A Feeling of Mist Coming Down

This morning I woke up on the slightly anxious side of the bed.  I only got a few minutes of grace before my mind went into chatter like a squirrel on a mild dose of adderall.  Even though the themes aren't fresh, and are in fact well-worn like stones at a 2500-year-old pilgrimage site, they can still grab me.  The flavor of this morning's neurotic chit-chat is:

a) I'll never make enough money.
b) I'm separate from the rest of the world and everyone else.
c) A generalized feeling that I'll die penniless and alone, perhaps before I get to my entitled life expectancy of about 75.

This chatter came and sat meditation with me, which I thought was quite generous on its part, to devote a half hour of its precious time when it could have been out harassing any number of other people.  It persisted into my morning tea (it chose a nice black assam, fair trade of course).   It quivered a bit when I started journaling about what was coming up for me in the moment, but showed good spirit and redoubled its efforts to throw me off of being present.  Then we read a poem together, and things... shifted a bit.

from Walt Whitman's Song of the Broad Axe:

                                                                      5

The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch'd wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce merely,

Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the anchor-lifters of the departing,

Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth,

Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place where money is plentiest,

Nor the place of the most numerous population.

Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards,

Where the city stands that is belov'd by these, and lobes them in return and understands them, 

Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds,

Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place,

Where the men and women think lightly of the laws,

Where the slave ceases, and the master of slave ceases,

Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons,

Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves,

Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority,

Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President, Mayor, Governor and what not, are agents for pay, 

Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves,

Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,

Where speculations on the soul are encouraged,

Where women walk in public processions in the streets the same as the men,

Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;

Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands,

Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,

Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,

Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,

There a great city stands.

This passage really resonated with me.  Where is such a place? Do great cities that even get close to this ideal exist?  Do great towns, villages, hamlets exist like this?  Did they ever?  Is Bhutan, with its mythic status among liberals, a bastion of such virtue and uprightness?  Portland?  Austin?  Minneapolis?  Brattleboro?  Flagstaff?  Bend?  Asheville?  Detropia?

I think this passage opened things up for me because I imagine the feeling of living in such a place.  Is it a place where we take care of each other?  Is there good, sturdy work for the hands?  Is it the kind of place where we cultivate the patience to help each person give their unique gift to the world?  Is it a place where wanting to steward the world is all you need to find a home?  Is it the kind of place where we see scarcity everywhere except in the coffers of the Perpetual War Machine? Is it the place where we tolerate the sentiment of "I wish I could help, but...," in ourselves and others?  Is it the kind of town or country where we spend much of our precious life seeking out who to praise, who to blame, who is responsible for each thing, dividing and measuring this seamless and defiantly beautiful world?

The feeling that Whitman evokes of this great city is beautiful.  Holding that feeling in my heart, I look at the world we are in and feel a deep longing to transform it.  Are we headed towards a vision of society that we love, or are we coping and telling our children all of our rationalizations for why things don't work out?  When I see you and you see me, can we really see each other as the same, made of the same stuff with only the thinnest illusion of separate identities?  How can I be responsible for the oil-covered pelicans, the homeless man sprawled on the sidewalk, the girl whose mother is attending to the smart phone rather than her? 

I know it all starts with me, though I so rarely know how to begin.  One way of describing my zen practice is learning to trust in not knowing how to begin.  Trusting that each situation is unique and I can't know ahead of time how to enter it, yet needing to enter it since I am fully in this world all the time.  It feels like a tall order, especially on mornings like this when I'm anxious and feeling separate from  everything.  I want to defect to a narrow self-interest - figure out how to take care of myself, and if I have any energy left over, then I can care for someone or something else.  But do I get that choice?  Can I withhold and treat myself as separate?  When will I have enough, or have things just right, so that I can then enter the world and take up caring wholeheartedly for everything around me?  These questions reveal their impossible nature, and if I've got grace and luck, I can see them, let them go, and enter the world again in this moment, just as I am. 

This morning holds nothing special, nothing to communicate or hold on to.  In a few hours or a few days, it will almost certainly have passed from my mind, and if you've read this, probably yours as well.  This is as it should be.  What could I offer as a solid lesson to myself or others that clearly exists and persists in time?  Nothing.  These words are just an offering, hopefully as transient as those white dandelion seeds taken up by the wind.  If you take courage from them, or a feeling of being less alone in the world, or anger at how I've got it all wrong, then you have my deepest thanks for offering your response as a gift.  

from William Stafford's "Whatever Comes":

In the fall, rain of the happy tears returns with its big step over the mountains. 
Gray sweeps here again, draping trees and buildings. 
Air floats up the cellar stairs with its fresh face turned toward the open. 

The new season means its all right -- time is. 
Sure, those evil things happened in your life, but they're over. 
Here comes the rain to forgive, wide as outdoors and so welcoming it doesn't care whether it knows you.

I'm laughing at the person I was. Who cares how serious my face looks? 
Now -- on the mayor's hat, on the poor woman at the corner, all over fashionable people -- 
comes the wide gray forgiving rain.

Any Edge Will Do

A few days ago I started again, getting out the whetstone and attempting to sharpen my practice.  I started a two month period of giving up facebook and recorded music, to feel what comes up for me when I stop up those leaks of vital energy.  I'm also off of all added sugar for the rest of the 2013 - sugar, cane sugar, evaporated cane juice, honey, stevia, agave, maple syrup, turbinado sugar, etc etc...   Were there even this many types of sugar when we were kids?  It now seems like an industry mainly targeted at convincing me that whatever sugar I'm eating is okay because it has a longer fancy-pants name.  

Some people have asked me what I'm aiming for in these experiments, especially the eschewing of recorded music.   For me, it's important to pay attention when I get a whiff of an addiction.  To claim that I really see my addictions clearly is way too boastful, as I consider them to be blind spots.  But sometimes I get a faint scent on the wind, and if I'm lucky I can muster the courage to undertake further inquiry.  For sugar, it comes up pretty often.  I notice that I've been eating several cookies at the monastery on Sundays, I've been adding more honey to my coffee each day, or I'm eating more dark chocolate with the rationalization that "cocoa is healthy" but in fact I'm craving the sweet side of it more than anything.  I've abstained from sugar before for up to six months, and I can now draw up upon those experiments.  I can recall how good I feel getting clean of it, and how it becomes easier day by day so that within a week or two I don't miss it at all.  

The recorded music fast is something new.  I've bounced it around in my head ever since my friend Peter told me years ago about a friend of his who did it.  That memory has stuck with me and has fascinated me for a decade.  Coupled with that, I've really begun in the past year to notice how strong of a drug music is for me.  (I don't think it's a coincidence that this awareness has come at the same time that I spend a large amount of life sitting quietly, listening to the stream nearby, and hiking alone in the woods).  I can and do use music, especially the music that I've collected over the years, to manipulate my moods.  I can search through thousands of songs to find just the right one to nurture a feeling of elation or sadness, to counteract my loneliness, to wallow in self-pity, or really anything else I can imagine.  Having an alienated psychedelic morning?  Radiohead.  Road trip through the winding hills to pick blueberries?  A Bob Dylan rambling ballad is always reliable.  Angry about social injustice?  Joe Pug (if you don't know him, check him out).  

The insidious thing about using the music drug is that I am really trying to keep control.  I am attached to a mood and don't want it to stop.  Or, I'm not okay with my present feeling (usually sadness or existential boredom) and I want to literally combat it.  I want to manipulate my feelings rather than just be with them, learn to see them clearly, and let them pass (which they always, always, always do, despite what my little hamster-wheel mind tries to convince me of).  They come and they go.  But with music, I have such strong feelings associated with certain songs that I try to use them to control my emotional landscape.  Sometimes it's even my trying to lose myself in the music - to go ignorant and dull (even through high-energy music) rather than turn around and face my present feeling with curiosity and an open heart.

This attempt at control rests on inherently shaky ground, however.  I notice that I'll sit in the car for a minute or two or three or four looking for just the right song to start my drive to work that morning.  I'll come home and spend minutes looking for just the right iPod mood to make dinner to.  In this searching, there is a feeling that I'll find just the right music, and that it will somehow make my mood okay.  If I don't find "just the right music" in an "acceptable" amount of time, I notice that I begin to get frustrated with myself.  I start thinking about how I should clean out my music collection, or wondering why I accumulate all this music that really isn't "doing anything for me."  I think about how I should be more decisive, or how I should be willing to accept what comes along and just get on with my day.  Next thing I know, I'm immersed in a land of Shoulds, Clinging to Control, and Feeling Bad about Myself.  Sound familiar? 

This experiment is about attempting to let go of control, and paying attention to what happens.  Already in the three mornings without music, I've noticed a slight agitation in myself when driving to work.  What is that?  A vague feeling in my chest or in my gut.  I might label it frustration, but what is it if I don't buy into a label and just feel it?  Is there more depth or color to it?  How does it feel to call it Anxiety about Being with Myself Just As I Am?  Do I feel any truth in that sentiment?  If so, what then?  Do I respond by escaping elsewhere - rich food (oh no! I'm off sugar!  well, bacon then...)?  facebook (cut-off again by my own @#&! experiments)?  An actual book?  A run?  Making art?  Call a friend?  Can I just be with it for a minute, make friends with it, invite that feeling in for a cup of earl grey and catch up on old times? 

There is nothing inherently good or bad about any of these responses, as far as I can tell.  What I attempt to notice, though, is the feeling that I'm attaching to and turning into a solid idea of How Things Are.  I have some sort of feeling in my gut, and the next thing I know I've labeled it firmly and laid out a path of necessary action.  These experiments in abstention are a way for me to back up a little bit in this cycle of sensation, feeling, labeling, and acting.  It takes a lot of practice to just be with these sensations and not get lost in the reactions of my mind.  Each time I do, though, I get a little bit of space, a little breathing room, a little freedom.  Not freedom from having sensations keep coming up in me, but a little freedom to be less reactive.  There's some secret here that my teachers point to, that my favorite authors point to, and that my own experience points to.  I can't quite grasp it with my mind, but I think that's part of the point.  

So, how do you want to turn the wheel of your life?  Where is the knife edge of practice that you want to dance along?  Where do you get a hint of something that you want to pay close attention to?  How will you go about doing that?  I have nothing to offer but inspiration, and only that if you feel inspired by all these ramblings.  But know that I draw inspiration and strength from you, my community of friends and fellow practitioners of all things good, bad, ugly, and beautiful.  Thanks for reading, and may your practice be strong. 

Withdrawing to the Mountains

Snow came again last night to Mt. Tremper.  At first just a few inches of icy fluff, the kind that lifts and blows away gently as you plow through it with rubber boots.  By this morning, it had grown to six damp and dense inches, perfect for snowballs launched off the iron bridge on the way to the monastery.  Now it's hovering like a swing state between melting and icing thing over.  The Beaverkill Creek ate it all up as it fell, the dark water still swirling in contrast to the heaps of white perched delicately on the banks and the boulders in midstream.  In spite of tomorrow's equinox, winter is refusing to go gently into spring.  I love it.

Jess was reading an article to me today from the recent issue of Orion magazine.  In it the author offers some thoughts on the nature of our ecological and societal collapse, and then reflects on his answers to this question: At this moment in history, what would not be a waste of my time?  His answers (in bulleted brief - he elaborates in a paragraph or two for each one):

1) Withdrawing.
2) Preserving non-human life.
3) Getting your hands dirty.
4) Insisting on nature's value beyond utility.
5) Building refuges.

The one that grabbed me was, of course, number one. 

Withdrawing.  I have been reflecting all afternoon on this option in my life.  Am I withdrawing right now?  In choosing to live in a small town in the Catskill Mountains, and to prioritize study and practice of zen over other pursuits available to me, am I withdrawing?  If so, does that "mean" anything?  Am I violating a moral imperative?

I have heard from many thoughtful young people, and a few older than myself, that the question of whether and how to withdraw is a big one in life.  As we continue to destroy the planet we live on, we face an infinitely complex crisis, larger than any one aspect of human society or the biosphere.  It can feel so overwhelming that withdrawal seems to be the only option.  How could someone not withdraw in the face of such interwoven injustice, destruction, cruelty, greed, and anger, especially when it is clear that we are all thoroughly involved in perpetuating it?  What can I do to create a positive change in this maelstrom of life?  Is it reasonable to throw myself metaphorically into the gears of this machine of destruction?  Is that something other than withdrawing? Is middling along in the status quo but thinking a lot about social critiques a way of withdrawing from action? 

As I dig deeper, I reflect on what it means to withdraw.  I have discovered and verified time and again that even sequestering myself in a remote monastery for a week of uninterrupted silent practice cannot free me from entanglements of the world.  I can have deeply felt moments of calm in a still zendo, and then come downstairs and feel anxious about the conventionally grown vegetables in the salad.  As I move through life, either in silent reflection, choosing groceries, or ripping lumber on a table saw, I am in the world and the world is in me. In this sense, I'm not even sure how I could withdraw. 

Here at the monastery, we talk of zazen (seated formal zen meditation) as sitting in order to open up to reality just as it is.  For years, before I had my own zazen practice, I thought of meditation as retreating from the world.  You sat still and blocked out distractions from the outside.  Then you worked to somehow clear away distracting thoughts in your head.  I thought it was withdrawal, and I thought it was possible.  Now that I practice, I am beginning to deeply experience the impossibility of that.  When I practice zazen, I see how completely porous (and then non-existent) the boundary is between "me" and "the rest of the world."  There is no withdrawing - in fact, my practice is to enter the world as thoroughly and ceaselessly as I can. 

So if I can't withdraw in a silent zazen retreat, what does withdraw even mean?  I have no clear understanding of it.  I like the idea of withdrawing from systems that are oppressive, unjust, and/or broken - capitalism in America, our healthcare and health insurance systems, all societies that run on massive resource degradation, etc.  I think there is something noble in withdrawing from them.  It is a rejection, a moral statement that reflects our character as we choose to not participate and then accept the consequences of that action. 

But how do we withdraw when the whole system is dysfunctional and we can't escape participating in it?  The health care system in the U.S. seems to be a perfect example.  The system is terribly broken, as indicated by the number of uninsured, the cost of insurance to those who do buy it, the degrading quality of care when you actually get it, and the ineffectual political system where we perpetuate it with greed and fear.  I can't in good conscience participate in such a system, yet I have no alternative.  If I opt out, then I take a risk of losing my shirt in a big way if I ever need in-depth medical care.  Getting fleeced by for-profit health insurance companies (who have been shown to make concerted efforts not to pay when the time comes to use your coverage) seems to be the "safer" choice, where I basically become complicit in order to protect my meager ass(ets).  Really??  How do I withdraw from this?  Do I take one for the mythical Team and go without insurance, while diligently writing letters to my congressman laying out the facts and hoping for change?  Even the Dalai Lama says that we should give up hope as a strategy. 

This question perplexes me.  I'm currently a high-maintenance mammal on an overtaxed biosphere that desperately needs a lighter load, yet I'm certainly not close to withdrawing from that position either.  My existence is a burden on the planet, yet I love this experience of being alive and moving through the world.  I love sitting zazen quietly, taking photographs, building small structures, cooking Indian-fusion burritos, hiking in the hills.  If I built a hut on the mountain, hauled a 50 lb. sack of rice up there, and sat facing the wall and watching my beard grow, am I withdrawing?  I'm still eating and breathing, and I'm still engaging in all the struggles by choosing to not fight them tooth and nail.  While I am living as this loose arrangement of atoms called Chris, can I withdraw from anything?  Or is my only option to lean into it, to make a sincere effort to wake up and clarify my role in this seamless, beautiful catastrophe of life? 

No answers here.  We work our jobs and collect our pay.  We're gliding down the highway and we're slip sliding away too.  It seems this is my practice, to accept what I can and change what I can't.  And all the while, keep cultivating patience and taking a view so long that it brings you back to this moment, this breath.  How will you begin right now to withdraw, and to advance? 

winterscape

 This morning no words -

memorizing the sky, trees

touch the braille colors.

 

 

Watch the sky glow gray,

all is soft ice.  A lone crow

calls nothing special.

Healing Through the Here and Now

I used to know how to start these entries.  Something would just come to me while I was in the shower, at the dinner table, biking around, wherever.  I'd let it bounce around my head to see if it settled on its own.  If not, if it found the resonant frequency of urgency, then I'd sit and type out some paragraphs.  Always off the cuff, always a shooting star burning out of its own accord when I ran out of gusto or cleverness. 

These days, I'm never quite sure where to begin.  Where does anyone begin anymore?  With the school shooting in Connecticut just two weeks before Christmas, what can me make of the world as we look it squarely in the face?   

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I'm in the process of becoming a formal student in the Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism.  The founder of this order, John Daido Loori, often said that we need to take responsibility for the whole catastrophe.  Another question he loved, really the same question, is: where do you find yourself in all of this? 

Where do I find myself in the school shooting?  Did I do nothing wrong? Are the only guilty parties the gun dealers, a poor mental health treatment program, and the shooter's friends and family who failed to intervene earlier?  Can we blame reified concepts like "gun laws"?  I think all of these have a hand in it, but I'm also in it too, inextricably in the mix whether I like it or not.  Where the metaphysical meets the tangible, I create those patterns in the world - every time I act out of fear and anger, every time I promote an Us and Them mentality, every time I shrug off helping someone in need.  These acts ripple outward.  I think its what we call karma. 

Yes, some people in certain situations have more direct influence.  I desperately want them to awaken to the urgency of problems such as easy access to guns and poor access to mental health resources.  They are not somehow more guilty than you or I, though.  The moral imperative (I believe) is to live out this urgency for change and awaken to just how broken our society is.  That is where I find myself, and my responsibility for this whole catastrophe.

I'm signing petitions and talking with friends and strangers.  In doing so, I see it as my job to not recreate the same suffering that the shooter and now all the survivors are going through.  How angry and scared he must have been, how deeply lost in the delusions of his own mind.  How angry and scared the surviving family and community members are, how deeply they are immersed in the grief of this experience.  I can hear the anger and fear in those who want to cling to owning guns.  I can hear the anger and fear of those of us who want to decrease the number of guns floating around our country.  I can feel my own fear every time I encounter someone who is mentally ill and is suffering without relief.  What part can I play in easing these fears, in quenching some of the fire of hate and blame? 

My mind, the same divided mind that creates Us and Them, wants me to believe that we need to find out who to blame and how to make specific changes to our laws to hopefully avoid this type of incredible violence in the future.  It wants to say that I'm on the right side, and someone else (must be!) on the wrong side.  It's true that we need to change, and that I want to be an agent for that change.  However, I feel more and more these days that if I enter this fray with labels in hand to slap on everyone's forehead, I may perpetuate the very problems I'm wrestling with.  How else might we go about it?

I'm not sure how I imagine things unfolding from here.  What if we all put a little more energy into just living for peace?  What would that look like?  What if we all faced up to our fears and connected a little more with a person in need?  What would that feel like?  What if we were a little easier on ourselves and those around us?  What ripples will that send out to the world?  What if we keep the longer term goals in mind, and begin by accepting that right where we are is the only place to begin?  Where else can we begin than this moment?  What else can I do but heal and accept? 

Coming Back to This

 

I'll cut right to the chase.  What am I indeed up to?  Where have I been and where am I going?

I'm currently settled in the town of Mt. Tremper, NY, in the southern part of the Catskills.  It is quiet and green, with good hiking and biking in abundance.  There are many places that look like this picture above.  This one is the view from a small bridge about 200 yards from my apartment.  If you go north another 100 yards, you're at the gate of the zen monastery where I practice.  Best commute ever - walking through natural beauty to a place dedicated to awakening. 

 Jess and I have split up.  We are... friends.  She is living at the monastery now, halfway through the first of her 12 months as a full-time resident.  We see each other several times a week when I go over to sit zazen, work, or socialize.  It is a blessing to have a shared practice that feels very deep for each of us individually and also informs how we want to relate to other people, including each other.  

This fall, like every fall, the monastery sangha dedicates itself to a period of ango, which translates as "peaceful dwelling."  It is a three month period of intensified practice, where you commit yourself to practice beyond your ordinary routines in eight areas: Buddhist studies, art practice, body practice, concentration on a simple task, stewarding the earth, liturgy studies, two intensive retreats, and zazen practice.  The focus of this ango is The Bodhisattva Way of Life, including a study of the book by the same name.  

It is really interesting to devote myself to religious practice and study.  It is something that I have never really done in my life before.  When I was a child, I did not take Sunday school at church seriously at all.  While in college, I studied Buddhism in great depth, but always as an intellectual endeavor, from the viewpoint of art criticism, symbolic studies, history, cultural anthropology, etc.  Here and now, it is a whole new game for me.

The focus of much of our study is around three key virtues of the Bodhisattva way - effort, generosity, and patience.  My art practice is painting watercolor (which I'm totally new at, and is really fun), and I have spent several afternoons sitting and painting the experience of patience.  This is really wild for me.  We're encouraged to go beyond symbolism or simply painting something that we think of when we think of patience, like Ghandi's face or something like that.  Instead, I just sit with the experience of patience and... paint.  So far I've turned out some landscapes, like a maple tree by a river or a pumpkin on a tree stump, and I've also painted some gritty patterns and images just made of lines.  I don't know what any of them mean, which is great. 

As always in zen, this practice and others rest on the fundamental practice of zazen - sitting in quiet meditation.  What do I discover when I investigate deeply into my experience of the world?  Who is the I that is experiencing things?  What does it mean to experience "something"?  If everything seems to be changing all the time - emotions, perceptions, my ability to perceive, the physical world - does that mean anything for the story that I carry about How Things Are?  Where are my footholds in my sense of self when everything dissolves under close scrutiny into smaller constituent phenomena, that in turn dissolve again? 

As my skepticism deepens, how does that in turn inform my practice of effort, generosity, and patience?  For me, I find myself humbled again and again by what shows up in my investigation.  It seems that we are all connected, both in a spiritual sense of sharing similar outlooks on life, and in an ecological sense of being made up of similar systems.  I draw on this sense of connection to energize my practice.  I enjoy seeing others awaken to deep introspection, and my effort becomes more dedicated.  I give more generously, as I see that clinging to things feeds my narrow, rigid sense of self while giving away creates an open, spacious feeling of connection.  And patience feels like the deepest practice right now.  In a world that we are all degrading but deeply want to preserve (consciously and unconsciously), I am aiming to cultivate patience so as to keep practicing, keep coming back to the meditation cushion, keep making myself available to friends, keep aiming to live more lightly on the planet, etc.  If I indulge a sense of haste and urgency, then I end up cultivating anger at myself and others for all sorts of reasons, which is actually an impediment to anyone walking this path. 

So this is the practice that takes up much of my life.  I fill in from the edges with writing letters, reading books, and missing good friends who are far away.  I do some carpentry to pay my small bills each month.  I'm really loving life here right now, and opening up to what comes with each day.  I wish you a wonderful Here and Now wherever you are, and look forward to seeing you again.

Doorways

So, I have just returned from Puebla, Mexico, a city of a few million people on a plateau southeast of Mexico City.  I was there to attend the international conference for the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT).  Every day, as I walked the beautiful streets of the historic downtown on the way to the convention center, I passed by dozens and perhaps hundreds of doorways like this one.  They hold large, exquisite doors, made of wood and stone and sometimes even copper or bronze.  There are doorways that must be at least 15 feet tall with smaller doors cut into them, because the full size ones are probably too unwieldy to open on a regular basis. 

As I wandered past these doors each day, I felt as though I was moving through a city full of potential.  Many of these doors open into inner courtyards, revealing a whole other world.  Giant marble or stone fountains rest gracefully in these tiled courtyards.  Small trees and large flowering shrubs grow up in the sunlight coming through the open roofs.  Balconies look down on the courtyard from inner apartments, government offices, or church libraries (many of the buildings in Puebla are/were related to the Catholic church).  Vines climb up trellises, children peek out, old women slap masa slabs to make tortillas, men in suits talk briskly about the business at hand.  Worlds nested within worlds, mysterious parts that when revealed make up a wonderfully complex whole. 

Being at the Gestalt conference, I felt the promise of doorways in a personal way as well.  I had the great privilege of talking informally and at length with some well-seasoned Gestalt therapists - Erv Polster, Bud Feder, Lynne Jacobs, Ruella Frank, and other folks you've never heard of.  In these conversations, I felt doorways opening to the next steps in my life.  I've been doing part-time Gestalt training here in the Bay Area for about three years, and am ready to take the next steps of both deepening my own therapeutic journey as well as launching into practice.   This conference helped me to gather the courage to go further along this journey of self-discovery as well as honing my ability to offer my deepest, brightest truth to the world. 

I realize that a brief description of Gestalt may be helpful here.  Gestalt therapy is an approach that is rooted in the here and now.  That is, whatever is appearing in your mind and body (psycho-somatic) is your reality in this moment, and therefore is the only place to begin (as opposed to theoretical anything).  Through a deeper awareness of old stories that we are carrying in our bodies and minds, we can begin to make our present more flexible, dynamic, and fresh while decreasing the likelihood that we will continue to repeat old behavior patterns that are no longer serving us.  Increased awareness is the goal - from there, our life will inevitably feel fresher and more exciting.  We'll less often feel like we're living the same movie over and over, and instead have more contact with the amazing, ever-changing world around us all the time. 

My training to practice Gestalt is also a journey into myself.  I uncover new gems from time to time, nuggets of insight that I can carry around and chew on.  Mainly, though, I simply notice myself and others more, with an eye towards avoiding the Meaning Stories that we all so often put on ourselves and others.  Things I've done in the past don't mean that I'm a good or bad person.  They have vanished in time, and I may have feelings about them that I can work with in the present.  Things other people have done or are doing don't necessarily mean they are good or bad people, either.  Instead of putting a meaning story onto what they do, I can practice observing the world outside and simultaneously observing my own embodied reactions.  Some examples: When he is loud and red-faced, I clench my jaw.  When she talks about that, I think she is missing the point.  When I hear political debate, I just know that the conservatives are failing to understand reality.  Noticing them is the crucial (and some might say sufficient) step in changing ourselves from habituated reactions to fresh perspectives (like perhaps I don't know as much as I think I do about How the World Is).  All it takes is time and practice, lots of practice.  And a good Gestalt practitioner (like me) to help you out :-) 

What is next for me?  A trip out to the east coast with Jess, leaving in the beginning of June.  We'll be settling in New York state, in a town called Mt. Tremper.  It's near Woodstock, not too far from New York or eastern Pennsylvania.  We'll be staying in a little house by the river, so you should come visit.  My journey there will unfold by contacting some local Gestalt trainers to continue my work, while keeping an eye towards co-creating community with a focus on healing and heartfelt connection.  I'm looking forward to gardening, working with my hands, and helping everyone wake up, as much as possible. 

 

What does the next doorway open onto?  If I can stay with the not-knowing, avoid the meaning-making and the grasping, then whatever it is will be much more available to me.  Then I can awaken to the profound, infinitely rich beauty of how things are.

Dwelling in Connection

Our generation, the young people and the old people not yet settled in their ways, are in a beautiful and interesting position.  We are seeking answers about how to thrive in a society that is crumbling and a world that we're destroying...

Immediately, you may respond with a strong feeling welling up inside.  "Society isn't crumbling!  The world isn't being destroyed!  What do those even mean?"  I'm unsure how to measure them in a good way.  When I read about the ecosystem(s) of the planet, I see that we are directly and indirectly making big changes and disruptions.  The trends seem to be destroying the diversity of life, converting natural resources into hazardous wastes (carbon dioxide, trash, nuclear waste, soot, etc), and rendering the whole system less stable all the time.  These all run counter to the trends of life sustenance in which we evolved.  These broad conceptualizations are how I approach thinking about the modern world.

We seem to be engaged in a similar unpleasant degradation in our society (societies) as well.  There are more of us working more hours to earn relatively less money that we did a generation ago.  We are dismantling the social structures through which we are supposed to care for each other.  Everything from public libraries to public healthcare are under the knife.  We continue to add more people to the planet all the time, with big organizations like the UN and the CIA trying to estimate how many people there will be at some point in the near future.  8 billion, 9 billion?  Whew - I think it feels crowded already at just over 7 billion.  Our money game, which entails placing arbitrary monetary value on essential aspects of life like food, water, shelter, clean air, and (I will contend) access to the wilds, is wearing terribly thin both in the U.S. and abroad.  With the situation of the haves and have-nots growing dimmer all the time, can we say that this system is inherently functional and just needs tweaking?  That does not resonate with me, but feel free to email and we can chat more if you want.

How do we proceed in life when the systems in which we operate are so broken and poisonous?  I think it takes a lot of energy to work against these complex systems full of inertia that weave through most of the world.  How do we admit what is happening, as best we can understand it, and keep going on?

I think our current predicament has something in common with first generation Americans, born of parents who immigrated here from their home countries.  Their children, the first generation born in America, grow up in a world that is very different from their parents' homes.  Their parents may have brought certain values, ethics, and attachments with them that are rooted in the country from which they came - Vietnam, Poland, Guatemala, China, wherever.  Growing up in America, especially in the second half of the 20th century, their children experienced choices, options, and promises that their parents never had.  They can marry someone not from their ethnic group.  They can live alone, or even with other people of the opposite sex to whom they are not married.  They can choose from a huge number of professions and career options.  They are navigating their lives as they live out these and many other choices that their parents perhaps never had.

This freedom can be tough.  What if your choices run counter to the REALLY strong ethnic/religious upbringing of your matriarchal grandmother, who weeps and prays at the dinner table every day that you haven't met a nice boy of the same ethnicity as your family?  Don't laugh (or laugh if you want) - this stuff happens.  You can choose any career you want, as long as it's being an engineer, preferably mechanical, and going to school for it in the same city where you grew up.  You can be as independent as you want as long as you live in the same house with your parents after college and devote much of your non-work hours attending to their needs.  So many choices!  What do we do if we love our parents and grandparents and yet want different things for ourselves?

Our generation now faces similar clashes with the culture at large, and with our older relatives too, regardless of ethnic traditions.  What do you do when you are ensconced in a capitalist culture, yet see that this system is our vehicle of choice for continuing the exploitation of each other and nature?  You can write a book critiquing it, and make some money for yourself as well as the publishing company - one of the top five who control more than half the market.  You can get a sandwich board sign and stand on the corner of 42nd St in Manhattan, telling people about the intricacies of the broken system.  That might get you actually kidnapped and institutionalized at your parents' request.  You can attempt the Warren Buffett - make boatloads of money in the system and then reach out to some of the cultural critics with indictments of how the rich get away with murder.  Not that his criticisms are invalid, but think first about how many millionaires and billionaires get that money and continue to engage in a deep and radical critique of the system.  How will you fare? 

The only way I know to live in opposition to the system we are engulfed in is to find others who resonate with your mind and spirit.  It is critically important to prevent your own slide into excuses and hypocrisy, or to prevent insanity as you engage in cultural critique alone.  You do not have to go find a commune, ashram, or monastery (though if that's your thing, call me up and we'll talk 'cause I love them).  A yoga class is good.  Join a writer's group.  Knit with other knitters.  Volunteer at a bike repair workshop.  I promise you, deeply and truly from my own experience, that when we connect with other kindred spirits in any way, we garner energy to live our lives with more awareness and courage.  Both of these are key to being heartfelt and authentic in seeking to change the world. 

It takes a lot of energy to make it through our modern lives.  We are overwhelmed by choice in every product we buy at nearly every store.  If we drive, we're overwhelmed by more traffic and higher costs of gas, tolls, car payments, insurance, etc.  If we watch TV, we're overwhelmed by the frequent and fast cutaways in the programs as well as the advertisements.  If we read the Times, we're overwhelmed by the volume of inanity and hate in the world news and the U.S. elections.  If we acquire gadgets and knick-knacks like most Americans, our home is overwhelming with clutter and chaos.  If - and by if I mean "when" - we use facebook, we're overwhelmed by bits of content clamoring for our attention regardless of its utility value.  I know you've got to watch the video of a kitten tumbling out of a cardboard box, but it's just a distraction.  Don't do it - I promise you'll feel better.

We've created these systems and we perpetuate them.  It takes so much energy that it's no wonder we have difficulty getting out to do the things we love and letting our minds fully engage the world around us. 

When you do the things you love, the things that help you to awaken, you get more energy.  I promise.  100% of the time.  It never fails.  There is something about authentic encounters between your soul and what you love, what speaks the truth for you, that calls up energy from inside.  If you make it to the 7 a.m. yoga class, you will feel better when you come out, even if you had to wake up an extra hour early to get there.  When you knit with nice folks at the yarn shop, you will come out feeling more energized (as long as you like knitting), even if you just sit there with them clicking away on your 16" circular #8.  When you sit in meditation at the zen center, if that's your thing, you come out feeling energized by the 40 minutes spent in a dim room saying nothing to the person next to you in a black robe with a shaved head. 

Human connection is the key to revolution.  It begins with the courage to go out and meet other people who like or love the things that you love.  The path will become clear from there, I promise.  You do not need to know what comes next.  In fact, you cannot know what comes next.  If your spirit calls out for it, perhaps you will be the person to help resurrect the Black Panther party.  Perhaps you'll find a way to wrestle tax money from the hands of rich so that we stand a chance of being able to take care of each other.  Truth be told, I suspect that heartfelt, relentless contact with the world will inevitably lead you to do more to take care of your fellow humans and the ecosystem.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but there is something hollow behind the devil's advocate saying, "What if my heartfelt truth is to steal lollipops from kids and cut down old-growth redwood trees?"  I don't lose sleep over it when I continue to encounter joy from so many people seeking real human connection. 

Your energy will come from this contact - the Gestalt word for authentic encounter with the world around you, including other people.  Contact is inevitable when we are heartfelt and awake in the present moment, and this comes from being with people doing what you also love to do.  As you continue to cultivate contact, you will have authentic encounters with everything in the world, because there are no real boundaries or divides in the world.  When you talk about injustices that speak to your heart, you will find the people who want to talk with you.  When you knit scarves for charity, you will inevitably have the chance to consider why some people are poor and some people are old rich white men.  As long as you come to these encounters with an open heart, you will keep reaching and growing as a human being.

This is the formula for success.  I do not know what success looks like - be very wary of anyone who tells you that he or she knows.  Through contact, we are simply able to explore the crisis in which we find ourselves in 2012.  (Hint: it is not the end of some misunderstood ancient calendar, but the real prospect of a degrading world.)  We will find love, sorrow, joy, tribulations, and peace as stepping stones along the way.  It will be a journey as fresh, authentic, and full of possibility as each and every moment to which we awaken. 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Me, or You)

Walt Whitman came back into my life two weeks ago, just before coming to the Zen Mountain Monastery, near Woodstock, NY, where I am currently residing for the month of January.  He came to me in a hardbound green book, containing all his writings.  This came to me from a gentle and loving hand, attached to a heart and mind that are profoundly human.  Who knew that through a man who died long ago, whose writings I thought I knew, I would discover the song of myself again for the first time?  

from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

"I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful curious breathing laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them... to touch any one... to rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a    moment... what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight... I swim in it as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them and in the contact and odor of them that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well."

This is our work here at the monastery.  We seek not to retreat into ourselves, but to be with ourselves just as we are in the world.  We seek to lean into the experience of being alive.  Not to cultivate an absence of thoughts, but to be at peace with the thoughts as they come and go.

We generate a story about what it means to be ourselves.  Are we good or bad?  Does a certain thought make me evil or kind?  What does it mean if I don't know what I want right now?  How shall I be in the world to make my life worthwhile?  If I don't perpetuate the story of what it means to be me, what will be left and who will I be?

In zazen, which is the formal sitting meditation, and in all other life here at the monastery, we are seeking to find the still point where we don't buy into the story of meaning.  What happens when I am cleaning a toilet and am just present with my breath?  What happens when I chop wood and shovel snow, and let the thoughts flow through without latching on to them or struggling against them?  Do I die?  Worse yet, do I become nihilistic and shallow once I get "free from attachment"?  How can I live a good life if I'm not beating myself with the whip of my conditioned mind, shaped by all the elements of my society that have told me what is Right and Wrong and whom I now carry in my mental machinery?

My experience is that in the moments of life where I can dissolve the story, where I can consider all the facts and feel joy in my existence, where I can feel the fullness and emptiness of the universe at once, where I can be loving though I don't know how, where I can accept my accidental cruelties due to my ignorance... these moments are full of compassion.  I can feel that all of us are the same.

You and I are the same, though completely different.  We are made of the same elements in identical arrangements (it's amazing what carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen can do when they spring to life).  We operate with nearly identical biological processes.  We, for the most part, share faculties that give us rough approximations of what is happening around us.

But, we also keep ourselves wrapped in the illusion of separateness, from each other and from the universe, by our stories.  I like rum raisin and she likes coconut.  I am a Buddhist and he is a Presbyterian.  He is the Secretary of War and I talk about peace.  He leaves dirty dishes on the counter after cooking and I am a conscientious person.  He is the thoughtless 1%, and I am the awake and aware 99%.  These are endless, if we choose for them to be so.

A different path that we can take is to realize our unity.  Freed from the clinging or aversion to our stories, the unity of experience overtakes us.  We're all eating, drinking, breathing, and seeking warmth in the winter.  We all feel better living from a place of love in our hearts instead of fear in our minds.  We feel joy in our bodies sharing a sense of connection with each other.  We wish to break through our limitations, and we wish the same for others.  We are the same and different at the same time, existing simultaneously and seamlessly together.   

Perhaps a question is begged here: if we accept ourselves just as we are, how we will we engage with and, in this the darkest of all hours, save the world?  How will we turn the Red States back to Blue?  How will we keep fundamentalist Christianity out of our government?  How will we convince the North Koreans, Iranians, Southern Baptists, Republicans, our mothers who don't listen enough, couples with more than one child, the neighbors with the noisy dog, Israelis, people who leave the lights on, people who don't check with us before making plans, people who don't love us exactly as we need to be loved every moment of every single day (which incidentally would be so much better if you just saw that you need to change and repent of your old ways)... how will we convince all these people that they need to see the world from our enlightened viewpoint?  How will we do it?  How????

The zendo is still and quiet.  The late morning light comes through the south windows, slanting across the black cushions and the square mats under them.   Outside the field is crusted with hard and bright snow.  The creek coming down the mountain gurgles under the small ice waterfalls that are frozen on the rock ledges.  The trees are bare, leaning into the wind and calling out for nothing against a bright empty sky.

I bow as I step across the threshold, and walk quietly to a mat halfway down the empty row.  I bow to my seat, and then turn to bow to the middle of the room.  I pick up the cushion, set it aside, and kneel down.  I tuck my homemade wooden seiza bench under me, and sit down on it.  I rock gently side to side to find a balance point.  I smooth out the fabric of my gray robe where it flows down to the mat all around me.  I place my hands in my lap in the cosmic mudra that is standard practice here.  I look at my watch one last time, and then gaze toward a spot on the floor a few feet in front of me.  The baseboard heaters tick wildly for a few seconds, and then settle into silence.

I am here, as best I can be.  Sometimes I count my breath and am in the river of my body that flows through my life.  Sometimes I sit and worry about the future, and why I am how I am.  Why do I struggle in marriage?  What kind of work do I really want to do?  Will I cut it as a therapist?  I wonder how long it would take to build a 10x10 hut all by myself.  It would be nice to have a good portable table saw for that kind of project.  How deep will a spiritual practice take me?  I wonder if that's a... and back to the breath.  Just like that.  Just like that.  The still point is always there.  It is not the end, nor is it the beginning.  It is not an anchor, but I can anchor to it.  I am not empty when I have no clinging in my mind, and I am not full.  I am uniquely and completely myself when I realize my connection to all things.  Though it may feel that way sometimes, there are no gaps in reality.  The puzzle is rich and infinite, and my heart burns to explore it.

The shimmer of a steel spoon in the mug,
still hands hold the gentle book -
the cat adjusts its paw.

Harvesting What the Earth Brings Forth

We need 25 bunches of green kale.   You got it?


I've got it.


I drag my knife across the gritty sharpener six times, and tuck it in my small harvest apron next to the bunch of rubber bands.  I haul the big plastic barrel called a tomba off the truck, and carry it on my back towards the long beds of bushy, green, nutrient-packed goodness.  The sky is probably as big and beautiful as always, but the morning mist obscures it for now.  I can just see the autumn colors where the vegetables end and the forest begins.  

The quiet of 7 a.m. is still upon the fields.  I don't mind if the others want to talk, but I'm happy these days to walk a little further down the row to harvest in silence, especially in the morning.  The kale is cold and wet in my hands as I roughly bunch up the leaves, and a quick slice of my stainless knife separates them from the stalk instantly.  It's nice to handle sharp tools with confidence - no distractions, no blood, minimal effort, clean cuts, an attractive bunch of leafy greens.  My now-practiced fingers twist the rubber band around the base of the leaves, triple up the loop, and toss it into the harvest pile.  If my father the surgeon were still alive, he might smile to watch me using my hands and a knife to help take care of people.  


230 bunches of salad turnips.  They come out of the ground with a faint satisfying pop as the tap root comes free.  What beautiful white shoulders and smooth bodies.  170 heads of cabbage.  Walk quickly down the line, cutting and leaving them lay.  We'll double back to toss them to the receiver, who puts them in the big crate being carried by the tractor.  5 tombas of spinach.  Sigh.  Spinach is tedious for me, but our shareholders love it.  I bend over to slice it at ground level into handfuls, then toss it in the tub.  Seems like forever just to fill one, especially if it's a weedy row.  Next, an entire bed of acorn squash, four rows at 800 feet long...??!!  All 8 of us are out there.  I'm taking 5-gallon buckets as fast as I can and dumping them into crates on the trailer as the tractor idles along.  6 people are on the ground carrying me more full buckets and taking away the empties to fill.  We find flow for a while, brown skin and white and the comaraderie of a system that has harmony like a fine-tuned John Deere.  


The farm keeps moving.  Harvest, plow it under, seed the next crop, weed the beds, hope for the best.  Lay down plastic, take it back up.  Watch the satellite imagery as the weathermen tell you that a hurricane is coming up the coast.  The rain comes and you watch it fall, taking in the butternut squash anyway and hoping for the best.   We lose some lettuce to bottom rot, but the broccoli looks beautiful.  The first round of zucchini is delicious, and the second is wiped out by disease that decimates the whole planting.  Those radishes are going to save us this year, she says.  I smile.  How did the share boxes look this week?  They were beautiful, I say.  Others nod. 

The work doesn't have to break your back, but you need to keep moving to stay on pace with the flow of nature.  Your hands get dirty.  It's hard to drag a tomba full of celery 100 feet to the truck, let alone lift it up.  (A tomba, pictured here, is probably about 20 gallons in volume.)

 

You start at 6 a.m. in the summer, 7 a.m. in the fall.  If you're the owner and things need to get done, you get up earlier.  The cucurbits (zucchini, patty pan, summer squash, cucumbers, watermelons, and the like) scratch your arms as you reach into the plant for harvest.  A bee stings you.  You smell like onions all day after harvesting them.  Why worry?  You're working on a farm. 

There is tremendous beauty on the farm.  The aforementioned quiet mornings are rich in tiny nuances.  In late August, a red pepper right off the plant is a taste explosion.  The smooth, deep purple skin of the eggplant is so satisfying to hold, putting them in crates by the dozen.  The cold morning air is bracing as you head out at first light on the bed of the truck.  The sweet aroma of basil fills the wash barn while we pack the leafy bunches into brimming boxes.  The warm feeling of cooperation with the crew to quietly get the job done day after day feels incredibly human.

Working on the farm this year, I've learned the lesson yet again that it is important to have as much of your life as possible be connected to physical reality.   Our lives are fundamentally somatic experiences, regardless of how alluring it may seem to live in virtual worlds of our own design.  Working with our hands, through easy times and hard, is of the utmost importance.  As we put our shoulders to the wheel of a task that needs to get done, we can learn to ride out our inner dialogue that longs to contextualize our experiences with mental contortions. 

When we lose touch with our bodies, when we give the captain's wheel to our fearful, ego-centered selves, we rob ourselves of authentic experiences in life.  If we're bored, we seek distractions from the computers in our pockets or recorded music that we know inspires a certain mood.  If we face a task we dislike or disdain, we try to speed through it if we think we can get away with a shoddy job.  If we're afraid of not getting rewarded for being bright and cutting-edge, we learn to posture ourselves as clever by playing with language and sticking to areas where we think we already know the answers.  If we think we're being treated unfairly, we create a story that we repeat in our heads about how we have the moral high-ground and how to seek justice and/or retribution.  We behave much like children when they spend more energy resisting reality than it will take to accept and complete the task at hand. 

In the face of our mind's best efforts to sabotage our own growth, it is empowering to remember that comfort is the enemy of joy.  When we ride out our reactions of discomfort, we can get to the other side of our petty stories and discover the joy of simply being with what is all around us and within us.  It is a spiritual leap to learn to be with discomfort and not ascribe meaning to it.  Not having the right answers, methodology, approach, insight means nothing about me as a person.  Rather, it is a chance to open up and have an authentic learning experience. 

My own work with meditation is a reflection of this.  When I sit in meditation, and my mind keeps racing along thinking about things, that is what is.  I accept it, sit the 30 minutes, and get up at the end.  Tomorrow I will do it again.  I've noticed that my ego goes wild like a chihuahua on bad acid when I simply accept what I'm thinking and feeling, yet refrain from jumping to act on the impulse. 

What do you mean you're going to keep writing?  You've never published anything.  Why keep going? 

You're really going to keep working on the farm?  What about the doubts you have that you should be doing something to make a bigger splash instead? 

You're going to take a pottery class?  You know you'll just go for a while and then drop it.  Why bother? 

All these things and many more have flowed through my neurons while I'm sitting on the cushion.  I'm still on the farm, still writing, still throwing pottery, and still trying to not take my ego's stories as the Truth.  And miraculously, I'm still alive.  You might even say I'm thriving. 

If this were an after-school special, I suppose the take-home message is that so much good stuff happens in life when we follow our discomfort, heading towards the things that our egos just KNOW we can't do.  A great way to do that is to find a task for your hands and body to do, and get down to it.  Bake a sweet potato casserole.  Clean the bathroom.  True your bike wheels.  Take a carpentry class.  Go to a silent retreat.  Turn off your computer for 72 hours.  Breathe into the discomfort.  Remember, the chatter in your head isn't your friend, and it will fade away.  It may reappear.  Keep going.  You are practicing being alive and in touch with the wonderful self that is your body, in this amazing world. 

Not-so-Strange Love or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Farm

 

Where have I been in the past seven months?  Has it really been since early December that I've sat down to drain the reservoir of brain synapses that have been bouncing and building in my head?  This surprises even me, though as you likely know if you're reading this, I've been keeping a full life.

Jess and I went to British Columbia and Alberta for nearly a month over the winter holidays.  We came back and helped Magic move towards the inevitable shuffle and purge that is coming with the new house next year.  In early April we decided to get married.  I don't remember April, really, because we planned our wedding from scratch in only three weeks.  In early May we got married (you can find a link to photos on my Facebook account).  In mid-May we flew out to the east coast, had a few parties to celebrate, and took the train from New York up to our current home, Picadilly Farm.  We're living in the southwest corner of New Hampshire for the bulk this growing season (May through November), staying in the farmhouse with Bruce and Jenny while working on the farm.  

At this moment, I am at my own little axis mundi of the here and now - a coffeeshop in Keene, NH called Brewbakers.  Jess and I usually come here when we make a trip to the big town of Keene (population 24,000), about 25 minutes by car or 150 minutes by bike, as we discovered today.  The good decaf, friendly and attractive servers, wireless service, and creaky wood floorboards help me tap the spring inside that I draw upon for thoughts worth sharing.  

So what is on my mind these days that brings me back to the keyboard?  Resisting the global race to the bottom, starting on my hands and knees at 6:05 a.m. under a gray New England sky.  

We were talking in the kitchen a few weeks ago about selling eggs at the farm each week for $5 a dozen.  Many people who come to pick up their vegetables each week also purchase other products from local producers who sell through us.  We have maple syrup, milk, yogurt, cheese, bread, meat, and our own Picadilly eggs.  We do it to help support regional farms, offering them leverage by being a point of sale where more than 200 people pass through each week (already committed to buying local produce by virtue of their being there).  It adds a nice feeling of community to the farm, and lots of shareholders enjoy getting easy access to locally produced foods.

In the kitchen, though, we were talking about the incredulity that some shareholders express at buying our eggs for $5 a dozen.  This price represents the focal point of a pickle in which we find ourselves at the farm.  With the cost of feed, the labor it takes to care for the chickens (daily food and water, as well as maintenance of their hen houses and fencing), and the time we invest in gathering, cleaning, and packaging the eggs, Bruce estimates that we're only just about breaking even at $4 a dozen.  Even if we sell 30 dozen eggs a week (about our average) for the whole shareholder season, at $5/dozen we're taking home only $780 for profit.  If there any mishaps along the way, or the price of chicken feed goes up, that only reduces the profit further.  And this is for a farm where most employees work 50 hours a week for more than half the year, and the owners are willing to pay reasonable wages, which come out of their bottom line. Lots of work, and no one takes home big profits. 

What this whole equation basically amounts to is that selling eggs at $5 per dozen is just the busy farmers doing a favor for the shareholders.  We try not to be soured by complaints.  The area of New Hampshire we're in is not full of money tree plantations.  It is as depressed as any other rural area in this modern American permanent recession. 

The pickle is this.  You can go down towards Brattleboro, NH, and probably buy a dozen eggs from Walmart for about two dollars.  When you do that, you're supporting industrial scale food flows.  Why do I say flows?  Think about the quantities involved.  According to the American Egg Board, 77 billion eggs were distributed in the US in 2009. That's a huge number of chickens, cropland to grow their feed, energy to process them, energy to transport them and keep them cool, material to package them, antibiotics to feed them, etc. That is a flow, to keep all that process of supply and distribution going every day of every year.  It's a tsunami of calories on an epic scale, like most food production in America and throughout the world these days. 

At scales of this magnitude, Picadilly farms can't compete.  We could try to cut corners.  We could give them antibiotics to reduce the risk of infection and disease.  We could box them up for their entire lives so that it was easier to just go and grab the eggs.  We could feed them only really cheap chicken feed rather than let them scavenge in pastures for food which requires more of the farmer's time to maintain.  We could pack twice as many in half the space.  We could do these things and probably more, but we like giving the chickens a little decency and ability to realize their full avian potential.  We like having a farm with more integrated cycles of animal life.  We like selling eggs that are probably more nutritious than conventional ones. (I can attest that the yolks are a deeper color yellow than I've seen before.)

When people come and buy eggs (or bread, or vegetables, or anything else) from Picadilly rather than their supermarket, they are making a choice with their dollars to support local producers.  This choice means stepping away from our usual m.o. of giving as little as we can and taking as much as we can get away with.  The idea that we will feel good maximizing our own advantage while externalizing disadvantages (like cheap eggs, the production of which trashes the chickens and the ecosystem) is an insidious myth well worth examining and possibly rejecting. 

When we buy cheap, mass-produced things, we are commanding an exploitative way of life with our consumer dollars.  We may not enjoy sitting around contemplating the effects of our purchases (human and ecological exploitation and degradation), but they are the end result nonetheless.  This is the race to the bottom.  If we offer our money to someone who can do it "cheaper," they will find a way.  Scale up production, dump your waste, enslave your workforce, medicate your chickens, spray your vegetables.  When we smell the chance to save a buck, and the producer smells a way to make an extra buck, we often chuck our moral compass out the window.  We think we're all winning, when in fact all we did was abuse some animals or people, and make the world a little less liveable for future everyone.  

The background to all this is the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  We want others to support us when we're struggling to do the right thing.  If we perpetuate the race to the bottom, what reason do we have to expect others to help us when we wake up to all the destruction we've caused?  How can we support others right now so as to keep the circle unbroken when it's our time to receive help? 

How can we be different?  How can we take a stand for the things we want in this world - happy chickens, healthy and content friends, a stable ecosystem that will support farming into the future?  I think the key to our work is changing our mental organization.  It may seem difficult at first to think that spending more on our food than is necessary (local happy eggs vs. Walmart agribusiness eggs) is the path to more of what we want.  But what if we took the least satisfying dollars we spent in the past week or month (the third beer, the second scoop of ice cream, the cheap shirt at Forever 21) and convert them to purchasing food that does less harm to the earth?  What if we explore the feeling of voluntary buying fewer things and instead making higher-quality, local purchases?  What does a life like that look and feel like?  Where will it take us?  What does it feel like to want to pay $5 for eggs to support local farmers? 

In these times, this kind of exploration is not a destination, but rather a journey that is not always clear.  We live so interdependently.  We use resources from all over the world, and are heavily addicted to our exploitative, corporate systems.  Connecting to local resources is a great way to begin untangling our own place in this web of modern life.  Finding other people who are on similar journeys is a good way to boost our own enthusiasm.  Asking heartfelt questions is great, too.  Why are the eggs $5 when the Big Box store sells them for $2?  I want to support local folks, but I'm not sure how best to do it.  Where can I begin?  

Five days a week, I and about 10 others are working at Picadilly Farm, living out the answers and the questions together.  We're on our hands and knees weeding and harvesting.  We're smiling or frowning at how the crops are doing.  We're mending irrigation lines.  We're washing thousands of vegetables each day and boxing them up.  We're helping to run the farm because we believe it's a good place to begin.