Making the Most of Misfortune

I am not brave; I am unfortunate. It’s not the same thing.

Let me explain. I talk a good game about how we should all switch to a new paradigm—one where value is not based on money; where cooperation and sharing resources is the norm; where sharing and caretaking are highly valued. And, for the most part, I walk the talk. I live simply, finding ways to share with others which builds community. I am a skilled and experienced caretaker and I share that with friends, family and community as I am able. I have a blog where I write essays about transformation and the healthier, happier, world we can have if we just make the shift.

Here is the secret: I would sell it all out if someone would just offer me a job. I am that desperate for validation from the very society that I condemn. So, I have been saved from selling out not because I am brave or committed or strong; I have been saved from selling out because no one has hired me. Misfortune has forced me to stay true to my values—living in cooperation, living simply, living through sharing and creativity. Because the truth is that the first thing I think about when a job opening looks especially promising is this: “I can finally have a normal life again!” I think about the things I can afford—a car with a driver’s side door that opens; rent on an place of my own instead of living in one bedroom in someone else’s house and shuffling a portion of my things back and forth from a storage unit; yoga classes, qigong retreats, massage therapy, and other proactive health care; and, to my credit, I also think about the organizations I would be able to donate to.

If I, with my years of polished words and bright, hopeful ideals, cannot find a way to hold true to the dream of a new paradigm except through being forced, then how can I expect others new or newer to the concept to choose abandonment of everything that has represented security and happiness? Having it all—job, house, family, savings, retirement, and opening it all up to transformation—now that would be brave!

Me? I’m just good at making the most of misfortune.

Being Brave

I had a round of errands to run today, so I decided to treat myself to lunch at the House of Bamboo while I was out. Their pad thai is awesome and I love supporting local people. The proprietress showed me to a table and as I sat she pointed to my necklace and said she liked it. I was wearing my Year of the Horse symbol. She said “very brave,” smiled and then left to get me water.

This was a moment of synchronicity since I had just realized how stuck in fear I have become in regards to looking for work. On my way to the restaurant, I passed by several shops. As I looked at clothes, and shoes and art work I thought about how much I liked some of the things I was seeing and how easy it was not to get caught up in materialism now that I am unemployed.

It suddenly occurred to me that—since I got knocked down to bare subsistence living, and then worked my way back to a modest abundance that still teeters on the edge of disaster—I am scared of going back to a larger abundance. I have seen a couple of jobs advertizing large salaries and I come up with all sorts of reasons to not even try for them: I don't want to work for another dysfunctional nonprofit that is struggling financially, administratively challenged, and saddled with enough challenging personalities that all work grinds to a halt. I don’t want to work that hard again and have nothing to show for it in the end. And, besides, I am not really qualified.

In actuality, it isn't any of those things. It is fear of success and fear of failure. I am safe in my new limbo world. I have food and shelter and some beauty and comfort. Why would I give that up for struggle and hard work and a likelihood of failure in a field fraught with fringe crazies and pathetic finances? Right now, no one expects too much from me so anything I do is wonderful. Right now I am only responsible for myself so I can only let myself down. I am scared that if I apply for these jobs I might get one, and then I might fail at it.

Failure is always a possibility. However, true failure is lacking imagination, insight and wisdom to learn from mistakes and losses.

In the past couple of months I have been remembering the picture that I used to draw when I was about five years old—a little troll girl, silently crying and holding a black and wilted flower. I clearly remember thinking the caption was “I kill everything I touch.” I don’t know where the picture or the conviction came from, but it has been with me all of my life—subtext for all of my relationships and career moves.

Now I am asking—what if I got it wrong? What if the message was not about me killing everything, but instead was about a path of compassion? A path of compassion can lead one to be there for many tragedies. A path of compassion can lead one to reach out to those who are most troubled, those who are most struggling, and those most likely to make little or no progress. It would be easy for a five year old to interpret myself as the cause, when really I was just the witness.

My little troll girl can stand as a picture, but I need to reinterpret the message. My heart is strong enough and kind enough to take on hard cases and difficult tasks. I am brave enough to stay open to challenging situations and relationships, and sturdy enough to endure the pain, confusion, fear, and anger in this world. I am tough enough to witness the depths of grief and also the heights of joy and the penetrating warmth of love. For nothing is permanent—not grief, nor anger, nor fear.

The woman at the restaurant had it right. I am very brave. And a few small moments of weakness and doubt and fear will not stop me. Not for long!

Time to go get some job applications in:)

My first day of acting class

For those of you who do not know, I signed up for an acting class. Well, sort of. When I signed up, it was full so I was on the wait list and therefore not technically in the class yet. My friend Tempra told me about the class when she decided to try acting and, after some trepidation, I decided to sign up too.

We walked into a sea of people too young to go to bars. Signs on the walls told us we could not bring food or drink into the room and I had to walk through the middle of the room with my coffee cup in hand because that was the only way to access the seats where Tempra and I could sit together. It was eerily quiet so we “old folk” nervously chatted in near-whispers.

Actually, I was fine until the teacher walked in and said cheerily, “Are you ready to act?”
“Good God, no!” was my inner response. If I had been near the door I might have bolted. As it was, bolting would have first meant walking in front of all those people, so I stayed put. Besides, I wasn’t actually in the class yet, right?

You might be wondering why the hell I would sign up for something that I clearly find terrifying. Well, it all starts with me working my way through the book The Artist’s Way.

One of the first things this book works on is creative blocks. It sets out assignments designed to get us to find all of the people and events that block us from being creative. The book is for all types of artists—writers, painters, musicians, dancers, etc. Since I am a writer, that is the focus I brought to working through the book. Until recently, I have only been thinking of writing-related creative blocks. However, I recently remembered that my oldest aspiration was to be an actor. I remember drawing a picture of me on a stage and my mom writing down that I wanted to be an actor, dancer and singer. (I sort of saw them as all one thing at the time.) A couple of years later when I was reading and writing on my own, I added being a writer, but I continued to put together plays and dance performances for my family up until I was 12 or 13. Eventually I dismissed my acting dreams as a phase all little girls go through—not something to be taken seriously.

Before I decided this, I used to conscript my cousins to my various projects. I would choreograph dance performances and make my mom and Aunt Karen watch (I never understood why they had to be dragged in—my shows were much more entertaining than the endless talking they did!). I used to have this snake puppet that I made out of a sock at some arts and crafts summer program and I spent hours doing duets with the snake, singing along to Barbara Streisand or pop songs I taped off the radio (and, yes, I realize how dorky this was). I made up all sorts of stories to go along with the songs. Once I even wrote a whole musical using taped radio songs. Again, I conscripted the cousins who made a silly mess of my serious story line; no one else seemed able to share my vision!

Lately, I have been thinking it would be nice to have something more to offer the Rogue Theatre (as the only non-theater board member), but have not been able to find a non-acting niche. Early on, they asked me if I was interested in acting, and I told them I sucked at it so, no, I wasn’t interested. Now I am wondering if maybe this has all just been assumptions on my part.

Then I suddenly remembered that I actually was involved in theatre for many years growing up. I went to several acting workshops for kids with a community theatre group in town (I have no idea who, now), and I auditioned for small parts a couple of times. I also took drama in both junior high and high school. But I was never in a play. I have always assumed that meant the teachers could see I had no talent. That might have been the case. It might also have been that I just needed some work to draw me out, and the teachers just weren’t interested in digging. The kids that got cast were always the popular, outgoing kids. I was shy, reserved, quiet. It’s can be hard to see potential in that.

I have two acting memories that—even after all these years—still make me cringe. The first was when we were assigned to do monologues in class. I decided to do a short story that I wrote. The story was typically over-dramatic teenage angst. As a short story it was not too bad. As a monologue, not so much. Halfway through I got nervous and I froze up, completely forgetting the words. I found my place again, but couldn’t keep the emotion going, which might have made the monologue work. Instead it fell flat. So, the performance failed, and I left myself doubly vulnerable because it was my performance and my writing. For an already geeky, awkward and decidedly not popular teen, that certainly didn’t help.

Later that year we did auditions for the musical Oklahoma. I have no memory of actually auditioning but I know I did. Instead of getting a part, the teacher made me the director. At first I thought that was a great honor and opportunity, but she didn’t give me any instruction and she actually did all of the directing. I had to spend my free afternoons sitting around watching her direct the kids in rehearsal, feeling like a fifth wheel. She let me have a say here and there, but by the time the play was opening, I was completely deflated. I decided that she made me director not because she thought I would be good at it but because I was so bad at acting. Looking back now, maybe that was the reason, but maybe not.

I have so much emotional baggage tied to the subject that it is hard to say if I have any real interest in acting or not. But The Artist’s Way is not just about one form of creativity, and it is not about just one form of creative block. I realized that my creative block surrounding acting might be holding me back in all sorts of ways. Too often I am still that shy, reserved, quiet kid waiting to be ridiculed for speaking up, or verbally run over and overshadowed by flashier, more flamboyant folks. Too often I am timid and do not share what would actually be most welcome. This impacts everything I do—my career, my relationships, my social action work, as well as my writing. Maybe I need to work on this creative block before I will truly be able to move forward as a writer. Maybe I need to work on this creative block before I will be able to move forward in my career.

Which is why tonight I had my first acting class since high school. If I didn’t have a friend in the class, I probably wouldn’t go back, even though I made it off the wait list. It’s just too scary! You know how they say that every day you should do one thing that scares you? Well, I think this one might count for several months worth. But, even though I am scared, I am also excited to stretch beyond my current boundaries of Self. And that is a good thing.

No Good, Very Bad Day Zen Style

Today was a no good, very bad day, just like the kids’ book says. Working at Jen’s Daycare—aka, Zen Bootcamp—gave the day a spiritual dimension. Not that this made it better. Or easier. Just more spiritual, for whatever that is worth!

Last night was my second night of sleep interrupted by bouts of pain. For the past decade and a half my uterus has picked up this habit of treating me to rounds of faux labor pains with contractions and all. The pain lasts about 20 minutes (although low-grade pain can linger for hours) and the rounds come every 4-6 hours. That means that I woke up in pain twice the last two nights and was up for half an hour each time. The bouts leave me exhausted and the middle of the night interruptions leave me sleep deprived.

I woke up late and by the time I was awake enough to do my morning stretches, another round of pain struck, sucking up all of my morning prep time. I spent my stretches time writhing in pain and panting in the already heavy heat of the day. I didn’t get a shower, coffee, or even have time to wash my face. I just pulled on clothes and loaded myself into my car (still entering from the passenger side and climbing over the stick shift because I can’t afford to fix the broken driver’s side door). When I got to Jen’s I realized that I had forgotten my Bert’s Bees Wax chapstick and my lips were already dry.

I could see that it might be the start of a no good, very bad day. But, I didn’t want to curse myself, so I focused on the idea of a happy day instead.

I was met at the door by loud barking dogs. Not unusual, but they do tend to be less energetically vocal first thing in the morning, so the barrage was an unpleasant morning bonus. The kitchen looked about usual—all the cupboards and drawers in various stages of openness and all of the counters in various stages of dishes and food prep. The floor, however, was in the unusual state of looking somewhat like the barn floor. There had clearly been a mishap in feeding the guinea pigs their hay.

It certainly looked like a no good, very bad day in the making….

I rolled up my sleeves (metaphorically, as I wore a tank top today) and got started. I thought that some good, hard housework might distract me from pain and crankiness. Air conditioning would help too. It was only 9am and the house was stuffy and hot. Since the air conditioning was already on, I just had to close all of the doors and windows. (Closing the doors is easy; keeping them closed is a huge challenge, what with all the two-year olds and ADD!) After 45 minutes of hot sweaty dish washing and counter scrubbing, I realized that the air conditioner was NOT broken, it was just set at 85 degrees. I turned it down to 78 and things got much more comfortable. The hot dishwashing and counter cleaning and floor sweeping continued and I started making some real progress.

Perhaps it wasn’t going to be such a bad day afterall….

But there was a pretty serious lack of food. I could make eggs, but there was no bread for toast. I could make beans but that takes hours. I could make cornbread but that takes an hour or so and it takes a clean kitchen (for my own OCD comfort, not because you really need a tidy kitchen to make cornbread). The kids were saying they were hungry and all I could offer was dried fruit. Desi woke up hungry and I had no idea what to feed her. Jen got out the last of the granola and said to just put milk in it (the yogurt was all gone).

At the same time, lots of other commotion was streaming around me. Jen’s boyfriend Krishnan was running around doing bits and pieces of projects while determined to be cheerful and conversational. I just wanted him to shut up and leave me alone (did I say I was cranky?). Jen’s son Elias (newly turned 18) had texted me to bring him some unscented lotion for his tattoo, which I did. When I gave him the lotion, he showed me his tattoo. I told him that I would have been more impressed if he had gotten on the bus to go work for Jen’s friend for a week. He wrinkled his nose and said he wasn’t interested in doing that. Walking away, I said—to no one in particular—that I would have been more impressed if he had been interested in going to work for Jen’s friend.

On the kid front, it was a whiny, crying, screaming day. Mostly they did not all cry or scream at once, but someone was crying or screaming pretty much non-stop all day. One of the two year olds is teething; the three year old was feeling especially sensitive and cried at the drop of a hat; one of the four year olds has been determined to stay sad and homesick non-stop all day including lots of crying, and the other was delivered in full attachment disorder melt down—I had to sit and hold her in a mommy huddle on the back porch until she was able to make the transition. Fortunately there were two older girls who helped out some with the little ones, but they also wanted to chat my ear off about cell phones and pop music and all I really wanted was them to shut up and go away (again, cranky!).

And then Jen told me she was leaving me alone with Elias while she went grocery shopping—words to strike terror into my heart since there is no guarantee when she will return once she leaves the house. However, she assured me that she had to have the car back by 11:30 to have her brakes fixed, so I would only have to hold down the fort alone for a limited time—an hour and a half, max. The mommy huddle happened while Jen was gone and Elias did a good job of holding down the fort while I was on the back porch. He did, however, disappear back into his room as soon as he helped his mom unload the groceries.

The worst part of the day was Jen’s scatteredness. Or perhaps it was just my cranky, pain-colored perception that made her seem scattered. It seemed to me that she was coming and going all day long, and that when she was in, she wasn’t really there, if you know what I mean. I thought when she came back from grocery shopping that I would feel less alone. Instead, her coming and going and not-being-thereness left me feeling more alone than if she had actually been out doing errands. Like when one of the older girls dropped the glass bottle of water in the middle of lunch and Jen launched in to clean-up mode, but then suddenly disappeared, leaving me to think the job was done, only to find more glass on the floor (which I cleaned up). (This was after the kids asked for more of everything non-stop, over and over again for a steady 15 minutes and I told Jen I was ready to quit. I know she was trying to fix it…) Or, like when I took one of the two-year olds in for a nap only to have him show back up in the pool area with Jen’s daughter Desi (6), a mouth full of chips, and a story from Desi that Jen had fed them and sent them out. When I went into the air-conditioned house (out of the 100 degree heat), Jen was sitting on the couch chatting with a parent and apologized for letting him escape from her.

Was this a no good, very bad day, or did I just have a bad attitude?

My worst moment was when I lost it with Desi. She had an attitude all day—sassy, belligerent, dare I say bitchy? Jen explained that she hadn’t gotten to bed until after eleven because her and Krishnan had had scheduling difficulties in picking up her horse Zena, and therefore Desi did not get enough sleep. I had words with Desi more than once about her behavior towards me, but it didn’t even make a dent. While cleaning up the rest of the glass, the kids at the table were asking for lunch service, Jen was talking to her car mechanic, Andy, and his daughters at the kitchen entrance, and Desi kept asking for more celery. I told her she would have to wait until I finished cleaning up the glass, so she walked off in a huff.

Five minutes after I finished, Jen was still talking to Andy, so in a bid for Jen’s attention Desi waltzed past Jen into the kitchen and announced she wanted more lunch after all. I told her no and asked her to leave the kitchen. She said no. I flicked water at her (I was doing another round of dishes) and when she didn’t budge, I held a dirty plate over her head and told her I would dump food on her head if she didn’t vacate the kitchen. She retreated to the kitchen gate and then yelled that I was mean and then stepped back into the kitchen. When I told her that she could go play or go to her room, she said no again and struck one of those “fuck you” poses she is so good at. I threw the water from my hands directly into her face, but she just came at me saying no. So I scooped her up, took her back to her room, and dropped her on her bed. When she hit, she flailed herself until she fell off the bed onto her head. I just closed the door and walked away. Sometimes you just gotta walk away.

It was pretty much a no good, very bad day.

At 3:15 I remembered that I had to ask Jen if I could get off early for a 4pm church event that I was in charge of. I asked Jen what she thought my chances were of getting off at four. She said three kids were being picked up very soon and that she thought I could go after that. Sure enough, those kids did go, but then the prospective parents who said they would come look at the daycare at 3 showed up at 3:45 and there is no way Jen can show the place without someone minding Desi, so I was there until 4:30 afterall. As I was leaving, one of the infants showed up, but Jen said she could handle it, so I went to my church thing. Only the tech set-up guy had shown up, so that was a wash. We did learn about live streaming capabilities at church though so that was good.

I got home and vented to my house-mate Michael. He told me that his house guests were picking up take out food and he thought there would be enough for me. There wasn’t though, which fit with the day, so I walked down to La Hacienda, had my favorite tostada and a couple of margaritas.

It was a no good, very bad day, but it seems to be ending well:)

Wondering where the Zen twist is? Either the margaritas or that I didn’t kill anyone. Take your pick!

Teamwork

During my evaluation this past week, the board asked me what teamwork meant to me. I answered by giving some examples, which was adequate for the setting, but lacked depth. Then I went home and read more of the book Calling The Circle by Christina Baldwin, and there was a fuller, more intimate account of teamwork: teamwork is everyone giving over a piece of their autonomy to the center and the center is a combination of shared selves and a larger something that enables the group to be more than the sum of its parts. It is this center that everyone is working for and is accountable to. This is where true teamwork is rooted.

To do teamwork, we first and foremost need trust.

First, we have to trust ourselves. We need to have a clear view and acceptance of both our strengths and weaknesses. We need to be able to both praise and acknowledge our skills and talents, but also be able to accept our shortcomings with compassionate understanding. This requires a high level of self-awareness—an attribute not highly valued and, thus, mostly not taught (or learned), in our society. Instead, our culture encourages the extremes of self-effacement and blaming others which leads to a distorted self-view.

Second, we need to trust our teammates. We have to commit to bringing our whole selves to the service of the team. This means bringing the power and gifts of our strengths, and it also means being open and honest about our areas of weakness, enabling the groups shared strengths to make us all stronger, better, and more than we could ever be alone. This means we have to be brave, as we are vulnerable when we make ourselves fully seen. In this society—which believes that if there is a winner then there has to be a loser, and which uses fear as a tool of dominance and division—bringing your full self to the table takes great courage and a strength born of deep convictions.

Third, we need to trust in the process, which means believing that working together is the best way of moving us forward and obtaining our goals. Blocks to the teamwork process include harboring hidden agendas; believing that someone must lose; believing that others are looking to gain at our expense; being critical of others; holding on to pre-set outcomes; and clinging to expectations. When we let go of these blocks and we come together open to the creative possibilities that arise within a gathering of equals, then a synergistic magic can happen. I have seen amazing solutions arise out of such gatherings, solutions that are able to take deep root because they were created together and therefore are holistic.

In this society, we all come to teamwork wounded. We all come with expectations and judgments and fears. We will bring these with us into the circle of teamwork. If we can be honest with ourselves, brave enough to dare vulnerability together, and have faith in the process, amazing things can happen, even with all of our dominant culture baggage.

How Divide and Conquer Keep Winning...

...And what you can do to stop it

There has been a lot in the news lately about how much rich corporations make and how little they pay in taxes. The polls show that the majority favor closing those tax loopholes, and yet the elected officials just voted to keep those loopholes. How can this be? There are way more of us than there are of them! The key here is divide and conquer. While corporate lobbyists stay on target, we get bogged down in division over everything from class to what TV shows we watch. It is NPR listeners versus Monster Truck Rally attendees; working class ghetto culture versus suburban elitists; and Techno-pop versus Country.

There are a lot more of us than them, but we are also much more diverse—they use our diversity against us. Without a unifying set of values to make us cohesive, we turn into a thousand bickering subsets. And while we are kept busy being divided, the mega-rich conquer and run the world.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, I see many signs that things are shifting, and in this I find hope. There is much that we can all do to help move this shift forward. First, we have to become Aware. Without Awareness, nothing can change, because without Awareness, we don’t even know that a problem exists. So, let’s start with Awareness that divide and conquer is being effectively used.

The tools of divide and conquer:

Divided communication. Talk separately to people who have a shared concern (say, the environment). Start with the people who have the most power first, and use a mix of carefully selected events, facts, half-truths, and lies to show them how one or more others in the same group are actually working against them and their values. Keep the communications shrouded in secrecy, but not actually secret—you want others to know that you are talking, but not the details. It is important to keep everyone guessing and walking on eggshells.

Fear as a motivator. Make sure that you make it clear that people’s values are not just threatened, but are in immediate jeopardy. The more specific you can make the threat, the better. You also want to get people into a reactive mode—trigger their anxiety so you can keep them hunkered down and protecting their own job, project, title, etc.

Misdirection. Once misinformation seeds have been planted, keep people pointed away from you and towards the others in the group. You aren’t to blame, you just pointed out the potential disaster—so keep redirecting people to those you have pointed out as being to blame. Because no one is perfect, this works great—you can always find errors and mistakes that can serve as “evidence” of wrongdoing, unworthiness, or underhandedness.

Break trust. The scapegoating that arises out of misdirection and fingerpointing decreases communication and increases fear. No one knows who is talking to whom, or what about, so communications become even more fractured and perhaps stop altogether. Fear triggers a mass-attack of self-defensiveness, which also plays into the fractured or stopped communications; afterall, what I say might be used against me. When people act out of fear, they often say and do things that they don’t mean, and make mistakes they wouldn’t otherwise make. The more the fear increases, the worse this becomes, and out of these broken communications and actions, trust is broken. This is especially true for areas where trust never had a chance to develop in the first place.

End result: Division makes working together cohesively impossible and whatever the group’s concern had been (say, the environment) suffers set-backs at best and major defeats at worst.

Pretty depressing, huh?

Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. Here is an alternative strategy—Unify and Grow:

Holistic communication. Holistic communication is clear, honest, and compassionate communication with self, and with others. There are lots of tools to help us here.

Starting with self communication, Byron Katy’s questions work is an excellent tool: “Is it true? Can I really know it is true?” It is difficult to get derailed by incomplete or inaccurate information when we ask these questions. We either have facts proving truth, or we don’t have the truth—and then we can choose to ask questions to get to the truth. For example, it is easy to make assumptions about someone’s actions. If a person answers the phone and then slams it down without answering us, we can assume that person is rude, angry, mean, etc. But, can we really know this is the truth? No. The only way to know the truth behind that action is to ask the person who answered the phone. It could be that their child just slammed their finger in the door and they had to run for help.

Katy has two final questions: “How does believing that it is true make me think, feel, or act? And, How would I think, feel or act if I did not believe that it is true?” Katy’s questions are deep and worthy tools for holistic communication. I would add these questions or areas of exploration when reviewing a specific action/event: What are the facts that you do know; in other words, what did you, yourself, see, hear, smell, taste, or feel? How do you feel about the action/event? What does that action/event mean to you? What do you want? What do you need?

Taking our insights to the next step, communication has to be unifying. This means that we must talk to the person or people involved directly. If there is a group involved in a particular event or issue, than the whole group needs to make an effort to get together and talk things through. This communication needs to be clear, honest, and compassionate.

Hope as a motivator. Communication with self and with others needs to be rooted in compassion. We non-verbally communicate trust, dislike, empathy, frustration, etc. when we are interacting with someone. If we assume the other person is acting out of greed or malice, then we will communicate this and our thinking will close down avenues of discussion. When we assume the other person is acting with good intensions, then we can listen with compassion and avenues of communication will be opened up. Starting with the assumption of good intentions is acting out of hope. It could be that our hope will not be fulfilled. It may be that the other person is, indeed, acting out of greed or malice. Listening with compassion enables us to live our values even with those who would hurt us (it could be argued that greedy, malicious people need our compassion even more), and avoids shutting down communication and fomenting negative feelings with those who otherwise would have worked with us.

Collective responsibility and problem solving. When everyone acknowledges and honors their responsibilities, including their responsibility for errors and mistakes, then we can all move forward together to effectively problem solve. This accepting of responsibility has to be realistic and balanced—we can only take responsibility for the things we have power over (either given or inherent). Please note: This stage cannot be reached without holistic communication. A lack of facts, assumptions, and strong feelings can all undermine or derail this process of owning up to responsibilities and problem solving.

Build trust. Holistic communication based on compassion; using hope as a motivator; and working together to identify responsibility and do problem solving all build trust. Trust is unifying, not divisive. It is also a lot of hard work, which is why division seems so much more effective—it is fast and easy, so it is ubiquitous. The Unify and Grow strategy is slower and harder, and it is also deeper and more resilient.

Every time you see symptoms of separate communication, fear, misdirection, and broken trust, you might want to ask yourself what is really going on. You might want to ask if holistic communication might be in order, if hope might be better applied, if collective responsibility and problem solving might be a better path to building trust and unity. You might want to ask who stands to gain if we fall apart? And, who stands to gain if we pull together? What might we be willing to risk for unity? Might we be willing to risk asking more questions? Might we be willing to risk assuming good intensions? Might we be willing to risk hoping for something better, and do the work needed to build trust?

I am not offering any quick fixes here. What I am offering is good, honest, hardwork, and the chance to grow a better future together.

The Psychology of Magic

We live at a time when the economy, energy and the environment are all giving us clear reminders that we live on a finite planet, with finite resources. Our economy is based on a model of continuous growth which is clearly unsustainable—just think of a cancer cell. Our energy is overwhelmingly based on petroleum which is a non-renewable energy source that is nearing if not surpassing peak production. And our environment is showing great signs of stress and injury as we pursue both endless economic growth and oil energy.

Change is upon us. Whether we like it or not, we will have to live with the physical consequences that our current system has created. We can continue with the status quo—denying anything is wrong and continuing to live resource intensively. Or we can start the work of transforming our society into an integrated, holistic, sustainable whole. I believe this is the challenge of our time.

And I believe that magic—in the pagan, witchcraft sense—has much to offer for helping us achieve this transformation. Because the principles of magic are rooted in psychology and are in tune with the findings of neuroscience and physics, they can provide valuable tools for both the inner transformation and community transformation needed to successfully transition to a healthier world.

Much of my understanding of Magic and Witchcraft comes from the writings of Starhawk, and from her book The Spiral Dance in particular. When I first read this book I was surprised. I had read many spirituality books, and all of them had some great little nuggets of wisdom or information, but all of them also had parts that I could not agree with. Starhawk’s book was different. In reading a book on magic, I had expected to hear arguments about why I should believe in the Goddess and Magic, but instead she presents the idea of manifest deity:

“People often ask me if I believe in the Goddess. I reply, “Do you believe in rocks?”… In the Craft we do not believe in the Goddess—we connect with Her; through the moon, the stars, the ocean, the earth, through trees, animals, through other human beings, through ourselves. She is here. She is within us all. She is the full circle: earth, air, fire, water, and essence—body, mind, spirit, emotions, change” (91-92).

Basically, she is saying that the word “Goddess” is just a short cut way of describing everything that we can see and touch and feel and hear. I may not be comfortable with the specific words used, but this concept fit with both my spiritual sensibilities and with my scientific mind.

I had also expected to be told what to do and how to do it. Instead, Starhawk presents suggestions for rituals and spells, but specifically says that what is really important is finding what works for me. In talking about the tools of Magic, Starhawk says, “The mind works magic, and no elaborately forged knife or elegant wand can do any more than augment the power of a trained mind. The tools are simply aids in communicating with Younger Self, who responds much better to tangibles than to abstracts” (75).

Which leads me to where Magic and Psychology intersect. Starhawk says, “Learning to work magic is a process of neurological repatterning, of changing the way we use our brains…” (123). This fits in exactly with information from the different fields of brain research. I love reading about brains. It is fascinating to learn how the different parts of the brain work, the role that biochemistry plays, and how the environment impacts our brains.

One of my favorite brain books is My Stroke of Insight by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor. This book describes her experience of having a stroke and how she fully recovered. Because of her work as a neuroanatomist, she knew the exact science of what was happening in her brain as the stroke was occurring. However, the actual experience gave her huge insights into how our brains really function and just what they are capable of.

Jill’s stroke was in the left hemisphere, which is the half of the brain responsible for linear, logical, linguistic thinking. The right side of our brains is nonlinear, holistic and visuo-spatially oriented. On the morning of the stroke, Jill’s left brain stopped and started working over and over again. When it was working, she knew that she was having a stroke, and knew that she needed help. When her left brain shut down, she could no longer track her experience or make a plan. Because of this, it took her several hours to successfully call for help.

Jill says, “I remember that first day of the stroke with terrific bitter-sweetness. In the absence of the normal functioning of my left orientation association area, my perception of my physical boundaries was no longer limited to where my skin met air. I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle. The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria” (67).

With her left brain silenced, Jill was able to experience a oneness with the universe, a sense of detachment to the things of the ego, and an all encompassing peace and compassion. One of the main points in her book is that, in this society, we spend too much time in our left brain, and not enough time in our right, and that the world would be a much more peaceful place if we balanced this out.

This fits with what Starhawk says about magic. She says that rituals and spell casting are just ways of tapping into and evoking our right brain—the part she calls “Younger Self.” She says that we put on flowing capes and light candles and dance to drum music not because there is something inherently magical about those things, but because our right brain responds to play and fun and pleasure. This is why she says that you have to find rituals and tools that work for you—what is play for me might not be play for you. My right brain may respond well to moonlight dancing, while yours might respond best to biking through the park. Because our right brains are holistic, the best way to tap into them is by tapping into our senses—what we see, hear, taste, touch and smell.

Which brings us back to manifest deity—Goddess, God, the Great Mystery—is all found in things that we directly experience. It is not found in logical, left brain abstractions, but in our right brain experience of wholeness and interconnection. I believe that it is a balance between these two halves of our brain that enables us to be fully human.

I want to talk a little about physics now. I have little formal education in the hard sciences, but I greatly enjoy reading about the different hard science fields. I have been told that there is no way to give a truly precise explanation of physics without mathematics. Most of us don’t speak mathematics, so we have to settle for the less precise explanations found in words. So here is what I understand of quantum mechanics: All things are made up of both matter and energy. Energy is always moving, and is not contained by matter. I like the explanation that mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme gives in his book The Universe is a Green Dragon. In this book he translates his knowledge of cosmology and physics into a poetically accessible story. Here is how he explains this concept:

“When you look at the moon, you are absorbing the moon just as the ocean absorbs minerals.

In terms of quantum mechanics, you as an individual body are represented by a particular quantum state. This includes the interactions of all the elementary particles of your body. Now imagine a patterned wave of light flowing into you. Some of the photons of this light wave interact with your own elementary particles, and through this interaction your quantum state is changed… Your particles are new in the sense that they have absorbed something from the photons and entered a new state of being.

This means that when you stand in the presence of the moon, you become a new creation. The photon’s interactions have entered into the quantum state of your entire ensemble and you are, through these interactions, a moon-person… The elementary particles of your body have absorbed an influence and in that sense they—and you—are brand, spanking new, a human being resonating everywhere with moonlight.”

Research on the transfer of energy between humans—which is a given in quantum physics—is still relatively new, but it fits with the experiences most of us have had in our own lives. Haven’t you ever been around someone who drained your energy? Or haven’t you felt disproportionately energized after being around a particularly optomistic friend? The work of Jan Fowler and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University in 2008 reveals that happiness might be contagious. This aspect of physics—that we are constantly interchanging energy with the world around us—supports the idea that we can affect the world beyond our own skin by affecting the energy flowing through us and between us.

Which brings me back to Magic. One of the definitions of magic is “the art of changing consciousness at will.” Starhawk says, “Magic requires first the development and then the integration of right-hemisphere, spatial, intuitive, holistic, patterning awareness. It opens the gates between the unconscious and the conscious minds.”

In other words, you cast a spell to align your mind, body and spirit with your will, and through your will, you work to obtain what you desire. So, if you need a job, you cast a spell for a job in order to align your mind, body and spirit with the idea of a manifesting a new job. And then you go out and do some serious job hunting—search the want ads, fill out applications, send in resumes and so on. Magic in our world is not the instant gratification Harry Potter magic. It is not enough to wish that something were so—you have to do both inner work and outer work.

Why not skip the spell and just do the job hunting? There is scientific research that shows that doing both increases your chances of being successful. For example, in 2010, one of the scientific projects reported in the publication The Week showed that people who had a lucky charm and who believed in that lucky charm set higher goals and felt more confident.

You can say that this is the placebo affect, but I think the placebo affect proves just how incredibly powerful our minds are. Think about it—you take a sugar pill and, by the power of your mind alone, you make yourself heal. That’s pretty powerful. Witchcraft believes in the power of our minds and works to harness that power to our benefit and the benefit of our world.

This is why I say that Magic has much to offer us in the challenges we face today—with our economy, energy, and environment all showing signs of crashing up against the realities of physical limitations—we need to develop a clear and strong vision of a healthier, happier, sustainable world. And then we need to engage our senses, tap into Younger Self with pleasure and play in order to harness our own inner energies and align our wills with our vision in order to manifest that vision.

Blessed Be.

To Be Clean Again

The view out the airplane window
like a mirror of my mind
brownish grey
everywhere a diffuse heavy haze
smudged thick in patches
more stew than iced tea
And the ridges
snaked convolutions
snowtopped peaks
shine bright white,
valleys layered with old snow lying
like nicotine stained fingers
shriveled on the edges

We need a good long scrubbing
Followed by a thorough dowsing
An invigorating downpour of water
Rainforest fresh or
Newly released from glacial depths
A cleansing to wash away the
Accumulated ooze and grime . . .
To emerge clean, pure, renewed
Dare I say--reborn?

But the purest rainforest
fall and glacial melts are
tainted too
There will be no simplistic
one-time cleansing
no easy fix-it-all deluge
no purification by proxy . . .
The scrubbing will be long and hard

I look out the window as we slowly
descend

I wrote this poem at the end of the century. It came back to me today as I was thinking about my weekend in the deep woods, trouble at work, financial insecurity, and running behind on too many promised projects. I stood in the shower under a deluge of hot water and thought about how fiercely positive I was two weeks ago when I wrote my Cost of Living blog. I wanted to follow that blog up with tools of hope—and here I am, feeling brownish grey and shriveled on the edges. How can I preach hope when I feel so hopeless?

Perhaps I need to spend some time talking about hopelessness before I can get back to hope. After all, one of the problems with this society is our tendency to think that if we can just get to that one, magical spot, then everything will work out and we will live happily ever after; if we just get to a place of hope, it will stay bright and shiny in our hearts forevermore. The truth is that everything ebbs and flows, including hope. The trick is not to keep hope glowing non-stop—the trick is making it through the dark until the next tide comes in.

I was in the woods this weekend. Specifically I was in the Mendocino Woodlands State Park at a camp in the middle of 700 acres of redwoods, next to a thin rocky creek, at the bottom of a long, dusty mountain road (http://mendocinowoodlands.org/home.html). There have been Unitarian Universalists camp gatherings held there for at least 30 years. This was my first time and there are many stories I could share, but that is for another time. What I brought back with me that I want to share here is the dark depths of the forest. Even at high noon, the sun merely filtered faintly down to dimly light the soft needle paths, the floor of ferns and rocky outcroppings stretching steeply up on either side, hemming me in with rock and thick soil, and trees as tall as city buildings. The silence was profound and left my ears ringing with the void until they adjusted. Then I could hear…..something. The soft hum of life, barely on the edges of my awareness. I sat in a small patch of sunlight on a moss covered log and listened to the almost-silence, and let the forest seep into my soul.

We were surrounded by young redwoods—young, by redwood standards since the area had been clearcut in the 1930’s. The remains of ancient, old redwoods were everywhere—burned out trunks as large SUVs still standing as living reminders of some long ago fire. Redwoods can keep growing even when their cores get burned out. These stumps were not stumps because fire killed them—they were stumps because humans cut them down. Even so, some survived. Redwoods send out roots that grow up into new trees. The new trees are exactly the same as the old trees genetically, so you can say that these trees are thousands of years old, although only the youngest growths are still viable. There is a critical difference, however. The new trees are growing in a different environment, one that encourages fast growth. Because of this, the new redwoods are soft. Old redwoods can be almost as hard as steel—difficult to cut and very sturdy. While we still have redwood forests, we will never again see trees of steel. That environment is gone, forevermore.

We have done so much damage to this planet. We have lost so many species, polluted so much of our water and air, lost so many forests. And we have built such amazing things—telescopes that can see far out into space, spaceships that have shown us the moon, seacraft that have allowed us glimpses of the ocean depths. We have looked inside the human genome and found amazing complexity, and miraculous cures. The yin and the yang—creation and destruction. There must be balance. It is a rule of nature, a rule of physics, a truth that all religions have recognized even if they have not always practiced it.

This brings me back to my poem—to be clean again. Isn’t this what we all yearn for—a return to balance? Aren’t we all just exhausted by the constant, niggling fears? By the never-ending, low-level insecurity that runs through all of our lives? Don’t we all feel grungy and dusty from slogging through all of the day-to-day grime of life? Doesn’t a deluge of pure, clean water sound fantastic and refreshing? Oh, to be clean again!

And so I came home from the woods, filled up with their deep silence, and I realize how incredibly thirsty I am for change—and just how far away that change is. The reality is that change takes lots of hard work. Lasting change means doing lots of mundane, every day cleaning—rolling up our sleeves and scrubbing out those sinks, cleaning up the toilets, and washing down the walls. Change means that sometimes we will inherit difficult things to deal with: losing a job, going bankrupt, racking up medical debt, feeling overwhelmed, dropping into depression, losing faith. Sometimes hope is just too hard to reach for. Sometimes it is all we can do just to keep breathing. And that is OK. Sit with the deafening silence, sit still and breathe. Wait until our ears adjust and we can once again hear the faint flow of life that is busy living all around us.

InPeace, Nikki

Cost of Living

For most of the past year, I have worked as the Administrative Director for the Butte Environmental Council. I inherited an administrative mess, a financial tangle, and an almost non-existent development program. Working on part-time hours, with the assistance of amazing co-workers, consultants and interns; a supportive board; a patient and generous membership; and committed regular volunteers—we have succeeded in stabilizing the organization. We have survived, although just barely. We have not—yet—been able to thrive. Even with all of the hard work I have done on the BEC budget and finances, we are still struggling financially.

In looking at my own, personal finances, the struggle is repeated. As a part-time employee, I make $1720 a month, gross, from my BEC work. This works out to about $1290 net per month. Of this, 20% of my gross income goes to pay for my student loans. However, looking at gross income is not a very accurate picture of reality, since I can’t pay bills with gross pay—it’s the net pay that counts. So, actually, my student loan payment is closer to 28% of my monthly income. That leaves me $960 a month to pay for rent, utilities, gas, and food each month. This doesn’t count things like car insurance, car repairs, credit card debt (which, yes, I have), or my out-of-pocket medical expenses since my part-time job does not come with health insurance. Even with all of the hard work I have done, I am still struggling financially.

This is not a unique story. I hear this every where I go: church, friends, other organizations, family members all talk about how tight money is, or how hard it is to find work, or having to take on extra work just to make ends meet. Nonprofits are cutting back, letting employees go to save the larger whole, or they are failing and throwing everyone into the unemployment lines. Heck, even my bank failed last week!

And yet, I do not want to focus on the negatives. All of the struggle sets the stage we are on, but it does not write the play. We still get to choose what we do with the money that we do have. We still get to choose what we do with our lives both in work and at home. We can freeze up in fear, close up and shut down; or we can open up to the amazing opportunities that can be found within and together in community. We can reach deep inside and find reservoirs of generosity and passion that we never knew existed. We can reach out to find others who can make us stronger, smarter, more energized. We can live our lives out of a place of hope and love.

This is why, even with my own little financial drama, I still find ways to give money to BEC every month as a BEC Angel. It is why I continue to attend fundraisers for local nonprofits doing great work. It is why I take the time to have breakfast with a friend, or go for a walk with my mom, or drive four hours to see my sister in Oregon. Keeping the flow going is what feeds the hope, and hope is what keeps us moving forward, growing, changing, making things better.

I am not saying don’t ever despair, don’t ever worry or fear. I often wake up at four in the morning worrying about BEC’s finances and my anxiety can keep me from falling back to sleep. There is a place for worry and fear and even despair. Those black depths are a part of the human experience and denying them only drives them underground.

What I am saying is that we need to work harder at actively cultivating hope and love and passion. Fears are a dime a dozen. They are cheap and easy, and fear is too often our default in this society. We need hope, and we need to do the work that grows hope. We need to work at growing creativity and thoughtfulness. We need to support people and organizations and experiences that will move us out of the either/or status quo of materialism and into something brighter, healthier, cleaner. We do that with our time, with our talent, and with our money. We do it within our selves, and we do it together, in community.

Financially speaking, I would do much better getting out of the nonprofit sector. A better paying job would make my expensive graduate education worth the cost, as well as better enable me to pay for it. However, the cost of living is much more than the bills we pay or the debts we owe. The cost of living is in the courage and perseverance it takes to work for something better, because working for something better is not easy. It is hard work. It is also good, rewarding, hopeful work.

InPeace & Hope, Nikki Schlaishunt

Dreaming Deeper

My dreams seem so much smaller now. When I was a child I used to dream about making best friends with a wild horse. Together we would explore the world and have great adventures. When I was a little older I dreamed about having super powers. Together with my team of fellow super heroes, we would do great deeds, stopping bad guys and saving damsels in distress. Then I learned a little something about politics and how the world really runs, and I dreamed of growing up to be President or a Senator. I imagined I would have a strong partner by my side and together we would strike down injustice, right wrongs, and save the world—the dynamic duo!

In high school I got a little lost. For a while I had that partner, that special someone who saw injustice as I did and was as committed as I was to doing what it takes to right wrongs. But I wasn’t able to see a future for us because there were no models for what we had. What super hero was gay? What Senator? This was before Ellen, before Will and Grace. I had no idea how to fit ‘gay’ into my dynamic duo dream, so I bounced around aimlessly for a while, feeling all alone in the world.

When I met Scott, I thought that I had found a perfect match—he was practical where I was starry-eyed. This wasn’t a pie-in-the-sky, tilting at windmills batch of dreams. This was regular, ordinary, doable dreams: marriage, children, a house, a dog. It wouldn’t matter what I did for a career—anything would do because the root would be the family we would create. It was a good idea, and—while it lasted—it was a good dream. What we found out was I needed extra-ordinary dreams, and Scott did not.

Enter Brad. A social justice warrior, living on the fringes of society, working in the trenches, righting wrongs by day and playing music and talking politics with friends by night. I think we were both surprised by the intensity of our first meeting, a sense of recognition, of fitting together perfectly. Except for my having a husband, of course. So we went along for a long time, trying to be just friends, ignoring the elephant in the room that our meshing was so much more…

Together, we have been through many challenges. Mostly those challenges have been how to pay the bills and put food on the table—subsistence challenges. Not the sort of world-changing work I had hoped for, but life is often like that. Even so, we have persevered. We had dreams of moving to California, of getting jobs that would make a difference in the world, of having a home of our own, and friends, and community. Years later, we are here. We live in California and we both have non-profit jobs that pay enough that our dream of having a home of our own is actually within reach.

So, why don’t’ I feel better? I think I have learned to settle for less. I have learned to reach only for the easy dreams, the exciting start of the journey, the outside packaging, instead of going deeper. Instead of spending evenings mixing creativity and politics and community building, I watch murder mysteries on TV and make pithy postings on Facebook. Instead of saving the world with my partner by my side, we work on our laptops, alone in the same room. Instead of reaching for those starry dreams of a shared housing community, I have dreams of a single home with a single family. Anything else is too exhausting. This is middle age, huh? Too tired to dream anymore.

And that pisses me off. Just because I am in my forties, I can no longer dream of magic and saving the world? Just because my heart has been broken time and time again, I am going to give up and settle for less? Just because I fear losing my home, my partner, my income, I am willing to trade in dreams of a better world for a make-do world? I don’t know that I like this person that I have become. This person with the small, practical dreams. Like The Waitresses say, “I want magic in my real world!”

Maybe I do not have the fiery energy of youth any more, but that cannot stop me from reaching for the stars, for dreaming the impossible and working to make it real.

I’ll just have to pace myself and take more naps!

News From Nikkiland 2009

Famine & Feast
It has been a year of Famine and Feast. We started out the year not able to make ends meet. Brad was still unemployed and I had two jobs that just didn't pay enough to cover our bills. Without the support of family, friends and strangers (w received two annonymous $300 checks in March) we would have ended up homelss. While mom and Dan would have given us shelter, we stil lwould have lost our apartment and faced bankruptcy.

In May, Brad was hired as the Executive Director of the Torres Community Shelter (irony? serendipity?). Compared to jobs in the private sector his salary is tiny. Compared to the financial dire straights of our spring, his salary is great riches! My work situation has, likewise, improved. In Arpil I started working as a grant wirting assistant for Tempra (that's her name) which was better hours and money. Then in July I started working again for the Butte Environmental Council (BEC) in a leadership role this time. On the sad side, this meant leaving my daycare work; on the happy side, this meant almost double the money. Again, small by comparison to the private sector, and huge compared with our great lack just months before.

Career
Early Childhood Education (ECE): This past spring was heavy on ECE advocacy and learning for me. Jen and I went to two different ECE conferences, and took several different classes, most of them having to do with growing brains. [For more on this subject, see my February 13 and March 20, 2009 postings.] Sadly, I left this field in July. I greatly miss the children, the mini-farm, and working with Jen.

Grant Writing Assistant: In April I started working for Tempra as her grant writing assistant. I have learned a ton about writing grants and other development work from her, and yet there is still much more to learn. I enjoy the work, even though some of it is tedious, and I greatly enjoy working with Tempra.

Butte Environmental Council (BEC): I was asked by the Board to return to BEC to help with the transition and to provide the leadership they knew they needed. We have done a ton of work, and still more remains! The Board fired the Executive Director the end of June, and that case is stil not settled. Since then I have waded through records and finaces and contracts, and I can tell you that we have inherited a very challenging set of difficulties that will take at least another six months to work through. BEC has been able to keep active with our advocacy and education work, but unless we can up the income, we will eventually have to cut hours or loss staff, which will mean we will have to decrease our efforts and, thus, our effectiveness. So, my work is cut out for me! Overall, it is challenging and rewarding work and has been a great learning experience.

Volunteer Work
UUFC: I started my second year on the Board at my church in July. We said good-bye to our interim minister in June and welcomed Sydney and Dennis, a retiring minister couple, as our new part-time ministers in August. They have been wonderful to work with! There have been some unique challenges on the board this year--working to solve our space issues, and getting our personnel policies into order.

Rogue Theatre: In July I handed over the treasurer position to Delisa and took over her secretary role. In June we had another Drag-e-okee event, and Brad sang dressed in drag (photos available for viewing on Facebook!). We also decided to add a formal season opening gala, which we are calling the Rogue Bacchinalia. In October we (well, mostly Betty) did a 24-hour Dance-A-Thon, which raised a good chunk of money and was lots of fun even though attendance was low. This year I also participated in the Fringe Festival, and wrote a ten minute play that was very well received.

Friends & Family
As most of you know, my Grandpa Leeth died in May. [See may 8 and May 15, 2009 postings for more details.]

In June, Brad's mom Joanne, daughter Sarah, two granddaughters Marisa and Breanna, son Austin, and his girlfriend Iris, all came to visit Chico for a week. We got a hotel room for Joanne, Srah and the girls, while Austin and Iris stayed in our living room. We had a great time showing them around Chico and the parks and just visiting.

In July I went to my second California World Music Fest. I drove up with Dan, stayed in my own tent in Jen's camp, and then drove back with Jen, Kiran and Elias. The music was awesome, as always; the weather was killing hot. I spent the entire afternoon at the inside venues, trying to cool down on the cement floors. Hopefuly next year will be less hot! Also in July, friends and family joined us at the Chico Outlaws baseball game where the Torres Shelter was the featured nonprofit. Brad threw out the opening pitch, and we all got the best seats--behind homeplate on a couple of couches out of the sun.

In August, my mom and I drove up and picked up Summer for a weekend away. We went to Klamath Falls, stopping at the Lake in the Woods on the way. It was a low key vacation, but very nice to just hang out together. Later that month our friends Tim and Joel came up to Chico for a side visit from the San Francisco vacation. After, they decided to move to SF. Joel is now in San Mateo waiting for Tim to fix up and sell his house so he can move too. I am very excited they will be so close!!!!!

In September, I wanted Brad to see Mendocino, so I booked us a campsite at McKerricher State Park. It is in a patch of woods next to the beach and is a lovely little place. It was, however, very cold and foggy the weekend we were there. We had a nice time visiting shops and galleries in Mendocino, hiking down the cliff to the beach, visiting glass beach in Fort Bragg, and walking the boardwalk at McKerricher.

In October, I returned to Mendocino with my family. My mom, sister Summer, and my Aunt Karen and her three grown daughters, Melanie, Debbie, and Michelle, all rented a house in Casper. It was beautiful with wonderful ocean cliff views, a hot tub in the back, and a wood stove. Summer was sick the whole time, which was disappointing. She was able to join us for some shopping and we also played games and talked and snacked by the wood stove. We all grew up together, so it was great to be able to spend some extended time together as adults. We all agreed to do it again next year!

Halloween: Our increased income made it possible for me to fly back to Milwaukee for my church ladies' annual Halloween gathering, and to catch up with my friend Kristin and her family. It was freezing that weekend, but being able to leisurely catch up with Kristin and spend time with Greg and their children Maya, Evan, and Adia made it worth it. At our Halloween gathering, we all wore our best witch outfits and we got to hand out candy to the trick-or-treating children. I also got to be there when the group gave Lori the stole we had commissioned for her. She graduated from seminary and we had wanted to do something special for her. It is an amzaing stole, and she was very touched. I also got to hear her preach, since she happened to be doing the sermon at Kristin's church the weekend I was there!

In November, Brad's dad, Jim, took a train out to visit us. He stayed with us for a week. Both of us had to work most of the time, but I was able to take him out to Bear Hole one day when I was free and Brad was not. Brad and I had Thanksgiving at Mom & Dan's. Most of Dan's family came up too. After dinner we both went by the Shelter to help out with the festivities there. There were plenty of people helping, so we didn't stay as long as we had thought we would need to.

In early December, Brad and I flew back to Milwaukee to celebrate Christmas with his family. We stayed with his mom and Aunt Di, and the day after we arrived Austin and Iris, Sarah and the girls, and Jim all came over to open gifts and drink the chocolate martinis that Joanne learned to make! We had a very nice day of celebration. We spent the week working remotely, visiting friends. and surviving the cold.

Famine & Feast Reprise
From When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron: "Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close u. Everything spontaneously does that. It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced withthe unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possiblity of loneliness, or death, or not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth."

It is a time of great change. Where once we walked secure on firm earth, we now find ourselves slipping on shifting sands--gritty, silty-slick. We are struggling to find a new balance, a way to negotiate this new terrain. We find ourselves facing the unknown, looking for a way back. There is no way back, there is only moving forward.

Fear is a natural reaction. But we don't have to make choices out of fear--closing up, separating. We can choose to make our choices out of hope, out of love, out of faith in ourselves and each other. We can choose to open up, to grow closer. This is the great gift of these uncertain times.

May you all be blessed with a great blossoming.

Of Babies and Bathwater

At the BEC membership meeting last night, several people used the phrase “Don’t’ throw the baby out with the bathwater.” This morning I was reviewing all of the many stories and opinions shared and I realize that babies and bathwater is a very appropriate metaphor in this case. Afterall, isn’t it the recognition of water as a precious and limited resource that has us all so concerned about BEC and advocacy?

There seems to be an endless, renewable supply of water here in Northern California. Even in dry years it still rains and snows and the creeks and rivers don’t run dry. Well, mostly they don’t run dry. As a community we are slowly coming to realize that water is not limitless, and yet the majority still use sprinklers to water large lawns (and the sidewalks, more often than not), take long showers, wash our cars in our driveways, all without much thought to how we might better conserve this resource. Nor do the majority think about just how easily we might lose this easy, mostly free access to a valuable necessity. Without water, life is not possible.

Babies are pretty important too. They are the means by which we perpetuate the species and they are pretty darned cute. Although perhaps a little less cute after being up all night screaming. Still, we don’t throw them out when they scream because babies need us to care for them or they would not be able to survive. We can’t expect babies to feed themselves or pay the bills. It is not reasonable to expect babies to show respect and empathy for their parents’ need for sleep by limiting their crying to daylight hours only. However, we do expect babies to grow and learn.

Last night I heard seventeen years worth of talented, committed, passionate former board members, staff, and volunteers speak. The story was pretty much the same throughout those seventeen years: Each started out excited by the goal of protecting our environment and making BEC the best organization possible to achieve that end. Each person worked very hard at helping Barbara, and each found Barbara turning her formidable, aggressive advocacy skills on them. BEC has had seventeen years of repeatedly draining the organization of great workers and refilling with new great workers in what seems to be an endless cycle.

Water is a valuable and limited commodity. The consequences of our actions, of our thoughtless use of water as an endless, renewable resource, have led to the draining of all of California’s aquifers except for the one we all live above—the Tuscan Aquifer. Clean, plentiful water is an inextricable part of a healthy ecosystem, of which our human community and economy are an interconnected part. When one part is sick or abused, that sickness or abuse ripples out to affect the whole.

Human creations like organizations function in very much the same way. We are all part of the ecosystem—the office workers, board members, and star advocates alike. The system only functions well when the whole works together, each doing their part to create a larger, healthier whole. Both water and babies are important and neither should be discarded lightly. I think the current BEC board is no different than the many past BEC boards in valuing both, and I do not think they made this decision quickly or lightly.

The thing with bathwater and babies is that sometimes you need to change the bathwater, and sometimes the baby needs to grow up.

Grandfather

My earliest memories of my mom’s dad are from when I was about four years old. Grandpa got up very early, cooked himself breakfast and then went off to work long before the rest of the house was up and about. Except for me. I loved getting up with him. He made the most delicious waffles, with real melted butter and maple syrup that he had sent to him from back in Michigan where he was from. I would sit at the big long dining room table with my plate full and watch him cook bacon on a grill thing that sat on the dining room table while he tended the waffle iron, which was also on the kitchen table.

I loved the smell of the bacon and the fresh perked coffee, although I didn’t have (or want) either of those. I knew that it was something of an interruption, having me there to tend to and serve, so I tried not to ask too many questions or talk too much. This was very difficult for me because even back then I was very loquacious (and filled with ‘satiable curiosity!). I am certain that sometimes I tried his patience. Still, there was something so special about those mornings that whenever I spent the night at my grandparents, I would go to sleep reminding myself to wake up early enough to have breakfast with grandpa, and I was so disappointed with myself when I woke up late and he was already gone….

In the High and Far-Off Times, my grandfather, O Best Beloved, was born Giles Garth Leeth in Clare Michigan, May 11, 1922. During one of our conversations last summer, he told me about his childhood summers on the farm, and how sad his grandmother was later after selling the farm and moving to town. He told me that one of his jobs on the farm was to go out and find the newborn calves because they would curl up in the pasture and make themselves very small and hard to find, but they had to be brought in where they could be kept safe. He told me that as soon as he learned to read he read everything he could get his hands on, including women’s magazines. In high school he won a city-wide spelling contest and the prize was a trip to the 1938 World Fair in New York City.

Grandfather was a navigator in the Army Air Corps in WWII. He graduated with a BS in engineering in 1949, and later went through a course of study in atomic energy before there was such a thing as a degree in nuclear engineering. He worked for G.E. and for Tempo (a research arm of G.E.) for 34 years, developing project plans for a variety of different areas, including propulsion and nuclear technology. Even in his last year of life he was tinkering around with different engineering inventions. He loved problem solving real-life issues and coming up with concrete engineering solutions.

He also loved to joke around. He told me lots of stories last summer about all the jokes he and his engineering buddies would play on each other at work. One I remember involved the creation of a very long sling shot which the engineers used to launch paper clips into the cubicle of the physicists at the other end of the room. (They quickly pieced together a white flag which they hoisted up over the cubicle wall.)

Grandpa loved golfing and backpacking. Some of my earliest memories are of grandpa getting ready to go on a hiking trip. He loved going up into the mountains, getting away from people and life as we know it. When I was nineteen, he agreed to take me on a hiking trip. I had never even gone camping before. He packed for me, helped me pick appropriate clothes to wear and bring, and we drove to the east side of the southern Sierras. We planned a three day, two night trip. The first day we hiked about eight miles and 800 feet in elevation and I was exhausted, but he just kept on going. It was breath-takingly gorgeous. Colors were startling fresh and vivid—the spring greens stretching every where, splashed with bright yellow flowers, and a liquid blue sky above. And the water! We camped next to a small creek that was melting directly off of the glacier, and I had never tasted anything so delicious.

The next morning I came out of the tent when I thought I heard an airplane overhead. “No,” Grandpa said, “That’s an earthquake.” It was a loud, gravelly roar like a jet engine with rocks in it. “I had no idea that earthquakes made noise!” I told him. Way up there in the mountains, with no people or buildings or cars and such, the earth shifting is a full-sensory experience—sound, sight, feel. He said it looked like rain, so we should head back instead of trying to stay another night. I had been looking forward to a light day hike and some rest before tackling the return hike, but that was not to be. He kicked my butt, walking all the way back to the car, stowing his backpack and coming back for me and taking my backpack before I could finish the last mile. I got to the car just as the rain started in earnest.

I never asked to go again. He didn’t think women could really do real hiking, and I had proven him right. I wasn’t about to ask for another round of humiliation. It’s too bad, though, because I probably could have gotten acclimated, and it truly was magically beautiful. But, at nineteen, I had no idea that some things you just have to work hard at before you can do them.

When I was a child, grandfather used to read to me. He read short stories, books, poetry. My favorite poem was “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert W. Service. My favorite book was the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling and my favorite story in that book was “The Elephant’s Child.” The language was lovely and juicy and full of texture and life. For example (and you really should read this out loud for the proper affect): “That very next morning, when there was nothing left of the Equinoxes, because the Precession had preceded according to precedent, this ‘satiable Elephant’s Child took a hundred pounds of bananas (the little short red kind), and a hundred pounds of the sugar-cane (the long purple kind), and seventeen melons (the greeny-crackly kind), and said to all his dear families, ‘Good-bye. I am going to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner.” I think this is why I am a writer. [If you want to know what the Crocodile has for dinner, O Best Beloved, you will have to read the story yourself!]

My grandfather loved words (another reason why I am a writer). Back when I was just a child and eating breakfast with grandfather, sometimes he would teach me new words. I am sure, out of desperation when I just could not keep quiet for two minutes in a row (do you know how long two minutes is to a four-year-old?), he would try to keep my mind so busy that I would have to shut up and let him read his paper and drink his coffee in some peace. (Come to think of it, that is also probably at least partly why he taught me how important it is to chew your food thoroughly, at least sixty times per bite he said…) In particular, I remember having a long conversation about the word ‘irrelevant’. We discussed it until we were both satisfied that I clearly understood its meaning and use. And I used it too, on my Kindergarten teacher. She was trying to get me to do what she wanted by using a distraction technique, to which I promptly replied, “That’s irrelevant!” (Score one for the ‘satiable Elephant’s Child!)

My grandfather was Old School. He believed that boys and men are smarter and stronger than girls and women, mainly because girls and women are “too emotional” to be smart or strong. He believed that the hard sciences were the only real thing in the world and studying anything else, like psychology or political science, was fluffy silliness. And don’t even get him started on the frivolity of religion! Mostly he would just snort and mentally place you in the “idiot” category.

Even so, his strong points were very good strong points. I was double-blessed in the careful cultivation of my curiosity from my grandfather and his daughter, my mother. He valued a sense of curiosity, and encouraged children to ask lots of questions and do lots of thinking about the possible answers. A strong questing, curiosity is my legacy and it is a rich and never-ending treasure trove.

I will miss you, O Best Beloved.

Fire

On Tuesday, May 5th, my grandfather died. He was 86 years old. He died a peaceful death at home with two of his daughters by his side, the end of a long struggle with cancer. As a lifelong atheist, he requested that we have no ceremonies for his death.

Grandpa actually had been in relatively good health until about the last two months. He was too weak to do hiking or golfing any more, but he still had mental clarity and greatly enjoyed reading and conversing. The last two months were harder and he finally asked for help. My Aunt Di, my Aunt Karen, and my mom all met at his house and worked out a schedule. My Aunt Di does not have scheduled work so she took three weeks on and one week off. My mom arranged to cover the one week rotation for as long as needed.

This was a hard time for my mom, not just because her dad was dying, but because of her relationship with her sister. My Aunt Di thinks about family and the world very differently from my mom and that has led to a strained relationship. Having to work together under these circumstances has been very draining for my mom. A small illustration: two sisters in their dying father’s kitchen. Di making the roast chicken she had cooked that week into a pot of soup. They are talking about their dad and what they can do to help him and help each other. Di finishes the soup, looks at my mom and says “What are you having for dinner?”

So, my sister and I planned to visit mom during her next week. We bought plane tickets to fly in and see her on May 7th. On May 1st, Aunt Di called to let us know that the grandpa had decided he was done, and the hospice nurse was putting him on a drip that would reduce his anxiety and, basically, keep him asleep until he died. On May 4th mom drove down to grandpa’s. She was up until 2am with Grandpa and gave him his late night dose of morphine, then finally got some sleep. She woke about 6am when grandpa’s breathing changed. He died about 7:30am.

When my mom called me, I was in the shower, so she left me a message. Since I woke, a song had been running through my head. As I got dressed, I realized what song it was. “What an odd song to be singing!” I thought, and then I got the phone message. The song going through my head was, “go tell aunt Rhodie, go tell aunt Rhodie, go tell aunt Rhodie, the old gray mare is dead.” I haven’t heard that song in years.

Mom asked me and Summer to still fly out. Brad drove me to the airport in Sacramento on Thursday and I got into Santa Barbara mid-morning. We spent the day catching up, visiting with Aunt Di and Uncle Lynn, getting some things done around Grandpa’s house, and making plans for a gathering the next day that Grandpa’s neighbor and dear friend Lee was planning. The house was oppressive, what with Di worrying, and Lynn in fix-it mode, and mom worn out from the waiting and the death and the company.

We decided to go to the beach and then out for ice cream. Back at the house, we had some quiet time, resting in the heat of late afternoon, talking about what needed to be done. We knew there was a fire, but it was on the other side of town, up in the mountains. We could see the smoke, slow columns of clouds up and away to the south. Fires happen in the Santa Barbara mountains fairly regularly, they are a fact of life, and so we put it out of mind.

My dad and his wife called and asked us to out to dinner, and we accepted. When we came out from dinner, everything had changed. The smoke clouds had merged into one huge cloud that took up a whole half of the sky. It loomed over us, and we could actually see flames on the mountain. As we watched, the fire rushed across the mountain, towards our side of town. The wind was crazy. We bought some boxes and when we got back we decided to pack up what we could since the fire had obviously taken a large turn for the worse. We got a lot of items packed up in our car and in Grandpa’s mustang. Di and Lynn showed up with their truck and helped us pack more. Then we got the first reverse 911 call letting us know that we were in a potential evacuation zone.

Summer was due to fly in at 11:45pm and we didn’t know if we would be allowed back into the neighborhood. We tried calling hotels—everything was booked. The news said that 8,000 had been evacuated. We watched television reports, trying to decide what to do. Di and Lynn agreed to stay at grandpa’s until we came back. That way if the evacuation order came they could call us and tell us not to come back. Summer’s plane got in early—we met her at the gate and told her, “Welcome to Santa Barbara! We’re driving home.”

About that time we got the message from Di that the evacuation order had come. She also let us know that my dad had called looking for us and asked us to call. They said they were all ready to put us up for the night. That was much better than starting the drive back home at midnight, and they live only five minutes from the airport. We had breakfast with them in the morning and then just started home. It was pretty squishy in the car, what with all of our gear and some of grandpa’s stuff too.

It had been a hectic 24 hours for us all so we decided to stop at the beach and spend a little time soaking up the sun and re-energizing. Still, it was a very long drive home and we were all very happy to get to Chico.

Years ago, when my grandma died, it was two days after my grandpa evacuated her from another Santa Barbara fire. I think it is only fitting that his death was also met by fire.

My ECE Nightmare

Dr. Bruce Perry of the ChildTrauma Academy has a graph that shows how the amount of money we spend on programs designed to “change the brain” is in almost direct opposition to the developing brain’s ability to change. We spend the majority of our money in increasing amounts at about age fourteen when our brain structure is already mostly set; we spend almost no money on children below the age of three when the brain has the highest capacity for change. This is a problem.

A long-time friend of our family is a college professor and for years he has said that we need to invert our system: college professors should be paid the least and Early Childhood Educations (ECE) should be paid the most. Dr. Perry’s graph supports the supposition that we would get the biggest bang for our buck if we did, indeed, re-prioritize where we spent our educational money.

The research clearly supports a move towards making sure that we spend more money on our 0-5 caretakers/educators. The current idea has been that we can achieve this change by requiring pre-K workers to have more formal education. The CARES program in California was based on this ideal—increase the standards by encouraging Early Childhood Educators (ECE) to get more education. Many ECE workers have jumped at this idea leading to a whole batch of people now finishing up varying levels of degrees. Great, right? The only flaw is that these people are being told that if they want better pay, benefits, and more professional respect, they should leave the ECE field.

But, let’s say that this changes. Let’s say we flip our priorities overnight and suddenly pre-K caretaker/educators now earn a modest average of, say, $40,000 a year. Doing this work would suddenly look a lot more attractive to a lot more people. Just the fact of earning a nice living wage would automatically increase the respect the field would be given. While all of the ECE workers that I know would agree that, if we put our money where we say our values are, we would be paying ECE caretaker/educators a whole lot more than $40,000 a year, I think most would also be happy with earning a comfortable living wage and some benefits. If more people are attracted to the field because the pay is good, then we can raise the professional standards. The way things are now, higher standards means higher formal education.

So my concern is—what will all of that higher education make of raising our children?

Here is my ECE Nightmare: A future where pre-K workers are highly educated technicians, dressed in stark uniforms, monitoring babies in a scientifically designed, structured, and controlled environment. There will be shelves of bins, each labeled with the developmentally appropriate age and the brain growth designed to be stimulated by the items in the bin. The ECE Specialist will check the notes on each baby or toddler and pull out the appropriate activity or place the child in the “correct” environment in order to make sure that their brains receive the right stimulation at the right time. All of the 0-3 babies would be together, separate from all of the pre-school children, separate from the elementary school children who would continue to be sub-divided into their respective age groups…

My ECE Nightmare is a monoculture world, where babies are raised in uniformity, and the lack of diversity weakens the whole.

I already see this in the work I do at the daycare. Specialists come to the daycare from time to time, to work with a specific child or to do an overall daycare assessment. They talk to the children in soft, patient tones, gently trying to convince the kids that it is best to use your words even as one kid bashes another over the head with a block. I don’t know about you, but when someone is trying to hit me in the head, I don’t try to reason with them by using my words. No, I first defend myself, often using verbal volubility and sometimes adding physical action if necessary to protect myself.

Don’t get me wrong, specialists are great. They do much needed work with children in ways that ECE caretakers/educators can’t because of the holistic nature of the work we do. We are with the children day-in and day-out. What they need to learn from us is how relationships work, how community works, and they learn that by example. The children need to see us get angry, frustrated, sad, silly, irritated, and so on. How else will they learn how to handle their own emotions? They need to see us as we relate to each other, as we relate to other children, and as we relate to them.

Children also need to see other children relating to each other. Older children dealing with younger children show the youngest where they are going, how to get there, and some of the things they will learn along the way. Age stratification of children disrupts this continuity. We already have too much age stratification in our society; The Continuum Concept by and the brain research done by Dr. Bruce Perry and others show that we need to start re-integrating our communities if we want to optimize the brain growth of our babies. So, my fear is that requiring ECE caretaker/educators to have higher academic degrees will lead to Specialists raising our children and, thus, to my monoculture nightmare.

Higher education, at least at this point in time, teaches us to follow instructions, fill in the proper blanks, and jump through all of the right hoops in order to be awarded a degree. Academia has become isolated from the real world, lost behind the scientific model. Objective observation and careful manipulation of variables is not anything like the real world. The scientific model is an amazingly useful tool and we owe much to this way of thinking; however, it is very important that we do not forget that it is but one tool among many in a world of amazing complexity and diversity.

Raising babies and toddlers is messy, chaotic work. You often have to follow your instincts in order to find the path that works for this particular child at this particular time with this particular issue. You have to be creative. You have to be willing to take risks. You have to be open to thinking outside the box.

Of course, you can only think outside of the box once you know what the box is and how it works. Because of this, 0-5 caretaker/educators should have a solid grounding in child development, basic psychology, general sociology, and some anthropology. They also should have experience with music and gardening, with dance and animals, with singing and art and other forms of creative innovation. I am not anti-education, I just think that ECE workers should have more than formal education as a professional base. ECE workers should be able to integrate both the emotional-creative-intuitive-right and the logical-linear-literal-left halves of their brains and bring those skills to the work they do with babies and young children.

Formal, higher education should only be one component in developing skilled 0-5 caretaker/educators. My monoculture nightmare would be greatly eased knowing that the path to becoming a professional pre-K caretaker/educator included flexibility, creativity, and diversity, in addition to formal education.


Resources:
The ChildTrauma Academy/Dr. Bruce Perry

http://www.childtrauma.org/
The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff

http://www.continuum-concept.org/

Universal Neglect

One of the continuing education classes that Jen and I are taking right now is a weekly brain development series. It is based on the work of Dr. Bruce Perry and the ChildTrauma Academy. This Wednesday we focused on Neglect, and how it impacts the developing brain. A neurological definition of neglect is “…neglect occurs when the important neural systems in the brain do not receive sufficient quantities and patterns of stimulation required for those systems to develop normally.” In other words, what would be neglect at one point in a child’s life, would not be neglect at another time, depending on what patterns of stimulation a child’s brain is needing at a particular moment in time.

This is different than the legal definition of neglect, which has to do with child abuse. Often this legal form of neglect does not happen in isolation of other forms of child abuse, and so the two often become almost synonymous. In our class we did cover this more traditional definition of neglect. Dr. Perry talked about how lack of stimulation of our senses can atrophy the brain. We saw MRIs of a normal three year old and a neglected three year old and saw how much smaller the later was. And while all of this is fascinating and important to know, this is not the information that excited me.

“Universal neglect” and “social and cultural de-evolution” are what caught my attention. Dr. Perry says that if you look at our brain in an anthropological context, we now have a culture that is socially and culturally malnourished. We have stratified ourselves down into smaller and smaller, more homogenized units until the average household size is now less than three. Our handouts have a graph that show the average household size in 1500’s was twenty, in 1850 it was ten, in 1960 it was five, and we keep dropping. We keep infants at home alone with one or two care takers, our elders are in separate living facilities, we keep children age stratified in our schools and in their extra-curricula, structured activities, and we over-schedule our lives and our children’s lives. A large chunk of our non-scheduled time is taken up by TV, and no matter how varied the programming is, the brain chalks all TV up as only one type of experience.

What all of this adds up to is an anorexic social and cultural experience for our brains. For adults, this is not a healthy thing. For babies and children, this is devastating. Perry says, “The genetic potential for healthy socio-emotional functioning—to be empathic, to share, to invest in the welfare of the community—is better expressed in children living in hunter-gatherer bands or extended families or close-knit communities in comparison with our compartmentalized modern world.” This is what Dr. Perry calls Universal Neglect. Our culture as a whole does not provide “…sufficient quantities and patterns of stimulation required…” for our brains to develop normally.

Pretty depressing stuff, in one way. And yet it is also exhilarating, identifying a source for our universal unrest, our apathy, our sense that things just aren’t right, even when we seem to have everything. Now we know a major cause is that our brains are, literally, starving. We are starving for more and varied relationships, we are starving for multiple deeper relationships. We are starving for community, real community built on continuing, multiple, diverse, and meaningful interactions and experiences. Identifying a cause allows us a place to begin again, and that is a hopeful thing.

I have been saying this for years, and it was just nice to see that the latest brain research backs me up:)