It has been quite the past couple of days. I feel like I need to get a lot of writing and thinking done, and here is as good a place to start as any. Well... I guess the place to start is Saturday, when Cam and I drove up to Seattle. I went to run the Free Them 5k which aims to fight human trafficking. I ran to support the cause, but wouldn't have done so except that I also wanted to support Becca, stand in solidarity with her and her passions (not that I am not passionate about it too). It was an interesting experience to say the least, but I guess I don't really want to get into the details. After the race we waited for the bus near a fallout shelter. I was already riled up from conversations I'd overheard in the car and at the race, and a discussion with Nathan I'd had that morning, and then with the general atmosphere of the running event. I realize I was experiencing culture shock having come directly from Olympia into a very large concentration of christians, and having been on the highway/in a car so long, and then witnessing the waste and the indulgence of the event. It was a lot. And then there was the boat party -- a birthday party for Nathan's boss. I can't really even go there. The juxtaposition of my life in Oly with the entire day of exposure to things I am already sensitive about just left me exhausted.

Then I got home and witnessed how dedicated my parents have been to making changes in their lives, largely in response to my passions. It was beautiful and Dad and I did some work on the new garden plan while mom had to go back to Seattle for a call-in at the hospital. This work and seeing this transformation and being outside was revitalizing after a hard day. After Dad and I were pooped I went inside to veg-out online and came across something that has since sent me into a spiral of despair. It was a video on what a particular country is doing with its nuclear waste. In class we have been discussing nuclear power and its implications on all sorts of levels from what radiation is to how it causes cancer and how long it lasts and how fragile our infrastructure for it is. So we are already playing god, and this video just took it to another level of hubris that I can't even.... think about if I want to function. The problem is, I WANT to think about it. I don't want to live in ignorance. I want to KNOW so I can have the power, or at least the awareness, necessary to make change. But it is a heavy heavy burden to know... and the rest of the night was pain.

The next morning, feeling desperate for expression of my emotions and for guidance and support with what I was facing (what we are all facing) I wrote to FaceTribe... online community of people who live, think, feel more like me than I have ever experienced. I had seen the way they (we) have responded to other tribe members in times of need, and I realized that I can ask for help too. I wrote:

"Dear Tribe,
I find myself so in need of tribe recently. I have never truly opened up here, but today I need to. I'm sorry this heavy post comes on Mother's Day.

Last night was one of the most painful I've experienced.


From recent discussions in class, to watching an online documentary I have been discovering the horrors of nuclear waste, and last night the reality and magnitude and longevity of the problem finally all made it to my heart. I've never been so scared for the world that I love so much.


Home for the weekend, I tried to talk to my Dad. I was sobbing, and he was so "business" about it. He understood why I was hurting, but he wasn't hurting in the same way, and he tried to talk me out of feeling the pain I was feeling without knowing the whole story. That just made me feel more pain...anger towards him for not feeling the pain, for discrediting the validity of mine, and then for not having done anything about this problem, and for bringing me into this world knowing what I would have to face. ...And that he just stood there while I sobbed, holding facts to my grief.


This left me feeling utterly alone. My own father did not have guidance or emotional support for me in this time of need. I felt like there were no elders to look to, and even if there were, I was angry at them. I called two friends, and one of them said the only thing that needed to or could have been said which was: "Just go ahead and cry, you don't have to say anything. Thank you so much for feeling this pain you are feeling." Then, she talked softly to me about how much she wished she could be here with me, holding me, falling asleep next to me, and waking up in the morning to make blueberry pancakes.


Her tenderness and understanding calmed me down a bit. But laying in bed later, 100,000 years became an unfathomable number again, and all the images that were haunting me resurfaced. I felt resentful of, and let down by, the past generations. I felt angry at myself too, and began to think that I didn't ever want to bring anyone new to this world with so much pain to feel for so many problems that we've caused and left for them.


I wrote: "What an awful thing to feel hatred for one's own ancestors. But I do, for being left with no guidance about what to do in the face of such an unprecedented, dangerous, wounded, and diseased reality. I do not want to hand this to someone else, to any others, to have to face, to have to address... I do not want others to have to feel the consequences of things they did no choose."


I put my journal down and cried more. Then for whatever reason, I started speaking out loud, into the future, begging them to know that I did care about them and that I did try for them. And I just said over and over through my tears "Please know that I loved you and that I tried....I'm trying."


After a while of repeating this, I began to hear it newly, not as a message from me to the future, but as a message to me from the past. And I realized, that someone sometime somewhere had said this prayer for me too. Maybe many people had. Maybe most people had. But if so why is the world still as it is?


I don't know what else to say. What you all offer here in FaceTribe so often helps me feel less alone, less daunted. Any words, poems, advice, love... I would gladly accept today.

Thank you."

Just writing it helped. Posting it even more so. And then receiving the unbelievable outpouring of love that I did over the next few days has allowed me to survive and begin the slow, maybe never-ending process of moving through and working with this pain. These 15+ people who responded (all of them "strangers" but one) bringing me into their hearts, hearing me, acknowledging and affirming my pain, loving me, sharing resources with me, and feeling with me have empowered me to continue.

Yesterday, in the Cultivating Voice class for the Writing Center, we were talking about difficult types of sessions. Sometimes it seems like people come into the center (maybe like an hour before a paper is due) seeking affirmation that what they have written is "ready" to turn in, seeking easy answers, rather than seeking a discussion about ways to move forward with the paper or ways to improved their overall writing process. Sandy said something like: "if you are always granted validation about your ideas, how do you learn how to trust yourself?" It reminded me of what Cam had said about not wanting to become an emotional crutch for me (I realize that isn't an exact quote either, but it is basically what I took away from something he said at one point).

I think both these ideas are valuable to consider and to keep in mind, but their importance does not negate the value and power of affirmation. No, it isn't our job to tell the student "yes, this paper is ready to submit." But as Ben demonstrated in his role play with Norma Alicia (who was acting as a panicked student wanting affirmation about her paper), we can acknowledge their emotions... validate, at least, the fact that they are feeling panic and pain. She said, once he did that, she felt the panic recede and she could look at the situation more clearly.

We don't have to give easy answers that are not authentic, we only have to acknowledge, with openness and love and acceptance, where someone is, and encourage them to proceed.

Life is already so difficult and confusing. We live in a world so full of unanswerable questions. It is nice to be validated in our experience some of the time... and at the very least, to not feel like what you are experiencing is invalid. When I was crying to dad he said: "you are getting yourself so worked up over something without knowing the whole reality of it." When I told Bret I was struggling emotionally with the content of the class he told me he didn't know what to say, "the subject matter is what it is." I wasn't looking to ignore the reality in either instance. I was facing it, head on and trying to navigate it. All I wanted was compassion.

One of the students in Cultivating Voice said something about the power of looking to elders (or "those who have gone before") for guidance (which is what I so desperately wanted this weekend and in my convo with Bret). Maybe its not even just having someone who's gone before, but having a witness. To some degree I think we all want to be heard, seen, acknowledged, validated by someone in this crowded, confusing, chaotic world where everything is judged and scrutinized and difficult. Having a witness... having a mirror... having an acknowledgment that what you are saying, doing, feeling is not invalid, and that it is okay or even powerful, can make all the difference in whether or not we continue to pursue truth, writing, life...

My tribe, when posed with my questions and pain, did not have easy answers for me. They did not tell me what I needed to do. They just encouraged me in my experience. They held me up. They thanked me. They said they trusted my emotions. They told me I was not alone in feeling them. They bowed to me. They breathed with me. They invited me to them and to places of healing. They reflected with me and reflected me. They felt with me. They loved and loved and loved me. And that made all the difference.

Love is incredibly powerful. I'd like to believe that its impacts are more powerful and more lasting than any other type of power (including nuclear). I don't know how that is true, or how it could be true evolutionarily or otherwise, but my heart believes it... even if my brain questions it. Class this quarter has made me question (at times) if love even exists at all. Silly, I know, and shocking to hear, probably... but true. I mean, the class has forced me to question a lot of assumptions I hold around humanity and life and self and, well, just about everything. And that has been good. But I guess I am realizing that nothing (no logic, no reasoning, nothing) can steal love from my heart, from the world. The only thing that seems to have come close to doing that is hatred, but, then again, I believe even that can't exist without love.



Phew! Lots more to say, but I'm going to release this into the world so I feel that I at least got some of it out. Thank you for reading.

However just and anxious I have been, 
I will stop and step back
from the crowd of those who may agree
with what I say, and be apart.
There is no earthly promise of life or peace
but where the roots branch and weave
their patient silent passages in the dark;
uprooted, I have been furious without an aim.
I am not bound for any public place,
but for the ground of my own
where I have planted vines and orchard trees,
and the heat of the day climbed up
into the healing shadow of the woods.
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn
and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.

~ Wendell Berry, Farming: A Hand Book

"The cop, the prostitute, the drug dealer, the scared grandmother who listens to the screams in the alley, the limping old man who was one of those screaming a few years ago and the teenage ‘bad-boy’ in the making all stood silent in their semi-circle of one intent. They watched the white lady kneeling in the muck of the dark alley. They’d seen her over the last week or so, walking this alley. She cooed, crept her arm forward, tentatively petted the hungry ball of fur and then grabbed it. The kitten screamed. The cop slammed her flashlight to the prostitute. “Hold this!” and came forward to close the carrier door. The limping old man tapped his cane in delight opening and closing his toothless gums. The scared grandmother clapped her hands in front of her chin and began to cry. The drug dealer praised Jesus. The prostitute, being terrified of cats, stood slack-jawed and wide-eyed having witnessed perhaps the greatest bravery she‘d ever seen. The cop in her home clothes was quiet, matter of fact, made intense eye-contact with the white lady while giving the slightest of nods, and was ever watchful of her surroundings. The white lady with grimy knees stood up with the noisy carrier and handed the 6” switchblade she’d just used to cut vines back to the bad-boy in the making who sheepishly accepted it under the cop‘s gaze. And behind them all, hanging through windows up and down the nighttime alley, backlit by the bare bulbs of their bedrooms, the Chester Alley background chorus joined in with waving hands and shouts of happiness. “Did you get it? Did you get it?” Yes, we got it. The kitten was rescued."

I asked if this was a true story:

"Yes, Alex Eisenberg, this was real. People press the boundaries to help as needed in this world, some do it politically, some socially. One of my callings is for the overlooked. Being a good street cat trapper is not something I saw coming in my life. But I am. So I do it...when I can sanely...and when I can at least imagine I am safe. I've helped over 500 in the last few years as an independent rescuer. There are millions of animals killed every year in 'shelters' because of overpopulation. Probably five times that die a suffering death on the street each year. So I do my best to spay/neuter them before more are born. This colony of 30 took me to a whole new level, bordering an alley where people get killed and a beautiful cemetery filled with the dead. It is only a few blocks from where I live. I must in some yet unimagined way claim not only these cats but these people as my community. Because of the gross abuse I reported (cat/kittens fed to dogs before dog fights to "give them the taste of blood, ya kno") many local rescue agencies came together to help. To my knowledge this is the first time all these historically territorial and back-biting groups worked side by side. This whole thing has been surreal. Is this a worthy part of The Great Turning or just a waste of time? It is easy for me to sit with artists as they ponder this same question as Robin did. As everything filters into my heart from this rescue I am grateful for the witnesses here."

"how long into the future will your way of life have consequences?"

the facility. wayy too much like resident evil. (unearthing/distorting things that are best left underground or pure)

we can't just design our way out of everything.

"a fire so powerful it can never be extinguished"

dear people, stop making shitty decisions that destroy hope for life on this planet.

bouncing through the night after work,
the 41 line whispers
from the front not silent but low light and engine
roar and drowning out muting
of sound hide secrets.
people, peers hold books flip on fixed light, fall into
their solitary stories and I
writing that there is nothing solitary
about sitting in rooms on wheels together waiting
for the voice that tells you when. but i bet
its more than just that --
the intimacy of these identical rooms in different
combinations, we can't ever know, just guess, just
feel when at night bumps and soft bubbles of ideas
pop pull string ring bell
lose one gain another
and what would change if I pushed out those doors
too soon, too late or not at all? could you tell?
i will this time
the night is warm and I needed a bit more

~~~

its all an experiment, no matter
the cloth on seats that hold a hundred stories each
day and I only hear mine
through wires that connect my ears to my
pocket where my free pass to anywhere in this town
is about to expire.
it's okay, there's someone else waiting out there
to come in
and I don't even pull down
or indicate any such thing but I can't
ride these circles forever and we all know it.
That's why it works. 

(4/23, me)

lots of adrenaline right now.
desk duty at work right now. not striking right now because...

finding it really hard to write here anymore.

bursting to express something but it all feels wrong. here's too public. journal's too private.


one thing I can think to share is this: a couple weeks ago while lying on my bed i looked up to see my peace flags in the corner of my room, and i misread one:

"we can be
the wish
we change to see."

after rolling my eyes at my brain for being such a spazz, i decided i actually like the flip. it doesn't really alter the sentiment of the actual quote... perhaps refreshes it.

be the wish
be the wish

(what's the wish?)

"a blizzard of cherry blossoms" he said.
she and i sat on the floor pulling the yellow
from the green
and outside grey cloud trees rained
white pink spring
and
it smelled like a memory.


------------------------------------------------------
new train of thought
------------------------------------------------------


so, don't take this the wrong way, but i've been thinking a lot about marriage.
look,
i'm in love
with Wendell Berry
and the man has a lot to say about marriage (and everything). so i've been thinking about it (everything, that is). and anyway, there are about 500 quotes/poems/essays of his that i want to post/write about.
some other time, i suppose.
in the meantime, here's a poem of his i found just tonight that feels really present:


“Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here." 

that I broke something crystal
under the bed.
I imagined a castle
shattered by my own hasty hand.
I was afraid to look and
I didn't tell anyone.

Even though they scared me
I crawled down the ladder stairs
by myself.

I tried to get into the dark room
of iguanas and stars
where the boys watched a dragon movie,
but they didn't want someone in there
who cried over crystal
and worried that the reptile's cage
was too small.

We were in town for a wedding
and I don't remember
hearing
"in sickness and in health."
I guess the grown-ups didn't either.

We shatter things that are precious
and lock our little sisters
outside;
trap life in cages,
and hide beauty under beds
where it won't get broken.

But it does anyway.

I remember the day. 

love each other better.

"Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection."

Wendell Berry

"Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.
 
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion."
Thich Nhat Hanh

Who cannot be bought;
Whose word is their bond;
Who put character above wealth;
Who possess opinion and a will;
Who are larger than their vocations;
Who do not hesitate to take chances;
Who will not lose their individuality in a crowd;
Who will be as honest in small things as in great things;
Who will make no compromise with wrong;
Whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires;
Who will not say that they do it “because everybody else does it”
Who are true to their friends through good report and evil report, in adversity as well as prosperity;
Who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning, and hardheadedness are the best qualities for winning success;
Who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular;
Who can say “no” with emphasis, although all the rest of the world says “yes”
~~~Ted W. Engstrom ~~~~

For National Poetry Writing Month, I have written a poem each day for the past 10 days (except I missed Saturday... though, to be fair, I had written a couple extras in the days before). 20 more days to go. But it's so surprisingly what I look forward to every day that I may continue the ritual indefinitely.
I typed em up, but I wimped out on posting them yet. Maybe one tomorrow.

A woman on FaceTribe posted two amazing stories:

One:

"Today at the laundromat, the man was standing in an odd way, hunched yet looking ready to pounce. I asked if he was using the wheeled laundry basket near him. He mumbled something incoherent and made an odd gesture. I'm accustomed to people around here purposefully being vague as a power trip, that way any action you take they can act 'diss-ed' by and put you down for it. I didn't want to play that game today, so I said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't understand your response, was that a yes or a no?" More incoherency and a stronger, indecipherable gesture. With a thank you, I took the cart.

Over the next hour I watched him, always odd, strange eyed, not responding or interacting 'normally.' He wandered, fiddled with odd things, kept his back to the wall, kept glancing to the door. He never spoke to anyone, and generally kept his eyes averted from anyone else's. He began to look like a little boy who was trying to act cool but who was actually really scared.

As I was folding the last of my sheets a woman came in, gave this man a smile, a gentle touch on his shoulder and a kiss. His whole demeanor softened, his eyes bathed in her face. He smiled. Her hands started moving. Slow, cautious sign language. He responded slow, measured, as though just learning.

As I was walking out, the staff woman, who had seen me watching them together, told me "He came back from Iraq two years ago deaf, and was so angry he refused to learn sign language. He made it his New Years resolution this year to learn. He said he's doing it because he loves his wife so much."

It is so easy for me to judge, to assume, to become fearful. Yet, I never know a stranger's story. Never.

May I ever grow in my compassion. Ever grow. ah ho."

Two:

"Easter morning:
The sound was unmistakable - adult bird stuck in the rain gutter down spout, about mid second story. I investigated and said "There's nothing I can do. I don't have an extension ladder, the screws are rusted stuck and the pipe is anchored into the building mortar." Two hours later the pipe was cut, the mortar chiseled out, eight feet of jammed debris removed and an adult black bird came flying out to gracefully land on the wires across the street. I learned the bird had been in there for many days. There was fresh greenery among the stuck debris, she was nest building when she fell in. Later on a very skinny black bird landed on the tree near me and tweeted and chirped as I gardened.

At first I was hopeless saying there was nothing I could do. But I found I could do a lot. I could open the tomb. Happy Easter!"

 

i am so covered in darkness, but there is so much light.

hah, a year ago yesterday I wrote "i honestly don't think i will finish this quarter" which is exactly how i felt yesterday. i guess got through it before, so i can do it again.
it'd be great if i could enjoy it.

though I've never quite felt how i feel right now...
and words that i could say here wouldn't start to express it.

I was going to post a quote I really like about how creating a "balance between exuberance and humility" is one of the keys to happiness. I can never remember the quote exactly, nor can I ever remember who said/wrote it. When I went to look for it tonight, the first thing that came up on Google sounded really familiar, and I thought I had found the quote. Turns out, what I had found was something I myself had written... something that I didn't even know was online. Kinda cool. (As goes the interwebs, this discovery led me from one thing to another until I was thoroughly distracted.)

After further exploration when I got back on track, I discovered the quote (really, it was more of an entire lecture...) was made by Vladi Chalupka, a University of Washington professor who's class I sat in with Matt when I visited him during our Freshmen year of college. Except, I hadn't heard the quote then. I heard it when Vladi spoke at Science Camp in West Virginia two summers ago. He's also apparently given the lecture at Evergreen too. (linkslinkslinks)

On a side note, Peter Mulvey has a song about drinking outside a bar, looking at the stars, and talking about the universe with Vladi, the astrophysicist from UW.
Now I miss camp (not terribly though, and I am still glad about my decision to not go this summer), and feel calmer... peaceful-er (ha) in general.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

i donno

Its sick when people can't recognize themselves in the mirror.
Today the mirror is a movie. But it's not just a movie...
When is a story ever really just a story? We must be just too used to believing that they are.

I guess I thought I could handle watching something so incredibly disturbing and dark in a roomful of other people. I guess I thought other people cared about the same things I do.

But no. They don't. They didn't get it. They didn't even fucking get it. And they don't fucking care.

How someone could leave the theatre saying "there should have been more blood...I loved it but it wasn't bloody enough" after the story they just witnessed, is absolutely beyond me. It took everything I had not to lose it at those people in the hall on the way out. "Don't you see that what you are saying epitomizes everything the movie was criticizing?" If I could have said it so clearly at that point, I would have, but I was shaking and would have just started ranting and cussing and crying and being hysterical, so I kept it in. I kinda regret it though...

I mean, fuck.. they might as well have been sitting at the "Capital" watching the actual "hunger games" and saying "yea, it's entertaining, but I want to see more blood." Isn't that the whole point of the story? That we are so goddamned desensitized to violence and people's suffering that we turn it into a game?

Or a movie... not as a story we should draw insight and thought from (of course not), but as a fucking form of entertainment where we can mock ourselves mocking ourselves about being inhumane, disgusting, oblivious, and monstrous, and then turn around and be inhumane, disgusting, oblivious, and monstrous about it; treat it as just something we can enjoy and then even laugh about and say "there should have been more blood" even though we just watched 24 kids completely slaughter each other... FUCK THAT

Real or not, if you can leave after that smiling or complaining about the entertainment factor, you clearly missed the whole fucking point.

The story got its inspiration from somewhere... lets look around...
hmmm
It couldn't possibly be our culture and our wars and our video game violence, and our complete lack of regard for the well-being of the people who suffer in order for us to have it all, and our inability to any longer feel the full weight of violence and death. IT COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE THAT. or our collective unconsciousness that allows the paradox to continue (even in direct response to it being mirrored at us or shoved through our eyes and ears for 2 and half hours).

I mean, we aren't analyzing Shakespeare here people. Its pretty goddamned straightforward.
It's a good story, and yes, its entertaining... because its an fascinating portrayal of...reality. It hits the nail on the head. We're all just too fucking numb to realize it.

Mom said it best: "its hard to feel much of anything after watching that."
but it did hurt me and it fueled my anger, because as far as I'm concerned, it is real. We are already there. We are already being taken from our homes to kill other people, and we are called to appreciate this as our only way to maintain freedom. We are already being suppressed through fear-tactics and police violence and lies on the screens. We are already separated into districts: "third world" "first world," "homeless" "in poverty" "middle class" "rich/1%." We are already being exploited and exploiting other for resources in order to continue the possibility of lavish lifestyles. We already mock and get pleasure from other people's real-life hardships on reality television. We already.... on and on and on.


meh, maybe I'm getting too worked up about it. maybe I'm expecting too much of people. i feel better having gotten it out there though...

"i feel walled-in. i pretend to know why, but i dont respond. i try. i am working inside to change myself, to feel more free. it must just been a state of thought... a state of mind. (i wish i could write what we talked about without feeling like an idiot. its so damn difficult for me to fee confident in saying what i have to say. i feel like everything i know is so rudimentary. and like its all something someone told me, and i dont know what to believe anymore.

im exhausted of being the person ive been being. i want to feel curious, energetic, alive, bold, joyful, fearless, daring, happy, interested, caring, loving, and on and on. i want to feel free. but i am terrified of freedom. i am scared of certainty and i am scared of uncertainty. i am terrified to explore new ways of being, but can't continue on like this. my thought process is that it might be better not to go to camp so i can dedicate energy to this self-discovery that desperately needs to happen. then i think "oh, maybe going to camp will remind me of things i'd forgotton about myself." maybe. maybe. but maybe i am just hiding in what is "safer" and "known." although i know there are parts of it that i genuinely dont want to go without, and there are people there i want to spend time with, and things there i want to do. but also parts that feel like a waste and parts that feel selfish, and parts that feel dreadful.

i want to feel strong but i dont.
i am terrified of changing. there are so many ways to be, and im afraid to choose. im afraid of not being able to go back. im afraid of not making the right choice. im afraid of regret. im afraid of the truth. im afraid of myself. im afraid of everyone else.
im afraid of time...not having enough. of having enough and wasting it. im afraid of what ie already lost. not just time but truth, reality, visions, values, pieces of myself. im afraid to lose more. to give more. i am afraid of my power... how much i have and the fact that i will never be able to give it all.
im afraid that i will never be able to do enough.
im afraid that i will get comfortable. im afraid of discomfort. im afraid of pain. im afraid of being numb to other people's pain. im afraid i'll forget or be forgotten. im afraid i'll never be loved the way i love or the way i want to be loved. im afraid of meaninglessness. im afraid of placing meaning on something that only i care about.

im afraid of the dark. of zombies. of corruption, anger, sadness, pain, loss, solitude, groups, being wrong, being right, interactions, comparisons, criticism, betrayal, change, stagnation, death, love.
i wonder if i will survive.
but of course i will....
what of all of this could end me before my time (unless i let it)?
but if i am so strong, as to be able to face these things then i will surely have to face them all, an that is daunting.
knowing this though, how do i let go of the uncertainty of everything? how do i enjoy while waiting to be sprung upon by my fears? (the same way i fall asleep each night, gladly, even facing the eminence of my frequent nightmares... thy are all adventures anyway and they are at the least good stories). i will practice now. i will embrace this ending and embrace the blank pages ahead, which will fill with questions, ideas, answers, and probably more lists of fears."

that i can grow wings if i want to fly.

"To me it is clear that the way of life encouraged and imposed on people by the dominant institutions of our society (eg public schooling, media and advertising, the extractive capitalist economy) is in many vitally important ways contrary to our natures and our abilities to mature. We are conditioned to develop into parts of the technocratic machine that is the dominant, globalizing capitalist society, a society that professes to stand above nature, to have transcended nature and its messiness and beastliness. But to me this sense of dichotomous superiority is simply hubris, alienation, and unexamined pain. This is not to say that humanity is not a distinct form of life in nature, or that it doesn’t have some unique set of qualities, but that these very qualities can only find genuine expression if they are voiced form the ancestral home, the ground, the context of nature. To me, being whole must mean being an integral part of creation itself, that which has sprung from source: the earth, and further back, the unimaginable mystery of the cosmic womb of the universe. It is all continuous; there is no dichotomous break between the human and all else, except that which we perceive." -Cam

I finished my climbing project!
I smashed the tip! I got the ear! I climbed the V5! and it was awesome!

and on Tuesday, I gave a good presentation in Spanish, which was also a huge accomplishment for me.

and yesterday I danced harder than I ever have in my life, probably.

was full! (im hyper and sleep-deprived and have recently made a commitment to myself to stop taking myself so seriously--ya know, sometimes--and to be more of the goofball i am. so this could be interesante. let the ridiculosity begin! )

yesterday:
blah morning (except the sunny-crispness of the day)

i feel like i live in too many different realities...

I'm tired and scared.

My self at camp sent me a letter which I got, forwarded through my cabin leader, and my mom, and finally, to me today:

Dear Alex, Since I have to write this quickly I am going to talk about about what I've been feeling lately and why it is so important to hold on to that. "Happy" is the feeling, and not just happy, but grateful for, and in awe of, life. I think love is what did this to me. Right now I am blissfully in love with Cameron. This has changed me in so many ways, but it has also helped me bring forth things in me that were buried. Curiosity and mystery have been key components of my life, but seeing and sharing wonder with him has truly replenished my source of it. Forgiveness and patience were things I knew, but this relationship has tested them to their limits and revealed the beauty of being open to the ways of the world. Love. I have always believed in love, but trusting mystery and enduring the difficulty of forgiveness, I have been able to witness its true power. What I want you to remember is this: There is not enough time to do all I want to do, but there is time to do much, grow significantly, change the world. But you have to harness every moment. You have to say yes to things that are difficult and scary. You have to continue to love and forgive and live in the reality and mystery and wonder of what is, and believe in the possibility of what can be. And trust. Make it happen. Let it happen... I am out of time. These are snippets of my thoughts. A message to the future. Hope it helps <3 Alex

yumm.. Oyster mushrooms I grew. It was a kit, so growing them wasn't difficult, but I am still proud! I have to admit, they are kinda like friends to me...made my room less lonely. :)

"Sometimes it is good to step back from too many words, and simply live into a new phase of one’s life as directly as possible"

dreams

Gaby and Olivia

friends killing blue whales

cats keep on getting smushed

sailing

Kirsten

"Occupy Love will be a moving, transformative feature documentary that asks the question: how are the economic and ecological crises we are facing today a great love story?"

http://www.indiegogo.com/Occupy-Love

"Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says 'more for you is less for me.' But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. That's love, love is the expansion of the self to include the other. And that's a different kind of revolution. There's no one to fight. There's no evil to fight. There's no other in this revolution."
~ Charles Eisenstein

"Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple."

—	Bill Mollison

(I didn't compile this)

L’esprit d’escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”

Waldeinsamkeit: (German) The feeling of being alone in the woods.

Meraki: (Greek) Doing something with soul, creativity, or love.

Forelsket: (Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.

Gigil: (Filipino) The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.

Pochemuchka: (Russian) A person who asks a lot of questions.

Pena ajena: (Mexican Spanish) The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation.

Cualacino: (Italian) The mark left on a table by a cold glass.

Ilunga: (Tshiluba, Congo) A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.

i writed something good!
and i wanna show someone
but it's 3 am.

GO TO
SLEEP

bah! ideas today...
I'm bursting. its great, but crippling until i buckle down, which doesn't happen until everyone else is asleep.
maybe i should just re-accept that i work best (write best) in the middle of the night.

Been reading and writing like crazy these past couple days. Berry, Circumference, On the Plaza, articles about the occupy movement (and there are about 30 on RS that I want to read). But I am overloading myself with ideas and have realized that my ability to frame ideas cohesively has been crippled somehow, probably by being inundated with an unmanageable amount of complex ideas. Or maybe I am just ignoring the process, unwilling to submit to the necessity of limiting my scope of exploration. What's that quote? "Tug on one thing and you will find it connected to everything else in the universe." something like that, and it has been my experience lately. But I don't know where to make the cut...

Part of the "problem" is that I have so many projects going on right now, I don't even know what to do, where to start, how much to focus/spread my energy. I've spent the majority of the past few days trying to explore ideas for my contract next quarter, meaning I have been disregarding the work I need to do for my contract this quarter (except that I found out that I get to go to a weekend workshop with my Uncle in a couple weeks on Bainbridge if I want).

Also, I taught myself a couple new things yesterday which I want to keep practicing. And I should be doing some Spanish every day, but I'm not. That should be one of my goals... starting now?

Mom found a perfect location for a Co-op in North Bend. When I saw it I was about ready to buy it right then and there. Oh, vision. It could be great. So now I've gotten a little crazy thinking I could write a contract where I do a feasibility study for a Co-op in North Bend, based on a model similar to the one in Oly.
But I really wanna keep doing urban studies (its sooo related though, Alex)
and I don't wanna be commuting between here and there...
but I do want to start that project. Especially now that I know there is so much internal interest in the community. Side project on top of school? (You're insane).

To do:
-practice Spanish daily
-email people interested in starting a co-op, set up interest meeting to be held during x-mas break, start FB group/page/whoa!
-write up for Circumference project, send to group, finish reading Circumference
-keep compiling resources/brainstorming for potential urban space/play contract, find sponsor
-figure out what class(es) to register for --go to Academic Fair, Wednesday
-email evergreen peeps back about summative eval panel (after meeting with reena, monday)
-put together presentation AND paper for current contract, make it exciting!
-finish other work for current contract
-"NaNoWriMo"
-finish making the things
-email people about the other things (carolyn i am starting to sound like you)
-watch movie in spanish, write review/response in spanish

ok. just one question: WHEN?
I swear.. I have been working on one of these things or another pretty much straight for the past two days besides sleeping.

oh, don't forget:
-Veg food for thanksgiving
-soccer party friday!
-photo-shoot/baby shower saturday


enough spewing. back to it.
i am enjoying myself, btw. just somewhat overwhelmed. whelmed? dunno
AHHH

-Ian MacKenzie, Charles Eisenstein, November 11, 2011

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ours To Love.

Maybe you will listen now.

These people are,
and this world is
ours to love.

As humans we are young, we are naive,
and we do not collectively have something to look to for guidance.
many of us are lost. we all have our own ways.:
some of us find comfort in religion.
some of us find satisfaction helping other people.
some of us are content to stray without direction.
We are all different.
But we are all together, and that is the important part.
We are all together as a community in this loss,
We are all together as a race in this world,
and we are all together as living creatures in this universe,
and we need to realize that together we can make and break lives.

because we have a power. It is a power that we all utilize in different ways.
Humans, through all their flaws, have the capacity for love,
and if we open our hearts that capacity will fill to its infinite brim.
However, if you think about it, love is also responsible for hate.
Hate is driven by love. It is for the love of something that we employ hate to protect that which we love - an idea, a religion, a person, a way of life...
but rather than closing the doors on "conflicting" ideas ect, why do we not remember the age old adage "live and let live"?
The reasoning behind this cliché is that no one person is the same - as you can see by looking around you right now - but that our differences are a gift which present us with the chance and the choice to love.
Sadly do not always take it that chance. In fact, I would say it is rare for any one person to show love to every other person that they meet.
Why? Because that calls for complete acceptance,
and acceptance requires strength, and we are weak.
But we are weak only as long as we allow ourselves to be.
I say NO MORE. I choose strength. I choose acceptance.
I choose to open my life up to the possibility of love without force.
It is time to be strong, for ourselves and for everyone else.
It is time to cast aside ignorance and fear of the unknown
and embrace the truth that we are all here together and we need each other.
It is time for a revolution in the name of love.

Love and life go hand in hand:
Without life there is no one to love.
Without love there is no reason for life.

-Me, January 2, 2008

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Revolution.

"DROP EVERYTHING GET UP AND RUN

RUN to the side of your brothers and sisters who fight on your behalf

RUN to the footsteps and doors of office buildings full of those still sleeping

STOP what you are doing whatever it may be and RUN

STOP watching the news

STOP checking for status updates

STOP driving your car, literally pull over get out and RUN

PUT DOWN your cell phone and coffee, ok maybe not the coffee

LEAVE BEHIND the comfort of your warm home

LEAVE BEHIND outdated modes of thought

LEAVE BEHIND anything and everything that is holding you back and RUN

WHAT IF you could be the straw that breaks the camals back

WHAT IF your presence would help make those around you stronger

WHAT IF you could actually change the world

WHAT IF you could inspire people to want to at least try

IMAGINE IF it worked

IMAGINE IF every single person you know started running right now

running to the side of our brothers and sisters standing in the cold

holding onto every hope they've ever had of making things better

COULD YOU decide that everything you left behind was not as important as our future?

COULD YOU ignite the fire in your heart that's been slowling burning out

the fire that used to guide your way, telling you that all things are possible

TELLING YOU that you have the right and the responsibility to no longer be silent

TELLING YOU to use your voice to defend those who cannot speak and who cannot run

WOULD YOU use that fire to set the world ablaze and watch it burn? or

WOULD YOU use a spark to ignite the hearts of everyone around you

WOULD YOU feed that fire until it burned so hot that they couldnt stop themselves from running?

running to the sides of our brothers and sisters keeping themselves warm only

by the embers in their hearts.

DO YOU BELIEVE that the there is something worth saving

DO YOU BELIEVE that you are strong and powerful, if not by yourself than together with others

DO YOU BELIEVE you could make sacrifices to be a part of something bigger than yourself?

then let any reason you have, any little spark of life you find worth defending, ignite your heart

and RUN"

-Jessica Armstrong

"the ability to respond to the need of the moment."

you can't just go halfway down
you have to go all the way.

"The actual human voices we hear form and fade like pond-ripples; that is their mystery. Often we misread them as solid objects, like stones or stars, because we're used to carved steel, printed text, digitalized recordings of the fluttering larynx and its small warm wet wind, the vibration which reaches out and shivers skin inside our ears and the watery electricity of our brains. One way of remembering that voices are not things is to recall that one of those voices is our own: a dark resonance in a solid tongue and bone, which is not tongue and body themselves. It is the breath of our bow across the larynx our violin. It is in fact our body, vibrating, as it grasps the world alternatively, a casting of our body upon the air."

of everything.

::quote of the day, brought to you by the OccupyOly listserv. it was funnier in context, and by that i mean my own.

---------------------------------------------------
A list of things I want to remember or think more about

People:
RC
Mom
Carolyn
Joan Jett
Joan Hitchens
David Hitchens
Tom Ward (helllo)

Things that are buzzing:
"Awkward Walks"
Sounds of Resistance
Occupy Writers
mapsss
flies (flies)
fleas (fuck)

Death:
dead whales
dead dogs
dead flies
dying flies
dying leaves
dying person

Words&concepts (of perplexity/complexity/someplexity):
"occupation"
"sustainability"
"empowerment"
"independence"
"peace"
"skookum"
(and a whole slew of others)

Food:
Chard
Eggplant
and lotsa green things
plus grapes

Dreams:
3 layers deep
discovery in my sleep

Updates:
walking without a boot
hell, walking without a brace even.
training for a marathon
competing in the climbing comp tomorrow!
not

there are a massive amount of sirens in the streets tonight.

-------------------------------------------------------

i will start writing again soon, probably.

Michelle knew Rachel.

Today I was walking from seminar to the Writing Center and this guy was singing and playing guitar at the edge of the grassy knoll on Red Square. Right when I passed him the lyrics to his song were something to the effect of "darling you're a blue whale in the deep sea."

I was just reminded of something else. This quote has been bouncing around in my head for weeks now, trying to apply itself to different parts of my life. It is something I synthesized from different things the pastor at Becca's church said:

"We live in a culture of entitlement. There is nothing wrong with desires, but when desires turn to demands, love is destroyed. Entitlement turns desires into demands causing the divisions in our relationships."

I suppose it is more applicable in a discussion of demands between individuals and not between people and government. But it came up for me at the end of the previous post when I asked "what are our demands for each other?"


geez. I'm overwhelmed now.
and its time to do homework.

Lately everyone has been talking about the Occupy Wall Street (Occupy everywhere) movement that's going on right now, and it's got me inspired to write about some things I've been thinking about for some time, specifically about the most effect and powerful ways to make change. So here we are in the middle of this incredible global movement that has been popping up all over in the form of the occupation of public space, as well as worker strikes and direct action. And while I am completely elated that this is happening, that people are waking up and standing up together, I am wondering where it will lead and how. My questions come from three sources of influence that I've encountered in the last month or so. These are: of one of Wendell Berry's essays, "Think Little," which I just read (and loved!), a difficult conversation with my father last month, and an strategic article on "Envisioning" written by Donella Meadows.

The conversation with my dad on 9/11 began as a discussion about who was involved in the events of that day ten years ago, and evolved into an argument about the causes of social injustice, environmental degradation, etc. I talked about how corporate interference in government has taken away the power of the people, and how our lives are contained in manufactured boxes of abundant distraction and conditioning. I said the response was to recognize this and respond through personal life choices (working toward self-sufficiency within local communities, avoiding putting money into corporate pockets by selective spending, and other actions). I also expressed anxiety that unfortunately many people have none of the means to access this perspective, or the energy or empowerment or know how to make such choices. In response to my concern that my voice--a single voice--is not enough to be heard in such an enormous system of influence and power, he simply told me not to be disheartened and not to "run away". In essence he encouraged me that I do have an influence and that being discouraged and removing myself completely was irresponsible. It's not that I totally disagree with that, but it got me thinking: there has got to be a balance that can be lived especially at this juncture in history when so much is happening--there's got to be a balance between living within "the system" in order to change it, and living without it.

If we are in collective transition between one way of living and another, perhaps we must straddle the line in order to be fully alive and active members of our race, of our communities, during this time in history. In Wendell Berry's essay "Think Little" he talks about this in a context that is very applicable to what has been going on these past few weeks in NY and across the country. He says:

It seems to me that the Civil Rights Movement and the Peace Movement, as popular causes in the electronic age, have partaken far too much of the nature of fads. Not for all, certainly, but for too many they have been the fashionable politics of the moment. As causes they have been undertaken too much in ignorance; they have been too much simplified; they have been powered too much by impatience and guilt of conscience and short-term enthusiasm, and too little by an authentic social vision and long-term conviction and deliberation.

He goes on to say:

If this effort is carried on solely as a public cause, if millions of people cannot or will not undertake it as a private cause as well, then [this] is sure the happen. In five years the energy of our present concern will have petered out in a series of public gestures--and no doubt in a series of empty laws--and a great [...] human opportunity will have been lost."

In context he is referring specifically to the environmental movement, but what he says is applicable to recent events and to all movements. My point (and his, I assume) is not to say that we shouldn't revel in the energy and enthusiasm bubbling up at these times. Trust me, I am riled up and ready to hit the streets. The occupations of public space and gatherings of people are great because we suddenly we are not one voice trying to be heard over the roar of political slander and mass media's deluge of distraction, we are the vast majority of people screaming our demands under the slogan of "we are the 99%." And so, in the midst of this, Berry is asking us (the people, the majority), to really examine what are our demands, and who are we demanding them from? Are we demanding them from the 1%, or from the 99%? Or are we really asking for major changes from 100%, from everyone?

Berry says "A man who is willing to undertake the discipline and the difficulty of mending his own ways is worth more to the [...] movement than a hundred who are insisting merely that the government and the industries mend their ways." If 99% of people made this thing their own personal private cause too, by asserting some autonomy from the present system by thinking up and creating alternatives, wouldn't that be revolutionary in itself?

Am I being idealistic? Or is this the way forward?

Possibly, both. In her article, Donella Meadows, a prominent systems thinker and a huge influence of mine, tells of her Envisioning Workshops in which she asks people to describe "not the world they thought they could achieve, or the world they were willing to settle for, but the world they truly wanted."

This exercise is totally idealistic. And it is idealistic to ask that the 99% to be the ones making the changes when the major destruction and oppression is happening seemingly so far out of our reach. It is idealistic because we are asking people--we are asking ourselves--to live up to our own ideals. But this is important, because it is our ideals that move us to the action of creating what we desire and believe in. As Meadows wrote: 

"Vision is the most vital step in the policy process. If we don’t know where we want to go,  it makes little difference that we make great progress. [...] Even if information, models, and implementation could be perfect in every way, how far can they guide us, if we know what direction we want to move away from but not what direction we want to go toward? There may be motivation in escaping doom, but there is even more in creating a better world."

So what are our ideal visions for this world? How can we begin creating them through the present movement? What desires and demands do we have for our government, and what desires and demands do we have for ourselves. How to keep that balance of living within a system that oppresses us in order to change it, and living without it in order to live up to our highest ideals.

darkness engulf me now and pull me down into me and cold seep through my clothes and skin and weather wither me into the leaves and hold me hold me mystery with your deep rich color of decay and grey my skin so i blend in with clouds or snow or the crashing waves and save me from the sun that bakes me into sleep and wakes me into dreams so i rise and rise and fall take it all underneath where spry spring blossoms and steady summer greens go when they are shed to die from this life for some time in the seasonal night

xx

"Say you hoped to
tame something
wild and stayed
calm and inched up
day by day. Or even
not tame it but
meet it halfway.
Things went along.
You made progress,
understanding
it would be a
lengthy process,
sensing changes
in your hair and
nails. So it's
strange when it
attacks: you thought
you had a deal."

-Kay Ryan

"There is almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality impossible to describe."

I'm a lonely tree with bare branches reaching outward, twisting onto themselves, looking every direction for something to connect to.

The sky rains the saddest, richest, most beautiful combination of colors on me.
I am a tree. Alone with the sky and the earth,
reaching to catch the rain; this outpouring of blended color.

I cannot catch it. It rolls over me.
I can absorb some of it, use it to grow
and live, and change, and stretch, and
reach outward more, to something unknown,
or nothing at all.

I am a faithful tree.
I fear though that I will be cut short,
that I will be used.
That my effort and worth will be overlooked
or that they are only false manifestations of my need to feel that I am an important part of a greater whole.
I fear that my intrinsic beauty is not enough; that my life-supporting processes will be forgotten;
that I will never be loved, the way I unconditionally love.