The Barter Planet Portal for Peace

All Will Be Well

It's been a few months since I've blogged here. I'll post again soon with some news I look forward to sharing about where Barter Planet is going.  I look forward to having you join us on this path of discovery.  In the meantime, in the spirit of trading inspiration, here's a snippet from The Gabe Dixon Band's song "All Will Be Well." If you haven't heard of them, I urge you to visit their site. 

You got to keep it up
And don't give up
And chase your dreams
And you will find
All in time

Book Spotlight: The Wild Trees

When I was thoroughly immersed in studying biological outbreaks and micro-bacteria, I remember a read that was recommended to me by professors and classmates. The Hot Zone is Richard Preston's contagious book about the equally contagious Ebola virus. Without realizing at first, I recently came across another of Preston's narratives. The Wild Trees is about the separate and combined quests for the ultimate California Redwood experience. In prose that is structurally very arboreal, the individual stories of "daring botanists and amateur naturalists" are the branches of a novel that is rooted in the mystique of and appreciation for these massive trees.

Despite the grandeur of the planet's tallest natural structures, I feel very grounded as I read the history of the Redwood. Branches among the canopy date back to the Roman Empire. But at such a tall distance, where anyone would feel almost invincible, death's looming threat is a reality. The more immediate reality is that these redwoods offer a wealth of answers to existential, scientific, and spiritual questions of today's Earth. Though we are aware that by the day, we are losing the privilege of ever discovering the secrets of these unexplored areas, there is still so little we are doing.

I am in awe when I read something so naturally picturesque; the book is both very moving and practical, and encourages me to continue what I am doing in my search for better solutions and better choices, both environmental and spiritual. The book really intertwines our existence with what life is left on our planet.

"Placed against the backdrop of redwood time, a human lifetime shrinks into a compressed flicker, and the past, present and future seem to run together and vanish."

Check out The Wild Trees.

Book Spotlight: The Green Book -- Everyday Guide

Green terms like carbon footprint, renewable energy, kilowatt-hours, and e-waste have permeated our lexicon; more than ever, we are aware of the need for a lifestyle change. Our concern is answered by many green solutions, which can actually make the choice harder. In a world of misinformation and endless solutions, what does it mean to make green choices, and what are the effects of what we believe are green choices? These questions flood my mind, and I start noting the energy cost of my actions.

Sometimes the research I come across fuels this confusion. “Big Foot” details our virtuous attempts, and questions whether intent is enough to overcome the problem. I came across the article this past February in the New Yorker. Michael Specter addresses green living on a business level and questions whether government regulation may be necessary to create a universal standard. But what can we do as consumers? Is awareness enough? 

I first discovered The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time at a used bookstore about a year ago. What attracted me to it was the true versatility of the content, because I still refer to this book all the time. The book’s tip format has statistics that helps you rethink your choices. It appeals to all levels of green-conscious consumers, and aims to help us move forward without feeling we have to sacrifice our current lifestyle. Much like actress Cameron Diaz says in the book, “If you think of it as taking away something, withholding something and not having everything that we want, then nobody wants to participate in that. Nobody wants to be a part of it”. 

What I realize is that we shouldn’t have to be forced or regulated. On a consumer and individual level, if we are conscious and willing to participate in better decisions, then we lessen the need for strict regulation, and might even help shape our laws into sensible, adaptable ones. There’s something very empowering about how conscious we are now, and how much knowledge on the topic is out there. I believe that in this moment, when we are figuring out what to do, we are collectively creating a standard.
 
“In a curious way, this would be a great wave of awareness: doing the right thing without being told to or having to think why” –Jennifer Aniston

Check out The Green Book here and read "Big Foot" here

 

The One Percent

A few months ago I watched 'The One Percent,' a documentary by filmmaker Jamie Johnson that examines the growing wealth gap in America.  What makes this documentary so fascinating is that Jamie is an heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune.  He is part of the top 1% of the wealthiest families in this country.  His unique perspective inside the world of wealth takes you on a journey through excessive prosperity to unjust inequality.  Jamie also directed 'Born Rich,' a documentary that examined the lives of kids who were born rich and the goals they have, and how they seek to live their lives.  Money certainly can make the journey easier, but Jamie's movies eloquently show that it can't completely mend the soul.

According to inequality.org, during the time of George W. Bush's presidency, "the richest 1 percent of Americans received about $491 billion in tax breaks. That's nearly the same amount as U.S. debt held by China -- $493 billion -- in the form of Treasury securities." $491 billion is the equivalent of over 2 million new Affordable Housing Units in this country.  Economic inequality isn't just a statistic.  It's taking away food and clothes and the right for millions of Americans to live a decent life.

For more on 'The One Percent,' click here.

Waiting for the World to Change

Click on the image to the left to watch the video for "Waiting for the World to Change," by John Mayer.  It's a beautiful song. 

I think this song speaks to people in the generation of 20-and-30-and-40-and-the-ageless-ones who are wondering what in the hell is going on here with our world.  There's the war in Iraq and the internal and external wars here in America (poverty, racism, homophobia, capitalism grounded in unloving intent that creates a greater gap between rich and poor, and injustice--the seen and the unseen--that affects one, and in turn affects us all even those who stand at the top of the hierarchy and claim immunity to the karmic wind).  I find comfort in music, and listening to the words of hope and truth interwoven with heartbreak into a melody that stays in the back of your mind to remind you that there are many dreamers out there.

I remember running through the fields of my grandparent's farm as a child thinking that somehow when I grew up the world would be full of magic, peace, prosperity - that the dreams I felt in my heart would appear before my eyes.  Instead I found a world where the darkness is as present as the Light.  I believe that time is an illusion, a distraction from the inability of this creation to evolve at the spiritual level to understand how the alignment of All That Is is directly tied to our individual journeys.  Without a computer, I couldn't write this post.  Without electricity, I couldn't see the dust on my keyboard, or the edge of the trees reflected against the pavement that beautifully mirrors the light of the stars. 

My partner said to me the other day that if we spend our whole lives trying to focus on one issue and change there would be people who have more money and power in the structure who would try to undo the work of our hearts.  The question is: how do we make it impossible for those who do not want change to reverse the course of evolution towards becoming One?  It's not just about ending one war - it's about ending all war within and without and understanding the reason some people seek to take their personal battles to other countries, instead of looking in the mirror and making the change.  If we bring the troops home from Iraq, we need them to stay at home, with their families, and help rebuild our country, and we have to help rebuild their souls. 

"I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be." - Martin Luther King

If you let yourself be exactly who you are, you give those struggling with their place a foundation to stand on and a ladder to climb.  The spirit and the heart reach beyond anything that is created in this reality.  We can wait for the world to change or we can change ourselves and trust that it will help change the world.
 

The Rebels' Call

"And you, are you so forgetful of your past, is there no echo in your soul of your poets' songs, your dreamers' dreams, your rebels' calls?" -Emma Goldman

A revolution doesn't need to be televised as the saying goes.  It just needs a purpose, love, truth, integrity, and a passion for change.  It can be as personal as wanting a raise at your job -- or wanting peace on Earth.  It can be looking in the mirror and refusing to run from the scars that you see.  It can be standing in line at the grocery store armed with your shopping bags from home so you don't need the plastic bags to carry your food home.  It can be dreaming of someone to love and having the courage to let that love come to you in form.

I see the energies that exist on the realm beneath the surface of our reality.  There are energies that desperately don't want anything to change, and there's energy that's desperate for change to be born.

Ask yourself - what of your past can you bring to the present?  What of your pain can you transform to love?  What of your soul can you manifest change?  What of your dreams have yet to be born?

What you do in your own life is the portal for change in your personal reality, our global reality, and our universal reality.  Be the change you wish to see, and what you see will be you in your most authentic, beautiful self.

Terrifying Angels

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’ hierarchies? And even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying. - From “The First Elegy” by Rainer Maria Rilke

Every angel is terrifying. Every “pollen of the flowering Godhead, [those] joints of pure light… mirrors, which scoop up the beauty that has streamed from their face, and gather it back into themselves, entire, (The Second Elegy)” every one is terrifying to Rilke and how could they be otherwise when they stand as representations of a perfection that the human, no matter how good in action and aspiration, probably can’t attain (depending on one‘s faith and outlook). They stand as a mirror that reflects back the vast distances between who we are currently and the, perhaps, infantile purity that we spend our whole lives ignoring, returning to, or falling from, and sight of that distance is frightful.

The question is, how does one continue advancing towards the goal of purity, when with every step one is reminded by crushing fear that you will likely die before you get there. I should say that by purity I mean something similar to Buddhahood, wherein the mind has been cleansed of what ails it and the soul can thus blossom, or reveal its blossoming. How does one continue? I have been told to keep advancing out of mind as having a goal of it, only further ills the mind, but is that enough? Rilke says later in “The First Elegy” that “the knowing animals are aware/ that we are not really at home in/ our interpreted world,” suggesting that we do not “belong” in this world, and thus explaining why and how it is we seek to return to a pure spiritual state despite how frightening it is; our home is in that state, at least according to this line of thinking. I then ask, and have asked myself many times, then why are we here at all? Forget that. We are here, for some reason, but does being here mean we have a responsibility to enjoy life in ways that are spiritual and ways that are not? To make this less abstract, I feel spiritually healthier when I exercise empathy but does that mean that I should live a monkish existence of service in hopes of serving my spirit or should I be selfish and keep some of my money and time to spend on things I don’t really need, because by being alive in this body I have a responsibility that is equal to myself as it is to the world?

Even while keeping the goal out of mind, it is terrifying, this prospect of spiritual responsibility for what’s beyond myself. And it is terrifying equally, not knowing what to do. In that way these choices I must make for myself, are like having had an encounter with an angel. Just asking the questions is good and the beginning of something good, even as I run risk of annihilation, of one or more sides of myself, which I don’t think a person can ever be ready for.

P.S. Check out “The selected poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke” as translated by Stephen Mitchell. That is where these selections were culled from. And the image is by Gustave Dore.

Seasonal Eating

Modern food processing and worldwide distribution of food make foods available year-round, and grocery stores shelves look much the same in December as they do in July.

What are the benefits of eating locally and according to the seasons?

1) Yummier meals!  You get the most flavor and nutritional value out of your food.
2) Save money.  Foods are the most affordable when they are in the highest abundance which is when they are in season. You also are not paying the additional costs that are racked up flying huge quantities of produce in from the other side of the world.
3) You help the sustainability of the local economy and support local farmers.
4) Cut down on the ecological impact of airplane fuel used to import food.

What's Fresh?
New York, Early April

Vegetables                                           Fruits

asparagus             beets                        apples   
broccoli                cabbage                   strawberries
cauliflowe            fiddleheads
garlic greens        arugula
beet                    bok choy
chard                   collard
cress                    dandelion
kale                    mizuna
mustard greens     sorrel
tat soi                 turnip
lettuce                 mushrooms
parsnips               peas - snap and snow
radishes               rhubarb
spinach                sprouts

Check out the Northeast Regional Food Guide for more information on eating locally and seasonally.

Artist Spotlight: Hayao Miyazaki

Princess Mononoke is one of the most soulful, evocative, and moving anime movies I know.  Japanese director and animator Hayao Miyazaki orchestrates films rich with a committed and imaginative environmentalism, magical personifications of typically lifeless elements, (i.e. the spirit of the forest in Princess Mononoke, the spirit of the river in Spirited Away, Hao), and the irrepressible will of nature to survive.

Nausicaa, Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service each expand the use and expression of the spiritual ecological in their powerful narratives of courage and transformation. 

These are wonderful stories for children and adults alike, subtly imbuing its viewers with a compassion and an affinity towards the natural by way of the stimulating visual and symbolic elements of Japanimation.

 

Communication in the Animal World

During a recent Hunter College seminar on animal consciousness it was related that animal abilities should in no way be judged on human terms. For example, many species echolocate, including whales and dolphins. Apparently, there is a story of two whales who used echolocation and ended up beached in either Australia or New Zealand. The whales were pushed out, but they beached themselves again and again, until a dolphin, who was also echo locating swims up and leads them off into the ocean. Remarkable as the story is, it illuminates the idea that animals besides humans have systems of communication that are entirely removed from our methods of understanding. One might call what happened a simple language exchange but it was mentioned in this seminar that to call echolocation language would remove what happened from its context and place it on human terms, which is where it does not belong. Echolocation of this quality is something that is, by and large, unique to certain animals and foreign to human beings, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is enough room on this planet for divergent means of communication, with none being “better” than the rest. The question then becomes is there room enough in the human mind, for all its ego, for this concept of animal and human abilities to be on the same, level playing field.

With Love and Understanding

As you know I am very curious about faith and spirituality, but as I write this I can’t call myself a consistently faithful person; not yet. That said I was reading scripture passages last night and I realized that my unique perspective of faith might one day come from the relationships I have with people. My friends and the love I have for them is something special and yet I know that I am not currently capable of perceiving that special for all its dimensions, because I am often lonely. I crave a lover to end this loneliness but I shouldn’t need one, if only I could better recognize and cultivate the platonic intimacy and affection I already have with my friends. Where I am going with this is to ask you to ask yourselves if you are recognizing and cultivating a truly spiritual bond with those whom you have been gifted to know. I don’t think you should ask yourself this because it will bring great faith into your life. I don’t know that. What I do know or at least suspect is that a bond of spirit, of that certain something that makes us who we are, but can’t quite be pinned down, between two people, is infinitely worthwhile, for all its difficulty, because I believe, honestly, that to begin to understand another person to that extent, brings one closer to understanding the world and that can be the basis for the best of things.

How does one do all this? I am not sure, but I am beginning by searching myself for the strength to let go of the reigns and stop demanding of life a lover, one to posses, as a condition for my allowing myself to feel bonded. I don’t know if I can do that, but I am trying. I encourage you to search yourselves for the thing that holds you back from spiritual communion with those in your life and to make peace with it. If, however, you already walk in love, then that’s wonderful and perhaps you can share in the comments the things that make that possible for you.

Green Showers...

Overlooking a green hillside that falls quickly down to meet the Pacific Ocean about 6 or 700 feet below, somewhere along the Northern coast of California between Carmel and Cambria, back behind a beautiful built, weathered and sturdy looking house, and surrounded by long expanses of green meadows and thick forests, there stands an outdoor shower.

You step inside, hang your towel, close the wooden door behind you and are met with the gentle presence of a small garden of hanging water-loving plants and vines growing up from the floor; the floor which consists of a few unjoined ceramic tiles that offer just enough grounding for you to comfortably situate yourself.  Some piping feeds unobtrusively up from a buried line that we assume leads to the central plumbing of the house. You turn the knob and gloriously hot water pours out deliciously neutralizing the cool of a breeze rushing up from the ocean which you can hear in the distance. 

About 1 mile north of this divine contraption, at the end of 3 or 4 trails that wind and sail through redwood patches and ferny inclines there hides a barely-known hot spring. Someone has kindly built deep walls around it to capture the sulphurous waters that bubble up against the back of a steep rise, creating a pool you can climb into and soak in.  Once your nose accepts the naturally occuring stink of sulphur and other minerals emerging from the spring, there is nothing else standing between you and your earthern bath.  Enjoy! 

Artist Spotlight: Joni Mitchell

I fell in love with Joni Mitchell's music my first year of college.  My roommate played her songs over and over and over again, and each time, I felt like I was hearing new words and beats and tones from a raspy ethereal voice that sounded like an old friend writing through time. 

At the age of 9, Joni taught herself how to play the ukulele and soon taught herself how to play the guitar.  When her album 'Blue' was released in 1970 to critical acclaim and success, Joni's soul was bare for the world to see, and she said that "At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong." 

She has weathered love, loss, success, critics, heartbreak - and sung for peace and change, at small festivals to an audience of a few, and on stages in front of millions.  A few years ago she admitted she had grown to hate music - and lost the path that led her to write and sing in the first place.  Then one evening as she watched the waves from the Pacific dance to the shore at her home in Vancouver, and saw a blue heron and wild roses sway in the wind, her musical spirit awoke again from the slumber.  From that awakening her latest Album 'Shine' was born.  My favorite song on 'Shine' happens to be a remastered version of 'Big Yellow Taxi.' 

To watch Joni's 1970 performance of 'Big Yellow Taxi' click here.  I love this video because it's like being there during the revolutionary times of the 60s and 70s, dreaming without the neon lights from MTV, with just the beauty of the song and the spirit of the painter of words to carry you home

For more on Joni, visit her official site.

Earth Hour 2008

 Tonight my roommates and I turned all our house lights off for an hour (8pm to 9pm) in solidarity with well over 2.2 million people across the globe as we honored Earth Hour.

Launched last year (2007) by the World Wildlife Fund in Australia this event has grown to include participation by 200 cities, comprised of 100 cities in North America.

It was kind of magical.  We lit candles and filled the kitchen with them, cooking dinner by flickering warm light.  I filled out CD orders by the dim glow of just one tiny aluminum cased tea candle in my room. 

Darkness does something to stimulate the animus, something primordial feeling awakens in the absence of the usual flourescent glare. Some older part of us that perhaps enjoys the fade to black of a forest or a meadow at sunset, seems to open its eyes a slit wider. 

It was a quiet, subdued adventure, an easy was to make the banal living room new again.  And in the process we saved thousands of hours of electricity consumption and reduced our eco-footprint.  Who knew saving the earth could be this romantic?

-3 minute video covering Earth Hour 2007 on Youtube.

-Earth Hour website.

Project Hotseat

Okay yes, love them or hate them, those Greenpeace workers who stop you on street in efforts to get you to pledge membership, are in many ways very informative. Yesterday, I was schooled by a worker by the name of Randolph on the issue of Project Hotseat. Briefly, Project Hotseat is a Greenpeace initiative to “light a fire under Congress” and force legislation through that would gradually reduce the amount of pollution coming out of the United States, increase acceptable fuel economy, and increase renewable energy requirements by 2020. According to Randolph, all three candidates for president already are on board, but more public support is desirable to get it through Congress. If you are interested in supporting or just knowing more, visit http://members.greenpeace.org/hotseat/.

Photo from Greepeace.org

Hurricane Mountain

Once upon a time, a long long time ago...I went hiking for three weeks in the Adirondacks of Northern New York with my dear friend Nick Neddo.  One particular afternoon we and a few of his friends climbed to the top of Hurricane Mountain equipped with our bedding. food and water for the night.  Atop the rocky height we prepared for an astronomical spectacle.  It was a full moon night and summer solstice, if my memory serves me correctly.  And as the light faded and rosied, we settled in to watch the sunset and, expectantly, the moonrise which was supposed to happen at the same time. 

With a 360 degree view displaying the whole world as a thick green forest, somewhere off to the south I was sure New York City was alive and well, but from our perch there was no sight or sign of civilization.  To the west, a miracle was blooming as colors gave way to colors upon colors with differences and gradients too subtle to name.  Soon someone spoke and as if in unison our heads turned to the east where a small but firm white light had broken over the horizon at the same moment the sun had met the lip of the world on the other side.  A full moon climbed then into the dark blue above the eastern mountains while the vibrant bursting of the sky to the west became more and more subdued. All we heard on top of Hurricane Mountain were each others ahs and oohs as we breathed in the beauty we were witnessing.

Inch for inch the sun and moon traded each others kingdoms to our wonder and awed spellbinding. When it was over, we fell asleep beneath a million stars only to wake each other a few hours later to watch the whole thing again in reverse.  Wrapped in my sleeping bag, eyes yet uncommitted to the day, I managed to hold consciousness long enough to see the sunrise and the moon set in the exact opposite places as the night before.  It was amazing.  Sacred.  Unforgettable.  And this only one of the innumerable beauties nature unfolds.

Moderation in respect to fairness

Whilst searching online for green living tips with which to share with you, I remembered a story a teacher told me in high school. A man goes to a rabbi and asks to be taught the Bible while standing on one foot. The rabbi responds “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The rest is commentary.” This got me thinking that I could share all the tips there are to share and while they would be of some help, but they would lack grounding in the fundamental. For example, in my drawing classes we are taught to see and not how to draw specifics, for in learning how to see, artists will have a tool that they can use to teach themselves the specifics. That said, I don’t think I can share something so essential in one post, maybe not even in this one, but I can share this: In the intersection of spirituality and environmentalism moderation is a foundational concept.

First the environmental: Very simply if one reduces their consumption they reduce their impact, thereby leaving more resources available for collective use. Nothing major, I’ve mentioned this before. What I can add to this is just the reminder that there is an unequal distribution of resources, that can leave some people fat while others starve and struggle. Its not fair and recently I have been wondering if spiritually its not a little precarious, for ignoring this requires one to actively ignore the pangs of empathy. If anything living moderately, in knowledge that one is not taking in so much more than they are returning, can be spiritually healing. It is this way for me at least.

I live in New Your City and as such, I pass homeless people in the street constantly. Either because I don’t have it or I don’t feel it, I usually don’t give money and this is starting to burn me. I ask what kind of person am I now that I so little feel the obvious pain of people starving to death in front of me. I am not sure I want to know the answer. Its out of that question that I have started being more moderate in how I spend. I give more often and even if I can’t always give money at least now its not because I have wasted it all on things I don’t need. Also, I feel hurt at the sight of this situation more. I still go out with my friends and have fun sometimes, so I am not advocating socialism or living the life of a monk (for other reasons I‘ll get to in other posts), but simply pulling back some, in the interest of fairness. Its through being moderate that we heal the planet and ourselves.

Artist Tribute: Alice Walker

The vision, spirituality, activism, artistry and example of Alice Walker have moved and edified me in so many ways.  Temple of My Familiar, Possessing the Secret of Joy and The Color Purple (her most famous work for which she was the first black woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction), are only 3 of her works I'm compelled to mention and ardently recommend. 

Alice Walker uncovers and creates beauty, healing and revolution on all levels of her life, from the personal to the social to the artistic. A student at Spelman College, she was greatly influenced by Howard Zinn leading to her work for Voting Rights in Mississippi in the years following her graduation. In 1965 she and Civil Rights lawyer Mel Levanthal became the first legally married inter-racial couple in Mississippi.  Along with fellow Hurston scholar Charlotte D Hunt, in 1973 Walker discovered Zora Neale Hurston's unmarked grave in Ft Pierce, FL. Together the women paid for a modest headstone for the gravesite.

As testament to her incredible power and credit, Alice Walker is the first black woman to win a Pullitzer Prize for Fiction in '83.  Accidentally blinded in one eye at the age of 8, Walker refers to her life-long injury as an example of the "sacrificial marks women bear that allow them to be "warriors" against female suppression". And two of my favorite things to mention about her life is that she had a love affair with Tracey Chapman and is vegan.

Alice Walker's Unofficial Website

Whole Foods Sacks Plastic Bags

As of April 22nd, 2008, Earth Day, Whole Foods will no longer offer plastic bags at the checkout.

(Hooray! We're getting it right!!! Joyfully,) Our options will now be 100% recycled paper bags for free, 80% recycled plastic reusable bags, or canvas bags, the latter two at a cost.  Customers will also receive a 5 - 10 cent discount for bringing their own bags. (Is this a joke?)

This announcement adds even more appeal to an already magnetic enterprise. In addition to the charm of the Bowery store's spacious upstairs dining lounge,  the buzzing energy of the Union Square store's parkside view, and the breadth and variety of the Columbus Circle location, we'll be honoring the 3 R's with every purchase.

I kind of can't believe I'm writing this article. When I lived in the Bay Area, one of the greenest cities in the country, within walking or biking distance of 5 organic farmer markets, 2 local health food stores, and 4 chickens laying fresh eggs in the backyard, my friends and I renamed Whole Foods "Whole Paycheck" because of its insane prices, and I felt guilty every time I visited.  Now, in this blindingly congested, incorrigibly filthy and magnamously loveable metropolis I call home, my West Coast standards have significantly slackened.

Fortunately for me, fondness for the Whole Foods Empire now has some substantial backing.
So maybe I'll see you in Union Square one day this week.  I'm the woman by the window watching the crowds curdle and thin down below, plastic-bag-free, and only slightly poorer for my purchase.

Unexpected Operas

First there was the instance at my show this past Thursday night.  There we were awaiting the next performer who was announced to be an aerial dancer, a promise which seemed pretty viable considering the long cloth lines hanging from the ceiling from which I imagined some lithe being would soon be suspended. Momentarily a leotarded woman of regal bearing did emerge and approach centerstage. To everyone's surprise however, the female host of the night, who up until then had only introduced the acts, did not release the microphone, but instead opened her mouth, and let free a sound at least three times the size of her body, a shocking, rich, and clarifying music to which the aerialist spun, stretched, balanced and contorted 7 feet above the ground. I was completely taken by both the visual and the aural stimuli locking my attention. And did not expect to encounter opera again for some time.

But then today, again to my surprise, my roommate told me about her acting class a few hours earlier in which one of her fellow students had performed a monologue through an opera ballad.  Now, I can count on one hand the number of times I've been audience to this art.  At this point I should have  known that where there are two, there will be a third, but my intuition of the magical ways of the world did not warn me.  For a few moments as my roommate reccounted the story, imagination and memory colluded in me to create some virtual copy of her experience. While opera does impress upon me the awesome power of the human voice, which being a singer myself is truly inspiring, I've never of my own accord pursued an interest in it.

Less than hour later we arrived at the Lincoln Center where for all intents and purposes I anticipated taking in a modern dance performance based on the legend of King Arthur.  Little did I know that it was also an opera! An opera with dancers wearing LED-lit sneakers, walking in and out of doors that led nowhere, and who were the heroically-posed targets of paper airplanes being launched from the side-stages.  An opera deconstructing and laughing at itself, like nothing I've ever seen. It was really funny.  And for a third time, completely unexpected. So, I have no idea as the uncanny and synchronous meaning of this. But I'll let you know if opera creeps up on me again any time soon. In the meantime check out this review of King Arthur.

 

Experience as Language

I will be honest. I am a coward. I am afraid of new situations almost as much as I am often afraid of germs. That said I have been given cause to become more bold, cause that I would like to share with you and that perhaps you have heard before: I was recently told, “One should not be a tourist in ones own life, [if only because experience is a language in which the soul speaks].”

This begs the question of to whom does the soul speak ? I don’t have an easy answer as to what the soul is, or if it even is, but, for the purposes of argument and optimism, I assume the soul is related to, if not itself is, the divine something/energy that makes existing possible. In that way it is not entirely unique and personal but shared amongst the inhabitants of reality. This is an melding of the transcendentalist idea of inherent divinity, where everything is imbued with God’s touch and the Taoist idea that everything is essentially one and the same, while being individual. All that said, the soul can only speak to itself.

The poet Li-Young Lee envisioned God, in a poem, as a woman repeatedly asking “Do you love me?” and then answering herself “Yes, I love you” and in this repetition all existence becomes possible. Perhaps that is like the soul, speaking continually to itself in the language of experience and in the repetition all understanding and all beauty becomes possible. For example, you see a sublime scene of nature or art, or what have you. Your sense of sight and what it is you are seeing is the language, that the soul speaks to itself with and the union, the perception, is the beauty/understanding. On the flip side, I fear because I am ignorant of the world and myself. I remain ignorant of the world because I am too afraid to approach it, to allow myself to sense it. Its as if my portion of soul has a stutter but is slowly starting to hear the clarity of the rest. To return to where we began, one avoids becoming a tourist in life by listening to the language, the already available to them, thereby tuning the hearing to deeper and more profound sounds.

The name that can be named

 

It's funny really, that language, one of the tools most essential to human beings and their thought processes, is, in the end, almost meaningless. In fact I might be being soft on the issue. Language might be completely meaningless. In the Lao-Tzu it is written, “The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” In other words the reality/essence that we speak of is not actual reality. This is because when a thing is named parameters (mental or otherwise) must be constructed so that it is clear what one is naming. These parameters do their job, they restrict meaning and thus leave out a great deal of the nuance that is there to be understood intuitively. The meaning of reality can not be stopped down to a word anymore than the meaning behind love can, and no more than the meaning of God can.

Moreover, words are often, if not always, defined in relation to their opposites. For example, good is defined, at its core, as the opposite of evil and vice versa and being is defined as the opposite of non being. Unfortunately though, that is circular and by their nature, things that are circular lack grounding. They lack concrete meaning. I had a conversation with a friend (with whom I share credit for a few of these ideas) about this recently and he echoed my sentiments, which made me really get deep into this issue. If names, if language, is so very, very insufficient then what is the purpose of it? I see language as a support for analytical thought, which may itself be a support for intuitive thought. A problem arises when, as has happened, the assumed meaning of words become too potent in the imagination without necessary awareness of the words’ emptiness. When this happens people become vulnerable to getting lost in the small meaning at the expense of the larger picture. In effect, they lose sight of the forest in relation to the trees. To paraphrase my friend, why do we do the things we do, if not because we see ourselves as passing on meaning? I answer, I don’t know, for the meaning is everywhere around us already. 

Overpopulation?

Skyrocketing energy consumption, inflating increase of pollutants and toxins, mass extinction of plant and mammal species, and the accompanying thinning of natural biodiversity. These are just a few of the symptoms we are witness to of our earth's larger dis-ease. At the roots of the problem lie the human spiritual crisis.  We are a people out of balance with ourselves, conditioned to individualism, relying on the mind to solve our problems, and divested of the guidance of Spirit and of the earth. Like so we have become deaf and blind to the cries of the world around us.  I just read an article a friend sent to me online today called "Plastic Soup " reporting a mass of plastic debris twice the size of the continental United States afloat in the North Pacific Ocean between California and Japan.  This is only one of the visible/tangible ecological impacts of our modern lifestyles.

The human population increases by over 200,000 or 2% every day. Here is a table of percent increase by country.   Every modern malaise is exacerbated by the number of humans effecting it.   Now I know its not the ultimate solution, but I believe addressing and managing our unrestricted growth would be a VERY helpful and at least temporary measure of relief.  The real work involves us doing the spiritual, social and environmental work in our chosen communities to heal our planet.  But there's no seeing around the fact that the damage 1 billion people can do to the earth is exponentially worsened at 5 billion, 6 billion, or 9 billion, which is the projected size of the human population by the year 2050.

Imagining what controlling our numbers would look like gets tricky. It immediately calls to mind the many controversies around birth control and abortion.   It certainly raises questions about issues like those seen in China during its population crises in the 80's and 90's, namely female infanticide. But it also reaches towards the possibility of decreasing our impact on the earth by astronomical proportions. We have options. We can choose to not have children. Or we can choose to adopt.  We can choose to have just enough children to "replace" our partner and ourselves -2, (at least in the traditional nuclear family model). All these are ways we can approach and think about reducing our impact, lightening our load, taking the pressure of the earth as we learn more funtional and sustainable ways of being.

Free Trade and Sustainable Development

Fundamental to business models, trading is a skill we have inherited, and continue to renew. We are now a global economy, where large-scale trade is worldwide collaboration that comes packaged with tariffs, regulation, and policy. The expectation of globalization is a raised standard of living in developing regions. While this can be a thriving cultural and informational network, there’s criticism that the true essence of “free trade” is lost when these regions are exploited.

Global Policy Innovations is an attempt to work on this problem and truly level the economic playing field. With their formula “innovation + ethics = fairer globalization”, the organization aims to disseminate information for discussion and policy planning surrounding global trade. While the problem may often seem out of our hands, Even on an individual level, we can submit our own ideas to the forum.browsing the site’s blog and sifting through the list of “innovations” stimulated an empowerment when I see that somewhere, this discourse I search for exists. The proposal of a just integration is growing, too. LOTUS by the League of Artisans features high quality handicrafts by Indian artisans and an ethical business model. Their explanation that a “middleman” hinders efficiency for these artisans motivates their vision for “responsible luxury”.

I am also reminded of why we promote exchange at Barter Planet, either on a personal or business level. Exchanging instead of buying or dumping is essential to preserving the ability to meet the needs of our future. Moreover, many of the reasons we should trade also apply to why free-trade should be encouraged. By opening up a direct and true channel for international dialogue, we develop an interconnectedness that grounds us and a tolerance that rejuvenates our spirit.

Check out Policy Innovations to start contributing, and the mission of LOTUS.

Artist Spotlight: Lily Wilson

I first discovered Lily Wilson's music some months ago thanks to a friend's recommendation.  Her voice is a like a kaleidoscope filled with echoes of Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, Joan Osborne.  Her music takes you to that place in your being where everything fits even if it might not all make sense. 

Growing up on a ranch near Napa, California, Lily discovered the magic of the land and of music.  This magic echoes in her beautiful words.  Her song 'Good Life' begins:

I couldn't be in a more beautiful place
I couldn't ask for a better view
I look around, and the world is at peace
Then the music starts, right on cue
It's a simple happiness
so easy but so fleeting
and I hope that I can remember this
when the walls close in and I feel the end

I have been listening to Lily's 'The Peace Song' on a daily basis these past weeks.  It inspires me on this journey to create Barter Planet, and the power we each hold in our own lives to create a more beautiful world.  Sometimes it might seem crazy to believe that peace can exist on Earth - but it's not crazy to me.  We can and will find a way.

From 'The Peace Song:'

Crazy at it seems
I still hold a faith
Because it all comes down to you and me
And if we can find a way
Crazy as this may seem
I don’t blame them for anything
I can love my enemies
And pray for a new kind of peace

For more on Lily Wilson, visit www.LilyWilson.com

If you know of other green-friendly and peace-seeking artists to spotlight, please send me an email.  We'd love to share their work.

Daylight Savings

I turned my cell phone's clock forward this morning and in doing so am losing an hour of sleep.  And gaining an hour more of sunlight. Spring forward, fall back.  In an age where the larger culture is so far removed from the cycles of the earth, its refreshing to me to feel that for a moment the entire Western world becomes aware of the gentle tilting of our planet towards or away from the sun around Daylight Savings.  With spring equinox less than 2 weeks away, heralding the coming of spring, the northeastern world I live in at least feels subtly abuzz in anticipation of what returns: Warmth! Green leaves, flowers and pollen. Bodies without jackets, short skirts, sandals, and a broad sense of well-being.

Through these long New York winters what little sunlight we do receive is wan and thin, and sometimes barely seeming to arrive at all, struggling through the heavier layers of clouds, ozone and city smog.   But the scarcity of sun only serves to make me cherish every moment I have of it.  Standing on the elevated subway platform waiting for the train, sometimes I close my eyes and just soak in the gold, breathing deeply, crafting lines of gratitude in my mind silently for our far away friend.

Daylight savings, if you squint, is kind of the closest thing the West has to its cast off rituals around the vernal and autumnal equinox, midway points between the coldest and warmest points on the earth's cycle.  I for one, despite the stretch, like to honor it as such, a tenacious remnant of a very very old and eco-philic habit.  I turn my clock as a small celebration in honor of the sun.

Book Review: Women Who Run With the Wolves

Clarissa Pinkola Estesm PhD., the author of this magical and transformative work, is a wise wise woman.  With a PhD in Psychology she is a senior Jungian analyst who has practiced and taught for twenty years.  Of Mexican and Hungarian cultural origins, she is also a cantadora, a storyteller, and one of the most compelling and widely referenced I've encountered.   With this book, Dr Estes has become a bestselling and well-loved author. </p>

Women Who Run With the Wolves is a threading of myths and stories from around the world containing elements, pieces, bones as Estes calls them, of the universal feminine archetype of the "Wild Woman".  The part of our souls that has been domesticated, suppressed and erased from our written histories, and lived experience.  Each story is followed by soul-resonating analysis of their many layers of symbolism.  And through the telling she offers women a map by which to make that inner journey to our lost power, breadth, and wildness.  This phenomenal collection hands us gems of wisdom that are relevant and revealing for all women and for the men who seek to understand our many dimensions. 

Its the first piece on the agenda of a book club we started last month.  Seven of us women meet on the night of every new moon to discuss a book of our collective choosing.  And tonight I'm just so moved by the stories and sharings that came out of our own lives based on the stories in this book. Stories breeding and freeing stories.  Stories healing and uncaging each other.  Although I'm still far from finishing it, I offer this book to you with deep satisfaction.

The Temple of Mind

"The climate of the mind is the warmth of a shrine and the air is torn with incense. World without end." - Muriel Rukeyser, from the poem “Place-Rituals”

The warmth of a shrine is that feeling of struggle and transcendental hope and respect and often love, that if not inherent to a shrine, is held within its walls as a gift from those who have entered and felt lifted. Muriel Rukeyser is right; the mind is a shrine in this respect. This is true if one is spiritual or not, for the walls of the mind hold “gifts” from ideas that have entered like worshippers seeking a sense of home. The mind takes those gifts and echoes them in the emotions, moving the self. And that movement, that air, is torn into by the senses, making a world, a complete experience in a single moment, a world without end.

I don’t know if I believe in the next world, but I do believe in infinite possibilities of this one. The mind is one of those possibilities brought to blossom. It is the shrine in which I take refuge and in which I have fought harder than I have anywhere. Believing in the mind as a shrine, is believing in the potential of the human, to hold within itself an entire world worth knowing.

Spiritual Activism: The Place Between Right and Wrong

Spiritual Activism refers to active, change-oriented spirituality, the integration of the spiritual into our social justice efforts.  In any conflict there is an implied set of opposites, an assumption that resolution means the domination of one over the other.  A spiritual approach to conflict-resolution asks us to deconstruct these givens.

In the words of Pema Chodron "compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live." - In the Gap Between Right and Wrong, Pema Chodron.

Living in that tender, shaky place between rightness and wrongness feels very uncomfortable.  We have been conditioned to gravitate towards the certain, towards the steady, solid and sure.  But the nature of reality, of the natural world, the inherent quality of each passing moment, is that of impermanent, flickering, here one moment, gone the next.  Fundamentally uncertainty.  And yet we strive so hard to make our experience within it certain.  To always be right. And to correct the "wrongness" in our worlds and lives, personal and political.

Many spiritual practices, like meditation and breathwork, help us to develop that muscle, our tolerance for staying tender, vulnerable, to resist our itch to be right, to dominate, to wrong others.  The more we can live in the gray spaces, the more we can tolerate differences, contradictions, challenges, and the more we can be comfortable not always being right, the more peaceful our communities will become.

On Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

The other day I remembered a news story from a few months prior: The marshes of Jamaica Bay, marshes I pass on the train everyday, are disappearing and scientists are not in agreement as to why. I have enough respect for you, reader, not to lecture you on the possibility that we have caused this or to go sentimental about it all. Instead I wanted to relate to you a line of thought. The Japanese philosopher-monk Kenko argued in his book, Essays in Idleness that beauty is inextricably linked to impermanence. In his mind, knowing that something may or will end is what makes it the thing beautiful. Is that true?

Yes, these days I sporadically appreciate the marshes, but it is much less so than when it was new to me. It's as if the bay and I are married but we have neglected to maintain the magic, the wonder. When I first learned of its impending nonexistence, the refuge didn’t seem more beautiful to me, but I was sad. A former poetry professor once asked me, “What poem hurt you into poetry,” referencing the painful, regenerative aspects of pleasure. Knowing the bay refuge was disappearing could have, should have, made the bay more beautiful, enough to hurt me into action. That it didn’t is something I don’t understand. Perhaps it will hurt you.

Links to information on Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5489.html

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3361348

http://www.nps.gov/gate

A Wonder Woman for These Modern Times

Since he