"I am standing on the sea shore. A ship sails and spreads her
white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her till at
last she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says:
‘She is gone.’ Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all;
she is just as large in the masts, hull a spars as she was
when I saw her, and just as able to bear her load of living
freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not her;
and just at the moment when someone at my side says;
‘She’s gone’ there are others who are watching her coming
and other voices take up a gland shout,
‘There she comes’, and that is dying."
Do not try to save the whole world, or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life,
and wait there patiently,
Until the song that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know how to give yourself to the world,
so worthy of rescue.
Martha Postelwaite
“If the success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do, how would I be? What would I do?” —Buckminster Fuller
"Nothing is more difficult than to practice goodness within a system whose rules, goals, and information streams are geared to individualism, competitiveness, and cynicism. But it can be done. We can be patient with ourselves and others as we all confront a changing world. We can empathize with resistance to change; there is some clinging to the ways of unsustainability within each of us. We can include everyone in the challenge; everyone will be needed. We can listen to the cynicism around us and pity those who indulge in it, but refuse to indulge in it ourselves. The world can never pass safely through the adventure of bringing itself to sustainability if people do not view themselves and others with compassion. That compassion is there, within all of us, just waiting to be used, the greatest resource of all, and one with no limits." — Donella Meadows
"She has that quiet
Intensity
That almost sullenness but that you know is really just
Childhood innocence
Carried over into heartfelt wonder
Her mouth is usually half way parted
She squints as she pushes her glasses back up onto her nose
She wonders at destruction
Cries for suffering
Hides
Cause it hurts so much sometimes
But she eventually crawls out
Stretches her body against the rock
Warming it with her touch
She climbs not so much to be vertical
But to find truth amidst suspension
Between sky and ground
She tests her strength
But Will she trust it?
A quiet moment happens before her choice
Her hands are busy with Change."
how beautiful is that?
is a Non-Violent Communication Workshop for me and the family.
I leave the tracks and will follow the highway home instead. From Moab we go to Salt Lake City via the freeway. The first half of the drive is breathtaking as we skate along in the rising morning and see the silhouetted monuments of rock carve their precariously balanced shapes into the sea of the sky. We drive though plains of rock and brush where antelope and coyote scavenge, which slowly gives way to vegetation and hilly meadows. The oak paints autumn up and down the hills. That beauty and wholeness exist.
We take a sharp turn and begin weaving out of the valley. Up ahead, between the peace and stillness of the water-color slopes, is something enormous and fast-moving. I knew the road was a string leading to something big. I felt that as I watched it fall beneath the hood of the car.
I look up to see the god-white blades of turbines cutting through the land's blending serenity. Cutting a hole in the wholeness. Kaki notes that they have such an otherworldly quality. And we enter...
I become curious about this world. It disgusts me instantly, but I want to know where we are. What is this town powered by mountain coal and wind, that seems quaint at first until you realize that it is made of only housing developments? Kaki doesn't know. It seems important to know the name of the town right on the new side of the mountain, but soon I understand--this is not a town. The nameless place is also lifeless. It feels uncohesive and incomplete with no churches or schools or little shops, and no people to be seen. Only identical houses that eventually give way to large commercial buildings.
The lifelessness begins to flood, and there is no resurfacing. No air bubble even. Now, I sit here at the greyhound station trying to breathe deep and meditate, but I am drowning in memories and miles of development, of watching billboards spilling their toxic sludge into the diseased sea of suburbia.
When we broke through those hills, we broke though a dam and torpedoed ourselves out into the vast dead ocean of industrial everything; stark, vast civilization where linearity rules and meandering is poverty, slowness condemning.
"The faster, the better," proclaims the billboard for Lakeview Hospital around an LED number screen informing the highway that there is an 11 minute wait for the ER (as if that is useful in an emergency). The highway sign flashes "6 Minutes" to downtown Salt Lake, the entire way lined with bigbox, botox, and parking lots.
What is a desert?
There is more vitality in the sprawl of sand than suburb. This place is fracturing, deadening, dehumanizing, empty. The people are different--angry, confused, drowning. Drowning in themselves because all the signs inundate them with a message for "YOU" and try to convince YOU that YOU can have everything, be everything, and need everything, and that they are talking to YOU (whoever that is).
Really, YOU are an industrial worker ant--a slave to the steel and concrete. Serving no queen, except that you are the queen and you serve yourself and grow fat in your chambers alone. That's what the billboards want.
As I sit on a wirey seat at the station writing, a woman on that phone yells and curses at someone on the other end. A man gestates to his invisible friend in the air, and has an argument with the emptiness. A couple fights, take a break outside for a cigarette, and comes back in fighting again. They stand together silent in a doorway. They stand together at every stop til Boise, angry and confused, wondering why it is so painful.
I remember that as we approached the station having left the freeway and the heart of downtown, we began to pass homeless people on the street by the dozen; factory-farmed and corralled into the carton labelled Salvation Army, and shipped to the "run-down" part of the city. Chloe says it first, but she quickly take it back--"Not 'run-down' but..." "Older" Kaki says. "Yea."
Visualize abundance. Embody positive vision. How you see the world outside is how you are inside. Right? But does that change the outside?
I put my feet on the floor next to the wire seats. The yelling and gesticulating angrily and argument continue. My mind is swimming in the depths.
I close my eyes. I try to sink into a personal quiet. I slowly begin to imagine roots growing from the bottom of my feet, down and through the concrete floor, cracking it open, finding the earth, drawing down into the earth, down through the layers of sediment and stone and water and lava, down into the core, connecting me to the center.
Everything falls away except my roots, and the earth-made things, and the wish that I can hold this center and help heal the scars. That I can dive deep into the ocean, see it honestly, understand it, and not drown. That I can emerge and know the wholeness that is possible, the wholeness that exists. That I can hold it in myself.
I open my eyes. Everything's the same as before.
I feel better, but the woman and the man and the couple don't. What do I allow myself to feel? What do I allow myself to think? I feel deep confusion about the rift between the wholeness of my imaginings, and the wounded reality of the world. All around me is the consequence of exploitation, mass production, industrial manufacture of material, animals, people, everything. We are treated as though we are soulless. We treat the world as though it is soulless. It doesn't have to be that way.
I am getting better at seeing each person as a soul; imagining their heartbeat; imagining them broken down in tears; imagining what they love and why they live. It is helpful, but painful to look at sometimes. The man sweeping the greyhound floors day after day, the people at the ticket counter stressing over missing slips, the woman bossing her son around, telling him "No!" at every curious step to examine something new. His compliance. I want to put my hands on the shoulders of this child and tell him how much he is loved, his mom is just in pain too. I almost do as he walks passed me at one of the stops. The impulse nearly reaches my muscle-mind before he walks out of my reach. What would he think, anyway?
I remember we passed a prison on the highway. I knew we were passing a prison before I even saw it. It was all around me and I sensed it--the pain, the waste, the flat, empty colorlessness of the yard. When my eyes moved from one side of the barbed-wired, razor-wired fence to the other I saw really no difference. The people in the prison yard and the people in the parking lots all seemed equally incarcerated to me.
10/3/12
How do we free ourselves? How do we breathe?
The air bubble exists. You have to find it at the center and hold it at your center, and breathe into it and make it bigger. It is in compassion. It is in wonder. It is in turning pain into poetry. It is in seeing things wholly and honestly. It is in community. It is in forgiveness. It is in empathy. It is in you. It is in me.
We take a sharp turn and begin weaving out of the valley. Up ahead, between the peace and stillness of the water-color slopes, is something enormous and fast-moving. I knew the road was a string leading to something big. I felt that as I watched it fall beneath the hood of the car.
I look up to see the god-white blades of turbines cutting through the land's blending serenity. Cutting a hole in the wholeness. Kaki notes that they have such an otherworldly quality. And we enter...
I become curious about this world. It disgusts me instantly, but I want to know where we are. What is this town powered by mountain coal and wind, that seems quaint at first until you realize that it is made of only housing developments? Kaki doesn't know. It seems important to know the name of the town right on the new side of the mountain, but soon I understand--this is not a town. The nameless place is also lifeless. It feels uncohesive and incomplete with no churches or schools or little shops, and no people to be seen. Only identical houses that eventually give way to large commercial buildings.
The lifelessness begins to flood, and there is no resurfacing. No air bubble even. Now, I sit here at the greyhound station trying to breathe deep and meditate, but I am drowning in memories and miles of development, of watching billboards spilling their toxic sludge into the diseased sea of suburbia.
When we broke through those hills, we broke though a dam and torpedoed ourselves out into the vast dead ocean of industrial everything; stark, vast civilization where linearity rules and meandering is poverty, slowness condemning.
"The faster, the better," proclaims the billboard for Lakeview Hospital around an LED number screen informing the highway that there is an 11 minute wait for the ER (as if that is useful in an emergency). The highway sign flashes "6 Minutes" to downtown Salt Lake, the entire way lined with bigbox, botox, and parking lots.
What is a desert?
There is more vitality in the sprawl of sand than suburb. This place is fracturing, deadening, dehumanizing, empty. The people are different--angry, confused, drowning. Drowning in themselves because all the signs inundate them with a message for "YOU" and try to convince YOU that YOU can have everything, be everything, and need everything, and that they are talking to YOU (whoever that is).
Really, YOU are an industrial worker ant--a slave to the steel and concrete. Serving no queen, except that you are the queen and you serve yourself and grow fat in your chambers alone. That's what the billboards want.
As I sit on a wirey seat at the station writing, a woman on that phone yells and curses at someone on the other end. A man gestates to his invisible friend in the air, and has an argument with the emptiness. A couple fights, take a break outside for a cigarette, and comes back in fighting again. They stand together silent in a doorway. They stand together at every stop til Boise, angry and confused, wondering why it is so painful.
I remember that as we approached the station having left the freeway and the heart of downtown, we began to pass homeless people on the street by the dozen; factory-farmed and corralled into the carton labelled Salvation Army, and shipped to the "run-down" part of the city. Chloe says it first, but she quickly take it back--"Not 'run-down' but..." "Older" Kaki says. "Yea."
Visualize abundance. Embody positive vision. How you see the world outside is how you are inside. Right? But does that change the outside?
I put my feet on the floor next to the wire seats. The yelling and gesticulating angrily and argument continue. My mind is swimming in the depths.
I close my eyes. I try to sink into a personal quiet. I slowly begin to imagine roots growing from the bottom of my feet, down and through the concrete floor, cracking it open, finding the earth, drawing down into the earth, down through the layers of sediment and stone and water and lava, down into the core, connecting me to the center.
Everything falls away except my roots, and the earth-made things, and the wish that I can hold this center and help heal the scars. That I can dive deep into the ocean, see it honestly, understand it, and not drown. That I can emerge and know the wholeness that is possible, the wholeness that exists. That I can hold it in myself.
I open my eyes. Everything's the same as before.
I feel better, but the woman and the man and the couple don't. What do I allow myself to feel? What do I allow myself to think? I feel deep confusion about the rift between the wholeness of my imaginings, and the wounded reality of the world. All around me is the consequence of exploitation, mass production, industrial manufacture of material, animals, people, everything. We are treated as though we are soulless. We treat the world as though it is soulless. It doesn't have to be that way.
I am getting better at seeing each person as a soul; imagining their heartbeat; imagining them broken down in tears; imagining what they love and why they live. It is helpful, but painful to look at sometimes. The man sweeping the greyhound floors day after day, the people at the ticket counter stressing over missing slips, the woman bossing her son around, telling him "No!" at every curious step to examine something new. His compliance. I want to put my hands on the shoulders of this child and tell him how much he is loved, his mom is just in pain too. I almost do as he walks passed me at one of the stops. The impulse nearly reaches my muscle-mind before he walks out of my reach. What would he think, anyway?
I remember we passed a prison on the highway. I knew we were passing a prison before I even saw it. It was all around me and I sensed it--the pain, the waste, the flat, empty colorlessness of the yard. When my eyes moved from one side of the barbed-wired, razor-wired fence to the other I saw really no difference. The people in the prison yard and the people in the parking lots all seemed equally incarcerated to me.
10/3/12
How do we free ourselves? How do we breathe?
The air bubble exists. You have to find it at the center and hold it at your center, and breathe into it and make it bigger. It is in compassion. It is in wonder. It is in turning pain into poetry. It is in seeing things wholly and honestly. It is in community. It is in forgiveness. It is in empathy. It is in you. It is in me.
It is ancient alchemy that created you--the fire we burns to remind ourselves.
My hand glides along your contours. We pretend that solid things are only that. But even the soft wind that kisses your cheek has a say in what the rocks say; even the trickle of water falling gently in your toes gets to decide the shape of the world. Call it erosion or the art of sculpture, these elements have something to say. And the fire churns out new earth from the earth that has always been, and the wind draws the heat away from the deep center of Earth's desire, into the center of our own. We pretend our hearts have coalesced into unchangeable shapes, but the fire always burns, and churns out new territory, and the breeze and the steam always have something to say about it.
In the moon light, dance, and let the shapes beneath you guide your movement. Place you clay hand firmly on the stone and find where it fits. The world offers itself to your imagination, to your body, to your truth. Trip and grip and wedge yourself into it, because the earth has messages that we can read, and we can write.
Me,
Fiery Furnace, Moab
9/30/12
My hand glides along your contours. We pretend that solid things are only that. But even the soft wind that kisses your cheek has a say in what the rocks say; even the trickle of water falling gently in your toes gets to decide the shape of the world. Call it erosion or the art of sculpture, these elements have something to say. And the fire churns out new earth from the earth that has always been, and the wind draws the heat away from the deep center of Earth's desire, into the center of our own. We pretend our hearts have coalesced into unchangeable shapes, but the fire always burns, and churns out new territory, and the breeze and the steam always have something to say about it.
In the moon light, dance, and let the shapes beneath you guide your movement. Place you clay hand firmly on the stone and find where it fits. The world offers itself to your imagination, to your body, to your truth. Trip and grip and wedge yourself into it, because the earth has messages that we can read, and we can write.
Me,
Fiery Furnace, Moab
9/30/12
In
the blazing peace of the desert night I sprawl across the bed
diagonally sprawled across the loft floor, and read about this
landscape, it's unexpected vitality and fragility, through the words of
Terry Tempest Williams. Soft voices hum the song of simplicity--crickets
chirping their infinite prayer, and the lovers downstairs pouring warm
cups of tenderness from their lips. The aroma drifts up to kiss my
nose.
I had spent the morning carefully documenting their
lives. Collecting the images that are day-to-day to them, and dream to
me. The smells hanging in the kitchen don't show up in the photographs,
but settle on my clothes and in my hair, and I breathe them in until
they sit at the pit of my being where they will permeate into my deepest
longing. The colors stain me like the walls. Years-old swaths of
plaster paint tests and small patterns that were once a solid vision,
have settled into their incompletion, completing the dream for me. There
is more story left to tell.
This is how I know I enter
right in the middle of their lives. I stay out of the way, for once not
wanting to change anything--actually wanting not to change
anything. Even as I tiptoe closer to description, I risk crushing the
cryptobiotic crust that holds their roots to this ground.
In
the Fiery Furnace you don't step off the slick-rock; that kind of sand
takes decades to build and I am afraid of eroding the already-slim
margin of life that somehow manages to take root here and grow. The
brush flowers grow up through the tiniest cracks of solid rock and bloom
in the shadows.
10/2, TBC
Moab, Me
While she starts the water and measures the pasta,
he sets the table and peels the garlic.
She cuts up brocolli, strips snow peas, readies fish-
he presses the garlic, fixes her a kir and him a gin
she saute's the vegetables while he grates cheese,
readies the candles and puts flowers on the table.
She puts pasta in the boiling water and fixes salad.
which he takes to the table with the cheese.
She mixes a salad dressing, he opens the wine
and takes it to the table where everything is ready,
except for the pasta. so he lights the candles
and puts salad from a big walnut bowl into small ones.
Now she or he brings the pasta, greens and fish
mixed in, and they sit to talk, drink wine and eat.
Though October, they sit on a small screened porch
in the back of the house, where they have lived
for twelve years of their twenty together,
the last six, the children gone, alone.
Once, during dinner, if they stop talking
and listen to the music, they may, without drama,
hold hands a moment, almost like a handshake
by now, most friendly, confirming the contract,
and more. She is a pretty woman of 51, who has
kept herself trim and fit. He is 56 and hasn't.
Later, they will clear the dishes and clean up,
and she will bring tea and fresh fruit to bed,
where they will watch a little television or not,
with herbal tea and the fruit. After that, if
they make love or not, they will talk a long time,
her work or his, the budget, the middle east,
this child or that, how good dinner was, how
easy it is, the times like this, when it's simple.
~Easy, by Roland Flint.
She puts pasta in the boiling water and fixes salad.
which he takes to the table with the cheese.
She mixes a salad dressing, he opens the wine
and takes it to the table where everything is ready,
except for the pasta. so he lights the candles
and puts salad from a big walnut bowl into small ones.
Now she or he brings the pasta, greens and fish
mixed in, and they sit to talk, drink wine and eat.
Though October, they sit on a small screened porch
in the back of the house, where they have lived
for twelve years of their twenty together,
the last six, the children gone, alone.
Once, during dinner, if they stop talking
and listen to the music, they may, without drama,
hold hands a moment, almost like a handshake
by now, most friendly, confirming the contract,
and more. She is a pretty woman of 51, who has
kept herself trim and fit. He is 56 and hasn't.
Later, they will clear the dishes and clean up,
and she will bring tea and fresh fruit to bed,
where they will watch a little television or not,
with herbal tea and the fruit. After that, if
they make love or not, they will talk a long time,
her work or his, the budget, the middle east,
this child or that, how good dinner was, how
easy it is, the times like this, when it's simple.
~Easy, by Roland Flint.
I got an email from Madelyn this morning. She said: "
I was thinking of you this evening, and I wanted to pass you an article
I wrote for a zine this semester with you very much in mind."
In Defense of Rage
by Madelyn Peterson
"I keep having the same conversation. Boiled down, it looks like a handful of questions:
“How do we sustain ourselves?”
“How do we survive with our souls intact?”
“How do we continue to work, to fight, and to love?”
I still struggle to answer these questions, but most often, my response is: we continue to feel, we take care of ourselves and each other, we do not go-it-alone. We allow our rage. We hold rage and love in the same hand, and at times, they are one and the same.
Rage is the fire in our bellies. We are truly filled with rage when something is so wrong it grates against our skin and twists our stomachs like dishrags. We feel it in our bones, that something must change, no matter the means or the cost. Yet, too often, we temper this feeling to please those around us. Or we run from it, afraid of the power of our emotional response.
We are taught to deny our anger, to hold our tongues and sit still, to speak on the plane of cool reason. We are told, “getting angry doesn’t solve anything”. We learn to suppress rage—any powerful emotion, for that matter—because it will invalidate our story—no, not our story, our “argument.” Political discourse in our society honors the non-emotional voice of “reason” (a patriarchal construct in and of itself) and calls those who speak with emotion, story, and experience “too emotional,” “militant,” “manipulative,” “biased,” “uneducated,” or simply “invalid.” The question of rage is one of entitlement: how much emotional space can I take up? How much am I entitled to feel and to express in the public sphere? And rage is a question of liberation. bell hooks, a black feminist activist/author, speaks about the silencing of black rage:
“[Black folks suffered] myriad abuses and humiliations . . . daily when we crossed the tracks and did what we had to do with and for whites to make a living. To express rage in that context was suicidal. Every black person knew it . . . many of us were taught that the repression of our rage was necessary to stay alive in the days before racial integration.”
—bell hooks, from killing rage: ending racism
Rage is a question of race and gender, of oppression. Those with the most social and political power, namely “bourgeois whites,” as bell hooks writes, have a vested interest in trivializing and devaluing rage, lest rage against the status quo “assume[s] the form of strategic resistance.”
When we censor our rage, we are catering to a discourse that depends on our compliance. It’s time we stopped asking for permission to speak and begin demanding that our voices be listened to. Rage is a powerful force—for organizing, healing, resisting—once we learn how to use it. If bottled up, rage can eat us from the inside-out. If we don’t direct rage back at the source of oppression, we turn it inwards or against each other. Instead, we ought to recognize rage as an honest response to exploitation and a constructive force that is vital to political resistance. We need rage—just as we need joy and love—to fuel us through a long march, to remember what truly matters, and to connect with one another in a common struggle. We need it to make us bold and brave. And we need a community in which to process our anger and care for each others’ wounds.
When we embrace rage, we refuse to be victims or to see others as victims. We choose resistance and dignity over victimization. For those who fight your own oppression, recognize rage as kin to love and hunger for justice, as a powerful force for change. For those who would be allies, listen to anger. When gender- and/or class-privileged white Americans are only willing to listen voices of victimization, they reaffirm the status-quo. Listen to voices that challenge your ideas about class, ableism, gender, sexuality, race, etc.
We are tired of sexual violence and patriarchy, of racism and white supremacy, of a state that will deny basic human rights if you don’t carry the right papers, of a society that polices our bodies and tells us our our love and our flesh—queer, gender non-conforming, differently-abled, fat, etc.—is undeserving. We are unwilling to live in denial and passivity. We will build communities and organize with rage, joy, creativity, hope, solidarity, strength, and love to transform the worlds we live in. Our rage will move mountains."
Good timing for me, with all my questions bantering me repeatedly and increasingly as I step each day closer to my quest. One has been a fear of stepping into my rage. I feel so unstable in it and have been hurting people I love with it. But this article reminds me how important it is to feel.
In Defense of Rage
by Madelyn Peterson
"I keep having the same conversation. Boiled down, it looks like a handful of questions:
“How do we sustain ourselves?”
“How do we survive with our souls intact?”
“How do we continue to work, to fight, and to love?”
I still struggle to answer these questions, but most often, my response is: we continue to feel, we take care of ourselves and each other, we do not go-it-alone. We allow our rage. We hold rage and love in the same hand, and at times, they are one and the same.
Rage is the fire in our bellies. We are truly filled with rage when something is so wrong it grates against our skin and twists our stomachs like dishrags. We feel it in our bones, that something must change, no matter the means or the cost. Yet, too often, we temper this feeling to please those around us. Or we run from it, afraid of the power of our emotional response.
We are taught to deny our anger, to hold our tongues and sit still, to speak on the plane of cool reason. We are told, “getting angry doesn’t solve anything”. We learn to suppress rage—any powerful emotion, for that matter—because it will invalidate our story—no, not our story, our “argument.” Political discourse in our society honors the non-emotional voice of “reason” (a patriarchal construct in and of itself) and calls those who speak with emotion, story, and experience “too emotional,” “militant,” “manipulative,” “biased,” “uneducated,” or simply “invalid.” The question of rage is one of entitlement: how much emotional space can I take up? How much am I entitled to feel and to express in the public sphere? And rage is a question of liberation. bell hooks, a black feminist activist/author, speaks about the silencing of black rage:
“[Black folks suffered] myriad abuses and humiliations . . . daily when we crossed the tracks and did what we had to do with and for whites to make a living. To express rage in that context was suicidal. Every black person knew it . . . many of us were taught that the repression of our rage was necessary to stay alive in the days before racial integration.”
—bell hooks, from killing rage: ending racism
Rage is a question of race and gender, of oppression. Those with the most social and political power, namely “bourgeois whites,” as bell hooks writes, have a vested interest in trivializing and devaluing rage, lest rage against the status quo “assume[s] the form of strategic resistance.”
When we censor our rage, we are catering to a discourse that depends on our compliance. It’s time we stopped asking for permission to speak and begin demanding that our voices be listened to. Rage is a powerful force—for organizing, healing, resisting—once we learn how to use it. If bottled up, rage can eat us from the inside-out. If we don’t direct rage back at the source of oppression, we turn it inwards or against each other. Instead, we ought to recognize rage as an honest response to exploitation and a constructive force that is vital to political resistance. We need rage—just as we need joy and love—to fuel us through a long march, to remember what truly matters, and to connect with one another in a common struggle. We need it to make us bold and brave. And we need a community in which to process our anger and care for each others’ wounds.
When we embrace rage, we refuse to be victims or to see others as victims. We choose resistance and dignity over victimization. For those who fight your own oppression, recognize rage as kin to love and hunger for justice, as a powerful force for change. For those who would be allies, listen to anger. When gender- and/or class-privileged white Americans are only willing to listen voices of victimization, they reaffirm the status-quo. Listen to voices that challenge your ideas about class, ableism, gender, sexuality, race, etc.
We are tired of sexual violence and patriarchy, of racism and white supremacy, of a state that will deny basic human rights if you don’t carry the right papers, of a society that polices our bodies and tells us our our love and our flesh—queer, gender non-conforming, differently-abled, fat, etc.—is undeserving. We are unwilling to live in denial and passivity. We will build communities and organize with rage, joy, creativity, hope, solidarity, strength, and love to transform the worlds we live in. Our rage will move mountains."
Good timing for me, with all my questions bantering me repeatedly and increasingly as I step each day closer to my quest. One has been a fear of stepping into my rage. I feel so unstable in it and have been hurting people I love with it. But this article reminds me how important it is to feel.
I've been saying to myself "I want to act more from a place of love." And now I remember I've always known that love and anger are the same thing--come from the same place--even though we call them opposites. And well, whatever they are, I want to hold both, in tension if I must. Because I need to express my emotions, but I also need to remember why I am feeling them. I love intensely, I react intensely. And I think there is a third part of that too... something about what I choose to do with it, but I am still working on that.
And on the note of holding disparate things in tension, and not having the answers for why or what to do, I came across this quote today:
"Spirituality is discovered in that space between paradox’s extremes, for there we confront our helplessness and powerlessness, our woundedness. In seeking to understand our limitations, we seek not only an easing of our pain but an understanding of what it means to hurt and what it means to be healed." (from The Spirituality of Imperfection by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham)
"Spirituality is discovered in that space between paradox’s extremes, for there we confront our helplessness and powerlessness, our woundedness. In seeking to understand our limitations, we seek not only an easing of our pain but an understanding of what it means to hurt and what it means to be healed." (from The Spirituality of Imperfection by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham)
*October 19th-20th: Inkfest (Evergreen)
January 9th: Jury Duty
January 12th: Adult Wilderness Quest Reunion!! (Randy's, Seattle)
*tentative
"The baby beluga who inspired ‘Baby Beluga’ has died at the age of 46" 8/15/12
http://grist.org/list/the-baby-beluga-of-baby-beluga-has-died-at-the-age-of-46/
Every day
more species die.
284 Beluga Whales left
I know I
know
its always the charismatic
mega fauna
that capture our attention.
Whales, tigers, wolves, bears, elephants, monkeys and
humans.
But this time its a song and a memory.
Sitting on the floor of my 3rd grade classroom
singing a song about the light blue
beluga babies.
Sitting on my bunk bed in my comfortable
yellow-lit room
with dark blue carpets
dreaming of the ocean.
If they are all dead in my lifetime
what will it all mean to me?
It will mean that I didn't do enough.
284
is less days
than have passed this year,
and more than enough time for
every
last
one
to disappear,
dissolve under our will
or lack thereof.
---
What world do I live in?
I despair
every day
I praise
the sky and the breeze that brings me
life and breath and
radiation
from across the sea.
I pick up discarded fast
food wrappers on the road on my way downtown
every day
and sit in a cafe
and create more waste.
What person am I?
What world is this?
It seems certain
I am no ring-bearer on a great quest across Middle Earth
for then I would have more direction
as to where to go,
and what to do
and have
a known task to undertake
to end the dark forces and
save the world.
Or maybe not.
How can I be?
How can I be pushing on the world
with the greatest leverage
if I don't know where that is?
How can I be holding so many conflicting
repelling things
together
in common
at once?
I need to be both strong and surrendering
solid and yeilding
understanding and challenging
rooted and pervasive
here and there
optimistic and realistic.
all-encompassing and focused
directed and open
forgiving and un-excusing.
I must hold it all
and not be weighed down.
and its so difficult.
---
some days
I wish I could live to be
284
or more.
more species die.
284 Beluga Whales left
I know I
know
its always the charismatic
mega fauna
that capture our attention.
Whales, tigers, wolves, bears, elephants, monkeys and
humans.
But this time its a song and a memory.
Sitting on the floor of my 3rd grade classroom
singing a song about the light blue
beluga babies.
Sitting on my bunk bed in my comfortable
yellow-lit room
with dark blue carpets
dreaming of the ocean.
If they are all dead in my lifetime
what will it all mean to me?
It will mean that I didn't do enough.
284
is less days
than have passed this year,
and more than enough time for
every
last
one
to disappear,
dissolve under our will
or lack thereof.
---
What world do I live in?
I despair
every day
I praise
the sky and the breeze that brings me
life and breath and
radiation
from across the sea.
I pick up discarded fast
food wrappers on the road on my way downtown
every day
and sit in a cafe
and create more waste.
What person am I?
What world is this?
It seems certain
I am no ring-bearer on a great quest across Middle Earth
for then I would have more direction
as to where to go,
and what to do
and have
a known task to undertake
to end the dark forces and
save the world.
Or maybe not.
How can I be?
How can I be pushing on the world
with the greatest leverage
if I don't know where that is?
How can I be holding so many conflicting
repelling things
together
in common
at once?
I need to be both strong and surrendering
solid and yeilding
understanding and challenging
rooted and pervasive
here and there
optimistic and realistic.
all-encompassing and focused
directed and open
forgiving and un-excusing.
I must hold it all
and not be weighed down.
and its so difficult.
---
some days
I wish I could live to be
284
or more.
I walked down to dance co-op today with menstrual cramps and a bad mood, (though, on a side note, I have been quite pleased with the alignment of my cycle with that of the moon's, so being on my period has felt a lot more special than it normally does).
Anyway, I wasn't feeling inspired to dance tonight--all day I was thinking I wouldn't want to go--but as usually I felt called to give it a shot anyway. After waiting outside writing for a bit, I went into the ballroom and sat for a while stretching at the back til a song pulled me into movement. But I was still having to force it for sure. Finally, the music got a little darker, matching my personal tone for the evening, and on one crazy sound, like a helicopter, I turned my anger into violently spinning arms and head and hips increasing in intensity until it stopped suddenly.
Then the most unexpected song was played: The Circle of Life (The Lion King version). Everyone in the room smiled wide, including me. It was magic how quickly that shifted my mood, and how immediately I felt open to dance in a way that I never had. Open and free. I couldn't stop smiling and just bursting with life and gratitude for life. The song changed the whole landscape of the wave for me and I explored the sounds through my body in new ways for a good time even after it ended. I still got really dark (and violent?) much later during the heavy middle--I head-banged next to a screaming Theodore for about 15 minutes. But my attitude had totally shifted to openness in the dance, and just letting myself go because of The Circle of Life. It was so easy to let go after that. I hardly had any thoughts (except "ow, my ovaries hurt").
Yea, I had cramps the whole time until stillness at the end, when they totally released for a couple moments while I did some stretches lying on the floor. It was an incredible temporary relief, but I still was hurting on my way home. Now I feel fine though. This is the first time in as long as I can remember that I passed cramps without taking advil or something, which is great. :)
Besides dancing, I enjoyed the sun and the moon today.
And Michelle's surgery went fine, and hopefully the lab results will yield good news.
There is sooooo much more to write about but I am exhausted. And feeling good.
Anyway, I wasn't feeling inspired to dance tonight--all day I was thinking I wouldn't want to go--but as usually I felt called to give it a shot anyway. After waiting outside writing for a bit, I went into the ballroom and sat for a while stretching at the back til a song pulled me into movement. But I was still having to force it for sure. Finally, the music got a little darker, matching my personal tone for the evening, and on one crazy sound, like a helicopter, I turned my anger into violently spinning arms and head and hips increasing in intensity until it stopped suddenly.
Then the most unexpected song was played: The Circle of Life (The Lion King version). Everyone in the room smiled wide, including me. It was magic how quickly that shifted my mood, and how immediately I felt open to dance in a way that I never had. Open and free. I couldn't stop smiling and just bursting with life and gratitude for life. The song changed the whole landscape of the wave for me and I explored the sounds through my body in new ways for a good time even after it ended. I still got really dark (and violent?) much later during the heavy middle--I head-banged next to a screaming Theodore for about 15 minutes. But my attitude had totally shifted to openness in the dance, and just letting myself go because of The Circle of Life. It was so easy to let go after that. I hardly had any thoughts (except "ow, my ovaries hurt").
Yea, I had cramps the whole time until stillness at the end, when they totally released for a couple moments while I did some stretches lying on the floor. It was an incredible temporary relief, but I still was hurting on my way home. Now I feel fine though. This is the first time in as long as I can remember that I passed cramps without taking advil or something, which is great. :)
Besides dancing, I enjoyed the sun and the moon today.
And Michelle's surgery went fine, and hopefully the lab results will yield good news.
There is sooooo much more to write about but I am exhausted. And feeling good.
that's right, folks (folk? self?)
two of my close girl friends have become entirely smitten in the past week. both made quite the connection with a guy, each upon their first meeting (/online encounter). both the man-folk live abroad (in other cities nearby, that is) but apparently are perfectly peculiar, and match the quirks of each gal in uncanny ways.
why is this notable?
no clue, except that both happened almost at the exact same time, and both ladies have been updating me constantly (to my delight) about the progression of their interactions, and at times I almost lose track of what is happening with who. but its neat to experience, even as an "onlooker." I now know that the giddiness that comes from this beginning part of a relationship can also be felt vicariously, especially when the situations are reminiscent of your own experiences.
sorry (or not so much) about my writing style tonight. Lord of the Rings and Michelle (and probably the people from the Netherlands who are living in our house right now) are rubbing off on me. and also, i am tired, and have a lot on my mind, and a lot to write about, and not the braincells to censor myself too thoroughly. not that there's much to censor, minus a strange/awkward turn of phrase.
but anyway, yes. love is in the air.
two of my close girl friends have become entirely smitten in the past week. both made quite the connection with a guy, each upon their first meeting (/online encounter). both the man-folk live abroad (in other cities nearby, that is) but apparently are perfectly peculiar, and match the quirks of each gal in uncanny ways.
why is this notable?
no clue, except that both happened almost at the exact same time, and both ladies have been updating me constantly (to my delight) about the progression of their interactions, and at times I almost lose track of what is happening with who. but its neat to experience, even as an "onlooker." I now know that the giddiness that comes from this beginning part of a relationship can also be felt vicariously, especially when the situations are reminiscent of your own experiences.
sorry (or not so much) about my writing style tonight. Lord of the Rings and Michelle (and probably the people from the Netherlands who are living in our house right now) are rubbing off on me. and also, i am tired, and have a lot on my mind, and a lot to write about, and not the braincells to censor myself too thoroughly. not that there's much to censor, minus a strange/awkward turn of phrase.
but anyway, yes. love is in the air.
I was re-reading my vision quest introduction letter today as I attempted to write my intention essay and decided I wanted to post it here so all (2) of my faithful readers could see some of what I've thinking about recently.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Fellow Questers,
Hello.
My name is Alex Eisenberg and I am a 22 year old female. My preferred pronouns
are “she” and “her.” I am excited to meet you all, and am so looking forward to
reading your stories and intentions. Here’s
a bit of mine.
As a recent
graduate from the Evergreen State College, I am entering a new stage of my life.
With me I carry much grief for the state of the world, anger at humanity and
self, fear for the future, etc. I hope to channel these responses into positive
work and effective change though do not yet know how.
During
my years at Evergreen I did not declare a major, nor did I get trained for a
career. My experience was far more expansive than focusing, which means I am eagerly
seeking direction at this time. In college I was continuously exposed to the
reality of environmental and human injustice that is allowed and enacted daily across
the globe. I learned to approach these problems by observing connections and looking
for hidden variables. This
systems-thinking has recently helped me realize that my consciousness and
mental and emotional health are all linked to that of the earth. I now see that
I have previously neglected those pieces on a personal level, and that I must
nurture and cultivate them in myself in order to be most effective in my
efforts for a better world. The quest will be a container for me to begin mending
and growing those aspects of myself.
This
past year has been one of the most difficult and transformative of my life. It
has called me to delve deeper into personal soul work and the healing of wounds
inflicted by living in a damaged society that lacks the focus of spirituality
or community. I feel as though I am in a perpetually liminal state, between who
I was raised to be (by my parents and dominant culture), and who I want and
need to become (for the world and for myself). I believe this is in part
because I have never had a true rite of passage—this quest will be my first—and
have been inexplicably thrust in a new direction this year (toward spirit and
community), but with no instructions for how to fully access it. I seek the intention
that comes with community and spirituality, and this quest is a perfect opportunity
to begin shaping it.
While
I would already claim to have spiritual beliefs, they are private and abstract.
From my Christian upbringing and various experiences in the church, I have
become deeply resistant to organized religion and group spiritual practice of
any form, as they are very easy to manipulate. I do not have dedicated spiritual
practices or a spiritual community, and I have not experienced any that I am
truly comfortable with. Until recently, this
did not bother me. However, new realizations about the world (particularly as I
begin to comprehend the long-term consequences of nuclear power in the
aftermath of Fukashima) have forced me to reconcile my despair with something
more sustaining and connective, and less rooted in the scientific or logic-based
responses I have tried to depend on. This quest will be in part, a way to delve
into a focused exploration of my spiritual beliefs, perhaps to find clarity and
comfort within my own spirituality, while exploring ways to engage spiritually
with others, with you. Though I still feel resistance to it, I am compelled
toward it by the needs of this time and myself.
Here
are some other thoughts about my intention for the quest: I seek to face the
guilt I feel as a privileged middle-class, white, straight, cis-person in a
vastly unequal world that is being ravaged by my species. I seek to cultivate
personal strength and be self-supporting, while simultaneously remembering that
I am part of a whole and cannot survive alone. I seek to learn to embrace and
create community on all scales, and find ways to be an effective member within
them. I seek time alone to grieve fully and openly, without other obligations,
without anything but my sorrow, my heart, and the earth. I seek to explore whatever
emerges when I open myself up to the world in this way.
Fellow
Questers, thank you for taking all of this into your hearts, and for stepping
into this journey along side me.
See you all soon,
Alex
danced to a fiddler's celtic tune in a parking lot
had my first attempt at split pea soup (success!)
made gfdf muffins (uber success)
hung out with my wonderful housemate and three crazy dogs
attempted to write my quest essay
enjoyed the sun
among other things
(like getting into an intense internet debate
and
doing laundry)
nothing too important, but it feels like a lot of good things. :)
had my first attempt at split pea soup (success!)
made gfdf muffins (uber success)
hung out with my wonderful housemate and three crazy dogs
attempted to write my quest essay
enjoyed the sun
among other things
(like getting into an intense internet debate
and
doing laundry)
nothing too important, but it feels like a lot of good things. :)
JOANNA MACY IS GOING TO BE AT WOMEN'S CONGRESS!!
Beautiful dreams are coming true.
Beautiful dreams are coming true.
Been feeling somewhat angry at the world. Or, a lot. But yesterday helped--catching up with some awesome ladies. And my quest prep has been grounding and immensely powerful too. And, duh, backpacking with Carolyn=incredible. Lots to think about. Lots to write about, but most of that is going to be private for now.
But I do wish to express my anger and frustration at this moment, just to get it out of my system. Consider yourself warned.
So... basically... here's the thing: I am fucking sick of (mostly) old (mostly) white (mostly) males running the world! FUCKING SICK OF IT.ARG
So, as you can probably tell, the green building code symposium went well.
I mean, I guess I am getting used to being the youngest person at those things, and being surrounded by grey-haired people in fat-suits...er, fat people in grey suits...er suits with phat grey hair (...not judging, just noticing) [Am I gonna lose potential jobs over this?]. And I am getting used to hearing them talk about merely reducing our utter destructiveness in a business-polite fashion in their business-casual vernacular/clothing blabitty blah blah bull. Needless to say I bit my tongue a bunch but couldn't stifle a few loud exhale sounds that probably made some bushy, grey caterpillar-eyebrows cock their butts in the air (or their heads, but its really hard to tell anyway). But hear-you-me, I would have spoken my mind if I wasn't volunteering or representing the Guild by association.
Like, "um, excuse me... you don't want to put a better code into law because then people who are always pushing the boundaries would somehow suddenly find it acceptable or beneficial to shoot for the lowest standard? and even if they did, the lowest standard would call for much more efficiency across the board which would be better in the long term anyway because we wouldn't have wasted all the resources making more shitty buildings. i mean, its not like we've been waiting for years for everyone to jump on the already super green-washed (with '100% natural' soap) bandwagon of 'sustainability.' and you are saying we shouldn't create laws that mandate 'green' building because then it won't be cool anymore? might that perspective be because the success of your company/paycheck depends on your 'green-building' offerings being on the cutting edge, which wouldn't be the case if better building practices became the mandated standard?"
Once again, it was a dog-fight between the private and public sector...
So why not both? Why not market-based incentives AND regulatory solutions? WHY WHY WHY? I think I understand. It's all about money. But it sounds like this:
"Because I am a man, and don't understand the meaning of compromise" "NO! I am a man and I have all the answers, but they are better than yours" "I am man! HEAR ME ROAR! in my suit. and tie. and... beer belly..." "oh! and I am a woman and I have an opinion too! but it's still based off this bullshit reality of market economies and what is or isn't feasible in our ridiculous government system. but i know how this part of the world works because i have been working in this unfortunate field since the dawn of the dinosaurs. RAR!"
Okay, okay. I'm not being very fair at all. They genuinely care (probably). They donated their time to spend at this thing, and have dedicated their lives to trying to contribute to a more beautiful (?) world, and they are doing it in the ways they know how.
But it doesn't help if you get in the way of people who are doing the things that make the difference. And if you live in a bubble of relative security, ignorant or ignoring-ant of the actual real-life physical/emotional/metaphysical/hubalal impacts of the things you are talking about.
I know. I know. It's too complex (aka time intensive, aka expensive) to consider everything. We are all just doing our best. Hopefully for the common good, but it's hard to tell sometimes, especially when one of the presenters was like "yup, i was in the regular old building design business and i moved to green building when it became profitable."
in the meantime, all these old people in my life are telling me "that's just how people are, we need to take advantage of it by creating incentives and propaganda etc." so shoot. i guess i better just call that acceptable. (*retch*) but its effective! i know it. (*retch*)
would you believe me if I said I DONT I DONT KNOW WHO TO BELIEVE? or what to do? or... who I am...
and on that note:
"What if I should discover that the poorest of the beggars and the most impudent of offenders are all within me; and that I stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I, myself, am the enemy who must be loved -- what then?” -CG Jung
But I do wish to express my anger and frustration at this moment, just to get it out of my system. Consider yourself warned.
So... basically... here's the thing: I am fucking sick of (mostly) old (mostly) white (mostly) males running the world! FUCKING SICK OF IT.ARG
So, as you can probably tell, the green building code symposium went well.
I mean, I guess I am getting used to being the youngest person at those things, and being surrounded by grey-haired people in fat-suits...er, fat people in grey suits...er suits with phat grey hair (...not judging, just noticing) [Am I gonna lose potential jobs over this?]. And I am getting used to hearing them talk about merely reducing our utter destructiveness in a business-polite fashion in their business-casual vernacular/clothing blabitty blah blah bull. Needless to say I bit my tongue a bunch but couldn't stifle a few loud exhale sounds that probably made some bushy, grey caterpillar-eyebrows cock their butts in the air (or their heads, but its really hard to tell anyway). But hear-you-me, I would have spoken my mind if I wasn't volunteering or representing the Guild by association.
Like, "um, excuse me... you don't want to put a better code into law because then people who are always pushing the boundaries would somehow suddenly find it acceptable or beneficial to shoot for the lowest standard? and even if they did, the lowest standard would call for much more efficiency across the board which would be better in the long term anyway because we wouldn't have wasted all the resources making more shitty buildings. i mean, its not like we've been waiting for years for everyone to jump on the already super green-washed (with '100% natural' soap) bandwagon of 'sustainability.' and you are saying we shouldn't create laws that mandate 'green' building because then it won't be cool anymore? might that perspective be because the success of your company/paycheck depends on your 'green-building' offerings being on the cutting edge, which wouldn't be the case if better building practices became the mandated standard?"
Once again, it was a dog-fight between the private and public sector...
So why not both? Why not market-based incentives AND regulatory solutions? WHY WHY WHY? I think I understand. It's all about money. But it sounds like this:
"Because I am a man, and don't understand the meaning of compromise" "NO! I am a man and I have all the answers, but they are better than yours" "I am man! HEAR ME ROAR! in my suit. and tie. and... beer belly..." "oh! and I am a woman and I have an opinion too! but it's still based off this bullshit reality of market economies and what is or isn't feasible in our ridiculous government system. but i know how this part of the world works because i have been working in this unfortunate field since the dawn of the dinosaurs. RAR!"
Okay, okay. I'm not being very fair at all. They genuinely care (probably). They donated their time to spend at this thing, and have dedicated their lives to trying to contribute to a more beautiful (?) world, and they are doing it in the ways they know how.
But it doesn't help if you get in the way of people who are doing the things that make the difference. And if you live in a bubble of relative security, ignorant or ignoring-ant of the actual real-life physical/emotional/metaphysical/hubalal impacts of the things you are talking about.
I know. I know. It's too complex (aka time intensive, aka expensive) to consider everything. We are all just doing our best. Hopefully for the common good, but it's hard to tell sometimes, especially when one of the presenters was like "yup, i was in the regular old building design business and i moved to green building when it became profitable."
in the meantime, all these old people in my life are telling me "that's just how people are, we need to take advantage of it by creating incentives and propaganda etc." so shoot. i guess i better just call that acceptable. (*retch*) but its effective! i know it. (*retch*)
would you believe me if I said I DONT I DONT KNOW WHO TO BELIEVE? or what to do? or... who I am...
and on that note:
"What if I should discover that the poorest of the beggars and the most impudent of offenders are all within me; and that I stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I, myself, am the enemy who must be loved -- what then?” -CG Jung
WHY AM I NOT A FOREST CREATURE?
WHY DID I COME BACK HERE?
WHY AM I SITTING IN FRONT OF A COMPUTER?
WHY DID I COME BACK HERE?
WHY AM I SITTING IN FRONT OF A COMPUTER?
