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Bill Chisholm, Idaho native and long time activist, manages a small ranch near his home in Southern Idaho. His advocacy work has covered a broad range of topics including personal accountability, respectful environmental stewardship, and good neighborliness. He is well known for his consistent forethought, fair problem solving, and simple lifestyle.
Atonement, Attune-ment,
At-One-Ment It is said that you can’t turn back the clock or re-write or re-right history, but it is possible to at least acknowledge a wrong or misdeed and start the healing process between people and the planet. What I am going to say may make people wince. It makes me wince a bit to have to say it, but I think wincing is an important part of the healing process. It indicates that there is something that needs attention. This is being written as my response to the notion of a holiday honoring Christopher Columbus, who I don’t believe to be worthy of such an honor. It is one of those wrongs that need some righting, some history that needs re-writing. The wrongs committed by the European colonizers of the Americas has never been publicly acknowledged, no apology has been forthcoming. One of the first steps in atonement is acknowledging the wrong the misdeed. One can not look at the genocide of 25 million indigenous people in the Americas and not acknowledge that a serious wrong was committed and in many cases aspects of those wrongs are ongoing. So this essay is both an acknowledgement and an apology. It is also a commitment to set the record straight and to move towards atonement. Anyone that is not of indigenous blood is living on land that was taken, stolen, confiscated from those who were here first. It is true for myself as well as others; and I am not saying this to make anyone feel guilty, but to put in perspective what happened and is still happening in the Americas, North and South to indigenous people. This juxtaposed against the hard core “private property rights” espoused by many in the United States. To comprehend the cruelty of this one must go much deeper. The indigenous cultures don’t have a concept of “owning the land”, they are in a relationship with the Earth and the other creatures that inhabit place. It is truly a matter of them belonging to the land, not the land belonging to them. Many know the pain of foreclosure, for not being able to met one’s obligation, thus losing one’s home. So being driven from the lands they had long occupied, is more akin to how the government took their children from their homes and sent them to boarding schools. Such an act tears at the fabric of civilized being. The theft and the genocide came about from a people who claimed to be Christian and to believe in the Ten Commandments, two of the biggies of which are “Thou Shall Not Kill” and “Thou Shall Not Steal”. So how did they get around it, the declared the indigenous population of the Americas to be less than human, savages, and the felt some how morally OK with killing and stealing. Pretty straight forward! We can’t turn back the clock, but we can go forward by acknowledging and apologizing for what went on and what is going on and to embrace our indigenous brothers and sisters and really as they would say “all of our relations” as partners in the great work that needs to be done in healing both the cultural wounds and the planetary wounds. As an activist I have worked with and heard many indigenous leaders talk about how to make things right. They are not asking that non-indigenous cede their lands to the indigenous, what they are asking is that those treaties that were made between their ancestors and ours be honored, that their people and the planet quit being abused. If we can get through the atonement stage and I’m certainly not saying it will be easy. It will be incredibly hard for some of non-indigenous descent to even acknowledge that a wrong was done or an apology needed. It will be equally hard for some indigenous folks to accept an apology after what has been done and is still being done throughout the Americas and throughout the world by colonial powers, still killing and stealing. If the planet is going to survive as a livable habitat for humans and other species, we have to get through the atonement phase and move into attunement. It is in the attunement phase that we really need our indigenous brothers and sisters; for it is they in many instances that have kept their beliefs more in sync with the Natural World, a world sorely out of balance because of the greed and arrogance of those that believe themselves superior to other people, other species and to Nature. As an activist I once sat outside a federal courtroom in Nevada with Corbin Harney, an elder, a spiritual leader of the Western Shoshoni. He said to me “I heard the water speak. Anyone can hear the water speak if they will only listen.” Nature in all its forms has much to say to us. We best learn to listen to attune ourselves to what it is saying. At-One-Ment is I reckon a bit like Heaven, or Nirvani, the Great Hunting Ground, that place where one becomes fully aware, fully conscious of one’s connection to the Whole. Some folks believe that it is only in death that we, humans, can get there, others believe that “enlightenment” is possible in this lifetime. Whatever one’s beliefs it is a worthy process, a worthy effort. Many of those structures and institutions that keep us from even acknowledging are oneness with the rest of Creation are creations of humans seeking power over others, over Nature. If we abamdon those impediments we can start to see the reality that we are all in this together… not only present generations but both past and future. None of these aspects is stagnant in nature… Atonement requires acknowledgement, apology and action to rectify the situation. Attune-ment is constantly being aware of the changing world around and responding with respect, relevancy and reciprocity. At-One-Ment is the ultimate challenge of being Conscious of one’s connection to all things and all beings and acting accordingly. “Anyone
Can Hear The Water Speak” As we sat together in the sterile hallway of the Federal Courthouse in Las Vegas, outside Judge Hang ‘em High Lloyd George’s courtroom, Western Shoshone spiritual elder, Corbin Harney said, “The water spoke to me.” We were sitting five feet apart on a bench, looking straight ahead waiting our turn to testify on behalf of our friend, anti-nuclear weapons activist, Rick Springer. Corbin then said, “The water told me, ‘In a short time you will see me, I will look like water and feel like water, only I won’t be the same.’” After a few moments, he concluded, “Anyone can hear the water speak if they will only listen.” Corbin’s words sunk deep into my consciousness. In my journey through life, I have played many roles, among them wilderness survival instructor, wild-lands firefighter and yoga instructor. I have spent a good deal of time alone in Nature contemplating the deeper meaning of life. Though I have a degree in business and could have found a niche in the modern consumer oriented world, I found I experienced myself at a far higher level when I was down to a minimum of comforts in the wilds. Free of comforts, I found an edge I had not experienced anywhere else. Though I hadn’t heard it articulated in such a way, I sensed what Corbin was talking about: alone in the wild, if you quiet your noisy mind and open your eyes and your ears, the wild has much to say. The wind, the trees, the clouds, the wildlife and yes, the water all have a voice. I observed that even more during my years doing damage assessment for the now inept Federal Emergency Management Agency. If we’d learn to listen to the water we might not suffer so much flood damage. The sad truth is: people don’t listen. They have insulated themselves from Nature and from each other with technology, stuff and information shuffling jobs. They like to think technology has advanced them as individuals and as a culture, but in truth, it has deafened them, made them weak and more dependent. After the powerful tsunami hit southern Asia wiping out large areas, destroying homes and communities and killing thousands of people, it was expected there would be a large loss of wildlife. As the reports started coming in there was not the wildlife loss expected. There were in fact stories of animals of many species who sensed something was going to happen and headed to the safety of higher ground. That same thing was true of some indigenous folks, people who lived simply and more attuned to their surroundings; they sensed something was going to happen and got themselves out of harms way. “Anyone can hear the water speak if they will only listen.” My late wife, Kathy, and I had been
on trial in Beatty, Nevada for blocking traffic or trespassing at
the Nevada Test Site. After the post Easter trial, we decided to
take a little journey into Death Valley. On the way in, a white
Chevy Blazer with all the windows mirrored, except the windshield,
passed us coming the other direction. It went a short distance,
turned around, came back and passed us again. They then pulled off
at a rest area, as did we. When we continued, so did they. There
were a couple of routes to choose; we looked at the map and took
the right hand fork in the road. First, I noticed what we call “ducks”
(stacked rocks) or trail markers near the side of the road, but
not right next to it. These trail markers made no sense. Thoughts
of the Chevy Blazer stuck in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t
really thinking about it as we started into Death Valley. Shortly
at a road cut we saw walking towards us along the side of the road
a coyote. El Coyote’ happens to be one of my medicines, in
fact my main one. As we approached, the coyote kept its pace and
looked right at me as we pulled alongside. I would glance at him
in the rearview mirror. He would be stopped looking back at me.
When I stopped, he would start walking away again. This happened
at least three times. I finally listened. I told Kathy we needed
to turn around and get out of there; she’d been experiencing
the same “unease” I had. After we turned around and
headed back through the cut, the coyote disappeared into the brush.
We got up on top and shortly started experiencing problems with
our car. I’m not sure what we avoided that day by heeding
the call of that coyote, but I know it saved us from something bad;
perhaps it saved our lives. In that case, we listened with our eyes
and to our own inner voices. Since we are mostly water, perhaps
it was the water speaking in us. Poet/philosopher, Robert Bly, in his book The Sibling Society, talks about the importance playing in Nature has in the development of children’s brains. The observation of Nature helps us develop our curiosity, play creatively, grow from the inside out, and connect to Nature. Many of today’s young grow from the outside in via a technological environment that feeds information to them. Bly says this hampers maturity, keeps society in a state of perpetual adolescence well into people’s thirties. People are robbed of their real childhoods: that opportunity to play in Nature and use their imagination. It is imagination that gives us the ability to respond to disasters and changing circumstances. That perfect plastic product thing in toys took away our opportunity to imagine: to make a toy out of a piece of wood, a rock, some string and some spools. Not too long ago people knew how to do many things. They had many skills and they knew how the systems and the tools they used worked. They could build or fix them. Modern man has become reliant on the system for toys, food, houses and answers. There is a belief that things will fill the holes in life, give popularity and self-esteem. In reality, “stuff” diminishes self-worth. A society of perpetual discontent, a world of “I want, I want, give me, give me” has been created. It is the marketing man’s dream: a culture never satisfied, never connected to anything, desiring newer and newer gadgets that isolate them more and more from each other and Nature. “Anyone can hear the water speak if they will only sit and listen.” We can’t even hear the people we are with. Just look around; if you see three people together, particularly people under 30, often two of them are talking on their cell phones. They are oblivious to their companions and to the world around them. When not on cell phones, people are listening to iPods, playing video games or watching TV: all inputs coming from outside. There are so many senseless noises and flashing images going on most folks never have a quiet moment to ponder, to use their minds, to listen to what Nature is trying to say. How then does Nature compete for attention? She has to speak louder and louder. You’d think people might pay attention when they can no longer see the mountains or the stars, when the air stinks so bad they can hardly breathe. The sad truth: most folks don’t even look towards the mountains unless they want to recreate. They really don’t experience the mountain because they have too much with them: cell phones, iPods, snowmobiles, four wheelers. They are going too fast; they are too focused on their fun. Caught in the noise and the speed they miss the world around them, its smells, its sounds. They are so caught up in the world of man they miss the warnings, fail to see much less read the signs and sense the stillness for its tension. Then boom they are surprised by an avalanche, a flood, a fire, an earthquake, a tsunami. We have forsaken many of the incredible tools of our own minds and bodies for the mediocrity of things. The more technology we take on, the more we lose our own abilities, the more impact we have on the Natural world. We are becoming mono-talented. We don’t know how to do real things: raise our food, make things we need, provide for our water and shelter. It is all marketed to us. All that stuff we are made to want more and more of takes huge amounts of natural resources and energy to mine, mill, manufacture, transport and sell to us. It is an interesting cycle to ponder. All that technology we have come to rely on, to respond to like Pavlov’s dogs, weakens us. The over consumption of things and technologies with its lusty demand for resources and energy is pushing the limits of the Natural order of things. Rather than becoming more self-reliant, we are becoming more vulnerable. It is not that technology is necessarily bad; it is how we let it control us that should concern us. Technology takes away knowledge, skill, and action. Whenever something separates us from the ability to raise food, or clothe and shelter us, then it becomes a liability. Whenever the technology or stuff becomes more of a liability than an asset, then it is time to step back, take a look, and assess its real value. What are its real costs across the board, socially, culturally, spiritually, environmentally and economically? If it is creating more problems than it is solving, it is something we can do without. Our economy and lifestyle is based on a false economic model, a model that doesn’t account for all the costs of doing business. Cheap energy is not without costs in terms of other species, natural resources, pollution and lives. What I call “steroid economics” (more and big is better, growth is good) has made us neither wealthier and wiser nor stronger and more secure in the truest sense. A dangerous triangle of related circumstances is coming together that will change the way we do things forever. On one side is the fact that oil and natural gas production are peaking, and other resources including clean water are becoming scarcer. On the second side, demand for diminishing resources is rising as population increases and more countries such as China, India, and Chile strive for the same materialistic lifestyle. The capping issue of this triangle is climate change. We can no longer hide the costs in cooked books, creative bookkeeping. Our foundation is made of sand. It is washing away. All we have become reliant on (our economy, our technology, our entertainment) is in for a drastic change. We are ill prepared. We have become too soft, too reliant on unsustainable systems, too “dumbed down”. Most folks when they hear the news that the “king has no clothes”, that the “gig is up”, do one of two things: flight or fight, our native instincts for survival. The thing in this case is there is no place to flee to. The flight option becomes denial, which doesn’t save your “arse”, but only puts off acknowledgement of the predicament. The other thing is to fight. To fight is far better than sticking your head in the sand. Now this looks bigger than a David and Goliath fight and it is. Those who could and should be helping, our supposed leaders, aren’t. They often have too much invested in the problem. So it boils down to us, as individuals. We are the ones that control the consumer side of the equation. We can either remain “dumbed down” or we can lighten up and become enlightened. We can quit wasting energy, and quit buying stuff we don’t need, stuff that only exacerbates the problem. We can learn new skills that make us more self-reliant: plant a garden, simplify your life, get hand tools, park your car, take a walk, install a clothes-line. We can start quieting our minds and begin to listen to the water. “Anyone can hear the water speak if they will only sit and listen.” Methanomics I graduated with a degree in business administration in 1970. It is the most embarrassing aspect of my life. I say that for two reasons, the first is that the marketing classes were courses in psychological warfare, getting people to buy things they didn't want or need by playing on their insecurities. The second reason had to do with the linear economic models that we were taught. Value was only placed on natural resources after they were mined, milled, manufactured and sold, the money taken to the bank. There was no responsibility or accountability for either the resource or the waste produced. I learned real economics shortly after I graduated while fighting a 20,000 acre timber fire in the state of Washington. After the fire was out and while patrolling the line, I happened into a little valley with an intact eco-system. Seedlings coming up through the decaying matter of fallen snags, surrounded by all stages of growth to mature trees and to the dying snags that were providing shelter for wildlife, before returning to the Earth to provide nutrients for future seedlings. I learned more real life economics in five minutes than I did in all my college economics courses. Later in my activism and politics I kept coming up against the growth for growth’s sake mind set. I called that kind of economics “steroid economics”. Yes, there was some short-term economic growth and benefit to some, but it was usually accompanied by negative impacts, as with steroids in the body. Beyond that, in my undergraduate days, I never heard the term “externalities,” a term that signifies the modern economic rationale for not taking responsibility for all the costs, all the impacts of one’s economic activity. It’s a way to justify passing those costs on to someone else: the taxpayers, future generations. I learned the term from an economics professor who was involved in a study of the economic impacts of industrial dairying. He used the term when I questioned him about the adverse environmental, health and quality of life impacts that came with these livestock concentration camps. “Oh, you want me to include the externalities?” he said. But what kind of spread sheet do you have if you don’t include all the assets and all the liabilities? You can make anything look good if you avoid the negatives. Today we have for the most part moved beyond steroid economics to what I call “methanomics”. As with methamphetamines, there is the illusion of a high followed by destructive impacts. The true believers who see growth as good are blind to the negatives - in fact they don't do the math or the spread sheets necessary to get the full picture. Now, with the reality of what I call the triangle of doom—a triangle pointing down with diminishing natural resources on one side, climate change and adverse environmental impacts on the other, capped off with a burgeoning human population that is exacerbating the impacts—we have to look at growth with a keener eye, ask the next obvious question “If this, then what?”. Is what we are doing an investment in solutions, taking into account those things the good ol’ boys like to call externalities or are we investing in problems? A great example was the joy expressed by the local newspaper and the chamber of commerce with the announcement that a travel trailer manufacturer was moving into the area. Travel trailers and the fuel guzzling vehicles it takes to pull them is contraindicated if we are to reduce greenhouse gases and slow or stop the climate change process. I told the editor that if the company was manufacturing passenger rail cars for mass transit, then there might be something to celebrate. We can’t keep doing that: investing in problems, not solutions. The old economic model I studied in college, with its lack of accountability for either the resources or waste, while it has been the foundation for the mess we are in now, didn’t seem to be quite as serious then, with four billion less people on the planet at the time and not as much awareness about the impacts of our actions as there is now. Our prevailing economic model is probably the biggest obstacle to our solving the climate change and other environmental impact issues. A pseudo solution, such as ethanol production, is truly a methanomic activity, since its production takes farm land out of food production to grow vehicle fuel, thus escalating the costs of many basic food items. It is less energy efficient and is still polluting. The fact is, we can’t keep doing what we are doing, wasting and consuming resources like there is no tomorrow and taking no responsibility for the impacts or consequences. It all ties back into Einstein’s admonishment that, “We cannot solve our problems at the same level of thinking at which we created them.” Methanomics ,plain and simple, is an example of the kind of thinking that is responsible for the problems we are faced with and more of that same flawed thinking is only going to make matters worse. One thing I’ve learned along
the way is that it is easy to identify problems, but you are not
contributing much unless you offer solutions. Green buildings come
to mind - they minimize energy and other resource use. Local food
distribution networks shorten the transport impacts and increase
community relationships between growers and consumers. Energy efficiency
and conservation measures not only have positive energy and environmental
impacts they also impact one’s personal economic situation.
Growing gardens not only feed the body, but help reconnect us to
the wonders of Nature. Mass transit can clean up the air, reduce
fossil fuel consumption decrease human isolation, and it can help
to build community. There are alternatives to the methanomic model.
We just need to think things through, do a full spread sheet, see
what creates solutions and what creates problems and invest our
time, energy and resources accordingly. A Different Yardstick For the past 25 years I’ve measured my success in the world with the planting of garlic. The challenges of getting the garlic in the ground before the cold of late fall have been many and varied, including time away working disasters, political campaigns, caring for loved ones, chasing down nuclear waste trucks, public hearings, demonstrations, ranch work and other distractions. But, I always got it in. Getting it in early gives it a chance to get established. The earlier I get it in, the better the odds it will get a timely mulch, as opposed to the rushed haphazard mulch to beat a cold snap. The planting of the garlic is more than a gardening thing. It has been something that connects me to the seasons. It has been a soul redeemer when I’ve grieved the loss of a love or a loved one. It is a meditation, some times much more conscious than at other times, but always a way to focus on something besides myself or the events of the world. In some ways, this year was not much different from the others, and yet this year there seemed to me to be a deeper meaning to the planting of the garlic. The past several months I’ve been extremely busy, with carpentry work, ranch work, my activism including doing some seminars on climate change/energy and how to assess both the global and personal aspects of those issues. I’ve been doing a great deal of reading, studying and thinking about the state of my state, the state of the nation and the state of the world. Perhaps it was this that made this year’s planting of the garlic more meaningful. In many ways the planting of garlic is a declaration of hope and belief in the future, despite the overwhelming evidence that the future is very precarious. Indian Summer didn’t come in a big block this year. It came in spurts, so I took advantage of one of the spurts to prepare the beds, and then the next day after a hard day’s work, a short nap and renewed vigor, I split apart the cloves, scraped a trench and planted the garlic. It felt extra good, a simple task. As I was leaving the garden I was thinking about the satisfaction that I felt and I thought of what Al Gore said upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, about climate change being “a moral, a spiritual” issue. I thought about how the context in which we live our lives has contributed to climate change. I used no fossil fuels in turning the garlic beds; I used a wheel barrow to haul my mule’s manure and compost to the garden. I continued thinking about what it is that has us so sped up, that our consumption of material things and some obscure definition of wealth and success has disconnected us from the Earth, our home. That evening I read the following quote in the Sunbeams section of The Sun, and thought it very relevant. "Story by Jung of a conversation with a chief of the Pueblo Indians: Jung asked the chief's opinion of the white man and was told it was not a high one. White people, said Ochwiay Biano, seem always upset, always restlessly looking for something, with the result that their faces are covered with wrinkles. He added that white men must be crazy because they think with their heads, and it is well-known that only crazy people do that. Jung asked in surprise how the Indian thought, to which Ochwiay Biano replied that naturally he thought with his heart." Laurenas van der Post. We are cajoled over and over by the marketing men and women that if we are to be successful we must have the most and the latest of everything. This seems to tie into what Ochwiay Biano was talking about. It is a head thing, this need to be cool, to be “in”. It really makes no sense. It is destroying the environment and leaving us broke. Why are people so easily influenced to participate in this destructive behavior? Now I know from my marketing classes in college, that it is easy to play on people’s insecurities, their need to feel beautiful or handsome, or popular. What then are the forces that make us feel “less than” and thus susceptible to this man-made yardstick of success? There seem to be a few easily definable social influences that create the kind of yardsticks that can make one feel out of it, not “in”. Beauty is constantly being defined and re-defined to keep one off balance. Trends are set, fashions created and changed again and again. Money has been used as a yardstick, but how does it work when some folks are paid millions of dollars to act or play a game, when others labor to provide food and make nothing? These are all external yardsticks and the pursuit of things to fulfill that criteria of material success takes a huge amount of resources to create and a huge amount of energy to create and transport. They also take a huge amount of space to store or to dispose of when they are no longer in vogue or the newness has worn off. There is more to the story about why we are made to feel less than whole, less than connected even among our species. One group wanting the resources of another must demean or disenfranchise the other in order to justify their taking. This can cut along racial, ethnic, religious, sexual or even species differences, but it doesn’t answer the why of it. How did we get to this point of justification? Perhaps the key to this lack of self-esteem, this disconnect of head and heart and home (Earth) came at least on the part of Western man from religion and the idea that we are all sinners, or that one group is the “chosen people of God”. The one thing that marketing and religions have in common is the need to define our attitudes in the head and not the heart, externally rather than internally. A lot of things make less sense when viewed from the heart instead of the head. I remember once sitting and listening to Corbin Harney, a Western Shoshone spiritual elder. English was his second language and as I listened, I moved between my heart and my head. When I listened with my heart, he made total sense. When I listened with my head, I couldn’t always follow his train of thought. It is not just our relationship to the Earth in regard to climate change that is “a moral, a spiritual matter.” The relationship we have to ourselves also influences how we act and interact with the world around us and in turn impacts others and this home we share with all other life forms. It is I believe “a moral and a spiritual matter”. Tat Tvam Asi, thou art that, it is all one, it is all connected. Now there’s a different yardstick by which to measure things and one’s actions. The planting of the garlic was a simple act that connected me to the garlic and to the Earth, to the soil, to the humus, the worms, the shovel and the wheelbarrow, to my mule. That simple act brought forth not only a sense of success and a host of benefits, but a much deeper connection to the world around me. I wrote one of my sisters about the planting of the garlic and this was her reply. “Your garlic planting is a perfect example of mindful living. I think it was on Sunday's 60 Minutes program that they did a feature on some preacher who makes people believe that they are good, and God loves them, so they should be successful and wealthy. One more twist on that same awful line which feeds the push for more and more consumption. And there are always studies finding that riches and happiness don't go hand-in hand at all. I love the stories about people in Micronesia who live in their boats mostly, and don't even have words for time or want, or even how old they might be. They are healthy, loving, and very good stewards of the earth because they only catch fish when they are hungry, or gather fruit if they come upon it, but don't want to possess anything because it hampers their nomadic way of life. God must really love them a lot. ………..”! A different yardstick, a different measure of what it means to be successful coming from the heart, will result in a far different outcome from the world that we have created for ourselves and future generations. Perhaps something as simple as planting one’s garlic in the fall. Showing Up I came of age in the turbulent 60s. One either had to go into deep denial or get involved in the issues of war and peace, equal rights and the state of the environment. I chose the later and have spent my adult life fighting the good fight. There have been victories and losses, there has been hope and despair, and there has been the public spotlight and the grueling work behind the scenes. My activism has taken many forms, going to so many public hearings that I claim to be “hearing impaired”, not from loss of auditory capability. I’ve voted in every election since I could first vote and since 1978 have been a candidate or would be candidate in every election. I have eight arrests for civil disobedience dealing with nuclear weapons and waste protests, argued cases before the state courts at all levels. I’ve lobbied the legislature, lectured in the schools, marched in the streets and written innumerable letters and articles stating my position. This article is not about the more intense and public side of the activist equation, as valuable and as enriching as those experiences have been. This article speaks to the more subtle side of the equation; showing up, taking one’s place at the table and putting ideas out for discussion. I have experienced in these first few weeks of this New Year (2009) several instances which demonstrate the value and importance of the subtle side of activism. The first instance has to do with the work of a loosely organized citizens’ committee in the small Idaho town near where I live and own a small rental property. We are faced with a couple of unfunded federal mandates dealing with arsenic in our drinking water and with the need to improve the city’s waste water system. It is a small town with quite a few of its citizens in the moderate to low income range. Many cannot afford the increased city utility rates to deal with these mandates. Our citizens’ committee is having an impact, putting forth ideas that are being acted upon and being discussed. We are players in the process. Two other instances have to do with energy issues. The first has to do with energy education and a proposal I made to the Idaho Public Utilities Commission through my one man, Idaho Energy Education Project. I proposed that some of the monies from the sale of SO2 credits, by the biggest utility in the state, be invested in energy education. The PUC found the idea interesting and asked that I expand on it. The concept was bigger than my little project could handle so I suggested partnering with the state office of energy resources, the state department of education and the utility. At first they were very interested and then suddenly cool. “We got a call from the governor’s office.” was the only explanation that I got. It didn’t stop me. I kept pursuing the idea, went into the classroom to try out some of my concepts. In the end I was pushed to the side as an active participant in the project, but the project moved forward and in part based on an earlier project I had initiated, solar for schools. Moving the energy education project along has been a year long and at times very frustrating process, but as of now it seems headed to a very positive conclusion; though not in the form I first envisioned. Believing strongly in the concept and yet being somewhat detached from the final form helped the project move along and spared me the illusion of personal loss. On another energy front, I was one of thirty-five or so people invited by the state’s largest electrical utility to participate in a regional electrical planning process for the large valley where I live. The committee was made up of elected officials, various government agencies, business people, builders and environmental groups. There were eight to ten meetings over the past year. I was one of a few individuals that attended every meeting and my message was constant about the importance of energy efficiency/conservation and distributed generation by renewable energy sources. A couple of days ago a CD with the draft plant came in the mail. The influence of the message I had espoused was tangible in the plan. The plan is very clear, that energy efficiency/conservation and distributed renewable generation will impact the need for expanding the local grid. The final affirmation came in the form of a rejection by the county planning and zoning commission of an application to expand a small dairy into what is known as a CAFO, a confined animal feeding operation of 1,000 animals or more, (or what I call a livestock concentration camp or open pit livestock mining operation,) several miles south of my home but not far from the canyon at whose mouth I live. I put forth the idea of the one mile setback from the canyon that was part of the county ordinance from which the dairy sought relief. So I had two involvements in this process. First there was the arduous and often contentious negotiations with the dairy industry to get the one mile set back into the county ordinance several years ago. The impacts of these industrial dairies have had very adverse impacts on the quality of life in rural southern Idaho. The second part of my involvement was via a letter I wrote to the planning and zoning commission in opposition to this particular dairy expansion. Not only its impact on the area, but if it were approved, the impact of the ordinance, on the agreed to social order that the setback had established. The fruits of one’s labor are
not always immediate or obvious. It is perhaps as Gandhi said, “Victory
is in the doing.” I’m reminded of the wisdom a friend
of mine, who when I asked her why she always planted fruit trees
and gardens even at houses she wasn’t going to be living at
for long said: “I may not enjoy the fruits of my labor, but
someone will.” Showing up, even against great odds, being
totally present, bearing witness to your truth, putting the ideas
on the table are powerful acts of service. Perhaps the largest of
such acts is non-attachment to form or even outcome. The less ego
one brings to the table the more open others will be and the odds
for success increased. One also is then free of the pain of disappointment.
Keep in mind that seeds unplanted cannot grow. PLASTICITY “The future is in plastics.” Dustin Hoffman was counseled regarding his opportunities in the 70s’ movie, The Graduate. Well I am here to say that the future for ourselves and our planet is in “plasticity’. Plasticity a term associated with the brains incredible ability to adjust and to rewire itself to fit an ever changing variety of inputs and thus impact our mental, physical and spiritual health. The term is also applied in quantum physics to the universal mind, that seeming endless flow of manifestation and de-manifestation of realities. In my younger days, when I thought youthfulness was the optimum state of being, I use to say to my yoga students: “The difference between old age and youth is stiffness; mentally, physically and spiritually.” As I grew older I came to realize that youthfulness was not necessarily the optimum stage of being, but that it was a matter of living fully and I then began to say: “The difference between life and death is stiffness; mentally, physically and spiritually.” Rigidity in any of those areas is a sign of death, a sign of rigor mortis, in essence a loss of plasticity, that ability to adjust. I grew up a Catholic boy in a Mormon town and it was perhaps the rigidity of those two religions that created in me a spiritual plasticity, a questioning mind. The juxtaposition of those two religions and the daily admonition of my mother to “expand your horizons.” turned me into a seeker, though it was going to be some time before I became a conscious seeker. As a kid sitting in church numbed by the hell, fire and brimstone sermons of the Irish priest, I would blow my young mind by focusing on the ending words of a prayer “World without end, Amen.” I would follow that phrase out until it blew my circuits. I’d end up shaking my head and feeling a bit disoriented after the experience. I went there quite often always with the same result, blown circuits. I see now that the fallacy of my journey, the reason I kept blowing my circuits; it is a loop, a Mobius Strip, a world without end. Amen. Though smart enough, I was not challenged by or motivated by our education system. I did just enough to get by. The same was true physically; I had some athletic gifts, but didn’t apply myself. It wasn’t until in my 25th year of life when I was blown out of my comfort zone by a fairly serious knee surgery that I started to apply myself.. I was broke, crippled and spent a great deal of time alone. I wanted to get back to my job of fighting wildfires. In the process I got to know myself, began to develop the mental and physical disciplines and techniques that were necessary for advancing the whole of my being. In the spring of that year, 1972, I was back together physically, in fact in better shape than I’d ever been. Something had changed in me as a result of that experience. I experienced the first concrete signs that I could consciously change my mental, physical and spiritual realities. That spring I went to an astrologer who suggested a book, The Nature of Personal Reality. The essence of the book was that you could be what you focused your attention on, that we have a hand in the creation of your reality. The following year I continued with my discipline, which had been conscious mostly in the physical realm, but that led me to yoga and a more conscious discipline of my whole self, the mental and spiritual as well as the physical. This solidified my journey towards consciousness and also enhanced my curiosity about the world we live in. The rigidity of my Catholic upbringing kept me suspicious and acted as a sort of check and balance to the new concepts I was encountering. My mother’s daily admonition to” expand your horizons” kept moving me forward. As I pushed my limits, the impacts and the influences of old rigidities would loosen up. I see now across the spectra of my persona, my modus operandi, that it has been my rigidities that have held me back, limited the gains. Of course it is our rigidities that help to define us in the moment, but if we stay there we are stuck, stiff, and dead. It is an aspect of plasticity, this ability to be formed into ridges, but it is the anti-thesis of placidity that those ridges should be permanent. It needs to flow into the next thing. In a world without end, how can there be an end? So it is one endless loop of plasticity, from which we create and recreate our reality. When ridges are let go of, they leave a thread in the tapestry of cosmic memory, an ever expanding wealth of knowledge. Throughout my life I have experienced many amazing confirmations of the malleable nature of our minds and bodies. Lately more and more information about our incredible brains is coming to the fore. In my yoga teaching and even in my activism there have been incredible validations of plasticity, but previously I didn’t have the language to identify why things were happening. I certainly have had unconscious experiences of the same phenomena; we all do. A few of my yoga students have positively altered aspects of various neurological disorders through alternate nostril breathing, various left/right brain activities, and intentional balancing in every day activity. A few years ago I attended a Social Artist course in Ashland, Oregon. Social Artistry is really a matter of working consciously in brain plasticity, an incredible medium. The most amazing thing happened to me during and immediately after a left/right brain exercise lead by Peggy Rubin and Jean Huston. We centered, we focused and worked left and right brain, we did head and heart/mind work. I could literally feel movement in my head. Afterward I was totally disoriented for a short period of time, but was forever changed by the experience. Shortly after Ashland, I saw What the Bleep and lately What the Bleep…into the Rabbit Hole, which broadened my understanding, increased my language skills and expanded my curiosity. I read Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy among others of his work and some things by Krishnamurdi. At a friend’s house I experienced a similar mind-altering experience to that of the one in Ashland by going forty-five minutes into the life and some of works of C.M. Escher via a coffee table book. I again felt movement in my brain and a bit of that disorientation. I have experienced headaches as a result of too much mental input, but I now experience these headaches less often due my openness to other possibilities. We are free to stretch as our rigidities; let us. Seems that the malleability, the workability, the fluidity or stiffness of the material of our brains is predicated on our stiffness; our definitions, mental, physical or spiritual. That stiffness is caused by our rigidities, our holding onto fixed definitions and ways of being. There have been many miraculous people, experiences, ideas and dreams that have brought me to this point. I sometimes wonder if I am choosing or being led. ? No clear answer there-but when a lead is offered, I follow. It may be books, movies, or people. There are all kinds of things to learn in any experience. In the midst of listening and pondering the brain, again one of those magical things happened. I have a sister that is going through some health challenges. Family and friends are seeking and praying for ideas. My brother sent out an e-mail that mentioned a former college classmate, Dr. Michael Merzenich, who is one of the co-writers of a PBS program called The Brain Fitness Program. Prior to watching it, I had become intrigued with the idea of giving Tibetan bells to some of the folks I care about as a mechanism to raise the vibration in their homes and thus their lives. I believe that the bell is a way to bring one to focus. Focus of attention is one of the keys to brain fitness that was covered in the PBS program. It is our focus that gives us the ability to direct our brains, which then allows change in its structure and function to keep our bodies afloat. What of the mind/brain connection? Are they one and the same? One actually located in the other? The Brain Fitness Program speaks to this in an instance where the mind would or could separate from the messages of the brain. I one instance, a person with Obsessive Compulsive Behavior was able to recognize that the brain is sending out random, disconnected and contradictory messages, which are counter to the individual’s well being. The mind has the ability to override the voice or voices of the brain. We all get these counter productive messages, (which leads to another question of where they come from?). It is just that in some people the volumes of the voices are turned up. They get one’s attention. We then construct the moment subject to competing voices for which advice the mind takes for action, which is a molding of the cosmic plastic into reality. In lieu of brain/ mind one might talk in conscious and unconscious mind. One voice says “Get out of bed”, another says “Sleep in.” A few weeks into this New Year, I had numerous experiences as an activist that pointed to the importance of showing up, not only for one’s self, but for the whole. I saw ideas that I had put on the table take form, and often I was not included in the mix of those implementing the idea. By showing up you create, plant a seed, and it has influence on the collective reality. Your not showing up is also a showing up. We create by both our action and inaction. We can create unconsciously or consciously. The results have mental, physical and spiritual realities. All things are interconnected. To create consciously one needs to expand their awareness of the medium they are working with, the plasticity of the medium, inside and out. Intense rigidity and attachment to our outcomes doesn’t work well in a pliable reality; it takes out some of the elasticity and limits other forms. Everywhere around us, we see that the world is changeable, shifting deserts, meandering rivers, eroding hills, changes in socio-economic relationships. In talking to people about both problems and solutions, I have been amazed by how many times I have heard the expression, “I can’t seem to get my head around it.” Getting one’s head around something implies plasticity, the ability to shift or change one’s thinking about a problem, a situation. It is often in that state of trying to get one’s mind around something that we experience some major movement in our heads. If we are too rigid in our old beliefs, it can seemingly manifest as headache or expectations, or it can take the form of some sort of euphoric insight into a new way of being. We find ourselves now in the midst of great turmoil on many levels caused by the cumulative effect of our past decisions. We haven’t yet faced the fact that we are the creators of this situation. We are trapped in the rigidity of our past thinking and in many instances are trying to solve our problems with that same thinking, that same level of consciousness that got us into this mess. Our future is in plasticity, our ability to adjust our thinking, our modus operandi, our way of being, our way of creating. We can create a different reality. Your Own Worst Enemy Almost to her dying breath, my dear mother, admonished me to “expand your horizons” and “don’t be your own worst enemy.” The words stuck and became guideposts for my life, though I must say I did better following the former than I did the later. Recently I came to realize that those admonitions weren’t really separate, they were aspects of the same thing. I’m not even sure that my mother realized this, but as I have grown in my awareness of the body/mind/brain/spirit connection, I see they are about much the same thing. To live life fully one needs to expand one’s horizons, always looking for more and deeper meaning. To not do so is inhibitory, which really makes one one’s own worst enemy. As a wilderness survival instructor I told students that their number one survival tool was their heads. “Lose your head and you lose your life.” was my admonition to them. Physically speaking that is true, but metaphorically speaking losing one’s head means losing mental or mind control of the situation. So it is one of those great paradoxes. That which is your number one survival tool (your head) is also the place from which the greatest danger comes. That danger comes in the form of rigid thoughts and beliefs. We are not talking here just about situations where one is thrown into a completely unfamiliar physical environment and having to scrounge for food, water, shelter and fire to survive. We are talking about all those situations where we are bounced out of our comfort zones, where the threats may be real or imagined, but the impacts because of our thinking is stressful and thus negative. It is very much the situation we find ourselves in today (2009), with the economy in a tailspin, the climate in flux, and confidence in the future at low ebb. Stress is not only damaging to the individual, but also has a negative impact on societies. Stress in the body causes the release of chemicals such as adrenalin to be released, it gives us the ability to engage our fight or flight mechanism to get us out of trouble, out of the stressful situation. If the situation is one of longer term stress where fight or flight is not necessarily required or an option, then we tend to not use the adrenalin and instead bathe our cells in it. Rather than being an asset, it becomes a liability. Adrenalin was used as an example, but long term stress, creates a chemical environment in our bodies that weakens the cells and affects our health. So here we are in challenging and uncertain times which is certainly a precursor for stress. We can add to that our own personal situations as see that we are ripe for a health crisis, which can either be internal to the person, or external to our families and communities. It is a scenario in which we can certainly become our own worst enemies. We certainly can’t afford a greater load on the health care system, nor can we afford to let that stress manifest socially by acting out our fears and anger. The antidote to that scenario lies in my mother’s admonition to “expand our horizons.” To acknowledge what we have, rather than what we don’t have is one of the best ways to redefine the scenario, make it less stressful, less negative or even make it a positive, if we embrace a different experience. We have to acknowledge where we are both physically and emotionally. Our comfort zones may be changed, but are they necessarily bad, or are they merely different. We may not have the latest fashion, but we are clothed, we may not be eating gourmet food, but we are eating. We may be forced into doing more physical labor, but we are in good shape and feel good about what has been accomplished. We may need to learn a new skill, but we will find our brains becoming sharper and we will apply that sharpness to other situations. We might find ourselves working with other folks that we didn’t know and maybe had misconceptions about and end up with new friends that help to expand our horizons even more. Uncertainty is about the future and
certainly no one knows what exactly it is going to be like, though
via our fearfinders we can certainly make it look bleak. If instead
we focus on the present, engage some of the scenarios mentioned
above, we will create a present that is working and we will find
ourselves not only ok, but actually feeling quite together. We just
move that forward into a future that we create, rather than fearing
a future created by someone else. It is all a matter of choosing
to expand our horizons and not be our own worst enemy. The Aquarium Effect I recently attended a lecture by Laurence Gonzales, the author of Everyday Survival and Deep Survival, speaking about the differences between those who survive a particular circumstance and those that don’t. During the lecture he made several references to the difference between Western culture and the rest of the world. In the question and answer portion of the lecture someone asked. “What are those differences?’ Gonzales answered, “We are like fish in an aquarium. The food is sprinkled in and we go for it.” So what is it that took self-feeders, growers of food, builders of shelter, and sewers of clothes and turned them into fish in an aquarium, those that are fed, sheltered and clothed from outside. To a large degree even our thoughts and ideas come from external forces. We have become dis-connected and thus a large degree dis-empowered and it is that dis-empowerment that leads us to the brink of disaster. What happened to the pioneer stock of just a couple of generations ago? What turned self-reliant people into fish in an aquarium dependent on being fed on many levels by outside sources? Much of it has to do with the Industrial Revolution, the migration of people from the land to the factory and thus to the city. The advent of the assembly line, where work became more and more specialized, more and more routine and more and more mechanized. As an increase in technology came down the pike, we became more disconnected from the processes that made up our lives. Technology took out some of the steps that made those processes happen, be it the growing of food, the butchering of animals, baking from scratch, making our clothes, manufacturing our implements. The more disconnected we became, the more dependent we became on outside sources the more susceptible we became to more outside controls, the more we became like fish in an aquarium. This is not just a physical phenomenon. It is mental as well. The more we were involved in the processes of our lives, the more we were engaged mentally. Our creative juices had to be constantly flowing, for there was less routine in our lives. The closer we were to the day to day meeting of needs, the more we were engaged in the dynamics of the natural order of things. Shopping at an air conditioned store every few days is far different from growing a garden and dealing with the impacts of variabilities in the weather or a pest of some sort. As the less engaged life has passed from one generation to the next, our children are even more dis-connected, dis-engaged from those processes that meet their day to day needs. Much of their food comes in packaging; they don’t even see it in its base form. They spend less and less time outside just playing, making up their own games. They play with anatomically correct dolls, or remote control trucks, that last but a short time. There is even a disorder now named for this disconnect, Nature Deficit Disorder. In his book The Sibling Society, Robert Bly, speaks of the importance of playing in Nature and having a curiosity about one’s world being integral to developing one’s mental capacities. Organized sports, video games, a barrage of advertising all lead make for an intellectual dependency for ideas from the outside, a lack of imagination a mental aquarium effect. A dependency on outside forces for ideas of what to do puts one in a more vulnerable situation when a crisis develops, because there are not the mental processes or memories to draw from. If you haven’t been engaging your intellect on a regular basis, when a crisis happens you are at a disadvantage. We are mental, physical and spiritual beings, wherein those aspects work in concert to create our daily reality. Our vitality comes from pushing the limits of those aspects of our selves. The more we push the limits, the broader the range of our experience the more we are able to expand our horizons and deal with changes. It is the old “use it or lose it” admonition. The less we use, the less we are capable of and when it comes to a crisis or survival situation the less resources we have to draw on. The challenges may be mental, they may be physical or they may be spiritual. The more we have become reliant or addicted to a way of life or routine the more vulnerable we become. Someone is not always going to be there to feed us and if we don’t know how to feed our selves then what? We were designed to go through a broad range of mental, physical and even spiritual experience, but if we haven’t pushed the limits, we will be like a rusted hinge that can’t open to new possibilities and may even break at the new pressure. Laurence Gonzales was right about Western culture having turned us into fish in an aquarium, but we are not without hope or possibilities. Both neuroscience and quantum physics talk about the incredible malleability or plasticity of both our brains and the underlying nature of the universe. We can regain that which we have lost. We can regain our mental, physical and spiritual by pushing our parameters, breaking out of our routines, moving out of our comfort zones, baking bread from scratch, planting a garden, learning a new skill, thinking a new thought.. We can free our selves from the aquarium and get back into the ocean of life, thus living more fully and increasing our chances of survival, thus living full and exciting lives in a changing and challenging world. Turtle Medicine “Go slow and know where you go.” was an admonition I often got from my late wife and still get from a close neighbor and friend. Perhaps it is the Gemini in me, that tendency to fly full speed from one thing to another, which elicits such sage advice. I have lots of scars on many levels from moving too fast. I don’t heed the advice as often as I should but I know that it is Turtle Medicine’s slowing down and moving forth consciously that brings me to center and focuses my attention on the issues that need and are demanding my attention in the here and now. While I often heard the go-slow admonition, it usually isn’t until I’m picking myself back up and taking stock of the damage that I really get the message. Moving slow was not a part of my personal modus operandi. I was a man of action, a former wildlands firefighter, EMT, wilderness survival instructor, disaster manager and activist; I was use to making quick assessments and then going forth with a fairly high rate of good results. When I had my knee replaced around
nine years ago and just a couple of months after my wife died, I
was going to push through it, physically and emotionally. The physical therapist, who came a couple of times a week, must have had a former career as a Marine Corp. drill sergeant. She was tough and I was determined, but the combination didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere. The pain was intense and the pain medication did little to ease the pain and seemed only to dull my spirit. A veteran of four previous knee surgeries, I knew the drill well. Endure the pain, push yourself physically and get back in the game. That plan didn’t seem to be working. The harder I worked the worse I got. A good sweet soul friend of mine who heard my story said to me, “Bill, I think you need to slow down and practice Turtle Medicine.” Shortly after that I was telling my story and lack of progress with a nurse from the surgeon’s office. She said, “Bill, I think you are pushing too hard. Slow down, take it a little easier.” Their words while sounding somewhat like music to my soul ran counter to how I was accustomed to getting through tough times. But I soon began to realize that it is hard to keep moving towards the Light, when you are continually sliding backwards on a glass incline. I pride myself in not being a stupid person, so since what I was trying wasn’t working I shifted my focus. I slowed down. I brought my attention into the here and now and not out there where I wanted to be. I moved slow, paid close attention and listened when another good friend said to me, “Your body has to learn to trust you.” It was like starting the relationship with my body over again. I worked slow and steady, like the turtle moves. I learned to breathe through the pain, celebrate each improvement in strength and flexibility. I started to heal emotionally and physically at a steady rate. It became less a game of Mother May I, moving a step forward and then two steps back. It wasn’t long before I was back on my bicycle, swimming, running in the water and finally doing the Salute to the Sun. I still have a tendency to move too fast at times, picking up new scars to layer on top of old scars, but I am also paying more attention and playing the Turtle Medicine card when it is needed. In fact before I sat down to write this paper I was in the process of working through some of the most intense yoga/Turtle Medicine of my life. There were old scars dating back to my knee replacement and layered with other scars that come from living life on the edge and occasionally falling off. They finally added up to too much. I looked for some outside help, but when it wasn’t readily available I went to Turtle Medicine. I moved slow, I went deep, very deep, I breathed deep, went into the pain, paid close attention, removed one layer and then moved into the next. In a couple of days I gained back years of flexibility, old pains that I thought were just part of the trip disappeared. As all things are interconnected, the lesson of Turtle Medicine has implications beyond the physical, beyond the individual. Perhaps at this juncture in our collective socio-economic lives, we might well be advised to practice a little Turtle Medicine. Slow down, be in the moment instead of fretting about the future. Lowering the energy frequency on which we are operating to one that is more attuned to our natural rhythms. Stimulus packages, no matter how well intended, may in fact not be what is needed. What is needed is to slow down, take stock, celebrate the small wonders in and of our lives and then move forward to something more akin to our true selves. It is in the going slow that we can see more and feel more, otherwise reality is a blur; we bounce over our feelings. There is an adage that says “to get higher, one must go deeper”. Perhaps at this point in our history, the inhabitants of Turtle Island are in need of a big dose of Turtle Medicine. Go slow, go deep, remove one layer at a time, see if what is underlying that layer makes for a good solid foundation and if not remove it until we find something solid to build on. Perhaps our national mantra should be “Go slow and know where you go.” Victory is Being and
Doing in the Now
The title for this piece comes from two incidents important in my life and I think pertinent for our times. The first came in 1972, the day before I was to leave for a fire fighting assignment in Alaska. A stranger in a bar introduced me to the Ram Dass book, Be Here Now and then disappeared out the door. The second incident happened in 1978, the year of my entry into politics at Book Magic, some friends’ bookstore in Twin Falls, Idaho. Standing there, something told me to look at my hand; it was resting near a book of quotes by Gandhi. Reaching down I opened the book to this quote, “Victory is in the doing.” Ram Dass’s book and Gandhi’s quote have been key guideposts in my personal development and my personal history, but it wasn’t until very recently, that I realized just what the marriage of those two concepts might mean to the state of our individual and collective reality. Throughout my life fate has led me down a continuous path toward “reconnecting with place and planet”. Despite having a degree in business administration, I have a long history of aversion to consumerism and the allusion of happiness through material comfort and accumulation. I have found that my true joy is in the doing. Whether it be in doing the most simple and supposedly mundane of things, such as washing my clothes by hand and hanging them out on the line, or whether it be the more involved, like the growing and preserving of food. At one juncture of my life I found myself on the trail with a blanket, a knife, a poncho and a digging stick serving as a wilderness survival instructor working with challenged teens in the Trinity-Shasta Wilderness. It was at this supposedly primitive level of existence that I experienced an incredible sense of togetherness as a human being. This sense of fulfillment was a result of living so in the now and being so connected and dependent on myself and the surrounding resources. I am a yogi, one who believes in and tries to incorporate in to practice the notion of the interconnectedness of the mental, physical and spiritual. Through contemplating the words of Eckhart Tolle, regarding the importance of Now to our well-being, and the state of our current socio-economic and environmental reality; I realize that victory, success, and survival on many levels is really predicated on our being and doing in the now. This implies an important reconnect between our-selves and the Planet through the conscious, here and now doing, of those things that are essential to our lives and living. Living in the now implies that we must care for the air, the land and the water through the activity of our daily lives. It means being fully present and doing without attachment. We come from ancestors that were hunter/gatherers, whose lives depended on their connection to place and Planet; and by Planet I mean the totality of air, land, water and the various plants and animals that share their space and the skills of the people. Later, agri-culture brought a different kind of relationship, a different kind of grounded-ness, but still a deep connection to place and to the skills that went with surviving in a place. There was perhaps more specialization of skills, the blacksmith, the cheese maker, the miller, the weaver, the seamstress, but still there was a close tie to resources and to the community. It is that loss of close connection to resources and the community that has brought us to this point in our collective history. We have become so disconnected that many don’t know where their food, their clothes, or their energy comes from. So how are they to understand the impacts of their actions? We are addicted in many ways to the ornaments of an unsustainable past and fearful about a future where those ornaments might be in short supply. Addiction and fear or the addiction of fear keeps us off guard, makes us irrational. That addiction makes us unsure of ourselves and brings stress into our lives which medical science knows impacts our health and only exacerbates our uneasiness. Sound like a merry-go-round you can’t get off? It is, but there is an antidote, and that is being present and doing in the here and now. We have to let go of the past. We are not going back. There are too many people on the planet and too few resources for making the props that fill that old soap opera stage. The consumer society is not and cannot be a happy society because it is predicated on always needing something new to make you happy. Being and doing in the here and now is what can make a person truly happy and fulfilled. It is what can bring about the kind of fulfillment that I experienced on the trail. Being connected and doing for ones own self is what activates creative resources, engages body, mind and spirit.. The end result… feeling fully alive. It is in that aliveness that you are fulfilled and it is being fulfilled that makes you happy. As a handyman/carpenter, I love it when I have a job that challenges me on all levels.. These jobs provide opportunities for me to manifest real tangible results through mental engineering, and physical exertion. Being present makes the work spiritual enhancing the quality of the work. Opting to have someone else do for you what you could do for yourself robs you of the opportunity of connection. Being too safe, too comfortable robs you of the dynamics and ultimately the knowing that helps keep you sharp. It is important to push your parameters, mentally, physically and spiritually. Being in the zone, fully present in your work, not only heightens the experience it also increases the quality and value of the work and creates an environment less prone for mistakes. There are many carpenters missing a finger or two, who were not in the zone. Their minds were somewhere else while the saw was taking off fingers. The first night out on the trail I would often just throw my blanket on the hard ground to go to sleep. I knew how to make a comfortable bed, even a warm bed, but I also found a little intentional discomfort heightened my senses, made me aware of what I could endure. It helped me to also appreciate the good things. It freed me of certain expectations, which are often the real culprits in solving our problems and of being here and now. I’m not talking about suffering here, I am talking about enhancing your experience and appreciation for what is real. Freeing oneself of the unneeded burdens of false needs and expectations is like loosing excess pounds, it makes moving through life a lot easier. Where do you start? You start where you are. Take a look around. What can you do for yourself? Bake some bread, make some cookies from scratch, grow a garden, hang your wash on the line, walk somewhere instead of drive. Just be, look around at the world, get into it, see the colors, feel the temperature and the textures. Smell the smells, listen to the sounds. Quiet the mind and cut the jibber jabber. Let go of the past, don’t worry about the future, victory is truly being and doing in the now.
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