently been ruminating about poverty and wealth, and what it means to be wealthy. They are concepts that come up a lot in the media, and are huge, fundamental aspects of how we understand the modern world. We can donate to the global campaign to Make Poverty History, which is organized around the goal of forgiving Third World international debt. We can measure our lives to see if we're above or below the poverty line. We can go to the library to get a wealth of information about any topic we choose. We can talk with a financial planner to find out how best to manage our wealth. A lot of what we do is look around at our fellow homo sapiens and try to place ourselves in the pecking order of rich to poor. Where we find ourselves each day, month, and year has a profound impact on what we choose to do next.

Beyond these ideas of wealth and poverty, I've been wondering about our culture as a whole. Are we headed towards greater collective wealth as we learn more about the world and what is happening in it? Buckminster Fuller defined wealth as "the measurable degree of established operative advantage". Elsewhere, Fuller described his notion as that which "realistically protected, nurtured, and accommodated X numbers of human lives for Y number of forward days". Philosophically, Fuller viewed "real wealth" as human know-how and know-what which he pointed out is always increasing. (These excerpts stolen from the Wikipedia entry on wealth.)

I think it's important to keep our view of wealth as broad as possible, and to learn to recognize poverty as well. I think if nothing else, we can check our gut to see if we feel rich or poor when we think of a situation. Some examples from my prefrontal cortex:

Wealth is the huge amount of fresh surface water in Canada. Poverty is selling it to the U.S. because they mismanaged theirs and don't have a plan to do better in the future.

Wealth is a society that encourages public discourse so everyone feels well represented. Poverty is having only two political parties from which to choose a leader of a 300 million person country.

Wealth is having done a hard day's work and being properly acknowledged for it. Poverty is feeling trapped into a life of it without being thanked.

Wealth is having a lot of money, while poverty is feeling that you can never have enough.

Wealth is admitting that we're in a collective crunch with regards to the planet's climate problems. Poverty is accepting talk of outdated and inadequate agreements as signs of a solution.

Wealth is saying that something isn't right and we need to talk about it. Poverty is shrugging our shoulders in anger.

Wealth is freedom that comes from thriving with a simpler and more sparse life. Poverty is keeping our demands high and living a life to feed them.


The common thread, as I see it, is that we feel empowered with wealth, and feel fearful and powerless with poverty. There is no baseline for wealth - the measure is floating in all realms of our lives. If we are financially flush and unhappy at home, are we wealthy? If we don't make much money but can pay our bills and take care of ourselves, are we impoverished?

As we advance our own understanding of the world, and act on that information, we create our own wealth. When we take charge of the quality of our food, we feel wealthy. When we think about our footprint on the planet, and change it if we don't like it, we feel empowered. When we question existing systems that seem broken, we benefit ourselves and the world tremendously, even if it's not clear right away what to do with our questions.

Wealth also begets wealth. Development studies show that by increasing the baseline amount of education for women in poor countries, they in turn have fewer children. Fewer children means less strain on the natural resources there and elsewhere. Less strain on the resources (sometimes) means fewer wars within and between groups of people. We take our knowledge and empowerment and roll with it.

So what does all of this mean for those of us truckin' along in our jobs and daily routines? Let's get wealthy. Ask questions to yourself and those around you. Preserve your health so that more of your life down the road is good. Experiment to find out what you have enough of and what is lacking. Do you have enough good food, sleep, exercise, love, time with your dog, reflection, etc? Do you feel trapped in any pattern in your life that you want to change? Where do you feel impoverished? Follow your gut. If you're already overbooked in life, don't add another thing. Don't sell your coal, timber, and precious metals to the neighboring empire - save them for your own rainy days. Talk to those around you and see if anyone else is feeling like something isn't right. Our friends can be such a rich deposit of wealth.

And remember, no matter how rich or poor, you've got to do what Annie Dillard recommends. "Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you."

It's A Question of Balance

Where have I been these past few months? Sometimes I wake up in my bed and feel that question, looking out the window at Norway maples, old brick houses, lilies, college students, trays of kale sprouts on the porch. I've been stealing honey from the bees on faraway farms, chewing it down to the wax that rolls softly in mouth 'til I spit it in the fields of sprouting rye. I've been two knuckles deep in grease, feeling the races for traces or places where they may be pitted, cleaning the tiny perfect spheres of metal and packing them back into a bed of jelly from dinosaur bones, 10 million years later allowing me to make those pedals turn so smoothly you'd think you were about to take flight. I've mingled sweetly with family and memories, embedded in the smell of larch logs since peanut farmers ran the monolith of the modern world, dusty workbenches I've walked past since I could toddle, now full of rusty tools I coddle and discard in an effort to combat my genetic code that calls out to save everything for an unimagined yet possible future. I've become one with basil, nurturing it and tenderly testing it between my callous fingertips, willing it to grow as my own practice deepens like their roots, slowly and patiently in a pattern we can't hurry, envisioning broad leaves reaching their Italian cultivated potential in my new northern environment. I've been dreaming of water, forest fires, the courage of the Tibetan revolutionaries who have been left to hang by the rest of the world, friends who have had enough of a mysterious conviction to end their own lives, a world de-schooled and re-educated, fewer gatekeepers and more companions, climate banter and the tangible pace of my footsteps threading through a cool and silent morning neighborhood. I've also been thinking about scale...

There's a story about some tribe of people (now nearly apocryphal but often mentioned at cocktail parties) who had lived in a completely forested habitat, perhaps the Amazon, for countless generations. When at last they encountered open space in the Kansas sense of the word, either through deforestation of their ecosystem or forced removal, they were said to lack a sense of perspective for things far away. This is because the forest is so dense you get no practice in viewing things more than 30 yards away, and things tend to blend together into myriad shades of green and brown. At the edge of the forest, surveying the plain, they had trouble telling if the horses they saw were just tiny horses you could reach out and pick up or were simply further away. They couldn't tell how fast things were going far away or telling clearly if something was approaching or not. In this popular accounting of their story, they were unequipped to handle this new setting.

We've entered an age where we need perspective more than ever. 5,000 years ago, you didn't need that much perspective. Unless you lived in one of the few places with a slowly emerging empire, you could do what your fellow villagers had always done and count on the world to be the same next year and next decade. There were periodic droughts and floods, feasts and famines. For better and for worse, you didn't have to know what was going on 500 miles away because it didn't really affect you at all. If the next village over managed through great effort to deforest a whole 20 acres and keep it clear for cultivation, it didn't affect you in the least. Even the beginnings of small Chinese, Indian, and Egyptian kingdoms or empires didn't affect the rest of the world's population beyond the scope of their actual physical domain. While they did manage some occasional feats of environmental destruction (water pollution, deforestation, erosion from agriculture, etc.), they weren't making big splashes.

These days, there are so many big splashes it seems like the canoe is going to tip. We've got atmospheric bomb tests, the Three Gorges Dam, plans to drain the Great Lakes, McDonald's beef coming from the land formerly known as the Amazon rainforest, megatons of newsprint devoted to celebrity gossip, yada yada ad infinitum. In this new world, we like to feel that we're in the know and aware of what is going on around the block and beyond the horizon. Awareness of this type is a laudable goal, as the only way we can make thoughtful choices in our lives is to be informed.

Our desire for information, however, poses an interesting dilemma in an age where we continue to creep towards total information awareness and closing the feedback loop into realtime updates. What happens to us when we try to live our daily lives, with all the attention to mundane details that are necessary, and also track the big picture? How can we keep a sense of perspective in the front of our minds when we are awash in new data presented in novel ways each day?

I often think about soda/pop/Coke when I'm thinking about scale. (Did you ever go to the Midwest and have someone offer you a Coke, and when you say "Sure," they then say, " We've got Sprite, Coke, and Mountain Dew?" I love culture.) I have this tiny tidbit in my brain, sequestered there like CO2 from the coal-fired plant of the Infotainment Complex, that says the average American drinks the volume equivalent of 2 cans of soda each day. I feel like this was in the late 80's and early 90's before bottled water became all the rage. Let's round it down a bit ('cause I just did a brief Internet poke around) and say it's only 1.6 cans a day. Rough math:

300 million Americans x 1.6 cans daily = 480 million cans daily

How much space does that take up? Even if only 1/3 of that yet again is in actual aluminum cans, where do you get the aluminum for 160 million cans on a daily basis? How much water does that take? If each can takes 12 teaspoons of sugar, how many tanker cars of corn syrup is that? How big is 45,000,000 gallons of soda? That's the daily flow rate of a decent-sized stream.

It may not be important to have a handle on how much soda flows through the U.S. (let alone the rest of the world) an a daily basis. I concede that without argument. However, so much of our lives spreads out like veins which give and take from the massive, elaborate systems wrapping the globe that it seems foolish not to at least try to understand our planetary impacts. Keeping a sense of perspective and awareness of scale begins to seem terribly daunting when we think about our coal and oil flows, our water usage, plastic, garbage, wood, concrete, everything. The how, where, and why of our impact can seem overwhelming, but without it we can't really be scientific about where our global society is at and where it may be headed.

Where do we go with this Herculean mental task of knowing where we are, at all zoom levels of google maps? I'm not sure. My approach so far in life has been to try to develop a baseline framework for understanding my place in the world and how the world works. What does that mouthful mean? The world has a lot of people. I have yet to see any sign that we can come up with yet another technofix to adjust any current system so that the soon-to-be 7 billion of us won't continue to destroy this sphere that I've been enjoying a great deal. So let's talk about VOLUNTARILY and HUMANELY shrinking our numbers, so that when nature bats last it's not quite as ugly. Using fossil fuels makes climate instability worse while also depriving future generations of access to these limited resources. No matter how I rationalize my behavior or what I refuse to admit to myself, this is the case. I actually find that a hardline stance with myself, rooted in a reasonable understanding of how things work, really helps me to feel liberated and supported in choosing more sustainable options.

Basically, I get up in the morning just like you and I do my thing. I choose amongst biking, walking, driving, local food, bananas, lights on, lights off, hand tools, recycled materials, used books, new CDs, policy, action, preaching to the choir, being a black sheep, eating vegetarian, elk jerky, glass, plastic, cloth bags, toeing the line, bending the rules, smelling the flowers. I try to find courage to be thoughtful and different in meaningful ways. I get buoyed by others who are radical, or I can despair with one foot nailed to the floor. I write like I'm a SETI maniac scanning the night sky for you. Sometimes I can lay back down at the end of the day, smiling out at those Norway maples, and think about all of us doing the best we can and how we can do better.

tiny update, nothing earth shaking

The questions have been echoing all around in my inbox, attached to the ends of emails from friends and family, casually dropped in between recipes, break-ups, new pregnancies, new loves, old questions, and all the other filling that makes up this ravioli we call life. The executive summary of all these questions is: So, what are you up to these days, or just as likely, where are you?

I am in Canada, land of trillium flowers, tar sands, something resembling a single-payer health care system, and good people biking around as spring rolls into summer. I arrived on May 1st, which was Immigration Day back in the States. I watched some rallies on t.v. in the bus station, and thought about all the folks all over the world who move across borders motivated by fear, hope, hunger, or love. I feel a slight connection to them all, though I don't claim to be able to really empathize with Sudanese refugees or housekeepers and nannies from El Salvador.

In my first month back, I've been doing some gardening, lots of bike repair and refurbishing (including getting my old Fuji sandblasted and repainted), a fair bit of cooking, some job searching, and lots of looking into my soul, trying to make heads or tails out of the dark, turbid water.

I've been wondering a great deal about why I'm here - not just in Guelph but on the earth at all. Do I have a mission, a purpose, a reason to be one person or another? Is my purpose simply to do what I do in life and learn to accept that everything (including myself) always changes?
I have a small scroll with a quote from the Dalai Lama, urging the reader of the scroll to be compassionate with everyone (including ourselves) and to never give up. I like the feeling of that, though it lacks a little bit when I'm looking for direction on a Monday morning at 9 a.m. Sometimes, when I'm feeling spiritually expansive and warm, I think my main purpose in life is to pass through it, trying to be kind to as many people as possible and have a little fun on the way. Again a good feeling, and again lacking a bit in figuring out how to bring the Canadian bacon home.

How do you choose the work you do? What do you think needs to be done in the world? Write me and let me know. I'm looking for advice and some direction in this crazy world.

In the meantime, while awaiting your feedback, here is a picture of me and my newly painted bike. Yes, I love bikes, and bikes love me.

Be Your Own Talking Head

I was watching Fox News with my mom, getting all starry-eyed over the gratuitous and frequent use of the American flag graphic, waving in the background, when I had a sudden feeling of waking up with my house having landed on a witch and America having inched much closer to Fahrenheit 451 while everyone was asleep at the switch. The triggering event for me was when the attractive models-cum-news anchors (a man and a woman) briefly covered a story about a women who was driving a van to evade police, until it stalled out on railroad tracks and she barely escaped the vehicle before a train came and creamed it. Of course, there was a piece of footage from the police car camera so that we could be voyeurs into the thrill of the near-death experience/foible of this otherwise nameless person trying to escape the law. The anchors were actually chuckling as they wrapped up the short-attention-span clip by saying that the woman had several previous convictions and was wanted for something-or-other. The "story" had the same feel as, "Coming up after the commercial, you won't believe (chuckle...) how many soft-serve ice cream cones a miniature schnauzer can juggle, caught on tape by the Hendersons in Cedar Rapids, Iowa."

The whole scene reminded me so much of the people in Ray Bradbury's story who are watching the chase as the Hound goes after the hero and eventually catches the wrong person but that information isn't given to the viewers who are too wrapped up in the infotainment to care. The government news media just wraps up the chase and everything goes back to normal. If you haven't read the book, I haven't given away all of it and it's certainly a great, worthwhile read when you have a chance.

Whenever I'm watching Fox News (which is such a reliable news source that they have taken to reminding viewers between each segment that they are Fair and Balanced), and I'm thinking about all the people who get their disinformation from this big box store of a media outlet, I wonder about what we are filling the airwaves and fiberoptic cables with these days. As we increase the media bandwidth with more channels, websites, internet radio stations, self-publishing sites, etc., what is happening to the quality of the information that comes down the pipe and trickles into our stream of consciousness? What does it mean for us to be living in a world with so many bits and bytes flying around that it's difficult at best to sort out the information? When the figures are lying and the liars are figurin', who do we trust?

I finally stumped myself in my own blog. I don't know who to trust. I like the New York Times, I like indymedia.org, I read Science News (because I'm a dork), and I trust Fox News about as far as I can throw my friend Sam's vintage 1974 TV set. I trusted recycling programs until I found out that my high school dumped most of the bins into the trash because there were staples still in the papers. I trusted my high school health textbook until I met some nice, responsible, well-adjusted pot smokers. (Pay attention, kids - see what happens when you trust people over 30?) I trusted the Sierra Club and NRDC until they started warming up to nuclear power again. I trusted my own eyes and ears until I saw a television ad for coal as "the clean alternative" (I really wish I was joking).

I say trust yourself. Tap just to the left side of your sternum, and if your heart is indeed in the right place, that's all you need. Read everything with a keen and skeptical eye. Take "solutions" with a grain of salt. Take quick-fixes to global catastrophe with a heaping tablespoon of salt. When The Man (that's right, I said The Man) tells you about how hydrogen is going to save our spherical greenhouse by running our cars, ask a few basic questions to yourself about what it takes (more energy! say it with me) to make hydrogen into a useful fuel form. We're a planet full of well-intentioned primates who are rightfully fearful, in a world with more of us and not enough luxury sedans and clean drinking water to go around. But when we're slow and thoughtful in what we do, and remember that quick fixes and innovations (teflon works great, why test it for human health problems?) are a huge part of how we ended up in the hot seat, we do a decent job of taking care of ourselves. Indian cuisine, yoga, tai chi, vision quests, the inclined plane, compasses, The Golden Rule - all these wonderful things were evolved and articulated over long periods of time with the help of countless hands and hearts who were working for the greater common good. I think our generation's work is to evolve a higher consciousness that involves zero fossil fuels, reducing and reusing everything, remembering that climate change is coming for all of us, and working with the humbling reminder from Anne Lamott that if God hates all the same people that we do, it's a sure sign that we've just made God in our own image.

We can help ourselves. It will be a long and difficult journey to get back to a stable ecosystem and a just, humane culture for everyone. It will take all of us being skeptical, scientific, and loving to the very best of our ability. The unpredictable twists and turns will come, as they always have, and it's certain that not all 6.6 billion of us are going to make it. We are going to face some tough times collectively when Nature gets off the bench, spits some tobacco in the dust, gets a clearly-masculine-non-homophobic pat on the ass from the teammates, and bats last (as always). We don't need to worry about whether she's going to crush it out of the park. We only need to take care of ourselves as best we can when she does.

How can I maximize my interest and the interests of the group at the same time? It's no mystery - it's just off the path that we're beating with the suits and the talking heads and the hype and the misdirection. Be well, be kind to each other, be good to yourself. Think about what all these things mean, in the biggest sense possible.

End transmission.

Farenheit 4.51 - the Temperature at Which Bike Tires Freeze

The East Coast has welcomed me home with a momentary cold snap, biting at my fingers and chewing at the concrete jungle avenues. This cold city is tall and hard, bearing a family resemblance to stature of it's historical roots, now undermined by the slow slide of our Empire into sand. It's new yet familiar, the bones that built me long ago but carry me into new adventures. It's trying to tell me something, whispering from vacant lots and grandiose murals, produce stands and the grinding shuffle of homelessness. In a blink it all comes together, to collapse, and I re-open to the present moment as I slide tight through a Narrowing, Death Defying, No Chance, But Wait Just Maybe, No Room for Doubt gap between a grimy bus and indifferent Mercedes. Adrenaline tangos through my musculature, a smile flashes behind my seven-day beard, and I blow the yellow light to speed on.

Navigating deftly and hopefully, I traverse Walnut St. and cross Philadelphia in a bitter cold, asphalt grey evening. I crank my chrome companion, an impeccable steel frame lover, across bridges and vacant train tracks, through clouds of deep-fried enticement that scream a primal neon to my olfactory cells. Potholes and black ice whiz by by my buzzing wheels - the frigid lover Numbness curls up in my earlobes, and I think of Jack London, sled dogs, and trying to build a fire.

The homestretch is eight blocks of dodging trolley tracks and inopportune car doors that will catch you asleep at the handlebars. Stone churches rise up and fade away, beautiful red doors under a dim perpetual porchlight to welcome those who can go inside. Twitchy guys on the corners peddle a sparse version of community, on the tired blocks with sagging porches and occasional rubble piles that replace a forgotten house. I roll up to the stoop, and warm light comes faintly from inside where creative energy moves through the fingers of friends to craft valentine cards. Teapot whistles, I strip off my outer wool, and settle down to ponder and slowly bring my extremities back to warmth and sensation.

Sometimes I think we're analog creatures, struggling with our increasingly digital culture. Binary bits conspire to form endless streams of choices (the number of permutations on a swanky corporate coffee shop menu board is just staggering) which all come from the same vein - consume responsibly, take on some serviceable debt, stay ambitious with an appetite for a lifestyle that is a little more expensive and expansive than what you have now. The vast majority of questions in our lives occur within this boxed-in framework, rather than taking us beyond our existing habits into the realm of an imagined future. Which professional degree do I get? American Apparel instead of Gap or Forever 21? Geo-thermal or tidal power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power) ? It's like taking a cross-country road trip in a 1988 Volvo and not getting out along the way. Sure, you saw the sights, but what was it like? Heat or AC? Drive -thru at McDonalds or Wendy's? What about, "the Grand Canyon is so big I can't think of anything else so let's just sit in silence on the rim for a while"?

I read a little book once called Strategic Questioning, and in it Fran Peavey explains that long-lever questions help get us thinking in new and unexplored ways, while short-lever questions lead us to rationalize our past choices that have lead us up to this point, and to reinforce our existing opinions.

Short-lever: Do you want to ensure that everyone has access to basic utilities of heat and electricity? (Hello! Barely a question since there's only one answer)
Long-lever: What do you think about the link between energy production and the planet's ecosystems? (Hmmm... I was reading something about that last week. What do you think?)

What are our big choices these days? Everyone wants to know if it's Barack or Hillary, but I want to know what happened to busting the myth of #2 plastic recycling, and the hope that we might Free Tibet? (The answer is Barack, by the way.) Where did the Zero Population Growth people go? Seems like they went out for a beer after their last get together in the 70's and never came back. Who's talking about our water and where it's going to come from for our kids when they grow up? Who's talking about whether we want cars, instead of how are we going to fuel them with fair trade, sustainably harvested biofuels? Who's talking about McDonald's being the biggest purveyor of salads in the U.S.? Who's talking about healing ourselves instead of waiting for Merck and GlaxoSmithKline to lobby for a new ailment to be named so they can sell us the drug to cure it? What are we doing to fight run-off and dead zones in our coastal waters? Most importantly, when is the next potluck and dance party? Which of my personal habits do I want to keep and which do I change?

If you are at all susceptible to being called out, I call you out to dig up some long-lever questions, jam them in that fissure along your head where the bones healed in the first months after you were born, and pry open the rusty lock to discover a broader horizon. (Oh man, is Chris claiming he's got some extra insight that the rest of don't have? How pretentious...) False! I've been unlearning and rediscovering so much recently that I thought I knew before. I've been walking around proud yet blind, only to discover that I've still been in the box. I'm like a kid in a the cardboard fort made from the box of the new water heater that just got delivered. Give me a utility knife and point me towards freedom - I'll cut my way out. (Note to any over-zealous followers: Maybe wait on giving utility knives to kids, at least until they're old enough to appreciate the Beatles' Revolver.) I've got no claim on esoteric knowledge, just a passion to keep on liberating myself and going Further.

It's snowing now, in Philadelphia where I'm sojourning, and I've got to hit the streets to send some air mail love to far away places. The revolution will be human-powered, and I'm going to go practice for it. Send me your hopes and dreams via the last passenger pigeon of your soul, and I'll do the same. We've all got one inside, despite the rumours and strong scientific evidence of extinction - let them take flight and make headlines for a better tomorrow.

render the old world

There are wild things afoot tonight, under the spread of cosmic constellations crocheted into meaning by mundane minds. There is political babble of black men and white women and who can be less politics as usual. People plot plunder and wars (Iran? hello?), squabbling on our earthship that is indifferent and dying because of our audacious bustling. We're reaching for oil and peace and celebrity gossip all at the same time, how big is our hand? The underground great frothing river of status quo takes almost no notice but rolls and rushes on with inevitable inertia and our simultaneous rage and complacency. Our culture can't be jammed - it's a monolith and a megaladon, with an inscrutable gearbox that stretches in five dimensions that will compost us if we throw ourselves in.

In an election year, we hear so much blaming. We hear the talking heads tell us again that we won't see a dirty election, we won't see mudslinging, we won't see character assassinations. Then each year it creeps in, so soon after these promises that it's almost unbelievable. This process gnaws at us, undermines our hopes, leaves us dejectedly scraping old bumper stickers off while vainly hoping for a new witty one to ease the pain. I want to believe, too - I swear that I do. I know you may not believe it, but I do so much. In light of the patterns from time immemorial, though, I say throw the TV out the window and take matters into your own hands. We can all join the Monkeywrench Gang and shake up our little snowglobes of existence, shakedown the people who want to be in positions of power, and shake off the blues of a world that was handed to us without our consent. Take up your chainsaw and cut down the billboards that spoil the expanse of red rock desert. Find out for yourself which way the wind blows. I hear more people say that want to make art and find soul mates and let go of fear and eat healthy and take the power back. We know the ability is within us, sometimes dancing through our eyes and heart as we offer an act of kindness, sometimes slumbering like an ill-defined giant that can swiftly and graciously liberate us if only we knew the charm to awaken it.

Plant fruit trees and watch them grow. Finally awaken to the fact that we (you and I) are running out of clean water and access to it (plans exist to drain the Great Lakes... sigh). Call an old friend and invite them to dinner. Clean off the bike and ride it - it's cheaper. Transcend the fear (a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid) that we carry from past experiences which very likely have no bearing on our present reality. Start a block party and paint an intersection - if you've never seen the ones in Portland, they are sweet. Make 'health conscious' a good word instead of a dirty word like 'plain rice cake.' Walk in the woods - that's all you have to do. Just take a breather from the people on The Boob Tube and The Paper telling you what's important and listen to your own voice. You can trust me (in spite of my now being 30 years old) that if what They say is important is actually so important as to merit lots of your attention, it will still be there when you get back from your vacation to your own liberation.

I've got no answers, just fatigue from the blue light of the television cast faintly on the opposite wall in the dark. I'm waking to see all you beautiful people out there reaching and trying. It's the sight of a field of poppies to someone who has just turned on her rods and cones. It's me pushing beyond foolish consistencies. It's you keeping your promise that you made to yourself. It's the hypothetical beautiful shockwave of everyone in America buying nothing for one day. It's these endless arrangements of type, combined into words and loosely assembled to try to express where I'm at. Guided by a north star, it's all of us in the boat on still water, glad to be together in the unfamiliar, expansive twilight as we seek out a place to wait for sunrise. It's our big chance, each morning that we get up and look out the window and see that the revolution is still saving a seat for us on the bus.

indelicate delicacies

I just learned some sad news that I think may be worth sharing. In the past thirty years, it seems that we have wiped out about 90% of the sharks in the oceans worldwide, mostly in the pursuit of their fins for soup. For some reason, this nugget of info hit close to home for me. I think part of it is from watching cool footage of sharks underwater when the Discovery Channel was a rising star on TV in the 1990s. Part of it may also be the number "90%", which seems too close to 100% for comfort. Anytime we have something that's gone 90% bad, it's pretty bad and tends to get our attention.

I'm not sure what to do with this info. I feel scared by it because lots of scientists apparently think it may soon lead to the collapse of whole fish stocks all over the world. This in turn will threaten the whole balance of life in the oceans, where a lot of our oxygen comes from at the bottom of the aquatic food chain. This possibly scenario freaks me out, but I'm not sure what I'll do differently tomorrow morning just because it's in my head.

I think this is a great example of how we can act with narrow self-interest (individual, regional, national, whatever) which harms the group (global). I think if we went down to the docks where the fishing boats, large and small, set out each day to catch sharks, cut of the fins, and throw the bodies back in, and talked to the fishermen there about the situation and the remaining 10% of the sharks, I'm unsure what effect it might have. They need their livelihoods, and have their own fears about dropping out the bottom of the socio-economic food chain in our culture. How do we ask them to give up work that they need to take care of themselves?

No less responsible are the folks who are demanding the shark fin soup delicacy at their parties. If it's exotic, and someone is willing to pay to get it, then they can find someone willing to catch it and prepare it. What are they concerned about? Perhaps nothing - they may not know that shark fins are a commodity that threatens a global ecosystem. Perhaps they are anxious about being able to show that they are wealthy and can have the better things in life, distancing themselves in appearance from the people with less.

I think this type of situation is the crux of the crisis that we are facing together as a species on our tiny spaceship. We get afraid, and trapped in our narrow self-serving patterns because we have difficulty imagining other ways of being and having the courage to follow them. I don't think we can be too hard on ourselves at the individual level, because everyone knows what it is like to feel like we're struggling and competing to get ahead or at least stay even in the rat race. The shark fishermen know it, and the wealthy lunch guests know it. Anyone who knows the relief that comes with a pay raise knows it, as does the person who just lost their job and feels like they will have trouble getting another one. People who would "really like not to have to drive to work" but drive to work know it.

I know that it's hard to think of a bigger picture in a warm fuzzy way when we feel like we're in the big picture in a competitive, doom-and-gloom way. But when you take that first step towards cooperation on a global scale, with billions of folks you've never met or who aren't even born yet, you know it feels good to be less afraid. Biking in the snow, walking in the rain, taking time between jobs to explore your passion for oil painting, skipping the shark fin soup and telling someone why, turning off lights more often than you turn them on, having fewer children instead of more, eating less meat, it's all connected. We can find such joy and satisfaction in a million small things, acts for which we'll never be rewarded with a feature on the front page of Altruist Weekly.

In taking these steps, we can know that we're doing more to make the world - the only one our children have - a better place. I think we'll never know if we're doing enough, but we'll know that we're doing more. It's the choice we face every time the path splits. Sometimes we don't have enough information, and we just have to follow our hearts and guess. Sometimes we have lots of information, and we just need to find the courage to listen to our inner voices. Often we want companions to join us, so we don't feel alone and like we're the only ones taking the broad view. The path isn't always clear, but our good intentions based in broader love instead of narrower fear will get us going. To survive and get on a good track as a society world wide, we need to take this more thoughtful approach to our lives, look long and deep at what we're doing, and get more on the same page with each other about getting from where we are to where we want to be.

Here's the best part (I think so, anyway): we're not giving anything up when we make these choices. We're gaining everything, bit by bit. Our lives unfold in beautiful ways, dovetailing together with other folks who are looking for the good life. We are the ones...

Our Beautiful Struggle, or I Got Them Ol' Zen Cushion Blues

I came in from the cold, frosty and sweaty after running in the frozen sunshine. I peeled off layers and paused to make some green tea, steaming with jasmine and memories of ancient China. I put on soft cotton pants, a wool sweater, and sat down in front of my 17 inch window to the world. I looked up at my blog, with a vast white background and only the blinking cursor, and realized that its address is Nothing is Lacking. I took a sip, looked out at the clinging golden maple leaves, took another sip, and exhaled.

It's hard to remember that nothing is lacking. It's hard to remember that where we're at is where we're at. The Madison Ave. folks want us to buy our kids toys for Christmas, either Chinese or unleaded. Just after New Years, as we sign in to email, we'll have an image of someone who is not at all overweight telling us that she wants to lose those holiday inches. Some days we wake up to find a close friend or even ourselves on anti-depressants, never believing before that moment that it was necessary. We see headlines about disasters that we'd love to help alleviate, but we're so busy we don't know where to begin. Unusually warm weather makes us all a bit nervous, because we don't know if we can count on past years to know the future. And in our heads, we tell ourselves the stories that we've told all our lives about how the world works, what we can and can't do, and why life "doesn't work like that."

Regardless of the tempests in Bangladesh and in our teacups, nothing is lacking because the world can't be any other way than it is. We get to choose to accept or deny the world and our place in it, and that's about it. I can't bring my dad back to life for the holidays, just because I want to get to know him better and didn't get the chance while he was alive. I can't make the Canadian border guards the friendly people they were ten years ago because I want to visit the States more often. I can't magically lower my mom's cholesterol and tell her she can eat as much creamy French food as she wants. These are wishes that won't survive being hurled against the rocky North Atlantic shoreline of reality.

Denial is just fear. We are afraid of not being loved so we don't share ourselves fully with our partner. We are afraid of sounding foolish, so we don't speak our minds. We are afraid of making a mistake, so we shirk responsibility and pass the buck. When we find the strength to admit our weakness, ignorance, or inability, then we can love, grow, and learn. It's a pretty tight loop, that can spiral out in a closed life of fear or an open life with love and freedom.

When we choose the open path and expand like the frontier of the universe, it's beautiful because nothing is lacking. When we pick up any self-help book that is worth it's salt, and take the advice (which is the same in all of them) to heart, we can return to the moment we're in and stop fearfully traveling to the past and the future all the time. In this moment, we can be free - free to take some distance from our incessant monkey minds swinging from tree to tree. This freedom is empowering, and we can begin again to do what we want with our lives, unburdened by our usual baggage which is momentarily gone. We can create inertia in new directions for our health and well-being. We can imagine, with positivity, getting from where we are to where we want to be. We can begin to heal - ourselves, each other, the neighborhood, the planet. It's pretty groovy and organic (did I just write that? :-) and pretty mind-blowingly liberating.

The full quote is something roughly like:

Be grateful for what you have,

Rejoice in how things are.

When you realize nothing is lacking,

The world belongs to you.


All this being written, I still have to get up each day, remind myself of it, and try to stay in a good headspace. It's a beautiful struggle - sometimes I find joy in remembering that we are all doing the best we can. Sometimes I get depressed with that same thought when I read about American nuclear policy or see half of my fellow gym members oogling celebrity news about who Drew Barrymore was making out with. I know, however, that we are all doing good things and trying with the most courage we can muster. Sometimes I wonder if we will make it. I wonder if we'll be able to effect change on a big enough scale to "save ourselves" before it's too late, or if each of us as individuals will be able to lead full and satisfying lives without regrets.

Then, on the good days, with the frost on the grass and the sun slipping through spindly branches, I know that we will certainly make it. I smell the tea, and remember that there's no way we can't make it. Let's go back to our breath and start again. That's where it all begins.