peace within chaos

farmer sky

2009-04-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

Somehow, over the last couple months, I've found that I'm spending over half my time either gardening or organizing gardening work. I've never gardened before, not seriously anyway, just bits of time helping out here and there.

I didn't start gardening because I was especially interested in it. I started because I think food is important, and increasingly so given the economic and ecological situation we find ourselves in on our cozy little planet. And, I started because Alexis offered use what amounts to a part-time job, lowering our food and housing costs to $200/month each.

Fortunately, I've found that I like it! I look fwd to the mornings when I know I'm going to be out in the garden. In the last couple months I've probably dug up 12 square yards of wire grass, and found it very satisfying. I've learned about double-digging, the basic concepts of soil health, and companion planting (what plants grow well interspersed amongst each other). I like keeping a closer watch on weather patterns, and watching how plant growth is accelerating as the weather warms.

I started out with this fear that nothing I would plant would actually grow. When those first kale seedlings started coming up, it felt like a miracle. A couple weeks ago I built a second shelf in the Woodfolk living room to accommodate all the trays of seedlings at various stages of growth.

It seems like people think that you need to know something about gardening before you start. This is certainly helpful, but not necessary, as we've been finding. Given the land, the tools, an abundance of advice, and a laid-back boss, a lot is possible. I think it's also true that I've passively absorbed a lot of information being around intensive gardening for so much of my life. But really, the most important thing is just a belief that I can do it, and that I will learn what I need to learn in the process.

I've found gardening similar to facilitating group process in that way. You can go to workshops, read books, get lots of advice, but in the end, you have to just go for it. Okay, maybe it's more than that. You have to have a willingness to try things, make mistakes, acknowledge them, and learn from them. You have to have an awareness of how your actions impact those around you (be they humanoid or plant life). You have to have an attitude of service, of stewardship.

In the end, the qualities of nurturing health and life apply to all sorts of areas, and it's gratifying to see that as I get older I am in fact learning something about how to live life well.

that's my boy

2009-03-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been so long since I posted anything, I wonder if anyone's still paying attention. But the other day gave a couple priceless moments with Willow that I had to share.

He and I were traveling to California for my brothers wedding and general family get-together. In addition to his trendy elfen coat purchased in amsterdam, he was wearing this totally ostentatious round brimmed hat, all fuzzy, very pink and purple. The best moment was boarding our second flight of the day. We were in the 31st row, and boarded after almost everyone else. I think every person we passed down the aisle who was paying attention did a double-take. Plenty of amused grins and looks of confusion. I was very proud.

As we sat down for our third and final flight of the day Willow said to me, "there's no chance the same thing could happen in Sacramento that happened in Dulles is there?" "Dulles, what happened in Dulles?" I asked. "Um, or was it Dublin?" he said. "You've been on a lot of trips lately haven't you," I asked with a small. He laughed. After two trips to Europe and several back and forth across the country he's probably one of the most well-traveled 7 yr olds out there.

I love him so much.

euro-commune adventure '08

2009-01-28T06:56:00.000-08:00

kassia and I finished a website compiling our writings and photos from europe this past fall. Here's the URL. Hope you enjoy it!

http://sites.google.com/site/eurocommune/

abortion, religion, and empire

2009-01-15T16:26:00.000-08:00

Over the last few months my mother and I have been having an email exchange on the topic of religion. I thought I'd share my last volley...

Mother Theresa names various social ills and names abortion as their cause. I agree that the problems she named are serious problems. I disagree that abortion, or the legalization of abortion caused them or has exacerbated them. Do you know of any data/studies that support her assertions? I think those problems were developing before abortion was legalized. Abortion is not the problem, or the cause of those problems. Our culture is the problem, and abortion is one of many symptoms.

The mainstream of contemporary western civilization is a culture of hyper-individualism, consumerism, and commercialism. The birth of this culture can be traced back to the advent of hierarchy, because this culture depends on the exploitation of people and natural resources by other people. More recently, look back to European colonialism starting in the 15th century, then to the industrial revolution and the rise of the corporation as a dominant social institution, and in the last 50 years to the rise of global, free-market capitalism as the dominant economic model. (Ironically, the first civilization known to outlaw abortions, the Sumerians, was one of the first to engage in war and slavery on a large scale. - noted in The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner)

What has come out of this culture? A set of socio-economic structures, imposed by the owning-class of world society everywhere in the world that condition people to believe that they themselves are disposable and that their only worth is in what they produce and consume. It is not people's relationship to unborn children that is the fundamental problem. People's relationship with themselves and their understanding of their place in the world is the fundamental problem. And this is being perpetuated by a system that has intensely greedy and selfish people at the controls.

Mother Theresa says about the woman considering abortion that, "we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts... the mother who is thinking of abortion should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child."

How can you tell a woman that without also acknowledging that so-called "pro-life" politicians like John McCain can't even remember how many houses he has? How can you justify telling a woman she can't have an abortion when over 50% of the federal budget is spent on the military? Mother Theresa says that if we allow women to kill their children how can anyone else learn that it's wrong to kill others. But where did these women learn that it's okay to kill their children?

You also sent me a video that included images of aborted fetuses. I didn't watch the whole video. I've seen those images before. I've also seen images of children in Africa, starving to death with their bloated bellies. I've seen images of children hit in the cross-fire of the war in Iraqi, waged by so-called "pro-life" politicians from their greed and lust for power. I know I will continue to see images of suffering people around the world, victims of a distinctly anti-life culture.

In contemplating my response to you, I looked up some statistics that you might find interesting. There seems to be an assumption that if abortion is condoned by society it will be more frequent. There also seems to be an assumption that somehow religiosity corresponds to morality, and thus, presumably, to a decrease in abortion. But if you compare statistics to various developed nations this doesn't hold up.:

..........................Abortion Rate....................Percentage Christian

US.....................22.9.....................................76.5
Canada.............22.1.....................................77
Australia..........20........................................64
Denmark..........19.1.....................................57 (21 believe in god)
Spain.................16........................................76 (59 believe in god)
Germany..........15........................................62
Netherlands.....13.5.....................................43.4

Sources:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

Abortion is legal in all of these countries. Also, religious affiliation is not inversely correlated to abortion rates. In these examples, the opposite is more the case. So what's going on in a country like the Netherlands that has a 13.5% abortion rate, but only 43.4% identify as Christian?

What's also been well documented is that the incidence of violent crimes in every other western nation are substantially lower than in the US. Incarceration rates are also vastly lower (the US holds 25% of the worlds incarcerated individuals.) What we also know is that public services and social welfare in other western nations (particularly Europe) are far higher, and that the US ranks low in health and happiness compared to other developed nations.

I think the frequency of abortion in the US is due less to the availability of abortion and more to the perpetuation of a culture that sees all things as disposable, including people and life itself, combined with a lack of social and economic support. As I've said before, if you want to stop abortion you need to ensure that every child that comes into this world will have their basic needs met. Abortion will not stop if it's outlawed. It didn't before, and there's no reason to believe that it will in the future.

Here are a few more statistics I found fascinating:

"While white women obtain 60% of all abortions, their abortion rate is well below that of minority women. Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are roughly 2 times as likely." http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html

"Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions in the U.S.; Catholic women account for 31.3%, Jewish women account for 1.3%, and women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7% of all abortions. 18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as 'Born-again/Evangelical'." http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html

Here is a link to an article about a study showing a recent drop in abortion rates in the US. This and other articles say that the reasons for the drop are complex and unclear. It also points out that the new availability of the abortion pill did not increase abortion rates as many "pro-lifer's" asserted:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-01-16-abortion-rates_N.htm

What all this points out is that abortion is a complex issue wrapped up in a much larger and much more complex cultural context.

Another aspect of this debate that needs to be addressed is the difference in belief around consciousness and life. My understanding is that the Catholic position is that a human life begins when the egg is fertilized. To me, the animals and plants that we eat have as much consciousness as a zygote or bundle of cells. Fundamentally, I believe that the extreme anthropocentrism of modern society is part of the problem. Similarly, I also believe that our fear of pain and death helps disconnect us from the natural world, of which we are a part (as much as we forget or deny it), and allows us to cause the kind of suffering and destruction rampant around the world.

Again, if we want to talk about being "pro-life" we can't just talk about unborn babies, nor can we just talk about human life. From a strictly pragmatic perspective human life is dependent on the lives of other beings. If we ignore this fact, and continue to destroy the world around us, we will die. Again, the early civilizations that laid the foundations for our current anti-life culture were the first to outlaw abortion. Before that, women terminated pregnancies when it was clear the community and the natural environment couldn't support another human life. This was not about anyones "pleasure." This is a much different motivation than the one Mother Theresa speaks against, and is one that helped humanity live in balance with the earth for millennium.

Currently, the global economic empire that is ruled by the corporatocracy, primarily from the US, and imposed by the US military and espionage establishments is leading us all on the path of social, economic and ecological suicide. Don't take my word for it. Just read any news sources that are not CNN, FOX, ABC, or CBS, and ideally sources that are from other countries (the Guardian is great, for example.) This has to be stopped and it has to be stopped as soon as possible. Otherwise, the question of abortion for most people will become moot in the face of far more pressing issues of basic survival.

the free town (co-athored by kassia)

2008-12-11T15:39:00.000-08:00

Christiania is a free town/autonomous zone inside the borders of Copenhagen, Denmark. It was an abandoned military base; in 1969, some people broke through the fence and started squatting, with the intention of creating a free society. After many fights with the police, the zone was granted a special status in the danish system and the village was allowed to exist. The original people were a combination of student activists, drug pushers and hippies. They declared Christiania a "free zone" which determines its own rules and laws. One of the exit arches reads "you are now entering the EU."

Christiania is home to about 650 adults and 300 children. There are an incredible number of shops and businesses, as well as services run by Christianites. These include: garbage pickup, small grocery stores, a bath house, an indoor skateboard park, a large recycled building materials shop, several art galleries, one of Copenhagen's fanciest restaurants (which includes a row of tables specially reserved for Christianites and a special, cheaper menu for them), a women's iron forge, a shop that refurbishes old stoves, a kindergarten, and many others. One of the things Christiania is most famous for are their bikes. They developed a kind of tricycle with the parallel wheels in front, supporting a large carrying container (pics below.)

They are consensus based (again, disproving the claim that consensus doesn't work in large groups.) The area is divided into about a dozen sub-sections that themselves have autonomy over certain decisions like who gets to move into vacated residences. There is also a large theater that is used for meetings of the entire community. The Christianites are responsible for maintaining everything, the buildings, the utlities, the roads, etc. They pay the government each month for the water and electricity used by the entire community. Everyone pays 2000 kroners (about $300) to live in Christiania, no matter whether you live in a flat in one of the large buildings or a old circus wagon, which covers utilities and the various public services.

Our first visit was on a rainy sunday afternoon. Our host, a former member of Christiania, took us for a visit at his girlfriends house, in Christiania, for some coffee and apple cake. Her house is right on the waterway that runs through Christiania, where houses are technically "illegal." .Some houses in Christiania have been built from the ground up, but most are the original military buildings that have been (illegally) expanded and added to. Ironically, the government is barred from knocking down the old military portion of those buildings deemed illegal because of historical preservation laws. When you look at a house sometimes you can just barely make out the old brick box that was the original military shelter amidst a creative and expansive construction (pics below.)

As a free town, Christiania was still organized around certain firm boundaries. Christiania's Common Law states, "Christiania's commitment is to create and sustain a self-governing community, in which everyone is free to develop and express their selves, as responsible members of the community." Their prohibitions are "no weapons, no hard drugs, no violence, no private cars, no biker's colours, no bulletproof clothing, no sale of fireworks, no use of thunderflashes, no stolen goods." Interesting mix, eh?

Twin Oaks blurs the line between community (in the contemporary understanding) and society. Usually, it seems, communities have a sense of purpose. Twin Oaks has some of this, but mostly it's purpose is to perpetuate itself. In this way it is like a society. Christiania pushes this even further, partly because it is so much bigger, but also because it is so much more diverse. The various demographics: the pushers and users, the activists, the hippies, the families, all have more room to develop sub-cultures. This makes decision-making that much more challenging. Being a model, being something "uniquely danish" as the Christiania guide states, is certainly important to many people. Being a safe haven for (soft) drug use is vital to many others. "Pusher street" once had as many as 50 stands openly selling hash and marijuana, the other thing Christiania is perhaps most famous for. Various crackdowns have eliminated the open market, but at its height, Christiania was the center of the european pot trade, with about $1 million passing through the community every day. The vibrancy of the arts, music, and performance culture is the focus for others.

The incredible freedom and beauty that comes from autonomy and freedom of expression possible in Christiania is palpable and tangible as one walks through the community. There are sculptures, beautiful graffiti murals, mosaics and paintings everywhere you look. And the feeling of an entire village that has been created outside of the usual of public space stratas (private, residential or public, commercial) is very special. It feels vibrant, alive, and rich. Its a bit like walking around a rainbow gathering or maybe burning man, where you are surrounded by unchecked creative expression. Music pours out of the various venues, clumps of people gather in the streets, and the air vibrates with energy. And given that this was once a military instillation, the transformation seems even more profound. The diversity of experience is striking, where, for example, the stairwell to the fancy restaurant is completely covered in graffiti, top to bottom. Also striking was walking from Christiania's slightly hectic urban center to the peaceful and serene waterfront residential areas, where it was not hard to imagine being out in a rural commune. "Christiania has many faces," one member said to us.

One way this has come up recently is in the struggles with the danish government. The history of Christiania has been marked by conflict. Even so, like SWOMP in Amsterdam the idea of this kind of thing existing in Washington DC is beyond comprehension. Over the years, changes in the government have brought a more hostile attitude towards the free town, especially towards the open drug market. Things have been especially tense over the last 5 years since a strongly right-wing government came into power with a clear intention to "normalize" Christiania. Christiania persists, although, of course, things have changed. The pressure has clearly taken a toll on the community. Arts and culture seem to be at a low point, and although the drug market is still underground, the substance use culture seems to dominate. A certain tension and depravity seemed to hang over the "downtown" of Christinia, where pusher street is the main drag. The fact that at most times there are more men than women on the street was an obvious symptom of this for us.

Our second visit highlighted the struggles of the free town, both internally and with the government. Christianites have been in a complex negotiating process in court with the Danish government about their legal status. Whenever the negotiations break-down, the police come in and knock down a few of the "illegal" houses. We arrived in the late morning on such a day. Negotiations had been stalled since the spring, and the police had come in the morning and knocked down the "illegal" part of one of the houses next to the river. Well into the afternoon, fully-geared cops roamed around and the streets were full of small clusters of people, tense and agitated, often shouting insults at the police. A protest was being planned, and most businesses had closed their doors. On one street, people spray-painted giant banners for the action. Many people were drinking or drunk, and an increasing number of the Christiania supporters arriving on the scene were young and black clad or older and staggering. One man that we talked to said years ago, Christiania was a haven for arts, performance, and other expressions of creativity; we agreed that this was hard to see today. Another person told us, "there's going to be a fight." As if to highlight this about 10 minutes later someone in Christiania shot a flare over a circling police helicopter. Around that time about 700 - 1000 people marched from the Christiansborg Palace to Christiania, marking the beginning of the day's active conflict.

Witnessing all this, what was clear was that only a small percentage of the protesters were members of Christiania. The people on the Christiania streets, and marching through the center of the city, were mostly young, black-clad, dreaded and pierced anarchists. Christiania's numerous children, famlies, and elderly members were noticably absent from the protests. For many people, it seemed like what was happening was a convenient excuse to fight with the police.

We returned that evening to a diabolic scene. People had been protesting in the streets all afternoon, and now the show-down was focused in front of Christiania. Traffic down the main street that runs along Christiania was blocked off by police vans and cops in full riot gear. A huge bonfire burned in the intersection near the Christiania main entrance. We snuck around back and ran into a bank of tear gas, then circled back to the front beyond the cop barricade but still a couple of blocks from the entrance. Other people were gathered in this area, talking and taking pictures. There were several large media vans with numerous reporters, photographers and filmers on the scene. Occassionally a battalion of police vans would tear down a parallel street and come at the throng of protestors from one of the other sides of the intersection. We'd see people run down the street to meet the police, throwing bottles and rocks, only to run back to the bonfire a minute later followed by a cloud of tear gas. Eventually about 8 vans and several dozen riot police converged on the intersection and cleared the demonstration, pushing the conflict down side streets and into the edges of Christiania itself.

The next morning, the smell of tear gas lingered at the entrance, and a large piece of pavement had melted from the bonfire. Various people on the Christiania streets swept up broken glass and other debris, but these were the only remnants of the previous nights madness. Inside, things had returned to normal; shops were open and people lingered in the streets. We took a long walk around the canal past all the different small neighborhoods and isolated dwellings, all cute and/or funky to the extreme. We walked through the idealic courtyards and gardens of the old V shaped military installations - perfect for community. We met an artist who had just returned from painting in NYC, who very warmly invited us and welcomed us to look around. We passed by the house that had been partially knocked down the day before; the cops had removed the "illegal" additions to the original military building; and people were already busy rebuilding it. When we mentioned this to our host he expressed a certain cynicism about this, that there was no way the Christianites could keep that up over the long term if the police persist. Still, it was a powerful image of community and freedom.

Sky's theory is that it is likely that the demolishing efforts are a calculated effort to divide Christiania and tarnish the community's reputation in the city, or at least to light a fire under the Christianites to keep the negotiations moving. If the government actually wanted to demolish the the illegal buildings, it seems unlikely that they would send in a single crew with a small police escort to take down one house. But even if this is not the intent it is certainly the effect. Several people told us that traffic had been at a standstill in several parts of the city center because of the conflict. A housemate of our host told us that on the bus people were wondering why things were stalled. She told them there were conflicts around Christiania, which elicited disparaging remarks towards the Christianites. This is ironic given that the number of Christianites in the conflict was probably quite small.

Our host's girlfriend told us that she came home from work not realizing what was going on. As she rode her bike towards the entrance she hit a cloud of tear gas and had to stop. Several of the protestors came over to her, and when she explained that she lived there and was just trying to get home they helped her through the scene. The latest issue of the Christiania newspaper published the most recent court document the lawyers for the community had prepared. The day after the confrtontation a community meeting was to be held to talk about what to do. Our host and his girlfriend confirmed that the community is divided over the issue of strategy.

When asked if the government will be successful in its effort to reintegrate Christiania into the normal functioning of municiple operations and housing market, both our host and a few members said no, but there will be changes. Changes had already started. The shift in culture for one, as well as an acquiescence of the part of Christiania businesses to operate fully under Copenhagen business rules. Also, the winds of politics may be changing. The right-wing government is increasingly unpopular, and will likely become more so given their handling of the recent global financial upheavels (most notably in their decision to cut subsidies for housing development at the same time that banks are less able to make loans, which will likely mean a severe rise in unemployment.)

Whatever happens, the future of Christiania is likely to continue to be colorful and dramatic.

love, life, and bad habits

2008-11-27T13:17:00.000-08:00

Graffiti in Europe is as ubiquitous and impressive as the coffee and public transportation, but the other night a very simple tag caught my eye. From my part in the Twin Oaks production of the musical Cabaret I knew that "leben" in german meant life, so when I saw this scrawled on a window I was intrigued.

Being in Berlin I did quite some reminiscing about Cabaret, which is set in this world famous (and infamous) city. The musical depicts well the astounding transformation of a decadent center of arts and music to ground zero of one of the most horrific events in world history. Berlin was and continues to be a city of extemes, and this tag, which roughly translates to "life, love, and bad habits" illustrates this well.

Berlin continues to be one of the world's most popular points for arts and music, with thriving alternative sub-cultures all around the city. It also continues to have a strong conservative-right movement. Berlin was host to the Love Parade for many years before the city shut it down because it didn't want to pay for the trash cleanup (which was much less than the amount of tourist money that came in from the event.) It is also home to the largest population of Turkish people outside of Turkey. The conflicts and tensions of the world definitely seem to congregate here, and yet this laisez faire attitude continues to permeate.

C'est la vie.

Our time in Berin was short and sweet, staying at one of the older former squats that started in east Berlin after the wall came down. Squating was quite common in west Berlin before the wall came down. Being completely surrounded by the GDR (east germany), it was not a particularly easy place to live or do business, leaving many abandoned buildings. Once the wall came down everyone in east Berlin flocked to the west, leaving many abandoned buildings in the east part of the city. In the early years there were as many as 150 buildings squated, a significant collection of which still exist, mostly now legitimized in some way or another.

K77 is one such building, which is actually the oldest building in the neighborhood. Their success came in part because the squating was done as a performance art piece. The residents-to-be made a giant heart, dressed up in nurses and doctors outfits, and made a show of transplanting the new heart into the "dying" building.

Over 100 people from other squats came to witness the event, and a lawyer was on hand to explain to the police that this was a public art piece, which has certain protections under Berlin law. The east Berlin police were also still unfamiliar and a bit mystified by the whole concept of squating (which was simply not something people did under communism) and allowed the action to happen.

Over the last 15 years or so it has been an important haven for artists and crafters. One of the three buildings on the property, and parts of the others are devoted to such activities, and it is in the mission statement of the collective that it wll continue to support the arts. Currently this includes an independent cinema, a yoga and dance studio, a pottery studio, and an art therapy practitioner.

The house has a curious approach to shared living. They share food completely, but they have no labor system to speak of, nor any requirements for cleaning or other tasks, except being part of a cook team to make dinner once a week. In part this means that the place is very dirty and messy most of the time. But generally people don't seem to mind. They are a very close knit group (they might not think so, but sitting with them at the dinner table or breakfast nook made it obvious to us), and it seems that the lack of requirements actually supports this, whereas rules or requirements on cleaning would probably just create tension.

Artists... go figure.

technically enlightened

2008-11-22T14:38:00.000-08:00

From stories I've heard and read, and what seems to be the common lore, enlightenment is something you sort of stumble into. There's the story of the guy who sorted fish who got so into his job that one day he couldn't distinguish between the fish and his hands and he became enlightened. There's the story of the monk who spent years in the monastery, meditating, striving, and finally gave up and left, only to go to a prostitute and become enlightened while having sex.

In one of the more depressed times of my life, I remember living in Santa Cruz, having dropped out of school and quit my job, spending a lot of time stoned wandering around the city, thinking that if only I could figure out one thing maybe I'd become enlightened, only to think that thinking that way was the one thing I needed to stop doing, which created a very tortured feedback loop in my head.

Kassia and I just sat another meditation course. It was sort of the second level meditation course in the tradition of Vipassina meditation we've been doing, with S. N. Goenka as the teacher. In the standard 10 day meditation courses Goenka basically gives an overview or a sketch of everything a meditator needs to know to go from day one of meditation to enlightenment. In the course we just did, which is only for students who have done at least three 10 day courses, Goenka spends the evening discourses translating and explaining the Mahasatipatthana Sutta. That translates to "the great discourse on the establishing of awareness." It's the discourse the buddha gave that details the practice of meditation and the process by which a meditator becomes enlightened.

So there I was, each evening, listening to Goenka explain it, line by line, step by step. And I thought, wow, I didn't realize reaching enlightenment was so technical. It's no big esoteric mystery. It's actually spelled out very clearly.

Of course, it's all theory. Goenka is very clear in his discourses that theory is secondary to practice. The theory is only there to give us a context for understanding our experience. But if the theory doesn't make sense, or if there's something we don't agree with, "doesn't matter," he says, "leave it aside."

It's very pragmatic, which appeals to me. As Goenka says, "don't accept something because the buddha says so. Don't accept something because the scripture says so. Don't accept something because your teacher says so." And in fact the buddha says the same thing. You have to experience it.

It reminds me of another buddhist story I read once. There was once a young novice who went to a great meditation teacher and said, there are some lines of the scripture that I don't understand, could you please explain them to me. The teacher said, I'd be happy to, but I don't know how to read. If you read the lines to me I will explain. You don't know how to read, the novice exclaimed, then how can you understand the meaning? The words are unimportant, said the teacher, they are not necessary to understand the truth. Say the truth is the moon, and the words are my finger. I can point to the moon with my finger, but my finger is not the moon, and you can see the moon without me pointing my finger at it.

So I do this meditation practice. I go and spend 11 hours a day at it for 10 days in a row. And of course I doubt, I question, I wonder, what am I doing? Is this doing anything? But by the end of it I feel so much more peaceful, happier. It's more clear to me how to lead a life that will be good for myself and good for others.

There are things I struggle with - how Goenka is as a teacher, and with how the courses and meditation centers are run. As much as Goenka speaks against dogmatism and integrating cultural tradition in with what should be a universal remedy for a universal malady (i.e. suffering) he is very dogmatic, and there is certainly culture mixed up in the teaching. But it's far less than any other religion or spiritual path I've come across. It's all about the practice.

So, I leave the things I don't like aside. Their mild enough that I can do that. And it helps that the theory, for the most part, completely agrees with modern physics and psychology, which are religions I have respect for ;0)

So, I keep at it. Now that I have a thorough theortical understanding on how to reach enlightenment, it is very clear to me how far I have to go. According ot the Buddha to reach enlightenment requires up to 7 years of constant, thorough understanding and awareness of impermanance. I'm not sure if I really have an understanding and awarness of impermanance yet, and it's certaily no where near constant or thorough. What I'm doing now, Goenka seemed to say, is simply making preparation, develping my awareness and equinimity. Basically, it ain't happenin' in this life time.

Whatever. The way I understand enlightenment is that it is when one is totally free from negative reaction patterns created from past experiences. I have moments of that, and when I'm in the middle of a meditation course I can sort of, vaguely imagine what it might be like to be that way all the time. But it's completely overwhelming, and when it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter, because it's already working.

At this point, all I know is that when I meditate I feel better and that I create less negativity and agitation in my life and in the world around me. And that is definitely good enough.

SWOMP - Amsterdam

2008-10-27T13:57:00.001-07:00

SWOMP (in Dutch) stands for Slimme Woonwagenbewoners Op Mooie Plekjes, which roughly translates to Smart Wagon-people on Beautiful Places. It's a unique and creative expression of the strong squatting movement in Amsterdam, using small trailer homes on vacant lots instead of occupying a flat or whole building.

In at least some european countries squatting is legal under certain circumstances, and if its done properly (and with some luck) it can be very hard for the authorities to displace squatters. Squatter cafes, (often former flats) dot the city and act as social hubs for the network and bases for organizing. The Mollie (anarchist slang for mollitov cocktail) hosts nightly activities such as community dinners, peak-oil preparedness discussions, film screenings, and game nights. Every Monday is the planning meeting for the weekly squatting action.

The SWOMP site we visited is the 4th of its kind (the first three having already been shut down.) The vacant lot was actually not vacant when a squatting action was first planned. It was an abandoned school. The city had been deliberating for over a year what to do with the building. When the city got wind that a group was planning on squatting it, they decided to demolish it. The squatting action was planned for Sunday. The wrecking crew came on Friday. By Sunday all that was left was a lot of sand and some remnants of brick foundation. Little did the city know they were creating the perfect venue for a SWOMP action.

The SWOMPers brought in 4 trailers and erected a 'fortress' around them. They tapped into left over water and sewage piping, set up 3 solar panels, and planted gardens. There is also a complex lock-down system hidden in the most inaccessible part of the fortress, in case the police show up (the entire structure would have to be dismantled to remove the people inside.) One of our favorite aspects is an urban gardening innovation using a pallet stood on end, lined with cloth, and stuffed with dirt. Poke holes in the cloth, plant seeds, and you've got a vertical garden. I have fantasies of covering the whole outside wall of a building with these things. You could cover your house in food!

This site has been occupied now for 4 months. The city recently polled the neighbhors about the lot. They suggested various alternative plans (like a playground or park) and asked what the neighbors wanted. Most said that they actually liked the squatters there. The city will probably shut it down eventually. Fortunately, it could take the bureaucracy well over a year to do so. I wonder how long something like this would last in Washington DC. 24 hrs maybe? Generally, squatting in Europe happens on a level far beyond anywhere in the U.S. Why this level of tolerance, and even acceptance, in Europe?

Squatting still has something of a heroic and romantic quality to it, even for many mainstream Europeans. People seem to feel a sense of sympathy and appreciation for what squatting represents. Fundamentally, squatting is (in part) a protest against homelessness and the exploitation of people through the privitization of a basic human right. I've been reading Earth Democracy by Vandana Shiva. She talks a lot about the concept of the 'commons' and the history of how the commons in Europe and in India were privatized. In the US, holding common land is not a part of our historic consciousness. But it is still part of the European consciousness, and examples of it do still exist in places. I imagine that sympathy for squatting comes in part from a low-level subconscious resentment lingering in collective consciousness over the loss of the commons and the wide-spread institution of wage-slavery over the last few hundred years.

Sympathy for squatters isn't as good as a mass movement to reclaim the commons, but hopefully it's a step in that direction.

For more info:

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21554

Their homepage is http://swomp.wordpress.com/ It's in Dutch, but if you do a google search for it there will be an option to translate it.

civilized countries

2008-10-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

"There are civilized countries in the world, we just don't live in one," said Pax. "Why don't we move here?" I asked. "Because it's always raining or cold or both at the same time," replied Hawina.

This conversation was precipitated by my amazement at discovering the waste bin for the municipal compost pick-up outside Irene's door (Hawina's neice, who we're staying with right now). "Yeah?" said Hawina. "Of course. It's the Netherlands." The compost pick-up had been the last straw.

Immediately upon arrival in Heerlen I was blown away (again) by the layout of the city streets. Car lanes are probably 25% thinner than in the U.S., there is rarely more than one lane in each direction, and the average size of motor vehicles reflects the size of the lanes. Sidewalks are huge, and there are bike lanes everywhere - often specially designed lanes that separate them from both cars and pedestrians.

Last June, Kassia and I attended the keynote speech at the Towards Car-Free Cities Conference in Portland, OR. The speaker was the former commissioner for parks and recreation as well as transportation of Bogata Columbia. Portland had just been awarded Platinum status as a bicycle friendly city by the League of American Bicyclists. He was congratulatory, but also told the audience not to spend too much time patting themselves on the back.

Portland is good, he said, not great. And sometimes, he said, it's much harder to go from good to great than from bad to great. He showed pictures of how they'd transformed Bogota's nightmare of transportation infrastructure into a veritable paradise. They'd designed the bike and pedestrian path network so that it is possible to traverse the city without ever crossing a car lane, while intertwining them with the public parks. Simulataneously, they reneovated all the parks to include pavillions, stages, and other public gathering places, and began organizing concerts, festivals, and other social activities.

He showed pictures of bicycle friendly cities around the world. Recently in the C'ville weekly, the author of an article about bicycling in Charlottesville had the audacity to repeat the line that Portland is the Amsterdam of the U.S. Hardly. Even Heerlen, a medium sized city in the far south of the country (which folks in Amsterdam consider very backwards) blows Portland out of the water as a bicycle, pedestrian, and public transit friendly city.

The day after we arrived we visited Oma (Hawina's mom) in what could be considered the Heerlen suburbs. She lives in a fairly new andtasteless 12 story apartment building. Not much to speak of there. But when Willow and I went outside to find the nearby playground, I was again blown away. We walked around a neighborhood with clustered housing units, clustered (for the most part) parking areas, narrow two-lane thoroughfares, and even narrower one-lane bricked driveways connecting the parking areas to the roads. Pedestrian walk-ways link the housing clusters, lined with trees, bushes, and other facets of simple landscaping, and in the middle of the neighborhood was a large public green with a playground.

Minus the usual facet of a common building, I could easily have been walking through any number of co-housing communities in the U.S. When Willow and I got back to Oma's apartment I asked her who owns all that space? Who owns the houses? The answer was that the park, the landscaping, and the paths and roads are all city land, maintained by city employees who are often part of a special hiring program for disadvantaged and handicapped individuals. The housing units are generally owned by the people who live in them. It's like the whole city is a co-housing community.

It's amazing being in this place where all these aspects of radical environmentalism and social engineering are assumed, even taken for granted. When Hawina said, "yeah, of course," about the municipal compost pick-up I thought, what would it take to get something like that started in C'ville? You'd probably have to start it as a private business first to prove it was financially viable and then maybe the city would buy it or start their own.

Several days ago, I was reading a news piece on the failure of the first bailout package to make it through congress. There was some quote from some conservative having something to do with the slippery slope towards socialism. This is a common argument against significant increases of taxpayer dollars towards public lands and public services. Somehow people in the U.S. still seem to believe that this kind of government activity will hamper prosperity and liberty. What will it take to prove to them that this is untrue?

community and economy, sustainability and justice

2008-09-28T20:34:00.000-07:00

I wrote this to a newly forming group called the Charlottesville Relocalization Community:

We need community. We need a powerful social network. We need relationships. We need each other. Effective organizing is usually based on strong relationships. If the relationships are solid then you can face whatever comes.

But community is not just about relationships, it's about culture. Community is about expressing values and teaching lessons through stories, through art, through music. It is where we learn about ourselves and each other, and our relationship to the world. It is where we learn to honor and to celebrate. We need venues to create a resilient social fabric of satisfying relationships and meaningful culture.

We need a system of economics: systems and structures for the creation, exchange, and distriubtion of goods and services. Much of our lifestyles are defined by the choices provided in the economic system we live in. Changing our lifestyles, our purchasing patterns and our use of material resources is a key element to addressing the ecological and economic crises we face.

More than that, we need to change our system of economics. We need an economic system that supports and encourages work that make healthy people and a healthy planet. We need an economic system that provides everyone with opportunities to contribute to that effort and that also guarantees that their basic needs will be met.

We need to see community and economy as intrinsically interlinked. We need a coherent vision of what a just and sustianable human society might look like, and we need to build the relationships and the plan of action that will get us there.

I offer this in the hopes that others will share their thoughts on the vision and mission of relocalizing charlottesville. I think Dawn's first stab is fantastic, and I imagine that a synthesis of the groups thoughts and dialog will make it even better.

my non-negotiables

2008-09-28T20:28:00.000-07:00

I've been saying for some time that I'm pretty flexible about the kinds of community related projects I'm involved with. This is true and it isn't true. I'm pretty flexible about many things. I hold tolerance as a high value. But there are some things that I need in order to feel good about investing my time and energy.

Recently, it seems I was losing touch with this, getting confused. Kassia gave me some feedback that I was coming across more forcefully in my conversations, expressing more of a "this is how things need to be" attitude. So, I thought, maybe I should write down what my non-negotiables are so I can be clear up front about that. I told this to a couple friends and one of them said, oh cool, so what are your top 5? Off the cuff, this is what I identified, which helped me realize that I really am pretty clear about this. Here's a slightly refined version of what I said.

My 5 non-negotiables:

1. Continually working towards the creation of an ecologically sustainable urban habitat

2. A collective commitment towards healthy, functional, and cooperative social dynamics

3. That each member holds a personal commitment to their personal/spiritual growth, and the view that that growth is integral to making the world a better place ("good for one's self, good for others")

4. A collective commitment to staying socially and politically engaged with the larger community and larger society, including acting as a social hub and a base of activities for activism and organizing.

5. Supporting and assisting in the formation of other cooperative/collective/communal living and/or working groups/projects/entities

Also very important:

Aesthetics and architecture that are beautiful and functional in the aim of a health, sustainable community.

Sharing in the growing and eating of food. Dinner every night (not that everyone must be at every dinner) is minimum. Also, that food is there to be eaten - if it doesn't have a name on it, it's all yours.

being uncomfortable

2008-09-19T21:46:00.001-07:00

the people I want close to me are those that are willing to be uncomfortable
to ask themselves, and be asked uncomfortable questions
to look at the parts of themselves that make them uncomfortable
to sit comfortably in uncomfortable situations
to face uncomfortable truths about themselves and the world
to make changes to themselves and their lives that are uncomfortable
but that will help to make the world a better place

doing shit

2008-09-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

"I don't need networking, I need people who are going to do shit." That was Alexis speaking, a friend and long-term activist organizer in Charlottesville, VA. I'd voiced my concern that cooperatives and collectives tend to come together around one or two highly motivated individuals, and that this ends up creating dysfunctional power dynamics down the road. "That's a 3rd or 4th tier problem," he said. "One of the cornerstone radio stations of the Pacifica network is incredibly dysfunctional, but they're why you have alternative news radio. A dysfunctional organization is better than no organization."

I reluctantly agreed, but I wasn't willing to leave it at that. What would it take for a group to come together, all of whom are motivated, responsible, and "doing shit" to for an organization? "You need a social network, otherwise people drift off when they find partners and want to have kids. That's what Kat (Kinkade - founder of Twin Oaks Community) pointed out. The only problem is you need a social network to create a social network."

"And there's the problem of economics," said Sue, co-founder of Little Flower Catholic Worker. "When people are busy getting their needs met they don't have time to do all these cool activist projects, let alone build the social network."

These two factors seem to form the crux of the problem, which, in my mind, all boils down to basic human needs, both material and social. Providing for these needs through systems and structures, organizations and institutions, that are based on a deep understanding of sustainability and justice, is both what alternative movements should be doing and what they need to be doing to grow.

And to accomplish this, yes, we need people who are going to do shit, and, I believe we need the networking, or, as my friend Jenny calls it, cross-pollinating. "It'd be great if y'all are going to start some kind of communal household that will also be a hub for the social network." Indeed, and not just for the purposes of socializing, but for bringing people together from different networks, organizations, and communities to help identify potential relationships both material and social.

Back in Portland, during a meeting I helped organize on fostering the emergence of alternative economies, Rebecca, Portland State University professor and avid anti-racism advocate, said "look, we just identified at least half a dozen organizations without even trying. I'm sure there are dozens more. Is anyone going around to these organizations and asking them what they need and what they can offer?" "Huh, no," was the cynical reply. "Why not?" "Most people involved in alternative organizations aren't interested in that stuff. They just want to focus on their group, either because their in it for the image, or the social life, or because they just want to make sure their group stays afloat."

Still, I though, someone should be asking those questions: what do you need? What can you offer? I'll be that someone. To me, this strikes at the essence of cross-pollinating, which, once Jenny articulated the concept to me last Fall, is what I realized I just do without thinking about it.

But I do agree with Alexis, we need people who are going to "do shit." If we are going to have the kind of social network and base of resources we need to grow the movement we need more nodes, we need more places for people to get involved, more places from which both relationships and projects can emerge. I'll be one of those people and I'll help create those places.

For me (not necessarily for anyone else), this is where my balance is, with my head in the clouds and my feet planted firmly in the earth, the merging of dirt and dreams. This is the work that has finally allowed me to understand the concept of having a "calling." This is the work that viscerally, I know I have to do. I've made my choice, and now I have no choice, and it is a great feeling.

my body's story

2008-09-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

Recently my dear friend Caroline wrote my (and many others) the following:

"I am currently in Barcelona, attending an art school for a semester, and i'm about to embark on the most ambitious project i've ever undertaken.

It's conceptualized around the idea of disconnection from the body. I'm still forming my exact words and thoughts around it, but it's basically the idea that disconnection from our physical self is the root of many of the struggles we face, both as individuals and in society.

My goal is to use this project as a vehicle for those ideas. What i need from my friends, peers, acquaintances, enemies, and folks on the street is your body story. I'm not looking for a well rounded essay on your entire life's experience of your body (though it could be that, if that's what you wanted), but something simple, basic, and essential. It could be a trauma or a joy, a history or an accident - anything. Anything."

So, this is what I wrote...

I remember being a kid and feeling invincible. I remember my friends and I riding our bikes down this long bumpy hill, no hands, arms up high, exhilarated. I remember clambering through the canopy of entangled conifers, or over the thick limbs of eucalyptus trees. I remember rolling down sand dunes, hiding in the brush.

I remember feeling very free, light. There was very little distinction between my body and the world around me.

We moved when I was 10, and social pressures came to the fore of my experience. I shut down emotionally, and became more physically rigid. One didn't have adventures - one played sports. Very particular kinds of movements, imbued with conformity and posturing. At home I became the proverbial couch potato. I had almost no friends for 3 years. My parents marriage was falling apart and the restrictions on behavior slackened. It wasn't uncommon for me to spend 10 hrs a day in front of the television eating junk food. And then my parents told me they were getting divorced and my world came apart.

I remember feeling confused, heavy. My body was full of emotions I didn't know how to express or process.

By the time I was 14 things were improving. I had friends again. I was even in love, a kind of tortured love, which was all the sweeter for its agony. I started having adventures again. I started shedding the weight of the last 5 years. Voluntarily, I stopped watching TV and started eating better.

When I was 19 I was taken to my first contact improv dance jam, we're various radical faeries, large, muscular, sweet gay men were more than happy to help me explore the ways my body could move. I took a yoga class, an aikido class. I started spinning fire. Yet the existential
dilemma of entering adulthood uninitiated started taking its toll, and I sunk into substance abuse. I still had adventures, but there was always this nagging, stinging, tinge of self-doubt.

I remember feeling free, yet lethargic, depressed, yet open to the possibilities of the adult life I was entering. I was in my body, but my heart was spinning, scared, excited.

Now, at 28, even at 28, I gain weight easier and my body is heavier, slower. I don't think it has to be this way. It's what I've chosen, though perhaps not consciously. Over the past years I somehow chose DJing over dancing, meditating over yoga. I feel good, happy. I've passed through the angst of my twenties and know who I am, and am at peace with who I am. Mostly. I feel like my body and I are like an old married couple. We know each other incredibly well, yet there's a certain depth of intimacy that seems no longer attainable.

I wonder, how do I fall in love with my body again?

"stuff white people like"

2008-09-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

This stuff is hilarious and incredibly insightful - dig in!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/18/1-coffee/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93962369&sc=emaf

empowered receptivity

2008-09-06T06:19:00.000-07:00

To me, the most amazing, the most awe-inspiring creation of human-kind is the world-wide automobile infrastructure. When I drive through one of those multi-level freeway interchanges, over the sleek, arched curves of steel and concrete, and see the tangled web of overpasses and underpasses around me I can't help but marvel. And I know that this is replicated over and over, thousands of times over, in countries around the world. In my opinion, this is the eighth wonder of the world.

Really, it is in its own class. The seven wonders of the ancient world were marvels of beauty and engineering. Clearly under and over passes have a more questionable aesthetic than the rest, though there is undeniably a beauty and grace in the construction, at least from a distance. But while other wonders caused suffering and death for those who participated in its construction, none come even close to destruction the destruction unleashed by this creation.

Consider the molding and paving over of landscape, the pollution caused by manufacturing the materials to build the roads, the pollution caused the manufacturing and driving of the vehicles on those roads, the pollution and destruction caused by the extraction and refinement of fuel for those vehicles, the untold number of animals killed on those roads, the number of people who die in motor vehicle accidents, the impoverishment of millions of people due to the concentration of resources in cars and roads used by a minority of the worlds inhabitants, the human and animal death and the environmental damage caused by wars for oil...

Truly, this is the wonder to end all wonders. If we're not careful it may be our last. Perhaps the ninth wonder of the world will be how we get ourselves out of this mess.

Internal combustion engines and fossil fuels have enabled incredible development, which we completely take for granted. 100 years ago very little of our modern infrastructure existed. But this frenetic period of growth has reached a plateau. Cities and suburbs continue to expand to absorb the increasing numbers of people who inhabit them, but the expansion in living space generally does not involve a corresponding expansion of public utilities and services. That infrastructure is becoming increasingly relied upon as it becomes more and more degraded.

I've participated in dozens of conversations about economics over the past months. And by economics I mean the broad picture of systems that coordinate human needs and desires with time and resources, from the local to the global, the individual to the societal. In these conversations virtually everyone agrees on one thing: there isn't enough time. No one seems to have enough time.

Of course we don't have enough time! Despite, or perhaps even because of, the exponential growth in population we have reached a point were we are hopelessly struggling to simply maintain, let alone expand the vast, artificial environments called cities that are becoming home to an ever increasing percentage of the human population (est. 75% world wide by 2050) And so much of our time and energy is spent purely on our own survival.

It's like we're in debt. Most people are in financial debt, yes. But is seems that we're also paying a debt of time. It does seem as if time is a commodity. Perhaps this was a consequence of the invention of clocks. "Time is money," as they say. "There's never enough time." Where did all that time go? How do we get more?

We don't have enough time. Time for what? Anything, it seems, or at least for any of the things we really want to do, as opposed to the things we need to do.

What happened? The progress of the modern age was suppose to solve all social ills. But seems that by enabling exponential growth and a quicker pace of life we some how took out a loan of time, and payment has come due. By burning fossil fuels it's like we've borrowed time from the lives of fossilized plants and animals. We're burning their lives to go faster, but at such cost.

We've hit the zenith of patriarchal culture, where the active, masculine principle as gotten so out of balance that there's no where left to go. This hyperactivity, this addiction to activity - build, build, build, grow, grow, grow, expand, expand, expand! Modern economics depends on perpetual growth. How can we have perpetual growth when our natural resources are finite? This exponential growth we've seen over the last 100 years, or perhaps since the industrial revolution, can't be sustain. And what we've built can't be maintained. Go into any city and look closely. It's falling apart. We can't keep up the pace, and if we keep trying we face the possibility of suffering and death on a large scale. Between food shortages, peak oil, climate change, WMDs, genetic manipulation, just to name a few, there is every cause to be gravely concerned.

We need balance. Simply slowing this avalanche is not enough. Stopping it is not enough. We need to turn things around. We need to rebuild the mountain side and then get out of the way and let nature regenerate itself. But how?

There's lots of amazing work being done in myriad fields, which are continually being integrated, seeking to address this problem. However, on ever level of social change, from the grassroots all the way up to the UN, we're still finding the same problem, a tendency towards hyperactivity, ambitious development, and the concentration of power and prestige. I tend to think of this as the "big male ego" problem, only it's not just men that embody this. It's that urge for success for the sake of fame or prestige. It's that tendency to allow self-importance and self-aggrandizing to become a significant motivator for one's actions. It's the tendency to position oneself in roles that have greater potential to influence and that are more likely to be seen and acknowledged. It's the tendency to believe that your ideas are right or better. It's the tendency to think it natural and normal for one to guide the actions of many others, even without their input.

One of the primary ways this pattern manifests in radical groups is "founders syndrome." It is rare to find a cooperative and/or progressive organization where the founders are still involved and maintain a relatively equal power dynamic with others. Similarly, it is rare to find groups that successful encourage a variety of forms of cooperative leadership.

Hierarchy is efficient. The roles are clear. It gets things done. Probably the main criticism of consensus decision-making is that it is inefficient. I don't believe this is inherent. I believe this is because consensus requires that we give importance to relationships and emotions, which we're not use to doing. It's also because it's not what we're use to. We're use to hierarchy and competition, to gaining power and being in control, or to submitting to power and control. In a cooperative group you're bound to have at least a few people who will start competing for power. They probably care for the group, and they want to get things done, but at what cost?

What's missing? How do we escape this cycle of hyperactivity and competition? How do we bring things into balance?

For years I have contemplated the dichotomy between being and doing. I thought them opposites. Recently I have had a change of mind. Doing is active. Being is neutral. So that what is the opposite of doing? I would suggest the answer is receiving, the quality of receptivity. Like the Yin-Yang symbol the seed of the one exists in the other. To receive something is an act, it takes energy and intent. Doing requires input, say by eating or drinking to fuel the body and mind, or in understanding the world around you in order to act in a way that is in line with consensual reality.

Here is the balance. Meeting hyperactive, doing energy with more hyperactive, doing energy is about as productive as two alpha males fighting it out. The power may change hands, but nothing really changes. Meeting it with passivity, with submission isn't going to bring balance either. And perhaps even the basic quality of receptivity isn't enough. What I believe is called for is the quality of empowered receptivity.

Think of it as enveloping, or digesting. For example, fungi are increasingly being used to clean up toxic waste. Think about constructed wetlands for dealing with human waste. Tree roots, other plants, and weather will break up and eventually break down concrete.

How does this relate to social systems and our personal behavior? Certain listening is key. But a certain kind of listening is called for. Empathetic listening. Listening that seeks to understand without an agenda for how to use the information. Listening that encourages the expression of deeper and deeper levels of personal experience. Listening that invites disagreement and conflict that exists to come to the surface. Listening that seeks to transcend dualism and reach unified understanding. Listening that fosters compassion and cooperation.

Also, empowered receptivity is only possible if I see myself as an integral and equivalent member of a group, a interdependent part of a system. It is not possible if I see myself as more important in or somehow above the web of relationships. If I think I am anything without the support of my community and the engagement of those around me, or that the community would be the same without me, I am not capable of empowered receptivity.

I must learn to distinguish my personal opinions, beliefs, and attitudes from my consideration of what is best for my community, and hold them in balance, recognizing that at the same time as the way forward is what's best for everyone, I am part of everyone and need to be honored while I honor others and the circumstances we find ourselves in. If the logic sounds circular it is because it is.

Seeking support from my community in the form of guidance and feedback is an important part of this. Asking questions of those around me: who am I? what does everyone know about me? what are my strengths and weaknesses? given who I am, what is the best use of my energy? what are my blind spots? what are the things people are afraid to tell me or think I won't hear? Learning how to offer this kind of guidance and feedback is also important.

But perhaps the most radical aspect of empowered receptivity is how it relates to our experience of pain. So much of what is wrong in the world has greed as a fundamental source. And what is greed but an expression of fear? Fear of what? Fear of not having enough. Fear of death. Fear of pain, emotional and physical.

Pain is just a sensation in our bodies, like any other sensation. Often it has a message for us, and often it's just there. Regardless, we're not taught to feel pain, we're taught to avoid it and repress it. Take this pill, drink this drink, smoke this or that, take this shot, drive this car, watch this movie, go on this vacation, have sex with this person or that person (or both at the same time!), work till you drop, jog till you drop, shop till you drop! Keep going, keep doing, keep yourself distracted, ignore it, walk it off, or just go to a doctor and get fixed.

Again this frenetic hyperactivity. And mainstream media is always right there, urging us on, playing on the very insecurities, fears, discomforts and pains that what they're trying to sell is suppose to get rid of.

What if we knew how to be at ease with our pain? And what if we knew how to be at ease with others pain? How would your childhood have been different if when you were upset your parents had known how to be with you, taking care of whatever real needs are there, of course, but also just compassionately, empatheticly present with you, conveying a deep sense that pain is just a part of life, there's nothing wrong, there's nothing wrong with you, you are good, you are whole.

The world is changing fast, and the winds are blowing ever stronger around the house of cards our society is built on. Apart from Hurricane Katrina the natural disasters and the food shortages have yet to hit home. But it would be naive to think that this is all just a rough spot and that things will turn around. As populations increase and resources are depleted supply will increasingly fall short of demand. The need for major change is urgent.

Yet the sense of urgency must not drive us. Thoughtfulness and consideration must drive us. Compassion and cooperation must drive us. We must move fwd at a pace that allows space for love and pain to be felt and expressed, that allows for silence and stillness, that allows for sharing and collaboration. This pace need not be slow. With practice graceful movements can be made with great speed. And we can take hope in recognizing that as quickly as we have created this monster we can take it apart.

taking it apart

2008-07-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

This is a first step from a white male in exploring patterns of patriarchy, white-supremacy, and capitalism in radical organizing and cooperative groups:

I've been politically conscious from an early age. At 8 years old I was aware of George Bush Sr. winning the election from Michael Dukacas, and believed that meant more nuclear weapons, more war, more money into the SDI. Some of my earliest memories are from Twin Oaks Community, where my parents met, from a visit when I was 4. I grew up knowing there was this whole other way of living, and never really felt comfortable in the mainstream - things just never seemed to make sense. I was raised as a feminist, an environmentalist, and a socialist. The ideals of consensus and cooperation were never explicitly spelled out, but they were the norm. No wonder the mainstream world felt weird.

It wasn't until I was 18 that I was exposed to radical, alternative lifestyles. I spent the summer caught up with Earth First! and enjoying a quintessential commune experience at East Wind Community. It didn't take much after that to "drop out." My radical sociology professors at UC Santa Cruz gave me all the facts I needed to support my objections to the institutional structure of mainstream society. After I missed the deadline to declare my major, the administration put a hold on my enrollment unless I signed up for specific classes. I didn't want my education controlled. But even more, I just didn't care anymore. The allure of a diploma just wasn't enough.

I'd been living at the Cesar Chavez Student Housing Cooperative, helping rejuvenate the house from a decrepit state, avoiding a lawsuit from the city, leading new policy changes, assisting in re-writing the membership contract, and acting as membership coordinator. I'd found my calling.

I'd been shopping for my brand of activism. Seeking and fostering deeply intimate relationships that helped the individuals involved grow and evolve had always been important to me. And collective living offered a satisfying expression of my environmentalist and cooperative values. At 19 years old I found myself in something of a homecoming, moving to Twin Oaks where I was to spend the next 8 years.

During my tenure at Twin Oaks I became an activist for intentional community. I organized for the Twin Oaks Communities Conference. I provided the bulk of energy and motivation for the Federation of Egalitarian Communities for several years. I helped build a relationship between the intentional communities movement and the student cooperative movement. I went to numerous conferences, gatherings, festivals, colleges, talking and giving workshops. I was a believer.

About 4 years ago I organized a panel discussion at the Communities Conference on "the state of the movement." I remember one of the panelists asserting that the question, do you want more community in your life is an easy one to get a yes, but most people are never going to live in intentional community. I was incensed, but also afraid. I didn't want to consider that he might be right.

Now, I agree. The Twin Oaks bylaws define the community's purpose thusly: "Together our aim is to perpetuate and expand a society based on cooperation, sharing, and equality... [w]hich serves as one example of a cooperative social organization, relevant to the world at large...." I took this very seriously, and resisted any energy in the community that wasn't in line with this. Perhaps I am just jaded and bitter, but I think the relevance of Twin Oaks, and of the intentional communities movement, is limited, and getting smaller.

I use to resist the notion that living on a rural commune was escapist. It's part of building the alternative! Finding the systems and structures that will replace those in the mainstream once unsustainable social, economic, and environmental practices demand that things change! I still believe this is true, but I also think that it is a form of escapist. Worse, at this point, it's hard not to see the intentional communities movement as another form of white flight.

The movement is predominantly made up of white, middle class individuals, and thus the culture is predominantly an extension of white, middle-class culture. This is a culture that is still very steeped in patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism. Looking from any historical perspective, this decreasingly so, but to some extent these patterns have simply become more insidious and subversive, enabled by the tendency of those on the left to assuage their guilt by tokenism and self-congratulation.

Intentional communities cannot be "relevant to the world at large" if they do not address this. The systems and structures for cooperative organization will not be accessible. A global perspective is necessary for intentional communities to develop in such a way that they effectively address unsustainable and unjust practices and policies in the mainstream, and this will only happen if mutually supportive, peer-based, cross-cultural relationships are developed.

While I still have a close relationship with Twin Oaks I have been consciously divesting my identity from the community over the last year. My experiences during this period have assisted in a re-evaluation of the intentional communities movement, paralleled with an investigation into urban working and housing collectives movement, and a renewed education in anti-patriarchy and anti-racism theory and practice.

I recently spent several months living at Tryon Life Community Farm in Portland, OR where I was fortunate to participate in an anti-racism training. Early in the training the question was raised of how racism expressed itself in the community (at the time in that group there was a woman of Lebanese decent, a woman of Persian decent, and a woman of white, Jewish, and Persian decent.) I wanted to learn so I decided to display my ignorance. I didn't see racism in the community, I said. I seemed like everyone actively expressed west-coast, new-age, hippie culture, and I didn't see any difference in how people related to each other.

The answer I got was very edifying: There are parts of ourselves that we simply don't express in white culture. We've learned how to assimilate and you're simply not aware of it. The culture you take for granted is the norm. That's racism, that's white supremacy.

I reflected back to Twin Oaks. In the last couple years of my time there we'd had a surprising influx of 4 African-American women over the course of a couple years. Two we're half white, two were not. The two that were not got into bitter conflicts with various other members of the community, as well as the systems and structures, and left in state of mutual enmity. Of the two that we're half white, the one that had been raised more in black culture also struggled with the passive-aggressiveness and indirect communication prevalent in the community. While she mostly "fit in" and was a "hard-working, respected member of the community," she also ended up in some bad conflicts with people and ultimately left. The last of the four, raised in a military family, the one who was the most calm, reasonable and conflict averse, is still there, and is a well loved and respected member.

Early in my time at Tryon I went to a conference called Beyond Patriarchy, at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, where I'd been invited to lead a workshop on men and feminism. I'd given men's issues workshops several times in the past. I was invited to lead based on piece I wrote after facilitating two discussions on sexism at Twin Oaks last winter.

Going to the conference I decided to take the opportunity to practice my feminism. In workshops I attended I focused on listening, and made sure that there were at least a few women who spoke more than me. I made a point of staying aware of my tendency to evaluate women from a sexual perspective and focused on relating to people in a non-sexualized, non-gendered manner.

I went to a workshop on the historical and cultural background to women's reproductive rights. The participants were told that, according to historian Gerda Lerner, in one of the earliest written code of laws, from the Sumerians circa 5000 BCE, something like half the laws involved curtailing the rights of women. The most brutal punishments were reserved for women who practiced abortion, while the rights of men to expose unwanted infants were upheld.

Through this workshop the thing that I got the most was how patriarchy has for millenia not only systematically disempowered women, but taught women to distrust themselves. I realized on a deeper level than every before that for all my insecurities and negative self-messaging, I still tend to assume a sense of confidence and superiority in expressing my opinions and ideas, and that this is not the norm for women. I shared this with a friend who offered a quote they'd recently read. The person said that they thought that "as men get older many for the first time begin thinking maybe they were wrong. Whereas women, as they get older, for the first time begin thinking maybe they were right."

While in Portland, my partner and I, in preparation for relocating to Charlottesville, VA (the city nearest Twin Oaks) with the plan of helping start some kind of multi-faceted urban community project, interviewed people from about a dozen different collectives and non-profits. We learned a lot about what has worked and what hasn't worked for these groups, which was very similar to what we knew about the dozens of intentional communities and cooperatives we'd collectively visited during our time at Twin Oaks. Many of these themes related to the new depth of understanding I was gaining about patterns of patriarchy and white supremacy, patterns that I believe also often relate to the culture of capitalism. This in turn related to conversations I'd been having with a good friend at Tryon about leadership, and the need to find a true expression of cooperative leadership. All of a sudden I was realizing how even the most radically oriented cooperative groups that I knew of were still fundamentally struggling with this stuff, sometimes in very obvious ways.

This needs to change, I thought. When I get back to C'ville I need to get more training in this stuff. I need to figure out how to build cross-cultural, cross-race relationships as a foundation to the organizing work I want to do. I need to help my white, intentional communities associates recognize and counter the effects of the patriarchy, white-supremacy, capitalism bloc.

But what's the way out, I began asking myself? Rebecca, a new friend, professor at Portland State University, and anti-racism activist, had been providing me with language and a theoretical frame work for what I was experiencing. She sent me a link to an organization providing workshops on challenging white-supremacy. Their website states, "Challenging White Supremacy (CWS) workshop organizers believe that the most effective way to create fundamental social change in the U.S. is by building mass-based, multi-racial grassroots movements led by radical activists of color." That list bit really triggered me. But I'd been so engaged in this stuff that I recognized I was being triggered. Okay, I thought, is this my white supremacy expressing itself? After a couple days I realized, yeah, putting myself under the leadership of people of color, and women, would probably do me a lot of good.

All this has lead me to a question that's been guiding my thinking for the last few weeks: how would our ways of engaging with each other and our methods of organizing change if they came from women and people of color? I'm only beginning to explore this question, both within myself as a white male, and in conversations with others, and further writings will follow. To bring this first step of exploring these ideas to a close, here is a list of the ways of engaging and methods of organizing I see as stemming from patriarchy and white supremacy present in alternative circles (thanks to Kassia for helping me flesh out this list.)

1. Cooperative groups tend to be formed by or around one or two highly motivated individuals, who tend to be white men. This tends to create power struggles between the "founders" and other members of the group, especially if significant property

2. Many members of cooperative groups tend to have an almost exclusively inward-looking perspective on their group, as opposed to seeing it in the context of a larger movement or larger society.

3. Many members of cooperative groups participate in those groups out of a sense of image or exclusive cultural identity.

4. There tends to be a focus on theoretical, visionary ideas and concepts as opposed to relationships and practical, hands activities

5. Individuals in cooperative groups tend to work in isolation as opposed to working in concert with each other on projects and activities.

6. The driving motivation for organizing tends to be around some kind of revolutionary political critique or ideology as opposed to having a spiritual, humanitarian, or earth-based orientation.

7. The atmosphere of work and living environments tends to be goal and productivity oriented, on doing and accomplishing, as opposed to loving, caring, peaceful, and nurturing. Spaces tend to be disorganized. Aesthetics of calm and comfort and basic needs like healthy food are deprioritized.

8. There is limited space for emotional struggle or expression. Sharing about one's personal life is a byproduct of working together as opposed to being a core component.

television, cars, and cigarettes

2008-07-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

In my travels through babylon over the last 10 months I have been surprised (perhaps naively) to find the prevalent usage of three items among progressively minded individuals: television, cigarettes, and cars.

Of the three, television, specifically cable or satellite television, is the least prevalent and its usage pretty much ends when you get further left then liberal on the political spectrum. Still, I find it surprising. Doesn't everyone not totally enmeshed in mainstream values recognize the destructiveness of network programing and commercials? I feel the desire to rant, but I'll stop myself because I'm pretty sure that any reasonably intelligent person, if they think about, can list ten reasons why television is a highly toxic element in society.

But, really, it's cigarettes and cars that shock me. Saying the health impacts of cigarettes are well known is an understatement. Millions of dollars of been spent in education campaigns, and millions more have been paid out in successful lawsuits against the tobacco industry. The existence of global climate change isn't even in debate in the mainstream public dialog at this point, only how quickly it's happening. And with every oil company expelled from Iraqi thirty years ago recently given no-bid contracts to set up shop with the Iraqi national oil infrastructure has yet to recover, it's pretty hard to argue that the war in Iraqi was for democracy and against terrorism. Again, I'll stop there. Everyone knows!

What gives? Why are you doing this to ourselves? How do we justify participating in these incredibly destructive activities? It's not like it's just somewhere on the other side of the world that the impacts are felt. It's all around us, it's in our minds and bodies! How is it possible that multitudes of otherwise caring, thoughtful, intelligent people are helping wreak havoc on the health of the world?

If humanity makes it through the next few hundred years without devolving into a tyrannical, pre-medieval society, or avoids simply wiping itself out all together, I believe it will be because there was some miraculous, large-scale shift in consciousness that motivated people to pull together and create a better world. In the history books, children will read about, as Marge Piercy calls it in her book Woman On The Edge of Time, the "age of greed and waste." They'll look at pictures of obese, haggard, sickly people inhaling toxic smoke, staring glassy eyed at an overwhelming barrage of mind-numbing images, and operating massively inefficient, energy intensive personal transportation devices while people around the world suffered and died from starvation, malnutrition, inadequate access to safe drinking water, environmental pollution, curable diseases, war and genocide...

The children will be asked, "what do you think drove these people to engage in these activities?" What will the answer be? Maybe we should start asking that question of ourselves and each other right now.

the call - co-authored by kassia arbabi

2008-07-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

There is a wide-spread sense that our current poltical, economic and cultural systems are failing us. Environmental degredation, economic injustice, social alienation, and political estrangement are pandemic. We are enmeshed in a level of consumerism that is environmentally destructive and unsustainable. Governments and corporations seem to lack the power and/or will to aid the masses of people negatively affected by these economic, environmental, and social conditions. Although they hold radically differing perspectives on the nature and cause of the problems, radical activists, Fundamentalist Christians, liberal and conservative commentators alike present rigorous critiques of the current state of our society. Regardless of our chosen cosmology or moral framework, if we recognize the suffering that exists in the world today and have the time and energy, we have no choice but to act.

But what is the right direction for our actions? There is an existing statement of the collective wisdom of human society which can serve as an entry point to this question. (It must be noted that this document was created by a small group of privileged people in a closed setting. It is not the voice of a broad or pluralistic demographic representation of race, class and gender.) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1948 states the following:

"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control." Article 25. (1) The Assembly also stated that member nations of the UN should see to it that the Declaration "be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories." http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Disseminating and displaying is one thing; implementing is another. So who is responsible for carrying this out? National governments, private corporations, and the free-market economic system have all failed to implement this radically sensible call to action. Our large-scale socio-economic and political systems, both public and private, have failed to provide for our collective human needs. If we continue to see ourselves as subjects in those systems rather than as empowered participants in providing for our own welfare, our needs will likely continue to go unmet. When it comes down to it, we are responsible for our own welfare: a responsibility we have been neglecting. Not the "boot-straps" kind of individualistic and selfishly motivated responsibility that ignores the inherently unjust and unsustainable nature of our economic systems. These systems are fundamentally flawed in that they propose exponential and ever expanding growth within the confines of a limited-resource system. No, our own welfare is fully intertwined with and dependent upon the welfare of those with whom we are economically and socially interconnected; our fellow planetary citizens. If we are to be truly self-interested, then the good we do for ourselves must also be for the good of all beings.

What if everyone, for no other reason than being alive, was guaranteed basic rights to "food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security..."? How would people live differently? Vast amounts of human energy and creativity would be released without the pressure and anxiety of making ends meet. What would it look like if groups of people began taking responsibility for making this a reality? With this question we begin to remember, rethink, and reenvision the concept of community.

What if our communities relied upon people investing their labor in concert with others and In the absence of economic pressure and anxiety. This community-invested labor feels meaningful, satisfying, and is an expression of love and appreciation. Groups of people can then begin to meet their basic needs outside of the failing socio-economic system, instead relying on internalized local systems of mutual support.

Models of such systems already exist; mostly in small, self-contained, rural communities. These communities have been and continue to be important centers of experimentation and learning. But given the current environmental, economic, and political state on the planet, this is no longer enough. An ever increasing percentage of the world's population live in urban or sub-urban environments (an estimated 75% by the year 2050), and are increasingly unable to provide for their basic needs under the current poltical/economic system.

Our political and economic systems are falling ever shorter of meeting the basic needs of the majority of the world's population. Bringing these principles of mutual aid and decentralized economic systems to networks of small groups in urban settings is a critical next step in our planetary evolution.

sexism is alive an well

2008-07-08T14:09:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering if sexism still exists, watch this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-IrhRSwF9U

compelling thoughts

2008-06-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

One of the most quintessential aspects of our experience, and one most taken for granted, is thought. It also totally, subconsciously habitual. We do it constantly. If we suddenly find ourselves not thinking for a moment it's shocking.

Try not thinking, for just 30 seconds or a minute. Can you not have any thoughts for 30 seconds? Probably not. Why is that? What is so compelling about thinking that we can't stop doing it for 30 seconds?

Is it something about the thoughts themselves? Perhaps. What is it that we think about? It might be hard to remember. When you start thinking about thoughts and trying to observe them they change. You'll forget that you were trying to observe them or think about them, but then you'll remember again, and then maybe you can notice what thoughts you were having that were so compelling that you forgot about observing them.

Me, I tend to quantify time a lot. I tend to think about how long it is till some event, or how long it's been. I tend to have a lot of conversations in my mind with people about things I feel passionate or frustrated about. Bits of songs and scenes of movies take up a good chunk of the time. All in all, unless I'm intently focusing on something, my thoughts, each individual though in itself, isn't that interesting.

So why can't I stop having them? And where do they come from anyway? Once I start observing my thoughts it gets confusing. Does my mind think them? But if it's my mind thinking them what is doing the observing? Is that my mind too? Is my mind multi-faceted? Am I schizophrenic? It's like there's the observer mind and the thinking mind, and the latter is so strong that the former is generally consumed by it.

We live in a society that emphasises the intellect over intuition or emotion or the physical. We're bombarded by messages and images, mentally stimulating information. Most occupations involve or focus on mentally engaging tasks. The arts and music, spiritual practices, and physical activity are hobbies, pastimes, or things that certain kinds of people do.

There is no room in our society for silence and stillness. This addiction to frenetic activity is a new phenomenon, yet we take it for granted as the way it's always been, and we have no idea what we may have lost.

the cost of cars

2008-06-18T13:18:00.001-07:00

Recently I did a big round of research into organizations and programs working towards sustainability, particularly urban sustainability. I signed up for various e-newsletters. One of them, Sustainlane, has been consistently infuriating me. Hardly better than "green washing" this notion that "green" consumerism will save the planet is at best ludicrous.

The last e-newsletter I got from Sustainlane asked the question , "Are hybrid cars really good for the environment?" I knew what my answer was, and I thought it a good sign that they were asking this question. The article went on from there like this:

"It depends on what you compare them to. Looking at the complete lifecycle of any product, let alone a car, from raw materials to eventual disposal or reuse is incredibly complicated. What's a poor information-starved enviro to do?"

Okay, this is looking good, I thought. For years I've been pointing out that if we're not also talking about the "complete lifecycle" of personal vehicles the question of how to fuel them is pointless. But as I read on, the article simply didn't go there. It was all about whether or not to drive small, fuel-efficient vehicles or hybrid, or whether or not Toyota's Prius or Honda's Hybrid Civic is better.

I couldn't take it. I wrote them the following letter.

Dear Editor:

I would like to see Sustainlane do an article on Are CARS really good for the environment? No matter what fuel source we're using, if we want to evaluate whether or not personal motorized vehicles are "sustainable" we have to consider several things.

We have to consider the energy and materials cost in extracting and processing materials used to produce them, as well as the energy cost in manufacturing. We also have to consider the energy and materials cost involved in creating and maintaining the roads and other infrastructure cars require. While we're at it we might want to consider the amount of human and animal deaths caused by cars and car accidents. And then there's the social cost of building human structures and settlements to accommodate car use.

Even fuel source must be considered. Electric or hydrogen are great ideas, but currently most of that energy is produced in nuclear or coal power plants. And there's no way we can produce enough biofuels to replace the amount of petroleum currently being consumed, unless we want to feed our cars at the expense of ourselves.

Studies and information detailing all of this is are out there. It is conveniently ignored by people who want to assuage their guilt by driving a hybrid or an old Nissan Sentra. Please don't enable this behavior. To actually reach sustainable levels of consumption and waste American's are going to have to make substantial changes to their lifestyles. Please, publish information that makes this reality evident and provides hope for the real solutions that exist.

in community,
Sky Blue
Portland, OR

the new economy PDX

2008-06-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

My friend Brush and I are initiating a process to galvanize the movement towards a more economically just urban environment. Unfortunately I may not be in Portland long enough to attend the first mtg. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to develop these ideas. I want to share the summary of our conversations to date.

Goal of this process:

To support the accelerating emergence in Portland of new economies based
on sustainability and justice, so more and more people can meet basic
needs through local values-based exchange of work and resources rather
than the dominating economy.

Economies:

Systems that coordinate human needs and desires with time and resources, to sustain and grow life.

Goal for first gathering:

To identify and plan specific and measurable actions to bolster infrastructure for such new economies.

Note that the goal is not to create a new overarching organizational structure to replace or encompass existing systems and organizations. We seek rather to link those systems and organizations, coordinate their efforts, support their expansion, support the creation of new systems and organizations, and help more individuals get involved.

Gathering date

We are considering the second week of July.

Gathering agenda

We are currently meeting with potential participants to define the agenda and the process. It will be tightly facilitated to ensure productive outcomes.

Questions to frame agenda-development:

* What are the existing infrastructure pieces? How could they be improved?
* What new infrastructure pieces would be most valuable? In what order of implementation?
* How can we get these changes going most effectively?
* Who else should be involved?

Please note: this human-friendly gathering will include food, music, and socializing. This is our revolution, and we dance!

Example possible infrastructure pieces:

* Coordination tech
Methods to help different economic systems keep track of each others' activities, support exchange of resources among groups, make it easy for people entering one group to access others, and coordinate large projects involve multiple groups with follow-through

* Revolutionary welcome centers
Space/group that helps new arrivals (to Portland and/or new economies) connect with potentially compatible resources, organizations, trainings, etc. Could include regular public gatherings for economic projects to recruit and request help.

* Anarchist HR collectives
Support for workers and organizations in designing good job-matches,
finding/developing training, managing workflow, engaging conflict, balancing autonomy and collectivity, etc. May also focus on helping folk have access to basic needs (housing, health, food, etc.)

* Capitalism interface collectives
Radical legal, financial, and lobbying crews with skills to create robust interfaces between our emerging economies and courts, banks, and governments, in order to maximize our autonomy, influence, and resistance to co-optation.

* Open Standards for Open New Economies
Open data exchange standards that allow seamless interaction and aggregation of economic information so people can join multiple systems and manage information from one client: goods/services exchange, project management, decision-making, ratings, events, etc.

* Catalysts
Crews who provide start-up know-how and resources to get new collectives running, then leave to start another.

* Cross-pollinators
Groups or individuals that focus on helping deeply different communities and cultures discover how to respect each other, learn from each other, and design mutually beneficial collaboration.

* Your ideas here!

fantasies of death

2008-05-31T23:16:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about death. I blame my meditation practice. Fantasies of death have been coming to mind while meditating with increased frequency over the last couple years. About a year and a half ago, near the end of a meditation course, a particularly excruciating one arose.

In the realm of apocalyptic 2012 theories, one I've heard is that not only will the earth's magnetic poles shift, the planet's axis will shift, literally role over on its side so that points on the equator will become the new polar ice caps, and the antarctic continent will become habitable. This could happen quite quickly in this theory.

Now, I don't give this much credit. But somehow, on the morning of the tenth day of this meditation course my wandering mind, my whimsical, flittering, fluttering mind landed on this idea, and explored it. I imagined a scenario where it happened so quickly that all of a sudden we at Twin Oaks (where I was still living at the time) would get snowed in before we realized what was happening. And in this scenario there would be now relief, no escape. It would be a death sentence.

Of course, our stores of food and fire wood would keep us alive for some months. Then, gradually they would run out. I knew what I would do. I would meditate a lot. I would prepare myself for death as I've learned to do. But what about Willow? How could he understand what was happening? How could he cope?

I imagined trying to teach this (at that point) four year old boy how to meditate. Sitting with him as he cried, screaming, "why can't we leave?!" or "I'm hungry! Why can't we get food?!" or "I'm cold, why won't it stop snowing!" or "What's going on? What's going to happen?" And I would hold him and try my best to explain. "We're trapped, and eventually the food will run out, or the fire wood. We're going to die. It's going to feel really bad and there's nothing we can do to stop it."

I would try to stay calm, try to keep peace in myself as my heart broke over and over again. As a parent, as a human, one of the most painful experiences I've had to face is seeing Willow in pain, physical or emotional. Often, it's like I'm feeling it, only I feel more powerless, which only makes it worse.

Lately, new fantasies of death have been coming out. In case you didn't know there's been a world food crisis. Millions of people all of a sudden finding themselves without enough to eat. There have been food riots. I've been thinking about that. What if that happened here? Simply not enough food on the shelves to feed everyone, or it's so expensive that people, that I, can't afford to buy enough. What if people rioted? Would I riot too? Would I try to get enough for myself in a mad rush knowing that if I did someone else would go hungry? I'm lucky to be close with people who garden. But what happens when winter comes and there's just not enough?

There are other more plausible theories of catastrophe. Atmospheric, geophysical, solar disasters. All unlikely, but they've all happened before, and could literally happen again at any time. The southeast Asia tsunami. Katrina. The typhoon in Burma. The earthquake in china. I'm lucky. Any one of us is lucky.

Willow and I saw a movie in a planetarium that showed a representation of the asteroid colliding with the earth that wiped out the dinosaurs. Scientist think that in the first hour after the asteroid hit the temperature on the planet reached 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Planet wide black out of ash and dust ensued, dark enough so that plants didn't have enough sunlight to survive for 6 months. How anything on the planet managed to survive that is a wonder to me.

Thinking about all these things, I feel very small. I realize how fragile and insignificant I am in the grandness of time and space and geophysical, planetary, intrastellar phenomena. And then I look around me, in the coffeeshop I'm sitting in, or on the street I'm driving down, or in the dance club with people in their cute outfits doing their mating rituals.

And I think, what is life? What is this complexity of culture we've created that we so take for granted? Large scale cataclysmic events aside, there are the age-old cataclysms of sickness, injury, old age, death.

A friend recently dislocated her ankle in a bike accident. She may never walk right again. Even at 28 years old I'm finding that I gain weight much more easily than I use to, and my digestive system in general is much more sensitive. I have a chronic neck spasm from a childhood injury that will never fully heal, and will probably lead to gradual decrease in mobility the older I get. And I know I'm going to have to keep dealing with an increasing number of ailments.

I firmly believe that facing our pain is most profoundly life changing, transformative, revolutionary, social change-making action we can take. The less afraid of pain we are, the less afraid of death we are, the more open to love and joy and life we are. I've dealt with a lot of pain through my meditation practice, but I know I still have so far to go. I'm still very afraid of pain. Getting shots, or my blood taken, still makes me cringe, for example. And the thought of a painful death, particularly burning to death or drowning, are very hard to think about.

But I welcome these fantasies. I don't dwell on them, but I greet them when they arise, acknowledge them, feel how they feel, and let them pass. I'm grateful that I've started this practice now. It is perhaps naive hope, given the state of the world, that I will live to a ripe old age, but that is what I imagine. May I, and may we all, learn to face our pain and, ultimately, our deaths, with peace and calmness and gratitude.

earthly betrayal

2008-05-31T18:18:00.000-07:00

Like a rebelious teenager, we have created an antagonistic relationship with our progenitors. We have betrayed they earth, and the earth, out of self-preservation, has broken from unconditional love and is betraying us. Our response is complex. How do to deal with it?

Kneel down, beat the earth with your fists, say,
"how could you!?"

Clutch the earth, grip it, dig your fingers into it, say,
"take me back!"

Leap from the earth, reach towards the sky, say,
"let me go!"

Lie on the earth, sprawl out in surrender, say,
"I accept this."

Stand up, face yourself, face others, face the world, say,
"I love you, I will better myself, I will better the world."

I heard an interesting concept last night. Corporate america has been increasingly co-opting the idea of being "green." "Green washing" has become popular, esp. among automobile and oil industries. Green consumerism is constantly gaining ground. Some of this is a sham, some of it is a step in the right direction. But generally, none of it is "sustainable."

Sustainable is the increasingly popular buzz word, the cutting edge of appropriate technology and socio-economic systems. But sustainable, in a sense, means neutral. It means not making things worse.

So, there's a next level: restorative. We don't really want to sustain things the way they are right now. We want to restore our natural and social environments to some previous state that is more balanced.

But there's a level beyond that: regenerative. And to me, regenerative implies an evolution beyond what has been to something new, something we are only beginning to imagine.

willow and my life

2008-05-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

After two and half months apart Willow and I are back together. The first night here, as we cuddled up for bed, I said, "you know what?" "What?" he said. "It's been two and half months since we've seen each other." "What the heck!" he exclaimed. "But you know, now that we're here together it seems like it's been no time at all." "Yeah," was his thoughtful reply.

Jumping back into full-time parenting has been good and challenging, natural and jarring. I'm immensly thankful for Kassia's presence. She's been spending lots of time with him, in addition to the three of us spending time together. I've always been the strictest of Willow's parents (in monitoring his screen time, for example) and the most demanding, around things like learning time and dietary choices. Kassia has been a good ally for me in this in that she doesn't come with the same level of anxiety towards "being a good parent" that I do. I've been appreciating her patience and persistance, as well as her creativity in find ways to engage Willow, rather than just making him do things, which is the approach I tend to fall into.

For some reason about a year ago parenting, and my relationship with Willow, all of a sudden took on a very natural and comfortable feeling for me. I still struggle with insecurities. When Willow gets into being fearful or insecure a part of me starts thinking it's my fault. When he gets into being lazy or obstinate I think I'm not pushing him enough and am not creative enough in my methods of engaging him. But I feel connected to him in a way I haven't before. There's more we can do together. He's more capable of grasping the various aspects of life and reality that I find awe inspiring. And somehow I just get what's going on for him better, and find it easier to talk with him about his experience. He's also getting more affectionate and cuddly with me, which I really enjoy.

I'm going back to virginia. Even before Willow came out I came to this conclusion. I can't subordinate parenting at this point in my life, in his life. Each year of his life right now is so special and unique - I don't want to miss it. I want to keep growing up with him. Pax, Hawina, and I seem to be in a stronger place that we've been for a long time as well. It would be a shame not to take advantage of strength and closeness of our family.

But I can't live at Twin Oaks anymore, that's clear. Charlottesville is the plan. Kassia will be coming too, and I'm very happy that we'll be continuing our partnership. In thinking about all the crazy plans and schemes I want to work on it seems like it would be much harder without her.

The best laid plans of mice and men, as they say. My personality likes to plan, likes to set myself on a track and follow it. Fortunately this about-face hasn't been too disruptive. I credit my meditation practice for that. And I'm looking forward to these next couple months in Portland, a month at a meditation center, Europe, and then hitting the ground (in C'ville) running in January.

Let's see how long this plan lasts ;0)

listening to Obama

2008-05-09T23:28:00.000-07:00

Tonight I got to see/hear Barack Obama speak at the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, OR. He focused on issues, which I liked. He said lots of things I liked, about ending tax breaks for the rich, about renewable energy, about raising wages for teachers and funding early education programs, about increasing mass transit, around not accepting campain contributions from federally registered lobbies. His comments were also superficial. He was saying all the right things. That's what politicans do. They're not stupid... well, okay, at minimum they've got smart people working for them. And there were things he said that just didn't work for me, and things I wished he'd said.

He played down the conflict between his and Clinton's campaign, saying that the differences between them paled in comparison to the differences between either of them and McCain. He talked about people talking about how Clinton supporters won't vote for him and vise versa, and dismissed that. He said that the Democrates will be united come November. What I wanted to hear him say is, "even if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination I want every democrate to support her and vote for her."

He talked about the intention from the beginning beging to keep the campaign positive, no negativity, no mudslinging. He acknowledged that hasn't always happened. He said, "you know, when you get hit enough times you can't resist the temptation to hit back." He said, "we (meaning his campaign) haven't always kept to that (meaning keeping it positive." What I wanted to hear him say is, "I acknowledge that despite my promise to keep it positive I have attacked Clinton and McCain at times and I apologize for that."

He talked a lot about unity. But he still talked about "America's adversaries" and keeping American's "competitive on the international market." He talked about the need for new technologies to address global warming and how "we need to make sure those technologies are developed here." He talked about making America a leader in international politics again. So, the unity ends at the border? Cooperation is only for U.S., not for THEM?

He made various references to renewing the possibility of the "american dream." The presidential candidate I will get behind is the one who acknowedges that for the mass majority of people in this country since day one the american dream has been a lie.

He talked about universal health care. But from what I've read he's not talking about single-payer, nor is he talking about seriously changing the policies that require, or at least enable, the bureacracy of health insurance industry, which is a huge monetary drain on the system.

He talks about it being time to bring the troops home. But from what I've read he's made no committment to a deadline or outlined a timetable for withdrawl. Indeed, in his speech he said, "we need to be as careful leaving as we were reckless entering." What does that mean? 1 yr? 5 yrs? 10 yrs?

I think Obama is probably the best to come along, in terms of matching political platform with "electability," since Carter. But he's no Dennis Kucinich and he's no Ralph Nader. Obama ended his speech by saying, "the thing that's going to make it possible for all these changes is you." I do believe a critical mass of people are ready for real change and that it's that critical mass of people that's going to make real change possible, not the president.

I hope Obama is inspiring enough to inspire people past the idol worship that's developed around him to a sense of empowerment that will actually make things happen. And hopefully Obama will shift legslation enough to support that. An article in the Nation summed it up well for me. The authors wrote that, like JFK, a tepidly liberal yet charasmatic candidate can incite a popular movement to take things far beyond what they had actually intended. Here's hoping.

culture and change

2008-04-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Kassia picked up what appeared to be something like an activist's flashcard. On the front it reads, "Alternative popular culture." On the back it reads, "struggle to aquire, maintain or resist power using culture as the site of or for that struggle."

This reminded me of a group I ran into at the National Conference on Organized Resistance back in 2003, called SmartMeme. In their workshop they outlined the key points in the development of an activist campaign where, traditionally, mainstream media and other institutions take control of the situation by framing the issue and controling the language and issues. We looked at strategies for counter-acting that pattern.

"SmartMeme is about doing social change in a holistic way : shifting from issues to values, supplementing organization building with movement building, focusing on the intersections of story telling, relational organizing, communications, alliance building and creative new forms of civic engagement and action.

SmartMeme amplifies the impact of local and national non-profit and grassroots organizations with capacity-building partnerships, collaborations, and new strategy tools to change the stories that shape the dominant culture. We integrate the art of framing, the science of strategy, and the approach of grassroots organizing through our framework of story-based strategy." (from the smartMeme website)

I'm writing this as something of a follow up to my previous post. Somehow I'm finally starting to put the pieces together of this new culture that's emerging. To some extent it's a resistance culture. But it's primarily that in that in order to have the space to create the culture we want to live in we have to push on the boundaries of the dominant culture, because they're not leaving much room to work in. And this conflict is more about values, lifestyles, economics than it is about physical, or even formally political confrontation.

According to Wikipedia this idea is actually nothing new. "The phrase "culture war" is a translation of the German Kulturkampf, the name given to the struggle between the government of the German Empire under Otto von Bismarck against the power of the Catholic Church from 1871-1878.

Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in the 1920s argued that the reason the proletarian revolution had not advanced in Europe as fast as many Marxists had expected it would was due to cultural hegemony. The theory of cultural hegemony states that a diverse culture can be dominated by one class because of that class's monopoly over the mass media and popular culture. Gramsci therefore argued for a culture war in which anti-capitalist elements seek to gain a dominant voice in mass media, education, and other mass organizations." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war

In my opinion, another reason that different political and social movements operating from a base of counter-culture creation have had limited impact is because there has been too much focus on ideology and rhetoric, as well as organizational structure and, as a movement develops, bureaucracy, and too little on the real point of the matter, which is to better the lives of those who are oppressed.

In my work, I hope to turn this around. I hope to work for the betterment of life circumstances for all, and to organize people and resources in a way that clearly makes their lives better. If it's not obvious, something's wrong. If there is energy wasted on bureaucracy and institution, something's wrong. If I can simply point to what's happening and say, "look we're helping people meet their own needs while meeting the needs of others through their own hard work and mutual support" it will be hard to argue with that.

zeitgeist

2008-04-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

"Portland is where the zeitgeist in America is," Thomas, another Twin Oaks refugee, said to me recently.
"The what?" I asked.
"It's a German word. It means 'spirit of the age.'"

Intuitively I understood what he meant. I also understood why I'm so attracted to Portland. I've always been attracted to the cutting edge, the newest, deepest understanding of, well, just about anything. And in particular, as I have begun to think more and more in terms of what I should do with my life to create the greatest possible good in the world, Portland's identity as the premier green city in the country is a big draw.

Identity isn't enough. There seems to be a reality backing it up. Brush at Tryon Life Community Farm said to me, "the city likes the attention and realizes that it's because of all these young radicals doing interesting things, but the city's not quite sure what to do with them. There are more and more coming, but there are also people who are attracted to Portland who are just going to live mainstream lifestyles. That's easier to plug in on. So we've got to give these radicals things to do that will also allow them to afford to live here."

I'm writing this piece in the dining room of the Emma Goldman Finishing School, an egalitarian, income-sharing, urban commune of (currently) 10 adults and 3 kids. Emma's and Ganas on Staten Island, NYC, are the only urban intentional communities doing this level of resource sharing that I'm aware of. Why is this important? Economic justice. Egalitarian economics. Creating a system of mutual support to escape, or at least create a buffer against the mainstream, capitalist economy. It's not just about creating a groovy, comfortable situation for your little group. The way Emma's sees it, "[w]e work to create this future in the here and now by building alternative economic, political, and cultural infrastructure designed to oppose and replace the dominant system. We aim to create a home that embodies our shared values, provides a fun and supportive environment in which to live, and helps forge a dense network of relations with people and institutions outside of our community... Our home is a place of self-education, experimentation, and radical democracy - a community where the means and ends are one." (Emma Goldman Finishing School, Community Values: Root Document)

The reason why I'm more attracted to urban settings right now is because I think we need to create these systems on ever-increasing scales in order to counter the environmentally and socially destructive (I would go as far as to say suicidal) effects of the mainstream socio-economic system. According to The Endless City, a project by The Urban Age, 10% of the world's population lived in cities in 1900. Today, it's 50%. In 2050 the number is estimated to reach 75%. The anti-civilizationist Derrick Jensen argues that cities are inherently unsustainable. Whether or not that's true they're not going away any time soon, and must be made more sustainable. And sustainability is not just about ecology. It's about economics, politics, and human relationships.

Raine Eisler in her book The Real Wealth of Nations proposes an economic system that is based on caring and caregiving. This sees social relationships as integral, as fundamental, whereas classical economics only considers individuals in their roles as employers, employees, and consumers. She points out that the household economy, the unpaid community economy, and the environmental economy, which are all given little or no value in the dominant economic paradigm, are the foundation. How can we have a healthy economy without healthy people? How can we have healthy people without healthy communities? How can we have healthy communities without a healthy environment? And how can we have any of these without economic policies and practices that take this reality into account?

The economist Bernard Lietaer also points out the fallacy of an economic system that does not take relationships into consideration. He says, "different currency systems create different kinds of relationships... If I want to cooperate with you then I'll create a currency that actually creates cooperation... The economy of the future is going to be one of relationships, the choice of relationships will determine the type of currency we should be using." <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjYDhuLWUnE>

Then there's social ecology. Social ecology "holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly competitive grow-or-die philosophy. It suggests that this cannot be resisted by individual action such as ethical consumerism but must be addressed by more nuanced ethical thinking and collective activity grounded in radical democratic ideals. The complexity of relationships between people and with nature is emphasised, along with the importance of establishing social structures that take account of this."

Annie Leonard, in her video The Story of Stuff points out that viable solutions are being developed for large scale systems: Green chemistry, zero waste, closed loop production, local living economies, ecopsychology, social ecology, deep ecology, permaculture, etc. Raine Eisler references her involvement with pioneers in chaos and complexity theory and how these theories provide scientific basis for this new brand of integrated-systems theories.

We now have what the counter-culture movement of the sixties lacked: a creditable and understandable base of academic and scientific work to support the practical application of our values and ideals. Mix this with a counter-culture that has been continuing to develop over the last several decades: aspects of eastern and new age philosophy as well as reclaimed christian and jewish philosophy, hip hop culture, anarchist-DIY culture, an explosion of underground music and art and the technology for independent mass-distribution, home gardening, community gardens, a steady increase in collective living situations...

But in my opinion the academic and scientific work has surpassed the practical application, which is dangerous. "The map is not the territory," as one of my teachers, Steven Young, says, and "practice and theory must go together," says, S. N. Goenka, another of my teachers. Theory without practice can become irrelevant, or simply useless.

Portland is where I see the most developed practical application of this body of theory. There's a strong, cohesive social culture supporting organizing and innovation, a solid coalition of NGO's with a mission of creating a "livable future" for all city residents, and a progressive, responsive city government. It's where the zeitgeist in America is.

It may be that I chose not to live there for more than a few months. But in that time I plan to learn as much as possible and be as deeply inspired as possible, so that where ever I go I will take this zeitgeist, the spirit of the age with me.

the story of stuff

2008-04-24T22:37:00.000-07:00

WATCH THIS VIDEO!!!

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

It's an amazingly well articulated and presented explanation of what's wrong with the current global socio-economic system, why it needs to change, and what we can do to change it.

brain science and meditation

2008-04-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229

A friend sent me this link recently and said the following:

"I watched this great video of a ted talk with Chad the other day, and I said to him, wow! Now we just need to figure out how to induce that sort of experience without the stroke part. He was like yeah, that's the basic concept of transcendental meditation and samati experiences and all that. And I think I finally got why you do silence retreats - but I mean really got it. I would probably be utterly bored, I'm very ADD, I like to find more engaging ways to turn off left brain chatter, but I understand the motivation much better than I did. It's a very direct path - silence through silence."

I responded thus:

Yeah, that's it, that's why I meditate, practicing the right brain experience of oneness and compassion. It brings such peace within myself. It is on some level a purely selfish pursuit, but it is in our self-interest to help others and make the world a better place. The more I love myself the more I love others the more I love myself the more... the happier I am the happier others are the happier I am the happier...

The thing about meditation, some kinds anyway, is that even though you're doing nothing you're not really doing nothing. Keeping the mind quite, calm, and focused is possibly the most challenging thing anyone can ever attempt. Partly this is because we are all filled with so much pain and suffering, and by bringing ourselves into the present moment we become aware of that reality and experience it fully. But the only way through it is to experience it, with awareness and equanimity. But somehow, for some reason I don't fully understand, that's where we learn love and compassion.

the trouble with labels

2008-04-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

Our society has a two dimensional view of relationship. If you're not single you're either on the marriage track or your dating, which these days, I've been told, means being in a monogamous relationship with an indefinite lifespan and an implicit consideration of marriage. Consequently, the terminology for defining relationships is far too simple to accommodate the complexity that some of us weirdo's out here engage in.

Over the last month, as Kassia and I have traveled across the country and up the west coast, we've been noticing that we're different from other couples. We're not a unit or a package. We don't take for granted that our relationship will continue to exist in a particular form, or at all, for any length of time. Our lives are very intertwined right now but we don't assume that will persist.

From very early on Kassia and I set some clear intentions for our relationship. We agreed that we didn't want to get into a pattern of trying to change each other. We wanted to accept each other for who we were and allow our relationship to evolve accordingly. At the same time we agreed that one of the main purposes of our relationship was to support each other in becoming more of who we want to be, which was in part a recognition that we will continue to grow and change. Later that expanded to the intention to support each other in doing our work in the world.

We recently reaffirmed that as the priority. Our lives are driven by what we're doing with our lives. Our relationship is viable so long as we can support each other in that, and ideally find areas to collaborate. It helps immensely that we share a very similar meditation practice (two hours a day of vipassina.) It reinforces this shared philosophy, provides us with a common language for understanding and working with our relationship, and helps us continue to grow and evolve, and gain deeper understanding and clarity about ourselves, each other, life, the universe, and everything.

This differentiates us from couples who hold their identity as a couple as equal if not superior to their individual identities. We are each seeking to follow our own path. At the same time we're open to what that might look like, seeking to follow fundamental principles and ideals as opposed to specific visions. For example, for myself, I say that my goal is to make the best use of my life to make the world a better place. That could manifest in many different ways, some of which would keep us together, others that wouldn't. That goal may ultimately lead me back to Twin Oaks to be with Willow, which would mean the end, or at least a monumental transformation of our relationship.

This presents us with a certain challenge in knowing what to call each other. This challenge is further complicated by the fact that I have this whole other family with a child - a set of relationships that is even more difficult to sum up in a word or two. Kassia and I have gone through a myriad of agreements over the last 2 years regarding our openness to other sexual/romantic relationships. Anyone who knows even a sliver of that experience, or knows about my family or any of the other people with whom either of us have been involved , and who isn't familiar with intentional community and polyamory, tends to be a bit befuddled by our relationship.

About 10 days ago we arrived in Chico and stayed with Dale (my father) at his cohousing community. Dale and I took a walk a couple days after we there. He asked how things were with Kassia and I. He couldn't quite tell where we were at in our relationship, but observed that we seemed like we were just good friends traveling together who's lives were on similar tracks. He also said that we seemed like we were really enjoying each other. We asked another member of the cohousing cmty to borrow a bike. He checked with his teenage son if we could borrow his, saying, "can Sky's friend borrow your bike?" We got a ride to Eugene with a member of Tryon Life Community Farm, where we're subletting a room in May. On the way up another member of Tryon called. "Guess who's in the car with me? Sky! Yeah, he and his, uh, friend Kassia."

Last year when Hawina, Willow and I were at the cohousing cmty in Chico we had a similar difficulty finding easy labels. Hawina and I had all but officially ended our romantic/sexual relationship. Now, and at that point, I still thought of Hawina as a partner. Over the last couple years I've half-jokingly called us domestic partners. But calling someone your partner carries a romantic/sexual, long-term-committed connotation. The long-term-committed part was and is still true, but as deeply bonded friends and co-parents. We're family. We're not exactly split up, nor are we divorced as we were never married. At this point you could say we're separated, or that I'm separated from the rest of my family. But the bond and identity Pax, Hawina, Willow, and I share as a family, ironically, has never been stronger.

When we were in Chico, often the easiest way to identify Hawina was as "Willow's mother." You can imagine the subtle awkwardness that phrasing illicits. A different awkwardness would be involved in saying, "this is my domestic partner Hawina." Similarly there would be plenty of room for misunderstanding if I qualified my partnership with Kassia by calling her my "life partner," which I've done in the past, meaning that we are partners in life, not for life. Of course, people who remember meeting Hawina and Willow didn't quite know what to make of Kassia even when I call her my partner. And often it is just too complicated to explain to people to whom I don't really have much connection.

As we've been moving towards this period of travel and re-location Kassia and I have been mostly referring to each other as "my partner," because this seems the closest to reality and the easiest to understand. It is still very over-simplified, and we both at times avoid going into details about the larger picture because we just don't want to take the time and energy, esp. with people who may be shocked or even offended. But ultimately it doesn't really matter. Neither of us are very interested in proselytizing at this point, nor are we particularly concerned with finding an appropriate package for our relationship - that would seem antithetical to our guiding philosophy.

Since Kassia and I have been together our practice has been to develop a deep intimacy and involvement with each other while maintaining an attitude of non-attachment. We're good allies. At some point it occurred to me that the label companions fit our relationship best. More recently I had the idea that we were a team. I was tickled at the possibility of coming up with a team name, mascot, etc. That idea incorporated the possibility that we might find other people to join our team (which could also manifest in a variety of forms.)

In one of my favorite tarot decks, the Zen Osho Tarot, there is a card called "friendliness" that captures the essence of what I'm getting at (the two of cups in traditional tarot, also thought of as the minor arcana version of the major arcana's "the lovers.")

The creator of the deck, Ma Deva Padma, shares these words:

"The branches of these two flowering trees are intertwined, and their fallen petals blend together on the ground in their beautiful colors. It is as if heaven and earth are bridged by love. But they stand individually, each rooted in the soil in their own connection with the earth. In this way they represent the essence of true friends, mature, easy with each other, natural. There is no urgency about their connection, no neediness, no desire to change the other into something else."

I feel immensely appreciative of Kassia and our relationship. I've been developing a lot of kooky ideas about relationships for over 10 years now. Having a solidly collaborative partner for a living experiment in intentional relationship has been an incredibly edifying and beautiful experience, and I know any relationships I have in the future, any kind of relationships, will be healthier and happier for sharing this dance with her.

stuff

2008-04-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

On our mad dash across the country Kassia and I took a slight detour to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This is where she grew up and where her mother and step-father still live. In early March there was still 3 ft of snow on the ground. But for just a three day visit the novelty didn't wear off, and there was a stillness and silence from the snow that I relished (especially after two manic days of driving from Virginia.)

Part of our visit to the great, frozen north was for Kassia to organize her worldly belongings. She left Twin Oaks with 4 or 5 boxes and bags - more than was feasible to carry during our travels between there and Portland. These 4 or 5 joined about 15 more that she'd been gradually sending home over the last 8 years.

It was an immensity of stuff. When all had been brought up from the basement, out from the car, and laid across the living room floor, well, there wasn't much floor left. Miraculously, between Kassia, her mother, and I we managed to cull through and repack this mountain of personal materials in one day.

Kassia's step-father, Dana, shared with us a perfect poem for the occasion. A poem of his creation, it summed up the experience perfectly. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share it. Dana wrote to me, "I am a little concerned that once I let it up on the web that it is gone forever and I'll never make the million dollars I expect to make on my poems someday. I suppose as long as I am credited and I'll put copyright on the bottom, as if that will do any good. I haven't distributed it anywhere yet, but I have thought about it."

So, the world debut of a poem I think we can all intimately relate to.

Getting Rid of Stuff

Stuff gotten rid of is stuff fulfilled.
Stuff is what we’ve got too much of.
It’s refreshing to purge possession
Of things saved
Ten or twenty years,
Or more!
Hardly or never looked at again.

Things for which their worth
Has long since been extracted.
Things to do with...
“What was her name, anyway?”
Things for which significance
Diminished --
If any significance existed at all.

Because stuff becomes heavier with time
Complicating our lives,
Weighing us down
And slowing our momentum
Into the new we are meant for.

Physical stuff congests us,
Constantly tempting us to keep,
As if we can keep anything.
As if we can keep the feeling itself
That object once gave us,
And make time stand still.

Oh let’s feel the freedom,
The relief from owning stuff.
The burden lifted.
Nothing is so simple,
So beautiful as nothing.

Yes, next to not keeping stuff,
Getting rid of stuff is second best.
A humbling admission of days gone by.
A delayed and sad sort of satisfaction.

D. Richter (b 1948)
Copyright 2003

thoughts from a feminist man

2008-04-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

In February a woman at Twin Oaks engaged the community in a discussion on feminism. I facilitated the two meetings that happened on the topic, which meant I kept my personal thoughts to myself ;0) But before I left I decided to write my thoughts and share them with the cmty.

I have mixed feelings about identifying myself as feminist, similar to my ambivalence around calling myself an anarchist, pagan, or polyamorous. Feminism means many things to many people, and for the most part I prefer to avoid having people project their judgments and associations onto me. But in some cases claiming that kind of identity is important. In this situation the cmty had heard a lot from mild to moderately charged feminist women, and a lot from confused and defensive men, and very little from men speaking from an empowered, feminist perspective. It felt important to me to break up the gender split that seemed to be developing.

--

How I dismantle and perpetuate sexism and traditional gender roles:

While these statements use unqualified and hypothetical phrasing each one was born of my personal experience. Said another way, I do all of these sometimes and do none of them all the time. I chose this phrasing because the lists are meant to describe my experience as well as reflect the experience of others. In reading this I hope you will either recognize these behaviors in yourself or others or will recognize corresponding or complimentary behaviors in yourself or others.

As a man, I dismantle sexism and traditional gender roles when...

...I pass someone else (esp. a woman) on the street or in a work area, and one of us must step aside, and I don't assume I have the right-of-way.

...I'm speaking to more than one person and make sure to look at all people an equal amount of the time while speaking.

...someone is speaking to me and a woman, and the person speaking is speaking to me more than the woman, and I repeatedly glance at the woman while the person is speaking to encourage them to speak to both of us.

...I don't assume that my idea is the best or that what I have to say is more important than what others have to say.

...I don't assume that other people don't have the ideas or information that I have.

...I make sure not to take more than my share of the air-time, even if this means sitting in silence.

...I spend time listening to others before speaking, and when I leave space for others to say things that I might have said.

...I encourage Willow to express all his feelings.

...I am cuddly and affectionate with Willow.

...someone asks me a question to which I don't know the answer or have no information on the topic, and I say "I don't know."

...I seek emotional support from other men.

...a woman tells me about an experience of sexism she's had and I just listen and learn.

...I let myself be small and scared, and when I let myself be held.

...I pay attention to the impacts of my words and actions, acknowledge any negative impacts, and make commitments to myself to shift my behavior.

...I feel my feelings and express them in constructive ways.

...I slow down and try to understand what's going on around me rather than trying to exert influence or control.

As a man, I perpetuate sexism and traditional gender roles when...

...I act like I've got it all under control and will take care of everything.

...I make it sound like I know what I'm talking about even when I don't, or that I'm sure about something when I'm not.

...I seek intimacy primarily from sexual/romantic relationships with women.

...I prioritize sexual/romantic relationships over platonic relationships.

...a woman is having difficulty with a task involving physical strength or dexterity, or that is technically complex, and I try to help without asking if help is wanted (rarely do I do this with men.)

...I unconsciously infuse my interactions with women with sexual energy.

...I assess a social situation in terms of which women I might be able to have sex with and which men might get in the way of that.

...I give Willow a hard time for feeling scared to do something.

...I engage in escapist behavior to avoid feeling my feelings.

...I side with women against other men.

...I put pressure on my lover(s) to be sexual.

...I damage an inanimate object during an interpersonal conflict as a way of getting attention or gaining power.

...I fail to take into account the larger social context of sexism and gender issues during conflicts with women (even if they are in a more powerful position at the time.)

...I don't allow women, or other men to be more powerful than me.

Reflections on my gender socialization:

I remember being 6 years old, standing on the playground next to another boy. "You're standing like a girl," he said. "Huh?" I responded. I looked down. My right foot was pointed forward, my left cocked to the side with my knee bent. "That's how girls stand. Boys stand with both their feet forward." He said it good-naturedly enough, clearly trying to help me out. And I looked around - he was right. I started standing "like a boy."

When I was 8 years old two male friends of mine and I experimented sexually with each other. As we walked back to our apartment complex one of them said, "I hope this doesn't mean we're gay." My stomach lurched. I was almost sure it meant we were gay, and I was terrified at the prospect. Two of my father's best friends were a gay couple. I'd never felt negatively towards gays, but I knew how other people felt about them. I was already made fun of a lot at school.

When I was 9 years old we moved and I went to a new school. "What do you do at recess here?" I asked one boy during my first recess there. At my previous school, with my old friends, we would bring various toys to school and play elaborate games around the roots of the giant trees bordering one side of the school field. "We play sports." "Is that it?" "Yeah." He said it like there wasn't anything else one would do. I started playing sports.

All through junior high it was all I could do to keep myself out of the way of the violent interactions of other boys in my school. Miraculously, I think by staying quiet, looking stoic, and simply being larger than most other kids, I never got beat up, but I watched quite a few boys who looked more nerdy and who had slighter frames become the focus of some very unpleasant attention.

Also in junior high was when I realized that I was suppose to be having sex. Or, at least, I was suppose to be talking about how I was having sex. And I wasn't suppose to be masturbating - that was bad, for some reason I never quite figured out.

When I was 18 years old a chiropractor pointed out how most men, myself included at the time, tend to walk like toy soldiers. He pointed out that twisting the lower back and swinging the hips as one walks is much better for the body. So he had me walk across the room and moved my hips for me as I walked. I continued practicing. I started receiving comments about how my gait appeared feminine or queer. But mostly these were actually said as compliments or appreciations, and I found myself beginning to feel my body more.

Thoughts on the creation of an empowered, non-misogynistic male identity:

Very early in life it was pointed out to me that neither did I want to conform to traditional male gender roles, nor did I want to embrace the wishy-washy, insecure version of masculinity (a SNAG, or sensitive new age guy) that formed in reaction to feminism (this approach has seemed satisfying to neither feminist women nor to the men trying to please them.) And I certainly didn't want to become an unintentional, confused mixture of the two, which is what I saw and continue to see in many men in alternative cultures. I wanted to be powerful, but not in a way that took power from or over others, and role models seemed to be in scarce supply.

How do I empower myself in a way that empowers others, and vice versa? I think most men have the idea that they're not suppose to be angry or aggressive. I think learning how to express those feelings in constructive ways (i.e. not at others, and not in ways that fuel resentment, bitterness or animosity) is important. But there's a deeper level. Taking the energy behind those emotions and expressing it in creative, passionate, positive ways that make the world a better place. And I'm not talking about the angry anarchist activist. I'm talking about having a vision of how you want the world to look, and how people behave and treat each other in that world, and living into it, making it happen by being it. This applies to a lot more than sexism or gender identity.

Recently Ivy asked me, "have you ever felt like you had to apologize for your maleness at Twin Oaks?" My first response was "no." Then I said, "I don't think I'm a good person to ask." Why? I've spent a lot of time feeling guilty about being a man in world where men commit so much violence towards women, as well as other men (yes, there are instances of violence and oppression by women towards men, but few in comparison to the reverse, and nothing as systemic and institutionalized over the course of millennia.) I've spent plenty of time fearing and hating myself and other men. No one could have made me feel worse about myself than I made myself feel. But I got through it. How? Basically I realized that feeling bad wasn't doing anyone any good. What I needed to do was acknowledge my behavior, determine how I wanted to do things differently, and persistently practice the new behavior. I've come along way, I know I'm doing my best, and I know I'm continually trying to do better. I feel good about who I am. I may do things that I see the need to apologize for, but I see no reason to apologize for who I am.

Men don't just oppress women. Men oppress other men. And the men who oppress other men were oppressed by other men. Many men are emotional cripples. Men are taught to hate and fear each other. Men are taught that they are only worth what they can accomplish and provide.

Many men are so starved for intimacy and connection. Men are taught that the only way to get intimacy is through sexual/romantic relationships with women. It's very easy for emotional dependency to develop, which can lead to obsessive/possessive behavior, resentment, domineering behavior, violence, etc.

If there is nothing else that's been important for me to learn on my path it's to have compassion for men, including myself. Men don't just victimize women and other men, they are victims of their own behavior. This doesn't mean they aren't responsible for their behavior - they most certainly are. They must muster the courage to face the oppressor within themselves, and the fear and pain that lies underneath. And they must do this with the support of other men. Women can help, but they cannot be expected to help nor can they really understand and be there for men in the way that other men can. Women figured this out decades ago. It's time for men to step up.

facing my weaknesses

2008-04-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

Ten days is a long time. It's a really long time. It's hard to realize just how long a time it is. Really, one day is a long time. An hour is a long time. A minute is a long time. A veritable eternity when you're doing nothing.

I just spent ten days doing another meditation course. 12 hrs of sitting meditation a day for 10 days. It's not exactly doing nothing. It's actually incredibly unpleasant a lot of the time. Somehow it's easier when it's unpleasant though. The meditation becomes more active and the time passes quicker. But I make it through one sit, and then come back for the next one, and I stand next to my cushions for a second and think to myself, "oh my god, I'm going to do this again? and again, and again and again..."

It's unpleasant, physically and mentally, though at a certain depth the distinction between the two completely breaks down. On my last course, after having sat through 4 other courses, my tail bone started hurting. I'd never had trouble with my tail bone. The back pain has never gone away, though on my fourth course I stopped having pains my legs. But those pains never really felt like they were really connected to my physical structure. They felt more like amorphous, fluctuating blobs, almost alive, like wriggling amoebas. But the pain in my tail bone felt "real," like something pressing hard against it. But if it was real why hadn't it come up till now? From the get-go on this course the pain in my tail bone was back. So on day 3 I went and talked to the assistant teacher about it. "It might be physical, and it might just be part of your mental reactions, it's hard to know," he said. "Experiment with it, try different positions, work with it, go back to the breath if you need to." It was reassuring to talk with him. And the next sit I had no pain in my tail bone. For the rest of the course it came up occasionally, sometimes strongly, sometimes less so, sometimes not at all. Weird.

I was wracked with anxiety for most of the first two and a half days of this course. I thought about Willow a lot during the day, and was haunted by dreams of him at night. I cried a lot. I was in a lot of pain and discomfort while sitting. My whole body ached and I just couldn't sit still. The usual thoughts ran through my head: "I can't do this." "There's something wrong with me." "I should be doing better than this."

Things improved after I talked with the assistant teacher. He encouraged me to change my posture more, and reassured me that as long as I was doing my best to continuously bring my attention back to my respiration and sensations I was doing my job. He encouraged me to notice, "oh, this is self-doubt, this is anxiety." "It's common for long-term students to sometimes think, oh it's my 10th course, or 15th course, or second long course, I should be further along." I felt better. Mostly I'd gone to him for reassurance and perspective anyway.

I felt very humbled. This was my 6th course. I generally think getting through one course is a miracle for anyone. But I still get caught in the "I should be doing better" thought pattern. This crazy part of me keeps thinking that I'm about to reach enlightenment, if only I can do a little better (and boy does the anxiety hit me when I think I'm failing.)

It's clear as ever that I've taken a mere few steps down a very, very, very long path. It was very obvious to me how weak minded and neurotic I am. Luckily I was seeing it with a deep sense of compassion.

In some ways I am a very open and expressive person. But I hold some tall, strong walls up around myself. I'm afraid that if people see me for who I really am they will run screaming. I hold myself apart from people. I'm afraid of them, that they'll think I'm weird, that they'll reject me. Sometimes I just hide. Sometimes I cover it up with arrogance and superiority. Oh, and I'm cocky. I'd gotten this feedback from a couple people recently and denied it. But no, they were right: "Oh yeah, this is my 6th course, I've got this meditation shit down, no problem." Hmm, right.

On day 3 of the course, once I calmed down I began to observe my mind more: oh, that's self-doubt. Oh, that's anxiety. Oh, that's a comparing thought, an evaluating thought, a judging thought. Wow, there was a lot of those last three! Clearer than ever I got to see how hyperactive my tendencies to judge, evaluate, and compare are, especially between myself and others, always trying to asses how I measure up to others.

I also recognized how cowardly and conflict-avoidant I can be. I thought about how I've spent the last 4 months avoiding communication with a good friend because I think he might be mad at me. I really have no idea whether he is or not, but I've been too afraid to ask and face it, and have spent months worrying about it.

It was powerful to face how fidgety I get, not just when meditating, but all the time, especially when I'm trying to sleep. I'm so afraid of pain and discomfort and will shift my body to avoid it before it's even started. And as usual I drove myself crazy with anticipation, constantly thinking, "oh my god, still X more days..." It didn't matter how close to the end I was. Hours away the anxiety was still there: "oh my god, I still have X more hours..."

But again, what was most striking to me about all this was looking at how much energy I spend trying to make myself seem like I'm fine, I've got it all together, no worries, no problems. I deny my weaknesses. I hide them. But boy are they ever there.

I need to practice being small and weak with people. Not in a way that obligates them to take care of me, but that inspires them to hold a space of love and compassion for me, and to allow themselves to be small and weak in turn. Well, I'll let this be a start, pretending like I'm not still hiding behind an electronic screen.

I am so confused and anxious right now. During the course I realized how unsure I still am about my decision to leave Twin Oaks and Willow. Now that the course is done I find myself terrified to spend time with people and tell them about what's going on. I don't want to face the grief, nor do I want to face the embarrassment and shame I feel about leaving Willow, and I especially don't want to face any judgement they might have towards me.

I have no idea how my absence is impacting Willow. His life at Twin Oaks is so rich and so full of people who love him. I'm sure he wants me there. Coming out of the course I had an email from him asking me when I was coming back (ouch.) But how strong is that desire, and how is it actually affecting him? I have no idea.

It's clear to me how much it's affecting me. There's something so unambiguously satisfying about caring for a child, having their trust and confidence. Being a good parent is undoubtedly important work to make the world a better place. Is there really anything more worthwhile? I think about things I'm missing watching him grow up. He's so cute and smart. Challenging myself to stay emotionally accessible and creatively engaged with him has been profound.

It's not just him pulling me back. It would be so much easier to go back to Twin Oaks. It's a big scary world out here, and that's a small, well known world, filled with people who love and appreciate me, where I can be a big fish. All my self-doubt and insecurity is tell me to go back.

I don't want to listen to my fears. Last fall I was so in touch with this exciting path and the opportunities for pursuing it. I'm not really in that place right now. I'm sure things will look and feel different once I've returned to Portland and spent some time re-exploring possibilities there.

At the same time, if what I want to do is make the best use of my life to make the world a better place, why do I think I will be any more successful in that in Portland than at Twin Oaks? Sure, the results will look different, but who am I to judge which would be better?

I don't know what will happen, but I know I need to be exploring this path. I refuse to live life wondering what I might have been able to accomplish or how it would have been if I'd only taken the chance. And I know I don't need to make a decision yet, but it's still torturing me right now. I'm tired of my life being up in the air. I'm tired of not being able to commit. I'm tired of making people wait and wonder what I'm going to do, tired of people not being able to count on me or invest in me. And I'm tired of the grief and fear.

At the end of the meditation course, after the vow of silence was over, I was telling a fellow student about my situation. "Wow, it must be nice to not have anything you have to do," he said. "Yeah," I said. "I just have my whole life to recreate." He laughed.

Only it's so much more complicated than that. Splitting my attention, however unevenly, across a continent doesn't strike me as simple or easy task. Can I do it? Can I handle being apart from Willow? Are my dreams and ambitious really possible? I have no idea, and so far each day post-meditation course has been another day of working to keep my head above the anxious sea.

At this point my inclination would be to put some kind of positive, philosophical spin on the whole thing. I'm going to refrain.

articulating the map

2007-12-09T22:13:00.000-08:00

(Note: This is an email I wrote to some of my new friends at Tryon. It does a good job of articulating and illustrating my current vision of how to fullfill what I am currently understanding to be my purpose in life. It's a bit rough, and all the terminology might not be totally self-explanatory, but I think you'll get the essence of the ideas and the excitment. Enjoy!)
...

Yesterday, as I transitioned from tryon/portland down to eugene my mind started attempting a synthesis of the ideas we've been talking about. I really like the mapping format I've been seeing y'all use. I'm going to go ahead and lay this out linearly right now though, recognizing the potential to reformat it. A'right, here's my understanding/reflection of the whole picture at this point...

Central goal: Supporting/facilitating/participating in the emergence of a "caring and sharing" socio-economic culture and infrastructure. This is happening on several levels. (For the fun of it, and for need of some method for distinction, I'm going to call the levels Mega, Midi, and Metta, which were the three age group identifications - oldest to youngest - used in the early Twin Oaks group care system. Is there a more appropriate/descript id system? I was thinking about using Mountains, Hills, and Valleys)

Mega/mountains level: These are people, groups and projects that are doing big-picture organizing, coordinating, networking, and support.

Cross polonators -
Collecting and sharing inspiring stories and ideas about best practices.
Helping groups and individuals feel a connection to the larger network and picture of what's going on.
Networking and facilitating all kinds of relationships (social, economic, material, etc.) between groups and individuals.

Anarchist HR collective(s) -
Services and trainings, manuals and development on cooperative/collective group dynamics and functioning, systems and structures (e.g. membership, labor, group decision-making, etc.), conflict resolution, developing good social ecology, etc.

(Does, or how does, coordinating/providing mental health services fit in with the HR collective idea? Another idea that I'm not sure quite where it fits is the idea of helping people "find their niche." If someone doesn't work out in one collective for logistical, interpersonal, or other reasons helping them find a group that they do fit in. And helping new-comers find the right place for themselves. Perhaps this relates to another idea, and is perhaps it's own whole area, which is the coordination of part-time labor between people who have money and want to support activists who need money.)

Financial and legal -
Collectives that offer services and trainings in these areas to cooperatives/collectives.

(Does Recode Portland fit under this, or is it a seperate project?)

(Another idea that may be at this level, or at the next level - Promotion/marketing collectives.)

(It occurs to me that as the network groups and strengthens it might be desirable to find an alternative way of dealing with "crime." I've read some interesting stuff on research being done into indigenous/tribal justice systems. It would be interesting to create a whole parallel judicial process so that we can deal with serious shit in an effective and compassionate way without having to rely on the police state.)

Midi/hills level: These groups have similar functions to mega level groups, but are more issue specific. (I don't have names to attach to all the activities that I think I've heard are happening, so I'm going to use generalized terms. Y'all can fill in what's actually happening.)

-Portland Collective Housing
-holistic healers network
-free/cheap food growing and distribution
-free/cheap clothing networks
-alternative/radical education institutions and networks
-arts and music support organizations
...

Metta/valleys level: All the groups and individuals who are doing the work on daily, personal levels to make up network/system, including mega and midi level groups. (Obviously with my limited experience with portland I have very little sense of the specifics here ;0)

Basic principles of this network - the values and ideals that help create a common bond, sense of purpose, and vision (this is not meant to be comprehensive, just a reflection of conversations I've been part of):

-autonomy and decentralization
-mutual support
-justice and sustainability (along all lines - social, economic, political, ecological, and spiritual)
-human relationships are the building blocks - institionalization and bureaucracy only as it serves this, the basic goal and is consistent with the other principles (can you tell I have some feelings here ;0)
-balancing specialization and stacking functions
-balancing the unique needs and culture of each group with an ethic of inclusiveness and accessibility

On a perhaps even larger level: Creating an comprehensive, user-friendly online system for accessing information on all of the above, all groups on all levels, services, products, events, etc. (I'm refering here to what Brush called "like craigslist only better.)

...I could fine-tune this more, but it seems like a good start and my time for the moment has run out and I want to get this out while it's still fresh to help keep me engaged with y'alls evolving process and efforts.

video games and playfighting

2007-12-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

(Note: This piece was written as an email to the community at Tryon Life Community Farm, the community in Portland I am exploring moving to, which I haven't sent yet and may not depending on input from a couple members with whom I have gotten close. I did a membership interview recently and brought up and dealt with concerns about Willow's video game and playfighting interests. Looking at the bright side, it was the only point of concern about my potentially joining the community.

I thought I'd post it because it illustrates some of my parenting attitudes and practices, as well as providing a sense of who Willow is as a developing person.)

...
I want to share some more thoughts and details regarding the concerns about the play-fighting and video games my son, Willow, engages in. I also want to reiterate some things from the interview I want to make sure were heard and take the opportunity to give a fuller picture of who Willow is.

I hope by addressing this I'm not making it a bigger deal than it is. I've never before experienced evaluation/judgment about Willow from people whose opinions I value. And when I say evaluation/judgement I don't think there was any negativity expressed - just authentic, reasonable concern. Still, it brought up a lot for me as a parent that I didn't expect. This was compounded by my general state of travel weariness (almost 3 months on the road) and my excitement about Tryon - without realizing it I'd started generating attachment to it working out for me join y'all.

I'm not thrilled with these aspects of his life. I'd prefer they were lessened, and have had to compromise with others and the culture he's been raised in. Now they are integrated aspects of his life and I feel some hopelessness about shifting that in a way that's not traumatic for him or our relationship. At times I struggle with trying to figure out how to engage him in ways that will feel compelling to both of us, and sometimes feel bad about my abilities as a parent when I can't (this was certainly part of what was triggered for me during the interview.) In the context of Twin Oaks I think my hopelessness may be justified. But a new context would provide a new opportunity, which I feel both scared and excited about.

Re: playfighting. I think some amount of this is normal and healthy. And I don't think he's outside of the norm for little boys, even in alternative cultures. I think most children are aware of their vulnerability and helplessness in the world and that playfighting for some is a way of exploring what it feels like to be powerful. He and I do some amount of wrestling/rough-housing, and I think it's good for him and our relationship for a number of reasons. We always establish ground rules before we start and almost always spend some time in mellow cuddling afterwards.

He likes to run around with make-shift caps and helmets, fighting invisible monsters and bad-guys with sticks for swords (I was told that Talon does this as well.) He playfights in this way with other kids and adults too. But he's very aware and respectful of boundaries. He knows (and remembers as much as one could expect from any 5 yr old) that there needs to be agreement with all involved before hand and that when someone says "no" or "stop" that needs to be respected immediately. He knows that some people are into playing this way and some are not. He knows that it's okay to do it in some spaces and not others.

He also likes to set up his Lego and Playmobile figures and have battles. I remember doing this as a kid and my father having a hard time with it at times. Ironically, and not surprisingly, Willow and I are replicating that dynamic. I know he likes it and try to engage in ways and to the extent I feel comfortable. I'll building him castles, and rather than having a throne room for a king I'll encourage having a hall for the wizards collective, which he's usually happy to go with. And rather than fighting battles I'll try to make up quests. But there are plenty of times when he just wants to playflight in traditional ways, by himself or with friends, and I give him the space to do this.

Again, he knows that it's okay to play those games in some places and not others and with some people and not others. He has always had regular caretakers who are unwilling to playfight in any way. They successfully engage him in arts and crafts, nature walks/planet identifying, "naming ceremonies," reading chapter books out loud, looking up stuff on wikipedia, etc. And as Willow gets older my co-parents and are starting to introduce more and more structured "learning time."

Part of why I accept the extent to which he engages in all this is that it's all in the realm of fantasy. He is a very sensitive and at times passive/submissive child. He's thoughtful and considerate towards others. The child rearing culture at Twin Oaks is definitely very adamant about non-violent conflict resolution and consistently works with kids to use their words, teaching them to negotiation and get help from adults before they get upset and lash out.

That said, there are certainly times when he will respond aggressively if he's feeling insecure or uncomfortable with how someones engaging with him. But it's obvious to me that this is a product of the gender socialization that creeps in to even progressive, alternative cultures. I think most people have a tendency, especially with little boys, to engage by tickling, poking, playfighting, or verbally teasing when we want to connect or show affection (I witnessed some amount of this towards Ember during my visit.) This is something I've worked hard to train myself out of. I think both myself and my co-dad have done a pretty good job of this and as a result Willow is a very sweet, cuddly, and affectionate kid. But of course some of it still filters through, from us and from others, and comes out in his behavior.

Re: video games, I don't think I'd be willing to do an outright prohibition. As was noted in my interview, we all have our vices, and it would seem hypocritical to me to do so. I'm certainly happy to limit it to private space, with either zero volume or headphones. Also, parenting standards at Twin Oaks vary significantly. He would totally understand if I told him that other families didn't want exposure to video games. He would happily keep it to himself and not engage other kids with it.

As I mentioned, the current rule is 2 hrs a day. I'm open to reducing that, but it would need to be gradual, especially as he transitions, even just for visits, into a whole knew community. And I would certainly look for support in engaging him in alternative activities during that process. I'd also be happy to limit the kinds of games and movies he plays/watches (his favorite game for a long time has been Civilization, which actually has strong educational potential that I engage him around.)

In the end, I would welcome the opportunity to live in a community that holds "higher" standards around limiting this kind of stuff. I think it would be important for the community to support both of us in the retraining/transitioning process, and that he be allowed a reasonable amount of freedom to be who he is and have personal interests. As mentioned, I did plenty of playfighting and video games as a kid. I don't think it was of great detriment (I'm not a thug or a war-monger, nor am I ambitionless and uncreative, etc.) but I definitely think I would be a more creative and resourceful person had I spent my time in more constructive ways. And, whatever I had absorbed from society that compelled me towards those activities as a child, I naturally worked through it and eventually grew out of it. I'm confident that the same will be true for Willow.

I also want to reiterate that I understand and respect the concerns. I expected it, which is why I brought it up, so that it could be addressed early in the process. After the interview I told Willow's mother, Hawina, about all this. She's similarly sub-thrilled with how much time Willow spends at these activities but also feels some hopelessness around it. She noted, recognizing the irony, that if someone with a child who played video games and liked playfighting was applying for membership at Twin Oaks she'd have concerns too.

I realize that what is needed in this situation is for y'all to get a chance to meet him, which I hope to set up for next spring. Again, I'm both scared and excited for this. It will be a new and challenging experience for both of us in many ways. I think my interest in addressing this more in advance is to make sure that everyone has a sense of him as a complex, unique person and to be open to seeing him for all of who he is when he visits.

my impression of Portland night clubs

2007-12-02T03:15:00.000-08:00

I've been out dancing the last three nights in a row (in fact, it's quarter after 3am and I just got back from an amazing afro-beat show - ah, the benefits of city life.) Three things impress me the most.

1. In all three clubs there were big coolers of water with plenty of cups available for free.

2. In all three there was pretty much no dress code, which meant I could walk in with sandles, and in two out of three it was perfectly safe and acceptable to dance barefoot. (My second night out I was very happy to have had my boots on when some very nice and very high party goer dropped a glass at my feet.)

3. And best of all, I was definitely not the only stinky hippy in any of the three places!

the temptation increases

2007-12-02T02:53:00.000-08:00

I've been at Tryon Life Community Farm for almost a week. There are lots of reasons why I'm really excited about the place. Last night at dinner 3 things happened that struck me as perfect illustrations of the beauty of this community.

1. During dinner one member was trying to engage another in a somewhat logistical conversation. In a halting, emotional voice the person indicated that they weren't up for the conversation. All other talk died down and everyone gave their attention. She said, "well, there's something really affecting me right now so I think I should just speak it into the space. This is the anniversary of the death of someone who was incredibly important to me. " Those close to her reached out to touch her shoulder or put a hand on her back. Others offered words of empathy and support. That there was such immediately available space and support from the entire group for a member of the community to express difficult and intense emotions was amazing.

2. As dinner wound down one person started using their utensils, plate, and glass as instruments. Another person or two quickly joined. Within a minute the entire group of us were tapping, banging, and stomping away at in improvisational percussive jam for about 10 minutes.

3. After dinner, about 5 of us plopped down on the long couch next to the big round dinner table and enjoyed a pleasant, decompressing, post-meal cuddle.

These are not atypical events.

Today I was talking with a couple members who both noted how little time people here spend in non-productive speech (i.e. not gossiping, back-biting, etc.) and how well communication flows. I'm totally smitten. It helps of course that everyone I've connected much with is very excited about the possibility of me living here. It's very easy to see how much I could offer and how well I'd fit in with the mix of personalities, interests, and activities.

Not that this will really make the decision I ultimately have to make any easier. In some ways it'll just make it harder. Still, it's nice to feel like my biggest problem is choosing between really great options for what to do with my life.

applied morality

2007-11-23T16:55:00.000-08:00

(Note: I have to credit the inspiration for this piece to some extent on the article "The Cellular Church" by Malcom Gladwell, which I highly recommend.)

Somewhere along the line I became a highly moralled person. Despite a previously held position of moral relativism I've found that I have very clear ideas about right and wrong, good and bad, even if those ideas are firmly rooted in meta-ethical questions and value pluralism (I love wikipedia). I'm still trying to understand how this happened.

I had a relatively counter-culture upbringing with parents who were both psychologists. I think this fostered in me a relatively high level of self-awareness and emotional sensitivity. I was also instilled with a belief in impending doom regarding the state of civilization, and a strong sense of responsibility and obligation to "save the world." Growing up, I experienced a strong feeling of alienation and isolation, and a predominant experience of ridicule and ostracization

I identified my unhappiness and discontent with myself and life early on. I have maintained an intensive focus on personal growth since I was a teenager. Parallel to this has been a near constant evaluation of "what I'm doing with me life" to see if I am making the world a better place as efficiently and effectively as possible. However, I consider any pretense of selflessness or altruism therein to be highly dubious. I believe it is crucial to accept of my own selfishness as a, if not the primary motivator in my life if I am to make any kind of meaningful attempt to act beyond it.

I was about 20 years old when Paxus introduced to the concept enlightened self-interest. This lead my thought-process down the path of considering my own happiness and well-being to be inextricably linked with that of others and the world as a whole. As a child of behaviorism my psyche has been well trained to make deals. So, I say to my selfishness, I'll indulge you as long as the choices I make are also good for others. Deal.

But if there's one thing I've learned in the exploration of the psycho-somatic phenomenon it is to never underestimate the capacity of the mind to deceive itself. I've often pondered the irony that it is incredibly difficult for most of us to do what is good for ourselves, let alone good for others. This has called me to focus on practices that promote my ability to both observe myself as objectively as possible and accept with love and compassion whatever it is I see. Again, I have found that it is this process of accepting-what-is to be crucial in any meaningful attempt to act outside of behavior patterns that are destructive to myself and/or others.

Now, allow me to explicitly illuminate the basics of my morality. Much of what I am about to write has been borrowed heavily or outright stolen from what I have read and heard from others. I believe good and bad are ways of describing actions rather than inherent qualities. Good and bad exist in the realm of "doing" not "being." Of course, it is our actions, or our doing, that defines us, but given the passing of time and the evolving nature of reality that definition is constantly subject to change.

What is good and bad? I want to live a happy and peaceful life. I want to do things that make me happy, and I want others to do things that make me happy. I don't want people to do things that make me unhappy. I don't think I'm alone in this. So, if there's something I want/don't want done to me, then I should/shouldn't do that to others. It follows thus that a good action is one that helps or supports others, while a bad action is one that hurts or harms others.

This view sees our interactions with each other at the core of our experience of being human. It holds our actions as infinitely inter-related, taking seriously the expression "what goes around, comes around." It is core to our self-interest to do good for others. It also holds morality as meaningful only to the extent that it has practical application to one's lifestyle choices.

Of course, the devil is in the details. How do we know what is really good for others? Given the deviousness nature of our minds, how can we be sure that we are not acting in purely self-serving and self-destructive ways? I have come to firmly believe in the necessity of practices of contemplation and self-observation. It is in being with ourselves in stillness and silence that we have any hope of being able to see the truth within ourselves and how that truth manifests in the world around us.

Any of us are just taking baby-steps in this process, so guidelines that have been established by cultural traditions can be useful. The 8 fold path described by Buddhism works well for me. The Ten Commandments may work well for others. Ultimately I think any of these systems of morality need to be checked against each other to discover a universal or pan-secular definition. And, ultimately, I believe the purpose of these systems, and of morality itself, is to have the motivation for one's actions based more and more on making the world a better place to live for all.

I've met few individuals who have seriously explored these issues outside of the context of organized religion. But really, I've met few individuals who have seriously explored these issues inside the context of organized religion as well. This baffles me. I have found few people who seem to think that society is on the right track. It would seem that as civilization delves further and further into crisis more and more people would be thrown into their own moral and existential crisis'. I know I'm impatient. I believe the faster we wake up and face the misery and destruction we're creating, for ourselves and others, the quicker we will be able to turn things around, averting even more suffering. I want more allies in pushing this process forward.

In my travels lately, as I ponder the potential activities of the next phase of my life, the phrase "for the good of others" constantly bounces around my head. It has pushed my thinking towards the consideration of basic human needs, including food, clothing, shelter, and health. And it has pushed my thinking further and further away from institutional organization and theoretical ideology, except to the extent that it has pragmatic application to serving the good of others. Organizational structures, theories and ideologies, should only exist to the extent that they improve people's lives, and must be constantly subject to re-evaluation, change, and dissolution. If this not the case it is an invitation to oppression an unsustainable forms of human society. The benefits of any social system must be obvious. One should not have to understand the system to see the benefit. Nor should one should not have to buy in to any belief system other then that of making the world a better place for all and in acting for the good of others. But the system should also be easy to replicate or emulate, making it easier and easier for more and more people to make the world a better place.

I'm making a big leap of faith here. I believe that people have an inherent desire to improve the conditions of their lives. The reason people are so apathetic, complacent and lazy is because of how controlled they are by the current institutional structure of society, a structure that fosters isolation and alienation on all levels for the benefit of few over many. My hope is that the opportunity to meet basic needs and improve the conditions of one's life outside of this system of control and inequity is the spark that will ignite people's passion to make the world a better place for all.

Manifesting this vision, or something along these lines, is what I'm ready to give myself over to, in the way it seems people talk about giving themselves over to god or a higher spiritual purpose. I can only conceive of it in concrete, worldly concepts, but I increasingly feel a fervent sense of urgency that reminds me of religious fanatics.

This is my understanding of applied morality. Every day I recognize the ways in which I am living an unmoral life, every time I use nonrenewable sources of energy, every time I take in food or drink that is unhealthy for my body, every time I treat another person with negativity, every time I waste time on computer games or other escapism, every time I allow fear to inhibit my self-expression. So I keep facing this, the impacts, physically and emotionally, on myself and on others. I keep meditating, facing the pain and suffering inside myself. I keep developing my understanding of what the right thing to do is. I keep developing my will to do what I believe is right. And, the nice thing is that the further down this path I go I am finding that I have no choice but to keep going.

the feeling of family

2007-11-22T18:18:00.000-08:00

I'd always thought I would have a child or two, eventually, maybe after I'm 30. Then Hawina wanted to get pregnant. She'd always wanted to, and at 38 years old she hit the now-or-never point. I wasn't ready to be a committed co-parent. Pax wasn't taken by the idea either. But as Hawina started thinking it wasn't going to happen, Pax reconsidered. At 47, he thought, there's not likely to be anyone else I would consider doing this with, so if it's now-or-never for her, it's the same for me. He changed his mind and agreed to co-parent with her.

At that point I could see being involved. I thought, having a child means being tied to your co-parent (or co-parents in this case) for a long time, possibly the rest of your life. I could see wanting to be connected with Pax and Hawina for the rest of my life. Much complex negotiation ensued; in the end we agreed to get pregnant together. But we didn't really grasp or consider the implacations of what that meant for our relationships.

Several months into the pregnancy I remember driving with Pax and Hawina to a small gathering of Hawina's pagan women's group plus partners. A question had been on my mind, which I decided to broach: what are we doing anyway? People had already started calling us the "Willow family." Were we really a family? Or were we just collection of committed caregivers? We stopped at a gas station, bought some tortilla chips and salsa, and spent a little while talking about it. Funny, I don't remember anything we said, but I know it was inconclusive and I felt unsettled. If we were going to be a family I wanted more of a sense of definition for what we were creating. I wanted to know what I could expect.

Wait a minute - Sky, defining family? Why would you need to create definition? What do you mean, what can I expect? A family is a family.

Well, okay, but what does that mean? I didn't have a strong experience of family growing up. Spread up and down California, family gatherings were occassional and didn't allow for much building of relationships. It seemed like each nuclear family was pretty much on their own. Occassionally Jay, Dale, and I lived in the same city as another nucleous, but the sense of seperation never left me. As members of the elder generations died and us kids of grown up, and spread ourselves even further then California, things have seemed to get even more tenuous (until recently.) I wonder if this is part of my attraction to intentional community, seeking out a sense of broader connection and relationship then I got growing up.

After Willow was born Pax, Hawina, and I were joined by Anissa and we created the Star Family. It was exciting. We were creating a new kind of family, based on mutual affinity and lifestyle choices, as well as love and passion. But our process of defining family was incomplete, and we underestimated the time and energy it took to manage such a complex set of relationships. Expectations varied, personalities came into conflict, upsets built up, and ultimately things fell apart. At times I even regreted tieing myself to them (though, paradoxically, I've never regreted having Willow.) After Anissa left the family I was adamant: I didn't want to be the "Star family minus Anissa." I didn't even want to identify as a family.

The crash became clear during our Europe travels in '04. We were in Amsterdam, on the rooftop of the big, family-oriented science museum which hosted a terraced water park, complete with waterfalls and sandbanks. As Willow splashed around we addressed the question again: what are we doing anyway? I proposed that we make a distinction between our personal relationships with each other and our relationship as co-parents, holding the latter as almost business-like in nature. Okay, we said, what are our committments to each other as co-parents? In a nutshell: We agreed that we were collectively responsible for meeting Willow's needs. We agreed that we wouldn't involve him or use him in any personal conflicts between us.

That was the last time I was feeling dissatisfied with Twin oaks and considering leaving. Anissa and I hadn't totally fallen apart yet. I was seriously, though naively, considering leaving with her. I ended up back at Twin Oaks. 2 years later I started warming back up to the idea of being a family. People had naturally started calling us the Willow family again. On a trip to the West Coast last March, Pax, Hawina and I agreed to be the Star family again.

What changed? Why was I comfortable with the idea of family after having been so uncomfortable with it? Family was no longer a visionary concept. It was a practical reality that we'd been living for over 5 years. Beneath the turmoil a basic committment to supporting each other and working things out had persisted. After everything we'd been through family was the only label that made any sense.

It seems for many people family means obligation and resentment. It seems to involve frustrating dynamics and permission to treat each other badly. We've certainly had our share of this, but we strive to work past that stuff. It seems the more dependent, commited, and/or attached to someone you the more likely you are to want them to change. To me family has become about learning to accept people for who they are. But it's also about supporting each other to become more of who we want to be. Part of why I chose to be family with Pax and Hawina is that we share a commitment to bettering ourselves and allowing oursevles to be challenged by each other.

Hawina and I "broke up" last May. But the break up was only of a part of our relationship, not the whole thing. Through the whole process I never doubted the solidity of our relationship as co-parents. And I was committed to maintaining a close friendship. But just calling it a friendship didn't feel like enough. I found in myself a sense of caring and commitment, combined with a deep sense of love and appreciation, which didn't fit that label. We'd already started calling ourselves a family again, and that felt right, but now I was starting to clearly identify the feeling of family.

Hawina and my sexual relationship had been small for years, and it'd been longer since we'd related romantically. I had this sense that ending these parts of our relationship wasn't really a big deal. I knew it would feel like a big deal but that the bulk of our relationship lay in co-parenting and in our bond as family.

It did feel like a big deal, and it didn't help that my relationship with Kassia acted as a catalyst. It simply added more confusion and conflict, distracting Hawina and I from dealing directly with the reality of our relationship. But we made it through.

During the process I got scared. I was afraid that Hawina and Pax would take me less seriously as a member of the family and maybe even push me out , especially given my plans to explore leaving Twin Oaks. As Hawina and I resolved things I asked her about this, and she flatly dismissed it. You're Willow's father, she said, of course you're part of the family. She also made it clear that she had no interest in me leaving.

I expressed this fear to Pax more recently, as part of a larger dialog on our relationship. This is what I wrote to him:

"I feel a deep, strong bond with you and hawina because of the journey we've shared. It is with the two of you, and willow, that I feel like I have really come to understand what it means to be in family. I feel a fundamental sense of connection and committment to you, a bond that I can feel much more then I can conceptualize. It relates back to the commitments we made as co-parents, but it's the energy beneath the words, the labels, the concepts that's really important. I assume that I will maintain our relationship, and not necessarily with any particular frequency of contact or shared activities, but by simply holding space in my heart for you. Many of the people that I consider family are some of the people that I can see after minimal contact for months, or even years, and we just pick up where we left off. Despite the struggles and stumbles, I feel that with you. So, perhaps my question is, do you share that experience with me?"

Recently, as we worked through various issues, he cleared a resentment he had with me around money. There were a couple times over the last year that I'd given him a hard time about money, including a recent incident around money he'd promised me to help me with my current travels. Given my behavior he'd been feeling hesitancy around supporting me financially, which felt bad to him and wasn't what he wanted to do. It was pretty easy for me to see and acknowledge that I'd been a jerk. He talked about how important it is to him to not stress about money, especially with me. He feels as family a self-imposed responsibility to support me financially, as well as in holding down the fort with Willow and Hawina, in trying to figure what I'm doing with my life. And despite the fact that it doesn't look like the whole family is going to move anytime soon he also expressed vicariously enjoying the exploration of considering other interesting places and people to live with. The message couldn't have been much clearer; I had my answer.

Now I feel like I both understand family and know what family feels like, and an interesting thing has happened. I started this blog and got more active with online social networking, and all of a sudden I am in better touch with several members of my biological family than I've been in years. It feels good. We may not see each other any more often or have anything more to do with each others lives then before. But now I actually feel like I'm in family with them, simply by having little glimpses into their lives, and knowing I can get in touch with them easily at any time.

Maybe this feeling of family has always been there and I just didn't know how to recognize it. Either way, having recognized it and knowing how to nurture it, I don't think I will ever feel alone in the world again.

the miracle of mass transit

2007-11-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

After a two week sojourn to the east coast the west wind has returned me to sunny california. The fact that it took me less then one day to more then traverse the continent using multiple modes of mass transit strikes me as something of a miracle.

At 9:45am (eastern time) I started in rural Conneticut. Kassia drove me a half-hour to the train station. 2 hours and 2 trains later I arrived in Grand Central Station, where I entered the NYC underground. 3 transfers and 1 hour later I boarded the Airtrain for the JFK International Airport. After obtaining my boarding pass I took a shuttle to my terminal. I then had enough time for lunch and my afternoon meditation sitting before my 4:45pm flight, non-stop to Oakland, CA. 6.5 hours and 3 time zones later it was about 8:15pm (pacific time - 11:15pm according to my body) I stepped out of the monkey-guided missile into a considerably warmer climate.

Kassia called as I walked through the terminal; we marveled together that just hours before we were in the same place - now we were on the opposite sides of the continent. I bought a piece of pizza and called Julie, Amtraks automated agent, to check on the status of the notoriously late Coast Starlight train service. This was the big unknown of my day. The train was scheduled to depart at 9:45pm, getting me into Chico at about 2am, but I knew it could easily be hours late and that crashing in the Bay Area overnight might be preferable to waiting in a train station until the middle of the night. But I had not contacted any friends ahead of time and had no idea if there were any easy options. As it was, the train was running about 1 hr and 45 min late. Knowing it could still end up being even more behind I decided to bit the bullet and go for it.

From the Oakland Airport I took the AirBART to the nearby BART station. Two stops up the BART line I emerged and considered whether to walk or cab the 12 blocks to the Amtrak station. I decided to walk and was really glad I did. The evening was crisp, and a nice walk after 6 hours on a plane was a welcome relief.

At about 9:30pm (12:30am eastern time) I walked into the Amtrak station and purchased my ticket. As usual, I received the standard amused expressions of the agent upon reading my drivers license. Providing a small amount of variation and comic relief to what I imagine to be an incredibly inane and mundane job feels good. At 11:09am the train rolled into the station, slightly ahead of Julie's prediction.

About 4 hours later, approaching Chico, a friendly conductor gently shook my shoulder and whispered "Chico, next stop." I took a deep breath and snapped myself to attention. After gathering my belongings I called Dale for the pickup. I feel very appreciative of his willingness to be woken up to do a late night pickup. Finally, at about 4am we walked into his house and I collapsed into bed.

This experience is not unique in my life these days, but it was extreme.

Travel time: ~21.5 hrs.
Number of individual "rides": 15
Number of miles traveled: ~3150
Total $$ cost: ~266
Gallons of petrochemicals burned: I don't want to think about it.

As I write all this out the extravagance of the endeavor gives me pause: Thinking about the various costs involved (money, fuel, time, personal stress, etc.) I have to ask myself, is this justifiable? Is what I'm doing really so important? I don't think there's a simple answer to that question. I simply have to take it as my job to make it serve as good a purpose as I can. At this point I think that purpose is to absorb all these experiences, think and feel into them as deeply as possible, and share about them as openly as possible. Thanks for helping me do that.

portland redeemed

2007-11-04T20:19:00.000-08:00

It was my last day in Portland and I didn't know how I was leaving. Craigslist had come up empty for a ride further south then Eugene, and even none of those posts were responding to emails or calls. I had a ride from Eugene to Chico if I could make it there by 10am. It became clear that hitching was my best bet, which I'd never done under a deadline. But this post is not about that adventure. It's about how that adventure led me through Tryon Life Community Farm and what I found there.

I'd heard about Tryon last december. In a chance meeting, whose synchronistic elements are only now unfolding, I ran into Jenny, an ex Twin Oaks visitor from 2001. She was acting as a sort of resident consultant for a co-op in Boston. Kassia and I were crashing there over night on the way to a meditation retreat.

It was an exciting reunion. I gave her 5 years of gossip on Twin Oaks; she told me a little about Tryon, a permaculture demonstration community on 7 acres in Portland next to a state park. Well, I'll be out there next fall, I said, so I'll be sure to come by. Jenny said she was about to embark on major world travels, and it wasn't clear she'd be back by then but I should definitely come see the place.

About 8 days ago, after arriving in Portland, I mentioned to Sabrina, my host in Portland, that I wanted to check the place out. She knew about it but had never visited. We drove to southwest Portland for their Friday "open-to-the-public" hrs and a self-guided tour.

The place is lovely. It is actually bordered on 3 sides by Tryon State Park, and several of the 7 acres are still wild. The other border is a low traffic residential street. Two large community buildings and various smaller structures are clustered on one end of the property. I learned that this was one of the sites for the City Repair Village-Building Convergence. The tell tail sign of highly creative cob siding were everywhere. We saw a family of goats gradually devouring the massive blackberry thickets. Most of the rest of the open space is devoted to gardening.

A wonderfully warm and enthusiastic new member named Laura answered a few questions as best she could. I found that Jenny had indeed returned. Excited, I left her a note, which it turns out she never got, but it didn't matter.

Saturday night was Howl, City Repairs annual Halloween benefit bash. It was an amazing party, with four stages and about 1000 people. Sabrina, a Burning Man enthusiast, hooked me up with costume materials. I was a disco unicorn ;0) With my sequined horn and sparkling blue sunglasses it was impossible to miss me. First I ran into Laura, then Jenny, and we discovered the miscommunication. But then, email addresses properly exchanged, we proceeded to party till dawn.

Jenny's a busy organizer, and after two emails it wasn't until my last day that she called me. "Why don't you come over for dinner," she said. "Well, I might be hitching, and I'll be hitching south, so could I just crash there and get a ride to the interstate in the morning?" "Sure, no problem!"

I threw my crap together and made the last bus out to the farm, but the driver had no idea what stop I was talking about. Luckily a fellow passenger knew. "I saw someone else with a big backpack get off at that stop, and I visited the farm once," she told me. Another example of the renowned friendliness of Oregon. I arrived to a supper of quinoa, stirfry, and marinated tempeh - solid commune fare - and a half dozen warm faces. Over half of the members (there are 17 adults and 5 kids) were out at Halloween parties or tricker-treating, but those present gave me enough to talk about.

Jenny told me the story of the creation of the community: The couple who'd owned the place had wanted to turn it into a yoga retreat center - that explained why the two buildings were so community oriented. But their relationship fell apart and the dream was never realized. Groups of people, many students, rented the place over the years, and no matter who lived there it seemed that the place had a magic to it. Parties there are apparently legendary, and a vast network of people can claim connection of some kind.

3 years ago the couple decided to sell. They sold the purchase option to a big development company, who planned 13 luxury homes. That's when the fun started. A number of the residents wanted to fight the development. Those that didn't moved out, and were replaced by activists, and the vision of the land as a permaculture and sustainable living demonstration and education center was born. They appealed to the couple to reconsider, but to no avail.

Facing eviction, the first thing the residents did was to mobilize a grassroots effort to put pressure on the developer. Their efforts paid off and after a couple months the developer agreed to sell them the purchase option for the price they paid plus expenses - a total of almost $200,000. The residents had just 4 months to raise this, and they pulled it off. They then had 10 months to raise the $800,000 needed for the down payment, and they pulled it off.

Jenny described to me one of the most impressive grassroots efforts I've ever heard about. They covered every avenue possible, local government, media, schools and other institutions, canvasing, and simply following up on every possible lead that came to their attention. But what really caught me was that in addition to incredible intelligence and organizing skills, the relationships were well tended. There was clearly so much heart and soul that went into the effort - I could still feel it sitting in the room, talking to them. And, in addition to that, the vision was solid, and they held it in the forefront of everything they did. Having finally won the land, the residents don't think of the land as theirs. They consider themselves stewards, continually working to actualize the vision that enabled them to save the land from development.

It's an exciting time and they are just starting to figure out their communal systems and structures. I shared my thoughts on membership and labor system structures, and found them to have an amazingly keen sense of the issues. Not only are these folx incredible activists, but they are essentially community minded.

Jenny and I talked about relationships too, including our experiences with polyamory. She talked about being new to the world of sex and romance, and having a very pragmatic approach to her passion. "I love kissing my friends, If I'm going to be sexual with someone it's because it will deepen our relationship as commrads. It's the work that comes first." Right on. I wish I could say I was so unaddicted to lust.

And then came the biggest revelation. I've been writing and talking about what I want to do a lot. Summed up, I want to help build a network of groups for the purpose of mutual support to help people get their basic needs met outside the money economy. All of a sudden I hear Jenny and Brush, another founder, articulating this vision, with the intent of utilizing all the connections they'd made in saving the farm. "All eyes are on Portland right now," said Brush. "There's all sorts of national media attention on Portland as a cutting edge green city, on it's arts and music culture... The city knows that it's because of all the young radicals, but it's not sure what to do with them." "It's all about weaving and stacking," said Jenny. "Stacking functions. It's a permaculture idea. It means that every part of a system should serve as many purposes and support as many other parts of the system as possible." So, the idea is, apply this principle to all the cool, progressive organizations doing good things to help provide social services.

I showed them some of my writing. "Yeah, exactly!" said Brush. I felt euphoric. I'd imagined that if I started this work I would be holding the vision solo for a while, until I gained enough momentum to inspire others. But here are people who are already coming together around the same vision. "We just need a few more people to have a critical mass of organizing energy so we can blow this wide open," exclaimed Jenny.

When Pax, Hawina and I decided to get pregnant we recognized that I was in a different place in my life. When Willow was born, Hawina was 39, Pax 47, and I was 21. We imagined that I might need to go off at some point to do something else, perhaps join the circus. So we established the Circus Claus.

Has my circus come to town? I don't know. But I'm intensely intrigued. This is the first time I have come across an opportunity so compelling that I could actually see moving away from Willow. It's also a place I could easily see Willow moving to, and Pax and Hawina, though I'm trying hard to hold back from that fantasy.

As I write this I am on a train, rolling through the wetlands where the Sacramento river meets the San Fransisco bay, heading towards the Oakland airport and back to Twin Oaks. My physical health has been failing the last few days, and my emotional health feels on edge too. Phase 1A of my exploration is coming to a close. I'm tired. I'm full. But I feel satisfied - mission accomplished.

a letter to a dear friend

2007-11-04T13:38:00.001-08:00

"It would baffle me to hear that you don't love yourself, because I love you so much, and it would pain me to hear that you hate yourself, but I know that experience all too well. So I simply, silently nod my head with sorrowful compassion.

I feel protective of you, and, therefor, angry at him. What a fool! Who does he think he is?! He clearly doesn't deserve you. But, again, I know that karmic dance all too well. Be careful of what you will put yourself through out of self-loathing.

When she broke my trust, and then again, and then again, I was too attached to let go. But ultimatley that's what it took. It didn't necessarily mean "breaking up" with her. I had to abandon trust, I had to abandon all my expectations of her. I had to take my heart back. At some point it had just been cut and bruised too many times and it happened involuntarily.

It helped that I'd had my heart broken before. I knew that I didn't really need her, that I would be fine without her. Still, it took longer then it should have. I wrestled over and over again with wanting her to somehow repay me for what she'd done, to make up for it, or at least to be solid with me now. But it wasn't where she was at, and it was never enough.

Eventually, I truely opened myself to the possibility a life without her. I didn't break up with her, but I began to take the space, physically and emotionally, when I needed it, to take care of myself, to reorient myself to being alone and not in a partnership. As I was getting there, one day I snapped and blew up at her: "I'm sick of giving so much to this relationship and getting nothing back!" I yelled. It was the final death-throws of my attachment to her being a certain way for me.

It was a wake up call for her. She knew that I had let go, that I couldn't take much more and was ready to break up with her. That's when she shifted. Having exhausted her whims and her self-sabotaging behavior, having gone through so much together, facing actually, finally losing me, she made up her mind.

She knew she couldn't ask for my heart back. I said to her, you can ask for my heart back when you are so sure that when you ask it will be obvious to both of us that I can trust you again, not before. No, she said, I'm not going to ask, I'm just going to show you. She said, I am going to hold the vision of who I want to be and what I want us to be and live into that, and I don't expect you to trust me or believe me. Yes, I said, I don't trust you, and I don't believe you - this sounds too much like what you've said before - but I will stay with you and allow for the possibility.

Gradually my trust is rebuilding, as time passes and she remains solid. But I firmly believe that the only way for this new foundation to be strong was for me to totally obliterated the ruins of the old. A foundation built on the debris of resentment, frustration, and mistrust will eventually crack, history will repeat itself, and the tower will crumble once again.

This was the steps of our dance, to the music of our karma (and realize that I have left out many details.) It seems we have managed to take the needle of the record skipping.

What is your dance, to what tune? What do you need to let go of, give up, sweep away, destroy, such that both of you are free to make a different choice? What shift must you make in yourself that will give him room to shift? Realize the risk: the shift you each make may be away from eachother, not towards. You cannot do it for that purpose - not for another, only for yourself, only for the purpose of following your path more truely. Then, if he shifts too, it will be for himself, and if you shift towards each other, then it will be like falling in love all over again."

a pragmatic approach

2007-10-30T22:23:00.000-07:00

Historically, I have been among the intuitively impared. My linear, rational, analytical abilities have tended to dominate my psyche. I have often ignored my perceptive abilities out of my compulsion to take reality, esp. people, "at face value." No wonder my girlfriends are generally intuitive, non-linear thinkers, well versed in a spontaneous approach to life.

Increasingly, I am learning to place my hyperactive brain on the shelf, to look within and simply see, without needing to explain or figure out. And, interestingly enough, this has expanded my capacity for reason. My scope is broader, my ability distinguish is sharper, and the peace in my being has become predominant.

My mind is more and more a tool at my disposal rather than then the holder of the reigns. Now, I am applying it to my current predicament of searching for a new home, and my critical faculties are in full swing. In case you live in one of these places, forgive me. I am not trying to be balanced in my assesment. But know that I have had a wonderful time with wonderful people in these truely remarkable cities (the only three in the world I'm considering, in fact! ;0)

I have come up with a one word summary for each:

Chico - comfort

Eugene - apathy

Portland - hedonism

Chico is beautiful. The downtown is warm and welcoming and Bidwell park (the nations 18th largest city park in a city that doesn't even rank in the biggest 300 cities) cuts all the way to it's edge. The neighborhoods surrounding downtown are full of small streets, and cute little houses. But despite a majority of greens and progressives on the Chico city council for most of the last ten years suburban development continues rapidly. Still, there is an enforced tree ordinance (developers must leave a certain number of trees per acerage.) There is a strong anit-war/peace and justice movement, and there is a strong sense of community, in the broader sense. But there are only two place-based, residental communities, plus a number of "hippie flophouses." Energy for change is high, and there is liberally minded affluence to support it. But affluence is dangerous - I doubt many people would actually be willing to make significant changes to their lifestyle.

Eugene has a strong sense of mutual support. My guess is that the cities urban food production per capita is one of the highest in the nation. Affluence is low - you could probably call the area economically depressed. But this is by choice for many. There is a strong "make-do with less" sensability out of a desire to escape the rat race and live more sustainably. Were I to seriously predict a major collapse of western civilization in the coming years, Eugene is probably the place I would go. I think people would come together really fast. The potential to create a strong network of mutual support and social welfare is striking. Yet without external motivation people seem content to focus on their particular interests and their particular social scene. Somehow the benefits of increased integration seem recognized yet not worth it. I wonder how possible it would be to galvanize people.

If I decided I could take living in a big city, Portland would be it. It is home of City Repair, an organization focused on humanizing the public urban environment. Tryon Life Community Farm offers a rural, communal living option within the city limits. Love Tribe creates community-based, touch-positive events. Alternative building is apparently big business here for new houses and renovations. Music and art is a big deal. But it's a city, and most people seem primarily focused on living their hip, groovy, individual lifestyles. If that includes being eco and community oriented, cool, but that's more a byproduct then a fundamental driver. Diversity is strong, but so is gentrification. It's just big (and it's not even that big comparatively)! A single person or organization could only have so much influence, and the architecture of a large city means to much diffusion to allow those influences to generate collective momentum.

I've reached the obvious conclusion - no where is perfect, and if I decide to move to one of these cities the choice of which (and the choice of this region in the first place) will be largely arbitrary. It will be, at best, an informed guess as to what would be the "best place for me to be," if such a thing exists.

Well, so much for reason. At least I'm enjoying the process...

how long can I keep this up?

2007-10-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

It's wearing on me, this constant absorption of new information and constant querying into the depths of my destiny.

How many coffee shops, and cups of coffee have swirled in and around me? How many wireless routers have carried my musings? My only consistent companion in this time is my laptop. I feed it energy, it feeds me music, it facilitates my multifarious long-distance relationships, I lovingly carry it nearly constantly. I have joined the online community. Myspace, Facebook, Tribe.net, emusic.com, blogspot.com, wetpaint.com... I cling to these computerized connections for consistency and coherence.

I write. I write about building community, the ills of society, radical intimacy, my life... I download music. I listen - I bounce my head. I stare off into space. I've come to enjoy hunting for that nice cozy couch in a hospitable coffeehouse. I've started thinking of the $2 a day I spend as rent, with free coffee thrown in. And sometimes the the only exercise I get is a walk or a bike ride from the place I'm sleeping to my new syndicated home.

Several dozen people in Chico, Eugene, and Portland have been asked recently, "what's going on here?" What's interesting? What's radical? How are people coming together? How are they making the world a better place? Some respond enthusiastically, others patiently, others not at all. I'm searching, scrutinizing, sometimes salivating...

Ah, the future... Music? Events organizing? Process consultation? Community organizing? Communes, co-ops, affinity groups, mutual aid organizations? Tribe, family, alliances? "Money, money, money... nothing but money." Can I become a money maker and not lose my soul? Jail break! Can we escape the money economy? Can I provide a potent push to activate the ambitions of progressive people?

So many ideas, so many dreams. I hold myself back. I'm so unsure! I don't want to give false impressions. "Where do you live?" Well, I don't really live anywhere. I've dropped membership - I have no rights to the place I have called home for the last 8 years. But Twin Oaks is still home. It will always be home. I will always feel a tug on my heart from that crazy commune.

Willow. What I conundrum! Abandonment, neglect - how can I even consider it! But I know why, and I know that I have to consider it. I want someone to tell me what the right thing to do is, because I don't, and I don't think I ever will, but I don't think anyone else does either.

I feel called to something bigger then Twin Oaks, because I've lost hope in Twin Oaks becoming "bigger." But I don't really believe in fate, destiny, any kind of master plan for the unfolding of creation, so how can I be "called" to do anything. I don't believe in a conscious, omnipotent entity of universal proportions. But I believe in morality. I believe in good and bad, not as fundamental qualities but as a way of describing the things people do. I want to do good. Enlightened self-interest. I want to make the world a better place, first for my self, second for willow, third for the collection of souls with whom I share this journey, fourth for everyone else. But they are inseparable, integral - in doing good, true good for one it is impossible not to do good for everyone else. Where does that lead?

Food, food is so important, an essential building block of community, civilization... life. Work on food sources, that has been a clear msg.

Energy, energy is so important. For some reason I am almost constantly aware of the energy I am burning - gasoline, jet fuel, heating water for tea or for bathing, stove tops, laptops, wireless headphones, cellphones, digital cameras. How is it that energy has become as important as food?

Love, love is so important, relationships. Satisfying relationships with self and others. The lack thereof, this is the basis of addiction, the basis of environmental destruction. And I am part of it.

I've been on the road for almost a month. Occasionally I have been lucky enough to sleep in the same bed for more then a couple nights running. But what generosity! So many friends, new friends, friends of friends, have sheltered me, given me rides, loaned me a bike, fed me, let me burn their electricity, their propane, their time.

I have been on the edge of breaking down for a week. Each morning I am amazed and appreciative not to wake up sick, depressed, paralyzed under the physical, emotional, and psychic stress, by the massiveness of the ambiguity that I've stepped into. I'm managing it. My meditation practice is solid. I've learned to skip out on opportunities rather then being compelled to them despite exhaustion. My substance use is at it's lowest point since I started down that path ten years ago. I know when I will be back "home" for a recharge. I know when my next meditation course will be. I actually have a rough sketch of my plans for the next 6 months! A framework - it helps keep me sane.

How long can I go on like this? As long as I can or as long as I have to, we'll see which comes first...

don't try to figure it out

2007-10-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

In my current incarnation as a professional bum I find myself in Eugene, OR, pondering the question, do I want to live here? But I can't ask myself that question in earnest. To do so would invite possibly the most intense existential crisis I have ever faced. You see, the question I'm really asking myself is this: Would a life here be compelling enough to take me away from Willow?

I've been planning this exploration for a year and a half. And over that time I have very, very gradually faced more and more the possibility of living away from my son. I got an email from Pax the other day including stuff about Willow's activities and Pax's thoughts on parenting-from-afar. Ouch - am I having a heart attack? Metaphorically perhaps. I believe that my bond with Willow is strong enough that I can maintain it long-distance. But it won't be the same, that's what hit me. Nothing can replace daily contact with a child. There is so much I would miss out on... (deep breath)

I have to believe he would be fine. Certainly, because of the bond we share there is something he would miss from my absence. But with Pax, Hawina, all his primaries, Jonah and Gwen, and the full, rich, engaging life a child has at Twin Oaks, he'll be fine. I have no doubts about him getting all the love and attention he needs to continue developing as the amazing being he is. It's not him I'm worried about, it's me.

If I tried to "figure out" whether or not I want to move away from Twin Oaks I would very quickly go insane. It's simply too soon to know. I've given myself till the end of next spring, with plenty of time away exploring and back at Twin Oaks. That's when I'll have to face it, probably by June. It's months away, but the time will pass so quickly.

I have yet to discuss the matter with Willow. I've been avoiding it - it's just been too painful. But I will, soon. I honestly can not imagine what he will say. I can see him being upset. I can see him being indifferent. I can see ambivilence. I can see philosophical acceptance. He never ceases to amaze me.

I see so much of myself in him. He's such a smart kid - many things come easily to him. So if something isn't immediatly fun and easy, he doesn't want to bother and can be totally lazy. When he's sick he's very calm and accepting - only in major pain does he get distressed. But he's very fearful of putting himself in situations that may result in physical pain. Generally speaking, he can be pretty fearful, a wimp so to speak. I was a total wimp (and kinda still am.) And he can be pretty insecure and anxious, not wanting to be alone, not wanting to push himself out of his comfort zone, easiy thinking he can't do something - all things I've struggled with.

I have a hard time with it sometimes. I know it's just because I have a hard time seeing those aspects of myself. I try not to give him a hard time, but it just comes out sometimes. I don't want him to have to struggle with that shit. But it doesn't help, and it feels terrible. It's just that I love him so much.

Every time something happens that's hard for him I just have to take a deep breath and say to myself, "it's just part of being human - we all have to deal with stuff - this is just what he has to deal with - if it wasn't this it would be something else." And really, it's in being with him through the hard stuff, staying centered and present myself and helping him deal with it and understand it, that's where some of the most satisfying experiences have come from. Every new experience is such a big deal - after 5.5 years we've been through so much. Can I really leave him?

I wonder if it's just my ego attachment, my desire to influence this child, mold him in my image. Or maybe it's my need to prove my worth as a human being by being a good parent. Maybe I can just move beyond all that... yeah, right.

I think about him sitting on my lap as we play Civilization together. I think about doing reading practice, struggling through it at times, but then finishing a new, challenging book and seeing the look of satisfaction on his face. I think about walking down the path with him on my back, holding each other close. I think about reading out loud to him, cuddled up together on the couch. I think about waking up with him in the morning, holding him as his eyelids flutter open. No lover, no adult partner has ever had such a firm grip on my heart.

It's as if, over the years, I have given him a piece of myself, but that piece still exists in myself as well as in him, with a cord to link them. Imagining leaving him, not living with him day-to-day, it feels like that part of me is being torn out. It never actually would be, but damn, it hurts.

a believer in human rights

2007-10-21T00:47:00.000-07:00

I'm a believer.

I believe we're heading for rough times. Could be environmental catastrophies, energy crisis, economic collapse, break down of basic utilities and distribution of goods, world war, global epidemics... all of the above?

I'm a believer.

I believe in community. There are lots of different kinds of communities and co-operatives - different ways people are mutually supporting each other. I think we have to get together for mutual support if we want simply to survive, let alone thrive through the times to come.

I realize Twin Oaks is too much for most people. Most of us need more autonomy, flexibility, and personability. But one of the great things about Twin Oaks is this: if you are member and contribute to a reasonable degree, you will be taken care of. No question - you will be taken care of. Food, shelter, clothing, health care - you will be taken care of. How many people who are not independently wealthy have that kind of security? Not many, and that's wrong.

A couple weeks ago I read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948. Obviously the governements of the world have not done a good job of making sure this declaration is being upheld (look at Article 25 in particular.) In the absence of governements fullfilling this responsibility, I think organizations created for mutual support (i.e. community) ought to take it as their responsibility to fulfill this.

What would happen if people didn't have to worry about the basics? - if you didn't have to worry about getting sick, or not having enough money for all the bills and rent, or treating a broken arm or getting a cavity filled? And I don't mean not having to worry about it because you know you can always get a job (because a lot of people don't know they can always get a job!) I mean really, really not having to ever worry about it?! Imagine the amount of creative energy that would free up!! I think it's hard for most people to realize the subconscious, underlying pressure and tension they feel because they've never not felt it, and how it changes the way you see your life and what you do when that is relieved.

So, what would a Human Rights Co-op look like? What if there were groups all over a city that were organizing to provide for the basic human rights of themselves and others, and to benefit from them all you had to do was contribute some time to perpetuating and expanding them going? Yeah, money would have to be generated because the money economy is impossible to get out of unless you want to be a survivalist out in the wilderness. But we can lessen our dependence and we can make a better life for ourselves.

A music group I admire called Seize the Day says it better then I can right now...

"...it seems like nobody's in control
just money makin' money and it's got no soul
but it's got no power but the power we give
when we doubt that without it we could live
imagine, it's easy if you try
I'm an idealist, also a realist
I know it's difficult to kick that drug
but if we get clever and we do it all together
what a great endevour
when we pull that plug..."

I'm a believer.

joe and me

2007-10-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

"Your off work on the thursday, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I want you to help me indulge in nostalgia."
"Huh?"
"I want us to drive around to our old houses and reminisce."
"Oh, okay, cool."

This was about two weeks ago. I was staying with Joe, my best friend from junior high and the beginning of high school in Martinez, CA. In some ways he's stayed my best friend, even though we had almost no contact for almost 8 years. He joined the Navy about the same time I moved to Twin Oaks. He'd gotten married and after getting out they moved back to Martinez. He and his wife had just had their first child.

When I was 13 my parents divorced and I moved with my mother to Martinez, a suburb of the East Bay. A couple months into junior high I'd only made one friend and I was miserable. This was a continuation of 3 years of being mostly friendless and miserable in Chico, CA while my family was falling apart.

I don't remember meeting Joe. He started the school year a couple months late. Just all of a sudden he was in my gym class and we were joking and carrying on like we'd been friends for years. We were best friends for 3 years. Then life got complicated, as it will when you're a teenager - we half drifted and half tore ourselves apart.

"Oh, remember the wreck we had on our bikes here!" We were driving down the hill next to the Shell oil refinery (right smack in the middle of town), along the route we rode our bikes every school day for two years of junior high.
"Yeah! Man, that fucking bus! He totally crossed over the white line."
"Yeah, and your handle bar went into the open window."
"I went down, then you hit my bike and you went down."
"We were so torn up! Remember going back to my house - I got out the hydrogen peroxide. We were like, oh shit, just do it!"
A little further down the road...
"Oh, and we had another wreck here!"
"Yeah, my brakes went out! I smashed into you from behind and flew into the intersection - I'm lucky I'm alive!"

A right turn, a little further... "Oh shit, they're developing up on that hill." "Yeah, they bought out some guy who lived up there and torn his house down." Another right...

"Wow, you still take these turns like you live here," I said.
"Man, I drive past here on my way home from work if I stop at the Lucky's up there, and half the time I just turn down here automatically. I'm such a creature of habit. I'll just drive up, check out the nieghborhood."

I'd gotten back to the Bay Area a few days before our jaunt down memory lane. I'd come from doing another 10 day mediation retreat, which is where I'd gotten the idea to do this. I'd thought about how amazing my friendship with Joe is. What different paths we'd taken! And yet, despite the differences in our lifestyles, I feel more acceptance and love from and for him then with any other friend of mine. Really, we're family, in the best kind of way. And despite his very conventional, mainstream lifestyle, Joe is an amazingly radical person.

He works as a cable repair guy. He realizes TV is a drug that keeps people seperate from each other and helps prevent them from getting together and making their lives better. But when he fixes someone's cable, they're so appreciative. And customers often talk to him in such an open way, clearly craving human contact, and he likes being able to meet people and connect with them. He is possibly the most generous, good-natured, and well-meaning person I know.

He's aware of all the shit put in processed food. Having grown up a quarter mile from a Shell oil refinery and suffered from asthma as a child he's conscious of environmental issues. He's aware of economic injustice - he would love to raise his family in his home town, but it's too expensive. When we saw each other in March for the first time in about 6 years one of the first questions he asked me was, "how can we take all the stuff you're doing in your community and use it to help change society?"

He has a very pragmatic view of reality. It's just the way it is. Yeah, shit's fucked up, but, "I was raised to want a family, and buy a house, and I don't know how to do anything different."

Cherisa, his wife, is also amazing. She's very kind, level-headed, and intelligent. I'd crashed at there place for one night before going to the meditation course. "What did you guy's do with willow around vaccines?" she asked.
"Well, the first time he steps on a nail we'll give him a tetnus shot. Other then that, nothing. There are a couple we might end up doing later on. Why?"
"I heard some stuff about the perservatives they use in vaccines, and the increasing number of vaccines they give kids at early ages, and how it's liked it increased rates of SIDS and autism. We refused them"
By the time I got back she'd done extensive research, including pending law suites in Japan and the UK. Saying I was impressed is an understatement.
"We decided to get him the same vaccines on the same schedule that we got when we were kids." I've also been very impressed and appreciative at how immediatly accepting and welcoming she's been of this weird-ass, fuckin' hippy friend of her husband.

We drove to Joe's old house at the end of the culdasac at the top of the hill. "It's weird seeing the garage door down," he said.
"Yeah, no one ever used the front door. If the garage door was down I knew no one was home."

Back down at the bottom of the hill...

"We spent so much time skateboarding down here."
"God, you were so sprung over Mary, and she played you so hard!" I said. "You know, Cherissa is so great. You had so many crazy fuckin' relationships! I'm really glad you got over that and got into a good one."
"Yeah, she's so good for me - we really balance each other," he said. "Hey, and didn't you and Cynthia hang out here a lot too?"
"Yeah, this is where we met. You and I were down here skating and she was walking home from school. You know, it was like with you. I don't remember meeting her - just all of a sudden we were talking away like we'd known each other forever."

Cynthia's house was on the next street down. "Man, you spent so much time sitting on that front step with her!"
"Wow... I was so in love with her. On some level I'm still totally in love with her." Cynthia and I had been together for three years, not an especially long time for adults, but a veritable eternity as teenagers. We stil love each other, but... well, that's for a future post.
"Oh yeah, you always will be. Those kinds of feelings don't just go away."
"But god, it's so weird. Other people live in our houses! And we live these totally different lives. It's like none of it ever happened."

We drove the half mile across town to my old house. "We never really hung out here," I said.
"Yeah, I was scared of your step-dad!" Joe said, half-seriously, laughing. "But it was so cool when he'd pick us up from school in his silver cop car!"
"Yeah, and things were so hard with my mom and I. I didn't really want to be there." During the three years of our most involved friendship I ate more meals at Joe's house then my own.

"Hey let's drive by the high school." Two blocks before the we got there we passed San Vicente, the adult education center. Two groups of people were standing near the street, one on the sidewalk, the other in the parking lot, seperated by a short chain-link fence. Several were screaming and gesticulating wildly at each other - a conflict between a group of young San Vicente students and older Alhambra High School students. As we waited for the light to change the exchange intensified and the Alhambra students started jumping over the fence. The students who'd been watching from across the street in the Safeway parking lot ran through the halted traffic to get a closer view.

"Oh my god, that guy has a baseball bat!" But within seconds we heard a police siren and saw the squad car turn down the sidestreet. The bat disappeared under a car - the Alhambra students disappeared back across the street.

"You know, things just seem so important when you're a teenager," I said. " And, I mean, sometimes they are. I spent a lot of time helping Cynthia deal with her emotionally abusive family."
"Yeah, do you remember when you and Andy quit the band and we didn't talk for like 6 months?"
"Yeah... I don't even remember why things were so hard."
"I was being a total asshole. My dad was drinking every night and yelling at me. I would run away like every other night. He'd figure out where I was and call, crying, begging me to come home..."
Silence.
"I didn't know that," I said.
"Yeah, then there was that day that your mom gave me a ride home, and I just broke down and cried and told her everything, and she talked to you and got you to talk to me. But your right, you know - now it's like, we've got kids and families! It's just a whole different level of concerns."

We drove through downtown, remembering various other friends, events. I'm not really very prone to nostalgia. In fact I can be pretty callous when it comes to the past. But this journey served a purpose for both Joe and I, completing something left undone. We'd shared so many experienced but never really talked about them. Now we shared a common understanding, aligning our lives more closely. Barriers I hadn't even really realized were there were dropping away...

(...sigh...)

Okay, I'm going to stop there before I totally disolve into a gooey puddle of sentimental cliche ;0)

the science of hitch hiking

2007-10-16T00:46:00.001-07:00

(note: you may want to look at google maps or mapquest while reading this ;0)

Today I hitch-hiked from Chico, CA to Eugene, OR. It's about a 7 hr drive. Generally I like to assume that the amount of time standing on the side of the rode will be close to the amount of actual driving time (and be pleasantly surprised when it's less, or not disappointed when it's not.)

Dale, my father, drove me to the northern edge of Chico on Hwy 99. I waited about 15 minutes before I got a ride to a rest area just north of Red Bluff on I 5. It was a very small rest area with little traffic and I was a bit worried, but the onramp wasn't very long so I was able to effectively hitch the freeway. After about 30 minutes a very nice, classic west coast-type guy named Scott picked me up and drove me all the way to the cmty I'm staying at here in Eugene. The whole trip took about 8 hrs, three rides, door-to-door - yes!!

I wouldn't say I'm a terribly experienced hitch-hiker, but I've had plenty of opportunities waiting by the side of the road with my thumb out to think about it. So, here's my advice...

A couple things are basic and perhaps obvious. Look nice. Not too clean cut - that's what the serial killers do - but not ratty. Today I had on a reasonably nice pair of corduroy pants and a white tee-shirt with simple lettering on the front. Sometimes I think it's better not to wear sunglasses, so drivers can see your eyes - other times I don't think it matters.

Have a sign saying where you're going. The actual information isn't important, it's giving the impression that you are reasonably thoughtful and prepared.

When picking a spot to hitch from consider the road ahead and the road behind. If the road behind (where traffic is coming from) is a curve it will give drivers less time to get a look at you before they pass you. The road ahead should have nice long and wide shoulder to give drivers plenty of time to stop - a quick stop will scare some potential rides away.

Know what kinds of cities, freeway interchanges, and rest or service areas are on your route. Always ask a person how far they're going before you accept the ride to make sure they'll be able to take you to a next good place to hitch from. Today, for example, the first ride I got was going to the south side of the city of Redding. Had he been going to the north side, I might have gone for it, because all the people heading north at that point would more likely be going long-distance.

Getting dropped off on the near side, or in the middle, of a city, especially a large city, can mean lots of waiting for lots of short rides. Rest areas are good because people who stop at them are usually traveling long-distance. But, as mentioned, be look out for small rest areas that that don't have on ramps that allow you to get close to the freeway. A couple times, before I wised up, I had to get dropped off in the middle of a freeway interchanges. That was pretty scary.

Hitching in pairs is of course safer, but sizable minority of the people who give rides are guys in pickups with only room for one rider. Just because shit can happen, I think it's safe for men and women, but especially women, to carry pepperspray.

And at this point, unless you really want an adventure, I consider trips that will take me more then a day, requiring me to camp out, to not be worth it. When I was younger and more innocent looking I actually had some quite lucrative hitches and was put up by very nice people. It was great, but, frankly, I'm over it.

But I can still manage to beat the time it would have taken Greyhound (9 hrs), and instead of paying $72 for a ticket I chipped in $10 for gas. Does everyone get more pragmatic as they get older?

moving through overwhelm

2007-10-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last 8 years calling Twin Oaks my home, and over time I've become dissatisfied with how small that world is - not just the actually property of Twin Oaks, but the larger network of people and communities it's directly connected to. Now I'm exploring living a lifestyle that's more integrated with the mainstream, and I realize that in 8 years I've forgotten just how BIG the mainstream world is!!

I've been in Chico the last 10 days. Having spent a total of about 7 years of my childhood here it's the closest thing I have to a hometown. It's a smallish city, with a "metro" population of about 100,000. It's a pretty liberal town - green, progressive city council members are often the majority. There is a "tree ordinance" requiring developers to leave a certain number of trees/area when developing a piece of property.

There are two intentional communities in the area (Valley Oaks Village, a cohousing community and Ripparia, a small landtrust), plus a number of "hippie flophouses" as Shandin calls them. The coolest thing I've come across so far is a new group called GRUB (Growing Resourcefully Uniting Bellies). Their mission is to grow as much food within the city limits for as many people as possible on donated land. They already have more land donated then they have gardeners to manage. They're also creating a "tree registery", a database of all fruit and nut trees in the city from which the owner are happy to have other people harvest. They had a fundraiser the other night at the Peace and Justice Center, and I was impressed by the number of people who came and their positivity.

Could I live here? Could I do what I want here? Here's what I want to do, in a nutshell: Pick a population center and help found and/or link a network of communal/cooperative entities that are providing housing, growing and distributing food, producing ecologically sound goods for money or barter, providing space for social events, arts and performance, and organizing, and engaging in community organizing and local politics.

Lofty, eh? Can I do this anywhere? I don't know. Certainly not if I let my insecurity and self-doubt get in the way. But you know, I think I've had this idea that I could get so many groups started so fast that it would quickly take over a city the size of Chico and Eugene. What was I thinking?!

Walking around downtown over the last few days, riding my borrowed bike through the suburbs, seeing all the affluent Bay Area escapees and the manicured college students, the banks, the designer clothing stores, and, of course, the endless stream of cars...

One of my big complaint about Twin Oaks and the Communities Movement is the prevelance of white, middle-class folx primarily interested in creating their happy little utopias, failing to recognize or engage in the essentially integrated reality of our communities with the rest of society, and failing to collaborate with the myriad social movements with similar aims.

Now I'm asking myself the question, am I capable of anything more? Insecurity! Self-doubt!!

I'm trying to pull myself back to what I consider to be an appropriate purpose for whatever I do: making life better for all beings. Is what I'm doing serving people and the planet? Make sure that I can say yes and then do as much of that as possible.

Egoism, success and failure, even hope, these are such tempting indulgences of the mind - but they get in way! Pema Chodron said in a discussion with Alice Walker, don't do what you do because you hope it will change things - do what you do because you believe that's the right thing to do.

Okay - take a deep breath, notice the fear, and keep moving fwd...

keeping a brother, losing a friend

2007-10-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

My brother and I don't talk about just anything. We talk about everything, except what we went through together. We talk to fill the silence, because the memories would fill it up, and we don't talk about it.

I remember hearing something, half asleep, cracking my eyes, seeing a flash of movement.
Impact. A bright orange flash in darkness. Darkness.
I can hear myself screaming for help.
A thought - maybe if I stop screaming I won't get hit anymore - okay.
I stop screaming.
I can see again.

We'd been camping on a trail off an abandoned road at the northern end of Humbolt Redwood State Park. It was almost 8 am. We were sleeping in after the first day of our bike tour down to San Fransisco. 3 guys jumped us. The first must have run up and kicked me in the head. When I came to I was crawling backwards away from him, standing over me.

"We've got money; take whatever, just leave us alone." I direct them to the money.
"Tie them up," he says.

The guy who tied me up was vicious, hogtying me so tightly my left hand was numb for 4 days. The guy who tied Shandin up, well, it's ambiguous...

"If you tie us up and leave us here, no one comes down here, we could starve to death," said Shandin.
"Who gives a fuck. We should just kill you," said the guy who'd been beating me up.

But they guy who was tying Shandin up said, "well, we'll come back later and untie you."
What? Doesn't make much sense. But what we know is that he did a poor job of tying Shandin. He was out of the ropes ten minutes after they left, untied me, and we ran to the highway to flag down help.

I was 19 when this happened. Shandin is 6 years older then me. He'd always been a great older brother, taking me out to interesting places, exposing me to consciousness-raising culture. But friction had started. I was becoming an adult and wanting more of a peer relationship. But I felt dependent on him, and he felt like he needed to take care of me, but also wanted to empower me.

If the assault was anyone's fault I'd say it was mine. We accidently hung our food bag in a place that made it like a beacon. Shan noticed this, but when I said, oh, it's fun, he went with it out of a desire to empower me. You could say it was his fault for not trusting the discerning judgement of his experience and moving the food bag despite my protest, but that feels like a stretch.

It seems like Shandin couldn't help feeling like it was his fault, blaming himself. But then it was also my fault, and he would blame me. He never said any of this to me directly.

I never blamed him. But it was an eye opening experience. I realized how dependent I'd been on others to create my experience, and how I'd put myself in mortal danger by not taking responsibility for myself. After the experience I returned home to Twin Oaks Community, a safe community full of support for healing. Shandin was re-entering the mainstream, having just left East Wind Community, and didn't get the space and time and support. He was about to begin work forming a new Ecovillage on the west coast.

Once I tried to talk about the experience with him. I wanted to share about my healing process. I think this was a poor approach on my part, given the opportunities I had that he didn't. He didn't show much interest, and I quickly dropped the subject. It was still to painful for either of us to face with eachother. We have yet to revisit it.

In the years since, Shandin's ecovillage project struggled, faltered, and finally fell apart. I was strongly engaged at Twin Oaks, and had become part of a successful poly-family (three parents with one child), which is something Shandin had always wanted. During one visit I remember him saying to me, "I can't do this without you." Whoa! Recoil - when did I become the big brother here? I'd worked hard to become a strong, independent adult, which included distancing myself from my family for a couple years, living the width of the continent apart. I needed to not need anyone, and I'd gotten there. Now I discovered that they needed me - a totally foreign concept. And, with Shandin, there was still this horrid experience we'd shared and never talked about.

I couldn't deal. I simply didn't respond to the efforts Shandin made to reach out to me. He felt rejected, legitimately so. Things have been strained the last few years.

Now, all of a sudden they feel relaxed. Shandin's goals in life have changed considerably, in a direction I can't help him with. He doesn't expect anything from me, nor I from him. It makes it easier. The day before yesterday, sitting together with our father, Dale, peeling the garlic harvest for almost 9 hrs, it went by so quickly. We talked psychological theory, gossiped about Twin Oaks, shared about our confusion about relationships and what we want. It was the best part of family - the familiarity and comfort, the ease of relating. And now, with our lives on such different tracks, our past issues and experiences, the muck and darkness, it doesn't matter anymore. Our involvment and investment in each other doesn't warrant talking about it.

But if we keep relating to each other on the surface level, even a few layers in, how long will it be until the cores of who we are are elsewhere, and the engagement will become dissatisfying, more obligatory then desired? Should I go ahead and be the big brother and say, Shandin, let's talk about this? As I type these words I can feel the weight of it on my heart - the feelings are so overwhelming - do I have the courage to face them? If not, I will miss the final piece of healing I have to do from the most violent experience of my life. And, if not, I will still have a brother, but I will lose a friend.