Thursday, October 25, 2012

Bloody Harvest

Photo courtesy of Mike Sanborn

                                          I dreamt a sword fight broke out in the cornfield
                                          I was dodging poison arrows in the brassica
                                          tripping over minefields in the brussel sprouts which
                                          when stripped of their leaves
                                          look like tiny holiday trees lined up
                                          like an enchanted forest
                                          but then what enchantment doesn’t conceal
                                          the poison apple 
                                          or the rings of power?

                                         The mind will do its sorting in the night
                                         placing red peppers with red
                                         yellow with yellow
                                         and arming our imaginary enemies
                                         with machetes glistening
                                         in the morning dew and waiting
                                         to be thrust
                                         while the bearer smiles that sickly
                                         sweet smile of revenge

                                         On the farm there are rows and rows
                                         of potential by design
                                         a surreal order and magnificence
                                         here the ducks laugh at our jokes
                                         even when we aren’t telling any
                                         and the goats who 
                                         peer from faces of wizened benevolence
                                         like to be pet hard and will butt your hand 
                                         up against the fence post
                                         if you don’t comply

                                         Even the compost pile seems holy beautiful
                                         an opera of color glistening with contradiction
                                         mountains of purple potatoes set off
                                         the oranges and greens and reds
                                         of squash, kale, cucumber, tomato
                                         enough uneaten food to fill the bellies 
                                         of all those homeless veterans who nurse 
                                         their despair along abandoned train tracks
                                         where no train is going anywhere

                                        Amidst this rot and stench 
                                        the fruit flies at least
                                        seem to know that decay 
                                        is a petri dish for paradise and
                                        the cycle of life to death to life is
                                        as beautiful as any other taking place
                                        under this harvest moon which
                                        casts the long shadows of disrobing trees
                                        onto the jeweled and glistening landscape
                                        of the first frost

                                       Last night I dreamt we were all
                                       quietly harvesting when
                                       a sword fight broke out our
                                       bodies joined the limbless victims of
                                       countless repeating wars and
                                       the hatred that is spawned by injustice
                                       cleansed itself transformed itself
                                       in the bloodied fields of zinnia
                                       and sunflowers

                                       On the farm the soul can tumble 
                                       among encroaching wildflowers dance
                                       with the westerly winds of change 
                                       while surrendering vegetation bends
                                       to a greater will knowing
                                       that nothing is ever lost or futile knowing
                                       that here there is enough space for battles
                                       to be lost and won and lost again
                                       without speaking a single word

Friday, August 31, 2012

Hope Is Not for the Faint of Heart

1000 melting men in Berlin
to recognize global warming


                     Out
                        Of a great need
              We are all holding hands 
                            And climbing.
              Not loving is a letting go.
                                  Listen,     
               The terrain around here
                                       Is
                                 Far too
                             Dangerous
                                     For
                                    That.
                                    Hafiz



           It’s been a rough summer for climate change deniers.  Well, for all of us really. July 2012 was officially declared the hottest month in US history.  By early August, nearly 90% of US land supporting corn and soybean crops was declared “affected by severe drought.”  By mid-August, 6,888,342 acres of US land were burned up in fires while still more fires raged. Other August reports declared that Greenland and the Arctic have melted more quickly than “anyone’s wildest imaginings” and went on with projections about what a warming earth means: larger, harsher storms; drought; rising sea levels; and an endless warming feedback loop leading, ultimately, to larger, harsher storms; further drought and, well, you get the idea.  
Most of these statistics come from 350.org, though you can pick them up elsewhere, and even the September 2012 issue of National Geographic has bravely gone where most print media dares not go asking on the cover, “What’s Up with the Weather?” As many environmentalists have been saying repeatedly, “This is what climate change looks like.” Even a leading physicist and climate change skeptic, Professor Richard Muller of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, recently reneged on earlier statements claiming instead that, “Our results show that the average temperature of the Earth’s land has risen 2.5F over the past 250 years, including an increase of 1.5 degrees over the most recent 50 years.  Moreover it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.”
Still, it’s unlikely that you need to hear from me, or other environmentalists, or even Professor Muller in order to have some sense or personal experience of a changing planet. In fact, you may well be wishing I would stop talking about it as the whole thing is just too painful for polite conversation.  If you’ve stuck with me this far, perhaps it’s only because you’re wondering what hope has got to do with any of it.
If you peer through the pages of history, I think you’ll find that nearly every social movement has a reluctant leader.  Could be the salary, the benefits or the overall prospects of job security -- you decide. It surely also has something to do with courage, faith and, well, yes, hope.  For the environmental movement in the US, and even globally, I think many would name that reluctant leader as Bill McKibben, who has been suffering the truth about global warming since he wrote The End of Nature in 1989.  That’s over 20 years of (mostly quiet) concern that led up to his current passionate efforts to get the word out.  I’ll admit I admire the guy.  He is intelligent, quick-witted, and quietly direct about his assertions about the future of the planet, and he’s remarkably humble.
This past July, McKibben sent out an email to his growing network of supporters and organizers titled, “I think I screwed up.”  He was referencing a protest project being planned for Washington, DC where an ice sculpture, not unlike the one depicted in the photo above, was going to be placed in front of Capitol Hill.  Unlike the rather elegant melting figures above, however, McKibben was planning a big hunk of ice in the form of the word “HOAX.”  “The idea was simple,” he wrote.  “If this epic heat wave gripping the nation has one silver lining, it’s that it is reminding people that global warming is very, very real.”  But McKibben was advised not do it, especially from some people in nearby West Virginia, because “The sight of ice melting while they sweltered would be too hard to take; their region, they pointed out, is as hard hit as any in the country by the heat wave, and it would make people feel like their plight wasn’t being taken seriously.” 
Therein lays the paradox for McKibben and anyone feeling the need to break through the culture of silence and shout out “Yop!” The alternative to shouting out feels like some sort of quiet insanity, like living in a parallel universe where one carries out one’s daily responsibilities obeying the laws of silence while a voice screams in the back of the mind, “This can’t go on!”  Sounds crazy, I know, but who among isn’t a bit crazy on occasion?  This crazy thing is, afterall, a state based pretty much entirely on how much trauma life has dealt us and how well we’ve managed it. On the other hand, speaking out, besides opening a Pandora’s Box of fears, can feel to people like you’re rubbing their faces in some pretty horrific musings about the insecurities of their future and you end up feeling somehow responsible for their resulting unhappiness. While McKibbon’s ice sculpture could easily be construed as some sort of angry frustrated tirade (and there are certainly components of that involved) this, and other protest actions are, in fact, acts of desperate hope rising up from an internal insistence that doing nothing is intolerable, that saying nothing is intolerable.
 I had a similar heart-wrenching experience to McKibben’s “Hoax” sculpture with a relative of mine who lives in Colorado Springs.  I have come to realize that telling even the smallest parts of other people’s stories in order to make my point is a bit presumptuous and intrusive, but I’m going to tell it anyway in hopes that should the telling cause her any unintended stress or harm, I will be forgiven. This relative watched the smoke and flames from the massive fires that took more than 15,000 acres of land in Colorado Springs this summer from her living room window.  They became a backdrop to her days.  She documented the experience by posting images of the encroaching fire on Facebook.  One day, she threw out a statement about how the inability to curtail the fires was a result of certain actions imposed by environmentalists.  Not surprisingly, I took the bait and responded with what were likely perceived as some pretty condescending statements. 
Thankfully, we were able to resolve our differences fairly quickly as it became clear to me that she was defending and attempting to gain control over both her life and her sanity in the midst of some pretty trying circumstances.  And I only needed to peel back one or two layers before I realized that, in some sense, I was doing the same.  Because sometimes I’m afraid of that word “environmentalist.” Firmly embedded in my subconscious is a billboard put out by the Heartland Institute showing Unabomber Ted Kacsynski with the words, “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” And locked away in other brain cells are images of environmental protesters across this fair country being hauled off to jail. So, yes, I was most definitely on the defensive attempting to protect perceptions of my own sanity.  But in this scenario, the only real act of insanity is in clinging steadfastly to political stances in the midst of an inferno. At such times, surely, all bets are off and our only recourse is to throw our lots in together in the hope of saving ourselves.
There it is again.  Hope.  That other insistent and sometimes intolerable voice from within.
“Whenever I hear the word ‘hope’ these days, I reach for my whiskey bottle,” says Paul Kingsnorth, who, like Professor Muller, recently pulled a complete turnabout on all previous stances he held around issues of climate change.  Unlike Muller, Kingsnorth accepted predictions about climate change years ago and spent decades working to change public policy to address these predictions. He recently declared that he had forsaken all further efforts by environmentalists as it was all too little, too late, and, as far as he was concerned, motivated by the all wrong reasons.  “[Hope] seems to me to be such a futile thing,” Kingsnorth says.  “What does it mean? What are we hoping for? And why are we reduced to something so desperate? Surely we only hope when we are powerless?”
Well, yes.  And, no.  I’m pretty sure that the incessant chatter of hope is pretty much a constant muttering indecipherable from all the rest of the busy background thoughts that keep us company.  Honestly, how would we get anything done without it? Why bother brushing your teeth or attempting to save for your children’s college education if not out of some sort of hope? The problem with the whiskey solution is that it kills off every other emotion. So, joy, sorrow, pride, respect are all poured out with the backwash, which can lead to a lot of ugly and uncomfortable days but is entirely ineffective at killing off hope.
Still, Kingsnorth’s question, “what are we hoping for?” does need to be addressed.  It is actually a really good question.  For those of us who keep throwing out facts and figures about a frightening climate change reality, the question is: what motivates this behavior?  What ARE we hoping for?  Considering all the possible responses to that question it’s difficult to resist sidestepping the complications, to choose instead to cut corners, so to speak, and answer the question with one simple word -- salvation. 
Please don’t panic. I am not about to turn into some crazy preacher spewing messages of hell and damnation and promising salvation should you make a donation to my cause.  Stripped of all the religious connotations, salvation simply means “the act of saving or protecting from harm, risk, loss, or destruction.”  As far as I’m concerned, that pretty much sums it up.  While not a solution, it offers up a possible relief from suffering not by avoiding it but by acting upon it.
It’s odd, but these days the dandelion has become a popular metaphor for hope.  Images of the once-hated weed poking its yellow sunshine through cracks in the pavement are being passed around more frequently than the beloved peace dove. Something about the strength and persistence of that edible plant growing where nothing is supposed to grow is speaking to us. Yet not so long ago, I’m pretty sure my husband and I purchased a gadget specifically designed to pull those plants up by the roots, preferably long before they had turned to seed. As a child, though, I remember loving those fantastic white globes of seed where one quick breath could fill the air with countless floating parachutes. For some reason, that image reminds me of a quote from Kahlil Gibran. “Your children are not your children,” he says. “They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.”
Maybe for environmentalists filling the silence with information about climate change is like those parachutes. They are an expression of life’s longing for itself. And the whisperers are motivated by the notion that sending out little parachutes of truth will cause a change to grow up through the impenetrable black where nothing seemed able to grow before.  These whisperings are not motivated by cruelty or some sort of pinstriped courage, but rather by that deep-seated instinct to protect ourselves from harm, risk, loss or destruction spurred on by that damned ubiquitous hope.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Whirligig

















Perhaps it's true about the circle of life
or maybe the spiral reveals the greater truth
leadng the disciplined eye in
to the center
then back out again
endlessly in and out and in

It's surely the case that yesterday
when I heard my mother sing
swaying and clapping with the gospel choir
I saw her as a beautiful child
and I the mother
come to witness her tender soul
in an older woman's clothing

And the song they sang!
the one she sang when I was young
when she wanted me to be my very best
"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!"
guiding my youthful spirit
out and in and out again
like a brightly colored whirligig in the wind

As we listened
my children swooned in the summer heat
though for the sake of the story
I see them dancing
while I sit among them like the central pivot
where joy and sorrow are fused
connecting generations
in a perpetual circular swing


for mom
june 2012

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Through the Doors of Doubt

     
      “I am only one, but still I am one.  I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.  And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”      -- Helen Keller


​     Several months ago, I was sitting in our local martial arts studio during my son’s class reading Rob Hopkin’s The Transition Handbook.  I don’t recall exactly what page I was reading, but somehow the Sensei and director of the studio, who was sitting nearby, managed to pick up something in large print that caused him to fix a weighted stare on me.  Perhaps what he read was the heading for Chapter 5, “How Peak Oil and Climate Change Effect Us: Post-petroleum Stress Disorder.”
     ​“Do you think we can move past oil?” he asked. ​
     “We have to,” I responded. ​
     “I know we have to,” he said, “but can we?”
     I don’t think I said anything after that, though I do remember thinking, “I’m glad you know.”   
     In those days, I was grateful to encounter anyone who “knew,” but I think the main reason that snippet of conversation lingers is because of the honesty of the question and the doubt and disbelief that seemed to suspend themselves in silent parentheses.  The truth is I have no idea what the Sensei was actually thinking and it is entirely possible that I was projecting my own doubt and disbelief all over him.  I had been living the past several months in a constant state of agitation and information overload and it is likely that I was projecting that all over everyone, bouncing my inner life off people like some sort of over-stimulated child in a mirrored funhouse.  
     The task I had set myself during the depressingly warm winter was to bone up on the facts and attempt to fix the kaleidoscope of issues we face into one static image.  I was willing, in fact desperate, to discern the difference between false hope and realistic assessments, to sort through the various shades of apathy and despair, to find a way forward. I gathered statistics on the effects of climate change, studied peak oil predictions, and assembled in my mind the inescapable maze those two factors create.  If we keep burning fossils fuels we will continue to heat up the planet, but, the good news is we are running out of fossil fuels. Of course there is the little problem that America does not run on Dunkin’, as some might have you believe, but on fossils fuels. The American supermachine we are all a part of could, in fact, collapse without them.  
     I picked up some books on economics as well, starting with Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.  That catechism of how global economic theory can and has devastated entire populations makes picking one’s way through Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games feel like a walk in the park.  While Klein’s book is a painful economic and political assessment of what is and has been, Charles Eisenstein offers a vision of what might be in his book Sacred Economics. I need people like Eisenstien, because while I can spend long afternoons, in fact entire seasons, exploring the edges of despair, I can’t stay there.  I have children.  And the same fierce love that might cause me to throw my body in front of a moving bus rather than have it hit them also motivates my determined efforts to save the future.
     Alright, I admit it, this phrase “save the future” is a bit too heroic. It indicates a misguided impression of my own agency and brings to mind images of a raging toddler swinging her arms wildly in the air while an older sibling keeps her at bay by placing a hand on her forehead.  I know that I don’t have the power to re-freeze melting icecaps or ebb the rising of the seas, but I do have the power to look squarely at the truth and act accordingly.  The truth is that our planet is sick and that sickness will effect us all. Call it what you like, global warming or climate change -- a phrase that was never intended as a euphemism but rather as a statement of fact -- the planet we are living on is mutating. Entire species are dying off, rivers are drying up, powerful storms and earthquakes are wreaking havoc, the oceans are choking in pollution, and tiny island countries are drowning while Texas is burning.  In the meantime, we are all still very much alive. The living can’t help but tinker, they have to spend their days doing something. ​
     My something was to link in to The Coffee Party, Occupy, 350.org and the local Transition movement in search of some company and some answers, which made me feel less lonely but no less overwhelmed.  It was becoming clear that this self-proclaimed leaderless movement, designed to counter destructive political powers, was in fact in need of leaders.  Not just one or two dynamic enlightened personalities but lots of leaders – leaders in every town, on every street corner.  
     I am not a leader.  Sure, after nearly 16 years of parenting three children I have reluctantly, painstakingly and rather belatedly polished some leader-like skills, but I am as much a product of place as the rest. As the youngest of five children for 15 years (when the sixth child came along) my most polished skills include the fine arts of tagging along, empathizing and peacemaking.  Like many children from large families, the greatest power I possess is the power to bear my pain in silence.  During these days when many of us are hearing a collective call for healing, both of the earth and ourselves, that power I thought I had is starting to look like a liability. 
     In a rare conversation about politics that I recently had with my eldest sister, I was struck by a statement she made about President Obama.  In the telling, I’m not interested in swaying public opinion, in fact I was expressing my doubts about the president.  She responded by saying, “Well, yes, it is true that he can’t separate himself from the beast.” For her, that beast is not only the powers that be, but also the urge to project a reality that is prettier than the one we are living.  Perhaps that’s true for us all?  Despite compelling evidence that we must change the way we’re living, maybe we can’t because we are all having trouble separating ourselves from the beast. We love the beast. We love the American supermachine.  We love our cars, our cities, our plastic bags, our styrofoam cups. We love our packaged foods, our heated homes, our electric appliances. We love America’s power and influence. We love the American way of life. 
     I am now certain that the American way of life is very much up for debate.  I believe that while the beast itself, the American supermachine, cannot be slain it can be transformed if we simply remember to love the things we’ve taken for granted. I also believe that this transformation, this remembering to love that which we’ve forgotten, can lead to a collective power that can be harvested and directed. Energy habits can be changed, pollution can cease and our ravaging of the earth can desist. To do this, it isn’t necessary to change the things we love, only to decide which of those things is most important today.
     For some time I’ve been convinced that, in order to “save the future,” I needed to undergo some profound personal transformation.  But with every attempt to do so, I've found that I remain exactly as I have always been – a kindhearted tag-along with a stubborn longing for peace.  But maybe that’s really all that is needed.  It is entirely possible that all that is needed is for each of us to act on the passions we’ve always possessed, to be the people we've always been, only more so. And while there is no guarantee that we can save the future for our children, we can, each of us, commit to some small project that leads to a change in our behaviors.  In so doing, we shed our disbelief and donate our energies to the larger universe.   If nothing else, through the doing, we can make it clear to our children that we understood the perilous state of their future world and that we loved them enough to try to do something about it.
     So this is the thing I’m going to do.  I’ve decided to turn my obsession about plastic bags into a cause. Plastic bags?  You may be thinking, as I sometimes do, how ridiculous to obsess about plastic bags when there are so many causes to choose from.  How about we end the fossil fuel era; dismantle corporate rule of our democracy; protect women’s rights and everyone’s civil liberties; shine a harsh light on American war making; defend Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; protect our public schools; curtail the privatization of our prisons; eradicate prejudice and social injustice; protect the animals.  The list goes on and on and on. But, like Helen Keller, I have to admit that I am only one and I cannot do everything, but I can do something.  After the preceding list, the little project I’ve chosen is likely to appear quite benign.  I am working with others in our area (who, thankfully, possess greater action and leadership skills than I do) to join cities and townships around the globe in passing an ordinance to ban single-use plastic bags in our coastal city.
     Painless enough? Yet with this little effort we can put in motion a tangible change.  We can clear our streets, our forests, our oceans of all that plastic riff-raff. In effect, what we will be doing is removing the outer layer of a problem so that we might see more clearly what has been concealed inside. Surely, all we have to do is educate ourselves about the devastating effects of plastic bags on the environment.  Throw in a little more education on the pending depletion of fossil fuels needed to make those bags.  Link that to any mistaken belief that plastic bags are harmless and then stop using them.  The strongest argument I have heard so far against moving past single-use plastic bags, especially those at the grocery store, is the matter of convenience.  But how important can convenience really be in relation to the larger picture?  In all honesty, maybe moving past single-use plastic bags is about more than convenience.  Maybe it’s about ownership of the problem, changing habits, doing something that transforms the doer into an active witness and steward. That’s the part I’m interested in, because every time I've worked to change my perception of an existing paradigm and, more importantly, to change my behavior, I can feel myself moving through the doors of doubt.
     Recently, I was given quite a stunning living example of the power of moving through the doors of doubt. The martial arts studio my son attends had been invited to give a demonstration at an outdoor school fundraiser.  The demonstration was impressive. All those martial artists moving together through their collective routines created a palpable energy that drew a good-sized crowd.  After the performance, the Sensei invited the uninitiated to break a board.  He precluded the invitation with an impressive board-breaking stint of his own and a convincing assertion that anyone can break a board if they quiet the inner voice that tells them they can’t.  What followed was a veritable martial arts baptism, with skinny little boys, petite girls in flowered dresses, teenagers, middle-aged men and women (including myself) all stepping up to break a board and all succeeding. I will be bold and say that we experienced a collective paradigm shift. That we all walked away with a different sense of ourselves and a primal commitment to test our assumptions about what can and cannot be done. As we move forward with our little project, we are likely to find ourselves bumping up against resistance, denial and doubt.  When that happens, I intend to remember that I can break a board.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Transforming the Paradigm



"If you are coming to help me you are wasting your time.  If you are coming because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."  Indigenous quote


For many indigenous peoples, grasping the deep responsibility of stewardship of the natural world is inherent in their world view.  This concept is likely easier to manage when one is looking at one’s own small habitat.  It is when we combine this idea of stewardship with our understanding of the entire globe, replete with tribal states spread across seven continents with various resources, unique languages and countless cultural and religious paradigms that we begin to realize the complexity of establishing and living a shared, global concept of stewardship.  Add to this the limitations of the human heart and the misguided tendencies of the human ego and one becomes easily deflated in any belief that there is hope for the future of life on our planet if such a future is dependent upon unprecedented levels of cooperation across cultures and demographics.
And yet, while capitalism and its cousin, greed, rage unchecked around the globe, humanitarian efforts to end poverty and relieve suffering also persist.  In joining this humanitarian effort, I became aware of the myth The Eagle and the Condor.  Said to have cropped up independently from many indigenous cultures around the globe, the myth prophecies a time when the human race will be split into two groups – the scientific and intellectually based and the earth-bound and spiritually based - and that the survival of the earth will be dependent upon a sharing of their talents and beliefs.  In short, the myth suggests that it will be through the merging of scientific pursuits and spiritual, earth-connected wisdom that man will arrive at a series of practices that will save our planet from disaster. 
While I am not a great proponent of prophecy, this one, along with Lynn Twist’s powerful assertion that the earth abounds with sufficient resources for all, set out in her book The Soul of Money, strikes me as a pertinent illustration of what is indeed required of us as we wrangle with the concept of the sustainability of life on earth.  Twist writes, “…my years of work with hunger and poverty, affluence and wealth, have shown me that collaboration and all its tributaries – reciprocity, partnership, solidarity, alliance – flow from the truth of sufficiency.  It is all here, now. It is enough. We are each other, and our resources abound.”  Taking this a step further, it becomes clear that it is our perpetual quest for more that lies at the root of a destructive tendency toward excess and wastefulness, conquest and hoarding, pollution and trash. 
Wherever one may stand in their beliefs about the effects of human activity on global climate change, it seems to me as obvious as the old jingle Fish and Chips and Vinegar that pollution and trash are never welcome.  It is not a desirable practice to throw one’s trash into another’s backyard, nor is it desirable to hoard trash in one’s own. I am led, then, to the conclusion that producing trash at all is unwise. So while I sit here in my suburban home in Newburyport, MA living what I hope is a mindful existence with my husband and three children in a country teaming with discontent and dangerous political discord, I can not help but scan my house, my yard, my neighborhood trying to determine what exactly is trash.  It wasn’t until I traveled to the tiny of village of San Pedro, Panama, that I was given a truly alternate understanding of what is necessary and what is not in order to live a meaningful and happy life.
Panamanian history is riddled with stories of conquest and the dubious geopolitical ventures of the English, the Spanish, the French and the US Americans.  Most notable is the story of the Panama Canal where hundreds of thousands of French and US citizens died in constructing a more convenient passage for sailing vessels. Lesser known and remembered are the workers from Barbados, Jamaica, and other islands of the Caribbean and West Indies who made up the majority of the Canal workforce and who had a significant cultural impact on Panama. The construction of the Canal is, of course, a story of dominance and repression, an illustration of the powerful will of imperialism.  But it is also a story of indomitable spirit, a story of mankind’s extraordinary tenacity and might put to use to alter the physical world to suit his needs. 
After years of strife, the Panamanians gained control of the profits garnered from the Canal and the effects of those profits are evident in its cosmopolitan capital city and in the services its government is able to provide, including more sophisticated road systems than are enjoyed by most Central American countries.  But a majority of Panamanians live in poverty and the rural poor and subsistence farmers continue to practice slash-and-burn farming techniques that deplete the rain forests upon which the rest of the globe is dependent. It is here that my story really begins in conjunction with a humanitarian organization known as Sustainable Harvest International whose mission is “to provide farming families in Central America with the training and tools to preserve our planet’s tropical forests while overcoming poverty.”
There is a propensity to judge the slash-and-burn farming techniques of rainforest dwellers as ignorant and such practices would seem contrary to any notions I presented earlier that indigenous populations tend to hold a greater respect for and connection to the land on which they live.  But it is important to remember that on a less populated planet, these practices were entirely practical and effective.  It is only with the dawning of our modern understanding of the interconnectedness of the earth’s biomes that it has become clear that healthy rainforests are essential to a healthy planet.  And it is ironic that people from a nation responsible for the highest levels of pollution and consumption on the planet have taken it upon themselves to redirect these indigenous practices toward more sustainable, place-specific, organic farming.  But that is, in fact, the place from which we set off. 


 Exploring the Rainforest

In the village of San Pedro there isn’t much trash. There is no electricity and only a very rudimentary system for transporting water down the mountain through plastic piping that runs fully exposed along the ground and hangs in the trees overhead.  The families there live in cement block homes with corrugated roofs.  The children in each household work on their homework in the evening around the small halo of light from a kerosene lamp.  The village is in the Cocle Valley - rainforest territory - abundant with cashew, calabash, coconut and banana trees, yucca, and coffee. Countless chickens squawk and peck in and around the houses unsuspecting that any one of them may be chosen for the next meal.  Mangy, ill-fed dogs and cats roam the dirt roads that converge on a central area where the school, the church and a roofed community meeting place nestle in on the side of the river. The region is mountainous, breathtakingly beautiful and tranquil. But there is a pervasive acrid smell and one can see plumes of smoke on the hills in all directions.  “Who would have known that they were living so backward there,” a friend of mine said to me.  But it didn’t feel backward, it felt just right, uncluttered and free.  
In describing her commitment to the work Sustainable Harvest International (SHI) does in Central America, founder Florence Reed, says, “A farmer in a remote village in Honduras is providing us with organic coffee, providing winter habitat for our song birds, stabilizing our global climate, preserving the forests that are the source of most of our medicines, creating oxygen to breath and protecting coral reefs from siltation as a result of deforestation.  So, if a poor farmer in Honduras can do all this for us, what can we do for him?”
It was with this idea in mind that my daughter and I traveled with three other families to help the village of San Pedro as a part of SHI’s Smaller World Tours program.  The trip was spearheaded by 14-year-old August Umholtz, whose family had worked with SHI in Belize the year before.  Our group consisted of five children, ages 10-14, and five adults all of whom had embraced the Montessori-based value of our school that community service is as essential to life as breathing. With a meager understanding of the Spanish language and an even more meager understanding of the living conditions of these people, we arrived in San Pedro right before the start of the rainy season in April 2011.
The people of San Pedro have been working with SHI for two-and-a-half years of their five-phase program.  The program directs financial resources and organic farming knowledge from the US to struggling Central American communities in order to provide farmers with knowledge and encouragement in changing their farming practices.  The result is sustainable agriculture that empowers and feeds.  The villagers have grown accustomed to visits from North Americans interested in helping and they expressed (through an interpreter) a deep appreciation for our willingness to travel so far to work with them. Balancing their appreciation was our thirst to encounter, to understand and to help through the donation of our time and money.  So, in the beginning, surely, our notion of who was doing the giving and who the receiving was unbalanced, at best.  And yet, after our four days hiking the hills, clearing the land, visiting the school, planting a rice paddy, building a wood-burning stove and exploring the natural world of San Pedro, we left with a gaping view of how our cluttered, micro-managed, consumer-driven lives have stolen from us the true joys of simple living and the peacefulness of walking with one’s feet on the earth.
“The kids there were so happy,” says Cam Gibney, the youngest in our group.  “They were not always looking for the next best thing.” And my daughter, Alexa, adds, “I thought the village would be small, dirty and cramped. My main fear was that these people would be so much worse off than me and I would feel too awkward to even try to speak with them. But I definitely did not feel bad for them.  I was jealous.”
We were lucky to have our children travelling with us.  Children have a way of breaking through barriers, in this case both lingual and cultural, through play.  They will shed shyness, overlook differences and throw themselves into any game.  In San Pedro, that is exactly what they did and through play they led the adults away from the cautious adherence to social politeness that can hinder friendliness and trust. When we arrived, it was the appearance of a soccer ball that broke the silence and separation between villagers and visitors.  At the school, a game of Duck, Duck, Goose that started among a small group, grew to a circle of nearly one hundred laughing, smiling children.  Patty Cake and Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes easily translated into both languages and ended in peals of giggles.  Mud wrestling in the rice paddy united us in fun.  Slowly we moved from working beside one another to working with each other and though we struggled to speak we discovered the simplicity of communicating with a smile, a questioning expression, a gesture.
But we did not only find joy and playfulness, we also discovered the satisfaction that comes from purposeful, physical labor. Our Panamanian companions in this labor were strong, creative, generous and gracious. Each day, they carried ten-gallon containers of water for us on the hour-long hikes required to reach the day’s place of work.  They carried our food, including freshly harvested coconuts and bananas, on their backs.  Three times a day, they prepared meals for us and happily watched while we ate them.  When the poorly-made tools they purchased in the city fell apart, they fixed them. And they delighted in showing us how sugar cane is pressed, calabash bowls are used, rice is dried and separated, Panamanian straw hats are woven.  They knew how to partake of the fruits of the natural world while living in harmony with it.  They wove the small tabs from soda cans into belts.
“I will never forget our trip to San Miguelito and the gang of people who showed up for work that day,” says Aaron Banas, our SHI guide and interpreter.  “At one point I grew exhausted from the tilling and stopped.  I didn’t need to look up to appreciate what was happening all around me.  There was the amazing sound of dozens of tools chipping away at the soil.  I had never heard anything like it.  When I did look up and around, I was in awe at the force of a group of people working together.”
After a hard day's work, we sat together and read aloud Spanish translations of our favorite American children’s stories, passing the books around a circle with our battery-powered lights to read by. Together we shared empathy for the injustice of Wilbur’s fate in Charlotte’s Web.  We laughed over the antics of Curious George whose innocent curiosity gets him into so much trouble.  We fell in love with Miss Rumphius who believed a meaningful life could be found through finding one’s special talent and using it to make the world a better place.  And we were relieved to discover that talent could be as simple as spreading lupine seeds to brighten the landscape.
It is not my intention to romanticize the living conditions of the people of Central America.  There you will find poverty, hunger and suffering.  In the home where my daughter and I stayed, 4-year-old Melixza coughed and whimpered throughout the night and spent her days sucking on stalks of sugar cane for comfort.  While I lay in the narrow wooden bed she had let me borrow, I gained an inkling of the sacrifice and worry a mother feels when having to wait for the monthly medical van in order to get care for her daughter.  And I felt the despair of knowing that paying for care and medication would mean skimping and scrounging for money. Further, I experienced the frustration that while I could give her the money she needed, it would not solve the problem in any long term or meaningful way
I would, however, like to debunk the myths we tell ourselves about our own conditions and habits of living.  Encompassed in these myths is the belief that we have found our way to safety, to comfortable, squeaky-clean living that frees us from toil, hunger and disease.  That through innovation we have constructed a superior lifestyle.  But, while we may have much to teach about sustainable farming practices, we have a great deal to learn about sustainable consumption.  In the midst of the people of San Pedro we had a good, hard view of our own limitations – our fractured pursuit of physical fitness, our disconnect between the food we eat and where it comes from, our assumptions about health care and transportation.
“For me it was a Walden experience for the modern age,” says Mary Gibney, “a stripping down to the most basic elements – work, food, family and play – and realizing how simple, but rich, life can be.”  Her husband Colin, the teacher among us, adds, “I am eager to share our experience with students.  We are focused on learning to change our impact on the environment by minimizing motorized transportation, not buying unnecessary items, learning to grow and eat local produce, unplugging and reconnecting with each other.  This is exactly how the people live in San Pedro. They are already living the good life.  In fact they never seem to have left it.  We, on the other hand, seem to have lost our way. Many of the kids I teach see hope and believe we can change the way things are.  The trip to San Pedro has inspired me anew to support students in implementing that change.”


The Bling Culture

Many of our children are well aware of the issues of global warming.  They know about oil spills and carbon pollution.  They have been taught about the effects of plastic trash on the environment. They are saddened by the growing list of extinct and endangered species. But while they may well feel hope, they are also hindered by cultural values that use the possession of material goods and gadgets as currency for friendship and status. They are manipulated by an invasive commercialism that tells them that “things’ make them happy.  They retain a mistaken impression that when they grow tired of this or that they can simply replace it with something new, and that throwing away the old makes it disappear.  A friend of mine calls this the bling factor. I understand what she means. And I have come to the sad conclusion that, while also a strong, creative, generous and gracious people, we Americans have become entirely driven by consumerism.  In an attempt to fill a pervasive feeling of emptiness and boredom, we shop.  We have even been told that shopping is an expression of patriotism.  We have willingly relinquished our status as citizens for that of customers and consumers. 
Once submerged in the bling culture, it is very difficult to find pathways to change.  Back at home, I find myself once again living in a cluttered mind, racing in my minivan from place to place chasing the acquisition of things.  Expending a vast amount of energy worrying about the money I will need to acquire these things. Expending a vast amount of energy trying to get rid of things I no longer need.  Expending a vast amount of energy attempting to avoid producing trash. Expending a vast amount of energy moving trash out of my home each week. Even expending a vast amount of energy trying to conceal trash, placing it in plastic bags and green plastic garbage bins in hopes that this will make it disappear.  I have been slow to accept the notion that America is a culture of addiction, but this sounds like the circular trap of addiction to me. 
It is common knowledge that the first step to fixing a problem is accepting that there is one.  So common, in fact, that the words appear trite. This process of acceptance can be frightening and shame-inducing. It is no wonder that many of us continue to cling to a state of denial.  But, please, allow me to be clear and honest about some things many of us already know.  Plastic is forever.  The trash we put out on the curb each week does not disappear.  Our consumption of non-renewable energy is not sustainable. Natural resources are not boundless.  The acquisition and burning of fossil fuels is devastating our planet. We have come to a fork in the road where we can choose to continue on a path of destruction or we can own up to our shared, global responsibility as stewards of the earth.
But even those of us who have acknowledged the devastating reality of our current predicament feel discouraged and, indeed, thwarted in our attempts at meaningful change. We encounter a cultural resistance to even our most benign efforts to establish sustainable habits.  Such habits would appear to be in conflict with deeply held beliefs about the American dream.  Perhaps this is because the pioneering spirit of our ancestors, or at least the story we tell ourselves about them, is fused with the notion of boundlessness, of vast, unchartered territory, of raising oneself from rags to riches in a harsh, but tamable wilderness. 
In the early days of our nation’s forming, we encountered a race that lived peacefully on the land without exploiting it - a race that believed that the Great Spirit inhabited and connected all living things.  “It was our belief,” said Native American Ohiyesa (aka Charles Alexander Eastman), “that the love of possessions was a weakness to be overcome.  Its appeal is to the material part, and if allowed its way, it will in time disturb one’s spiritual balance.”  Algonquin elder William Cammanda takes this a step further saying, “Traditional people of Indian nations have interpreted the two roads that face the light-skinned race as the road to technology and the road to spirituality. We feel that the road to technology… has led modern society to a damaged and seared earth.  Could it be that the road to technology represents a rush to destruction, and that the road to spirituality represents a slower path that the traditional native people have traveled and are now seeking again?  The earth is not scorched on this trail. The grass is still growing there.”
And yet industrialization and new technologies empowered our nation.  Both offered a freedom from manual labor and a path to unprecedented prosperity.  Plastics revolutionized our ability to store and transport perishables, providing a welcome control over food supplies. Because it is light-weight and durable, it has become the basic material of all our commodities. It is used to wrap, package and protect all of our goods.  Perhaps most importantly, the production of plastics is a profitable market. 
It is when innovation walks hand-in-hand with an insatiable hunger for profit that we encounter trouble. Defining our success through profit margins, we willingly blind ourselves to the environmental and spiritual costs of our economic choices.  Opening our eyes to these costs demands a deep shift in our values and our way of life - such a deep shift that many are unable to imagine, let alone work toward, this change. It is clear that the concepts of economy and ecology are irrevocably connected, and that the winners of the money game are strongly motivated to keep things as they are. Even the individual dedicated to change is required to court a transformation that leads to unknown consequences.  How do we switch to a “slower path” without toppling our current reality?  How would we support the welfare of all people during such a transition? What will we be required to give up? How much will it hurt?


Re-Visioning

It occurs to me that it wasn’t that long ago, in fact only 1969, that we got a first real look at our floating planet when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin gazed upon it from the moon.  Perhaps we should not feel too discouraged that it has taken us just over 40 years to accept that our world is not boundless, but finite. That finite world has been floating in space for millions of years forever reinventing itself. Perhaps we should not feel so frightened of the change required of us now to protect our fragile but persistent ecosystem.  History shows us that both man and his environment are remarkably resilient and adaptable. Perhaps we should have a greater faith in our stories of transformation.  Afterall, stories and faith can shape outcomes.
The success of that journey into the universe planted a seed in our human imagination that out there in the great unknown there is another planet we might inhabit one day. There are many among us who are champions of that idea. But I suspect the most significant result of that moon walk was the re-visioning of the earth it offered us.  That distant perspective allowed us to see that it is indeed ‘a small world after all.’ Through that vision, it has became ever more evident that while we may feel separate from our fellow travelers on earth, we do in fact all share the experience of living together on a single floating sphere.  And while we perpetuate our notions of otherness through geopolitical conquests, resource grabbing and war, we do so at our peril.
In an attempt to sum up our experience in San Pedro, Aaron Banas, who has devoted his life to humanitarian pursuits, uses these words: “Who would have thought such an admirable joy and tranquility would be tucked back in the hills of San Pedro.  Down that windy road, then up and down the steep hills is where Alfredo presses his sugar cane, Pablo shares his coconut water and Erasmo grows beautiful, organic tomatoes. There are a lot of hot days, long hikes and physical labor that go into getting by in San Pedro, but I think a lot of people have figured out the key to what appears to be great happiness: being together.”
It is this simple notion of “being together,” united around a common cause with common goals, that seems to be the greatest challenge we face as a global community. Yet, SHI has found a way to do just that.  Their programming demonstrates the extraordinary effectiveness of crossing cultural boundaries and marrying resources with need through the simplicity of heart-felt connection.  Programming that benefits not only the materially impoverished but also the spiritually impoverished, leaving both with a new sense of hopefulness -- a glimpse at the unbridled and boundless hope of a child.
I often wonder what would happen if our friends in San Pedro were to visit us. I suspect they would delight in riding in our cars.  I can imagine the children bounding endlessly up and down the stairs in our multi-storied homes and it might take them some time to get over the joy of turning light switches on and off and basking in the comfort of a warm bath.  They might be lulled into endless hours in front of the television.  They would likely experience the same awe and respect we have for our computerized gadgets. 
But would we, as my daughter hit upon, experience an embarrassment of riches?  Or might we experience an even more profound embarrassment as their watchful eyes exposed to us our wastefulness and excess?  What would the muscular Pablo and Carlos think of our fitness centers?  Would Erasmo help me to see that grocery shopping is somehow less about buying food than it is an expression of my allegiance to Hunt’s or Del Monte. I imagine the women who cooked for us, wide-eyed, as they watched my family and me throw away food that is slightly stale or somehow not exactly what we wanted. And what might I learn from little Melixza?  How I long to take her to the doctor and the dentist.  But might I not see, through her eyes, an excessive love of safety, sterility and, even, vanity? Would I understand that my blindness to everyday riches and everyday miracles has indeed left me spiritually bereft? Would we spend our afternoons weaving the tabs of soda cans into belts?
Before we left the village of San Pedro, villagers and visitors gathered once again in the open air, under the protection of the roofed community meeting place.  We exchanged thank-yous and were given gifts of hand-painted calabash with scenes of San Pedro’s luscious beauty, hand-woven baskets and trinkets, and maracas and drums constructed from native plants - gifts that tell the stories of life in San Pedro. Christian, a teenage boy who often flirted on the edge of our reading circle, gave my daughter a beautifully-drawn picture of Miss Rumphius spreading her lupine seeds.  We left behind our soccer ball and our Spanish translations of Charlotte’s Web, Curious George and Miss Rumphius.  I told the community (again with the help of a translator) that my experience there left me with a deeper understanding that we truly are all one people around the planet.  The sentiment won me bright looks of recognition and hugs from a people not inclined toward hugging.  


Crusaders of Change

In The Soul of Money, Lynn Twist reminds us that money, free markets and capitalism are human constructs designed to facilitate the exchange of goods.  Somehow, along the way, money became a controller of man rather than his tool and isolated humans from their collective reality.  The construct of money embodies and drives the notions of wealth and poverty. It has become a catalyst for greed. When we wrap our sense of self-worth around money, we are driven to atrocities in the pursuit of more.
 The good news is that there is a global movement afoot. While some may argue that this movement is another manifestation of greed – a poor majority demanding a greater piece of the pie - I believe it is a movement toward social justice that is informed by a humanitarian urge that rejects the belief that wealth is defined by money.  It rises up from the pain inflicted by global markets that continue to function under the dictates of capitalism and imperialism.  I also believe it is an environmental movement that rejects any notion that, should we trash this planet, we could move on to another.  At its core, lies a collective understanding that in order to save ourselves and our planet we must first challenge and transform the institutions of money and power. To do this we must shed our complacency which permitted money and power to take charge of our fates. 
The uprisings of people around the globe, the Arab Spring, the Global Occupy Movement, the state of unrest in evidence on all seven continents have brought hundreds of thousands of people out into the streets. And while the messages of these protests are not clearly formed, the protesters are champions of participatory democracy and their revolution is informed by nonviolent political action.  It was Mahatma Ghandi who first demonstrated that it is possible to overcome power and self-will-run-riot through discipline, sacrifice and peace.  He believed that change started with and spread out from the individual to the collective. Today, we are witnessing countless individuals leaving the isolation of their homes, pitching tents in public squares and beginning the slow, patient process of listening to each other so that they might figure out how to marry resources with need through heart-felt connection. These are the powerful first moments of a shared, global togetherness.  And, yes, through the use of technology, social networking, and YouTube videos, we are able to encourage the empowerment of our common cause.  Through the sharing of our stories we are forming a global solidarity.
There is no uncontested proof of the global origins of the myth The Eagle and the Condor.  But a myth can work its magic without empirical evidence bolstering it up.  Hasn’t it always been the case that storytelling is the crusader of change?  If it were up to me to write the sequel to The Eagle and the Condor, I would write another story of indomitable spirit.  To date, indomitable spirit has been used to reshape the planet to suit humankind’s needs.  In my story, that same indomitable spirit will be used to reshape humankind to suit the planet’s needs. I will be sure to resist Disney’s love of villains and superheroes and will steer clear of dramatic climax.  Perhaps it will be a story punctuated by silence.  One inhabited by people who are as in love with listening as they are with debate. People who have learned to quiet their minds enough to hear a deeper truth within us.  Perhaps my story will even find a way to merge technology and spirituality into a new paradigm that encourages the triumph of the individual, the collective and the natural world.  An archetype that rekindles our reverence for the interconnectedness of all living systems on our tiny, floating planet called Earth.