52 More People 52 Less Things

Lots of Info, Now We Need to ACT...

2008-07-14T21:46:00.005-06:00

First of all, thank you Gabe for your treatise on Humanure and Andy's insights on his last blog. I learn so much from all of you! Since I missed my posting schedule as set out by Kira, I thought I would check in with a quick note and a few more resources to ponder.

Although, it is discouraging to read the results of the G8 Summit and realize that "Curious George Bush" (aka "George the Idiot") is still up to the same 'ole monkey business, his days are numbered. Since our nation lacks leadership, we can choose to take action in our personal lives and perhaps inspire our family members and neighbors to take positive action also to reduce our carbon footprints.

So what am I doing this week? Although still a bit pathetic---I am becoming more informed. I have been shopping at Costco less and buying local. This week I will continue eating vegetarian/vegan and try to eat at home more. I will attend the Sierra Club event on Thursday (see description below) instead of driving 100 miles RT to see Josh Ritter at a free concert. I will try to get my act together and contact the City of Orem this week to order a compost bin and encourage my neighbors to use it also---even though the thought of saving garbage repulses me.

Check out 2 outstanding articles from the latest Catalyst Magazine: http://www.catalystmagazine.net/pdfs/0708/catalyst_0708.pdf

1) page 12 "The Low Carbon Diet"
>>>don't miss this web site they refer to since it is an amazing resource: http://www.empowermentinstitute.net/
2) page 16 "...how the food industry pimped my breakfast"

We are going to be counted after all in our new "Church of the Sierra Club People"...
David & I will attend "Lightbulbs to Leadership House Party"! Watch the video, then throw a party!
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/GetTogether?gettogether=activity_splash&cal_activity_id=1120

The Sierra Club is holding hundreds of house parties across America on Thursday, July 17 to help send the message that to really solve global warming, we need to change more than lightbulbs -- we need to change direction. We need action that is strong, urgent and bold enough to get the job done.

It was fun to see Kira & Andy's clothesline this week. Check out the chart from the "Low Carbon Diet" article and you will see how many pounds of C02 they reduced. When I was a kid and even when we were first married with kids---we used to dry our clothes (including all the diapers) on the line, walk to the corner grocery store---we didn't have a dishwasher, color TV, air conditioner or a furnace; of course we only had one car, we walked to school, we always ate leftovers, we returned our glass bottles to the store so they could be refilled... It is amazing how this is going full circle and people are now realizing "in the name of progress" has really screwed us. In this regard, the good 'ole days may have been just that.

Look forward to hearing from some of you---although I think we have all been in touch. We know how Gabe is reducing his footprint lately---he need not say too much on this topic. Perhaps, we can just encourage one another to not give in to the "gloom & doom" as we read about food wars, water shortages, global energy crisis and instead work toward a bit more self-sufficiency (kitchen gardens, cisterns, solar panels, etc). This is a challenge in a culture and my personal life style of dependency. We have a long road of re-learning ahead of us!

Thanks for listening. Love you, Lakshmi

2008-06-02T22:57:00.007-06:00

Earlier today I was doing some online research for work, and came across some depressing news which I emailed out as follows:

From an article on sustainability and consumption:

I had the pleasure of being a keynote speaker with Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia at a "net impact" event late last year. He has done as much as any CEO to make sure that his company is respectful and protective of the environment. Yet in front of 100 net impacters, he said (I am paraphrasing), "I have talked to some serious scientists, and most of them believe we have passed the point of no return. We have no hope left to save the Earth."

Hopefully that is not 100% accurate. Unfortunately, it is actually possible that it could be true. The full article can be found here and presents a good case for reducing our consumption.

Feeling impossibly overwhelmed, I sent this out as an email to some of you (those on this blog who's emails I have in my EPG email account). Mom (Lakshmi) wrote back this response, pretty much capturing what I also was feeling:

What a challenge and it does look grim in a global economy down to our personal households. It seems our meager attempts, whatever they may be (vegetarian/vegan eating, recycling, shopping less...) are a little too late and certainly not nearly enough to address the issues of the 9 billion people arriving! We actually can't pat ourselves on the back---since even the most conscientious among us are still not doing much after all!

Coming home from work I got to process a bit, and here is how I would respond to my own hopelessness from earlier today. [Warning, significant God-talk and Bible references follow. This is my world-view with less translation than it sometimes receives and perhaps with a degree of assumed "kingdom theology." Hopefully the gist still comes across and if not I can add comments as needed.]

I think you are probably right - in the end it probably will take war(s) to really wake us up to the enormity of the problem and effect the significant change in our lifestyles as well as the very infrastructure of our society. Kira and I are wearing ourselves out just trying to get our edible landscape (garden) going, and while I think it is a good way to be spending our energy you are right, it is all a drop in the bucket compared to the magnitude of the problem. (I do however think we live in a democratic economy - how I spend my dollars is my economic vote. And, as we learned in Florida, every vote counts.... at least half! But I agree, my individual actions seem inconsequential in comparison to the overwhelmingly "obese" infrastructure I live in.)

It's funny, Kira and I were visiting this church yesterday and the pastor was preaching from Revelation, talking about these images of God's final, sovereign, good reign. The fullness of God's kingdom come. God's perfect reign of peace, wisdom, holiness, and love over all creation finally come to fulfillment. And his application was to topics of worry - worrying about your money, or your job, or whatever. The message was "God is in control." A fine message. But if you take the book of Revelation as a whole, it is speaking to the epic struggle of Good versus Evil. God versus Satan. Who will triumph? What is really happening in our world? To all appearances, God seems many times absent. But Revelation tells a different story. It tells a story of God's victory and paints a beautiful picture of God's final reign. The larger message of Revelation is not necessarily "God cares about your provisions, your dented car, your mortgage bill, etc." (though I believe God does care about those things). I think the larger message of Revelation is "People of God: when the story of the world around you looks desperately hopeless, remember that God is telling a different story. A story of hope and redemption and healing and God's kingdom come. And God's story is ultimately the one that will prevail." [Remember Revelation was written before Christianity was the religion of the empire, while Christians weren't exactly popular and the future for the people of God probably looked pretty hopeless.]

So I think it takes a Revelation perspective to look the enormous problem laid before us squarely in the eyes and say "This story of hopelessness is not going to determine my actions. I am going to live believing a different story from the one I see. Believing that God's kingdom will come, and that - ushered in through Jesus - God's kingdom is coming now, today." And because God's kingdom is coming now, today, we are free as the people of God to prophetically build gardens and serve the poor and research the cure for AIDS and build community and seek to help usher in any of the other bazillion facets of God's kingdom come.

Urban Humanure

2008-04-15T00:33:00.019-06:00

Option 1: Destroy the earth on autopilot.
Option 2: Ass what you can doo for your country.
SQUEEZE YOUR PEACE!
A (com)posting about Gabe's urban HUMANURE experiment! Butt first, a little back-ground:
- Humanure composting is the name given to describe the thermophilic (hot) composting of human excreta, kitchen and garden scraps, and a local and readily available carbonaceous material (straw, sawdust, leaves, newspaper). It is NOT the throwing of raw human excrement onto fields. It is NOT the mouldering (cold) composting process that most conventional composting toilets use. It IS composting in a thermophilic way: releasing the latent thermophilic bacteria that lives in everyone's excreta by using the proper ratios of "greens" (human extreta, kitchen and garden scraps) to "browns" (carbonaceous material), achieving temperatures that kill all harmful pathogens and bacteria, letting the pile 'season' for a year, and producing the most nutrient-rich, 100% safe, pathogen-free garden soil you could possibly ask for.
- Groundwater use in the US exceeds replacement rates by 21 billion gallons a day. Americans use three times as much water as everyone else in the world while 1.2 billion people lack access to fresh water. UN: "Water shortages will cause wars in the 21st Century."
- We believe it is civilized to shit in drinking water. However, there's not enough water on earth for the entire world to adopt the civilized practice of defecating in water and then treating it. The practice is unsustainable.
- We dump 3.619 trillion gallons of polluted sewage water into US coastal waterways each year. 7 million Americans get sick each year from swallowing it.
- The US is losing topsoil about 18 times faster than the soil formation rate. Worldwide only 42 to 84 years of topsoil remains. Both North Africa and what is now the Saharan Desert used to grow food, but both were de-forested and over-farmed without compost (the same agricultural model that we implement).
- To keep the nutrient-depleted topsoil producing we manufacture 140 million tons of chemical fertilizers a year: the #1 source of water pollution.
- Sewage plants (and city drinking water plants) "treat" all water with a chemical not found in nature called Chlorine. Chlorine is known to cause severe memory problems, stunted growth, reproductive problems, cancer, and death in mammals. Over 10,000 cases of cancer each year are directly caused by consumption of chlorinated drinking water. Our culture justifies its use by citing no alternative.
- The process of composting humanure and applying it to agricultural land solves both the problem of sewage-pollution and of diminishing topsoil!

find out MORE!
- www.JenkinsPublishing.com - Here is the whole process laid out plain on the website for the coolest shit expert on earth: Mr. Joseph Jenkins, author of the acclaimed Humanure Handbook (which I own and highly rectal-mend)
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THE URBAN PREDICAMENT:
I've wanted to compost humanure in my own backyard ever since I first studied it and experienced it firsthand while volunteering on organic farms in N. Carolina and California. What always stopped me was the simple fact that I had no backyard!

THE POOR URBAN ARTIST'S CHALLENGES TO COMPOSTING HUMANURE:

1) PERMANENCE: I’m a renter and I constantly live under the threat of having to pick up again and move all my stuff (whether because rent gets raised, or because the housemate downstairs who got addicted to heroin has started to light things on fire and throw paints at me). Given that a humanure compost pile usually takes about a year to build, then needs an additional year to chill-out undisturbed, the conflict becomes clear: how can I provide a stable environment for my humanure pile for at least 2 years (I feel like I’m talking about a pet dog. I guess both are warm and smell sort of funny from time to time) when I can’t even provide a stable environment for my urban self!

2) PORTABILITY: When I move next, since neither leaving the work of my behind behind (serious fines from the landlord and the city), nor throwing it in the garbage (bad karma from earth) are cool options, I need to be able to take my pile with me! How could I relocate my compost pile to wherever I moved to? Since I don’t own a car or truck, and neither do any of my close friends (god bless their car-less ways!), and I’d rather do just about anything then drive a car full of shit around, I have to think about being able to transport all that I own via Xtracycle longbikes at any given moment. How could I transport my compost pile on an Xtracycle?

3) COMMUNITY: I’m surrounded by housemates and neighbors who are culturally mainstream (though my some of my musical roommates sing about “the revolution,” as Abbie Hoffman pointed out: “hanging up Che Guevarra posters and smoking pot doesn’t make you a revolutionary”) city people who would freak out if they found out (or even slightly sniffed) what I was doing and where I was putting it. After I got fined, they’d take away my warm little humanure pile in a scary truck, kill (“cleanse”) it in the chemical chambers, and when they were sure it was dead, they’d dump its remains into the San Francisco bay. Yikes! Maybe I should buy my humanure a diary and hide it in the attic…

4) LAND: Compost piles need land to sit on. The problem for me is that the closest bit of exposed earth (not covered by concrete or asphalt) to me is the public park 3 blocks away. Beyond that, the only space on this planet earth that I legally have any jurisdiction over, like many urbanites, consists of only the small concrete patio area where we keep our trash, recycling, and green-waste bins.

SOME SOLUTIONS:
Taking on the challenges one by one has revealed interesting, and always comical, solutions to overcoming humanure hardship.

1) Permanence: I can't do much about this one except have a temporary storage space for when I'm finding a new place. My thought at this point is that if I have to move suddenly and need a temporary place to store my stuff, I can always store my compost bin in a self-storage unit with all my other possessions for $30 a month. If I'm going out of the country for a year or more, I have friends at the local community garden who said I could leave my bin there with a padlock on it until I got back.

I solved #'s 2, 4, and part of 3 by realizing that a standard city garbage bin was my answer. With it's wheels I can rope it onto the back of my bike and haul it around. With it's inconspicuous and dirty reputation, a garbage bin won't draw the attention or undue curiosity of anybody in my community, provided I can keep the smell down. Given that the only piece of land I have jurisdiction over is the cement patio where the garbage bins are stored, what else could I store it in, but a garbage bin!?

EXPROPRIATED BY ALIENS:

Noun 1. Expropriation - taking out of an owner's hands (especially taking property by public authority).

With public authority, I expropriated a garbage bin from a Walgreens who I (and common sense) figured could deal for a day without a bin. I left them this message in place of their bin:

“Your compost bin has been abducted by aliens from the planet under this paved one, who will conduct experiments on it for the sake of science. Be comforted by the knowledge that our science will one day save this planet. You can call 415-330-1300 (NorCal waste) to get another one for free. Warmest Regards. (geek victory #634)”

THE SMELL:
3) Community: making sure my community was cool with it had a LOT to do with smell control.

Some of you have heard the story of the infamous "poo suitcase" that I used on my houseboat Gypsy, and how a whole office building was shut down for a week from the smell that was left in their bathroom after I'd flushed the contents of the poo suitcase down their toilet (they thought it'd been a terrorist threat... seriously). The last thing I wanted was the NYPD to come out again, and this time all the way out to San Francisco...

What I didn't know then was that to keep your shit from smelling, you have to have a LOT of carbonaceous material mixed in with it. The way nature lets you know that you need more carbonaceous material in your humanure is by smelling. Smelling is evidence of an anaerobic process - that is, the humanure not getting any oxygen and turning into a liquidy putrid sludge. Carbonaceous material (leaves, straw, sawdust) keeps the pile fluffy and aerobic and not smelling. How much carbonaceous material to put in your pile is simple: if it smells, put in more.

NO SAWDUST IN SF:
The Humanure Handbook recommends that you use a carbonaceous material that's local and readily available. The author uses sawdust, getting a truckload delivered to his New England farm every year.

In the heart of San Francisco, where there is no straw, no usable sawdust (all the local carpentry shops use chemically treated and kiln dried wood), and no Fall season that produces leaves, I thought for a moment that I'd run into a problem.

The answer however, is simple enough: what carbonaceous material do cities have TONS of - that blows down the sidewalks and gutters, and is replenished every single day? The answer is excess newspaper and cardboard. Now, I haven't yet figured out a way to simply and cheaply shred cardboard (all though finely shredded cardboard I bet would make SUCH good carbonaceous material) but newspaper's easy to tear with my hands, easy to carry on my bike, and it's fun to shit and piss on it when there's a politician, advertisement, or 'scare story' staring at me from inside my bucket!

So far, my compost bin doesn't smell AT ALL, even if you're standing right next to it! What I do is, after I pee or poo into my 5-gallon bucket, I tear up 2-4 issues of the San Francisco Chronicle and throw it on top. After my bucket gets full I carry it downstairs to the expropriated garbage bin/ now compost bin, and dump it in. Then I tear up about 10 SF Chronicles and throw that on top, like a fresh falling of leaves in the forest.

WHAT'S-HIS-BUCKET?
My toilet set-up is ultra simple and also lends itself to low odor. I went to the hardware store and bought a new 5 gallon bucket with a leak-proof lid for $10. Then I went to the salvaged building supply store and bought a toilet seat for $3. I put a covering of 2-4 SF Chronicles at the bottom of a fresh bucket, then I put the lid on top, and I place the bucket next to the conventional toilet in the bathroom upstairs (the closest bathroom to my tent on the roof). When I need to excrete, I just take the leak-proof lid off and do my thing, putting the toilet seat on top of the bucket if I have to poo. After I'm done, I throw my toilet paper into the toilet and then rip up 2-4 SF Chrons and throw those in. Then I replace the leak-proof lid.

After I've filled a bucket (about a week) I walk it down to my compost bin and dump it. I then use a toilet brush, some eco-cleaner, and just the slightest bit of hose water to clean the bucket as best as I can. It's important to dump the resulting sudsy graywater into the compost pile and not outside on the sidewalk, as doing so would pollute the environment. I've found that leaving my bucket filled for too many days and not dumping it results in stronger odors and makes it harder to clean the smell out later (the bucket is only plastic after all, not stainless steel).

THE LAST WIPE:
My housemates have actually started warming up to the idea of Humanure. In fact, my housemate Israel borrowed the Humanure Handbook from me and is currently poring through it in the other room (they've yet to try it however). My girlfriend Sonya has peed in the bucket a couple times and is working up her comfortability gradually. I haven't had any neighbor or house-visitor complaints about smell or unsightliness. In fact, I've been surprised at the positive reception I've gotten from just about everybody I've told about it.

I remember what it was like to poo when I was Pace's age. It always made me want to sing, sitting on that smooth white donut with my pants pulled down and feeling the wonderful release of a bowel movement. I thought I'd lost that joy forever. But now, Ah, now I feel I've rediscovered what it means to poop with joy. Now every time I do it I feel like I'm linked-in again to the planet, my home - and the innocence, and the redemption that comes when one participates in the great interdependent symphony of life. (*fart*)

Who knew that saving the planet could be so funky!

Wild Wind

2008-03-30T17:44:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone. I haven't posted yet because the thought of giving away stuff/meeting a new person/posting on a blog every week was quite daunting to me, and sometimes when I feel daunted I become stagnant or evasive (a flaw, I acknowledge.) So I appreciate this new schedule (thanks Kira!) and I'm happy to share some of my thoughts with you all.

I should start by saying that when I moved from the East Coast to San Francisco a little over a year ago, I brought as little stuff as I could manage. Like most people, I do have too much stuff, but the majority of it is back in New Jersey in my Dad's house, and not in my little room (or my little closet) here in SF. I do have pants/shirts in my dresser that I never wear and should (and will) give away when I get around to it, but I've been enjoying the challenge of approaching this notion of downsizing, simplifying, getting-rid-of-stuff in regards to my "job", my music. (I put job in quotations because music is what I spend most of my time doing, it is my hopeful, desired job, but at this point I am far from depending on it for food/rent.) In thinking about necessity and simplicity, I remembered a quotation that I wrote on my eighth grade yearbook page: "The simplest things are the greatest things." My best friend's aunt said it, and I thought it was poignant and true. I still think it's poignant and true. What are the simplest/greatest things for you? For me, I would say:
-Love (for family, friends, Gabe)
-Music
-The natural world (water, trees, mountains, animals)
I think it's interesting how interconnected these things are. Literally all of my songs are inspired by the natural world and the love in my life.

This brings me to music as "job", and the music industry. The grand majority of artists pursuing a music career these days work within a very clear, and a very expensive (and profit-driven,) paradigm. They hire a manager, a publicist, a booking agent, and sometimes a radio promoter. They have a very fancy website. They tour in buses and on airplanes, covering as much ground, and playing to as many people as they possibly can in a given year. They plug into enormous sound systems, often using many microphones, speakers, and moniters. They perform, most often, in bars (venues want to bring in as much cash as possible, and alcohol sells!) The BIGGER and MORE of all of these factors=the more successful you are, we are to believe.
But all of these factors are so far from simple...so far from the simplicity and greatness of music in its true form, which is what draws me (and many people I know) to music in the first place! It's all so far from the very spirit of music making! I understand that with no regard to how the industry works, I could very easily spend the rest of my life playing my songs to myself and my friends and family, and that is not my goal. I do want to share my music more widely, and I do want to support myself doing it. But what can I use and what can I "get rid of" from that paradigm, in aiming to preserve the source and true spirit of my music? To personalize and prove this point further, many of my songs mourn the death of animals by the roadside, they express wonder in the oceans, thankfulness for the forests; in one song i have the lyric "what i live for...it's in the passing wild wind." How strange and inconsistent to sing these words from my heart, and then to pursue a musical lifestyle that pays no respect to these values? To spend half the year in a car/on an airplane, injuring animals and polluting the air, and missing the beauty around me because I'm moving too fast. Besides sounding like a rather hellish existence, that sort of strikes me as a double-life.
What elements of that accepted industry paradigm are like so many other things we currently believe we need (laptops, TVs, cellphones, ipods, etc etc) but perhaps should be examined more closely, if we are yearning to move away from our incredibly wasteful American lifestyles? (Watch www.storyofstuff.com if you haven’t already.) I have Gabe to thank for introducing me to the bike tour as one potential step in an awesome direction (and for getting the wheels in my brain turning on many of these issues, for that matter.) Though bike touring is scary because a)it's never really been done before and b)it's very physically challenging, it is also extremely rewarding, and in keeping with the spirit of more simple, less-wasteful, less-destructive living. You can literally feel the wild wind on your face as you go. (You can also feel car exhaust sometimes, but you have to take the bad with the good, and besides, that vile smell just reminds you of why you’re on your bike in the first place.)
In addition to exploring alternatives to car/plane touring, other standards I am exited to try and phase out more and more are playing in bars, and playing into big sound systems. Last weekend the Sonya Cotton Band played a show in an intimate acoustic venue that was more like a living room than a bar (they did sell beer, but only on a small scale, out of an ice bucket.) Playing without mics and moniters, being able to hear each other naturally and respond to each others dynamics, with no mediation, was so freeing and inspiring. It felt like we were tapping back into the source of why we sing for people, why we perform (which is something I've been forgetting lately, feeling disheartened after many shows where I now realize I felt disconnected from myself, my band, our sound.) Also, not having to worry about dominating a room full of drunk people was ideal. I'm currently in the planning stages of booking a show in a church, on a hilltop, and in an artist's collective. And Gabe and I are looking into purchasing a bluegrass microphone, so the whole band can sing into one microphone when we play live, and hear each other with our own ears, without moniters filtering and altering our sound. These ideas are starts, and I feel that I have a lot more thinking and figuring out to do on this subject. (Also, to consider the seemingly impossible: what if a red carpet was rolled out infront of me--a label comes to me and offers a record deal/a world tour/etc—what would I do? What sort of success am I truly after?)

As for more people in my life, honestly the most important person is my Dad. Slowly over the past couple of months, and weeks especially, my Dad has started becoming an important presence in my life again. Starting when I was in middle school he started going through a lot of intense stuff, and keeping it all to himself. Therefore, he stopped communicating with his family to a large extent, and I haven't felt close to him since.....maybe since 5th grade? In the past several years since he split up with my mom things have gotten more ugly and I've had a whole lot of anger towards him. This makes me think of your posting, David, about letting go of old grudges and angers, and how much weight you can relieve in forgiving. I honestly didn't think I could ever let go of this anger, not in the foreseeable future at least, but since he's started opening himself to me, I've noticed my anger beginning to seep away. I've felt my heart begin to open. Today on the phone we said "I love you"...That was a big deal! It felt really good.

I can't resist mentioning the other quote from my eighth grade yearbook page, which was: "Go West, paradise is there." (From a Natalie Merchant song.) I do feel that since coming out West to San Francisco I've been so fortunate in the people I have met, and continue to meet. When I lived in New York City, I had few new and meaningful relationships. Here I've made such wonderful friends. I find it true that people here are more open; people are happier too, and that rubs off. Most recent exciting people include: Anton and Scott/Elena. Anton plays violin in a string metal band (we met at Alemany Farm where both our bands were playing.) We met up in the park the other week and played music together. I may help him write songs for a movie score he is working on. Scott is Gabe's friend (they met in Cuba years back), and Elena is his girlfriend. I've been talking with Scott about the possibility of recording my new album in his studio (he's a sound engineer.) Gabe and I invited Scott and Elena over the other night to watch a movie with us, and we all had a really good time and agreed we are excited to hang out again.

Okay, I think that's all. Thanks for reading, and please share any thoughts you have. Also, thanks for including me in this blog-- I’m honored to be included in this family affair! I've really enjoyed reading peoples thoughts so far. And Dave and Yasi, I look forward to meeting you guys someday soon. Perhaps when Gabe and I are on tour up North in September?

Sonya

Structure, Spontaneity, and Estate Sales

2008-03-27T15:11:00.003-06:00

Hi everybody!

Sorry I took so long to post; I definitely missed my deadline, but better late than never!

I've actually been visiting most of you in the last week, so that's my excuse...it was a crazy quarter and traveling takes a lot of energy!

It's Spring Break in my world and I spent it helping my parents move (more on this later) and visiting Grandma/Lakshmi & David/ Kira, Andy & Co. I haven't spent much time with the blog so far, but I am newly inspired to stay in the dialog...

I don't remember if I said this before, but meeting new people has not been difficult this past quarter. Because of the nature of my job at the University of Washington and my work in theatre, I most often feel like I'm meeting too many people...Too many to keep track of and hold as more than acquaintances. Though there are some that have really enriched my life and sense of community in the past weeks.

Mwende- She's a senior at UW and is involved with the Student Labor Action Project (with specific work with garment factories hired by UW in Guatemala). We met this quarter as part of UW's small mixed community. Her mother is Kenyan and her father is Anglo-American. Long ago, Dave and I noticed her and her boyfriend (who is white) on the bus to church. We like noticing interracial couples and thought they were cute. Then, they ended up showing up at our church (which is remarkable, because she has serious baggage with Christianity....namely, British imperialist Christians in Kenya degrading her family's native culture and teaching them that anything Kenyan is evil and dirty). So a while after meeting her officially, I realized that she was the woman on the bus and I couldn't believe the "coincidence". I am honored to be one of the few Jesus-followers in her life and I really dig her!

Our Mixed gatherings have been really fun and I've met lots of other mixed Seattlelites like a German-American woman whose daughter is half-Punjabi (Pakistani) and trying to intentionally nurture her daughter's identity. Anyway, I love that kind of stuff.

I sang in a show recently on campus for Black History Month and shared the stage with local neo-soul artist named Choklate. She just did a show at Dmitriou's Jazz Alley, Seattle's most popular jazz club. She's the first local artist to ever grace the stage.

Since I've been doing more theatre, I've met lots of interesting new folks that have taught me a lot about the business of theatre and, generally, enhanced my life. I recently took a class with Kate Godman, the former casting director of a large Seattle regional theatre, who was a wealth of information and encouragment. My classmates were also amiable and inspiring.

PAUSE: What does it mean to meet a new person? I mentioned in my last post that meeting someone was valuable to me whether I'd see them again or not, but I'm noticing that a lot of my meetings are in very structured contexts (a group meeting, a class, a performance). I find a lot of comfort in structure. Spontaneous meetings actually STRESS ME OUT. As we pursue better community, do I need to grow out of this? Or is it okay that I enjoy meeting people within anticipated structures and not when, say, I haven't taken a shower (I like showers) and need some alone time.

While here in Utah, Kira & Andy and Dave & I were discussing long-term plans for living together. I felt like unless we had a real practical conversation about it, we would continue to mention the dream in passing and it would never happen. So we did and so far, we've envisioned all moving to Mexico in the summer of 2011 to gain some perspective and language development before returning and really planting roots together back in the U.S.. The hardest thing for me in considering living in a house/neighborhood community is the requirement to be comfortable with spontaneity. Kids are really going to mess me up. I'll learn quickly. :)

And speaking of moving out of the country...what would we do with all our stuff!?!?
Would we put stuff we care about in storage (ugh) or give it all away? What would we take with us?

I've given away some books and clothes from our house in the past few weeks. But I also acquired clothes to replace them. Dave and I decided to no longer buy canned food (because of nutrition/health/waste issues). This will upset any habits of having "quick food" like refried beans or soup.

The most intense experience I've had with stuff recently came in helping my parents move. They are downsizing from 1600 sq. ft. house in Portland, Oregon to a 1000 sq. ft. house on the Washington coast. It's a huge step for them that caused a lot of stress and provoked them to face the nature of their relationship with stuff. I'm really proud of them. It was really fun to help turn 5 boxes of pictures into 1 or go through the last few bits of keepsakes I had in the attic and get rid of superfluous items.

I really appreciated being able to touch every single thing in my parents' possession at this point in their lives, because at the point at which they pass away (decades from now) it will be my responsibility to deal with what they have acquired and left behind. I was having flashbacks of going through Auntie Ina and Uncle Herman's house, opening a drawer with ten eyeglass cases and a closet with five irons...[shudder]

A closing thought: one of the best quotes I've ever heard regarding simplicity and poverty was in a Willow Creek Church interview with Shane Claibourne. He said, in effect, "if you have two coats, you've stolen one." Food for thought...

Peace out.
Yasi

PART 2: A Little Bit Mo

2008-03-19T09:51:00.004-06:00

Well, I thought I would have more to say and only corny things came to mind such as: "The journey of life is like a slow moving river that empties into the sea called death" and then I got a visual on the millions of plastic bags that are floating in the ocean and it was not a pretty site; or "if only American youth today had the social conciousness we had in the '60's" and I thought well none of my kids have a problem with this one, in fact they could use a little boost of capitalism...

I loved the quote that Kira's Dean at Princeton used at graduation from John Adams that actually brought me to tears as I thought of my own father's hard work as an immigrant to this country:
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain".
John AdamsUS diplomat & politician (1735 - 1826)

Wow! The light went on here for me. My dad came to this country to join the American dream of freedom and opportunity, paving the way so that I would have choices. David & I---both immigrant children, and we have the privilege of going to college (me being the first to graduate in my family), have the chance to have professional careers and to own our own home. This was a dream that was shared with me: physical and emotional security; stability that I could give to my children! And we did this in 2 generations. This allows a few of you (Kira, Gabe, Yasi) to have the "options"---such as art, music, going to Princeton---and philosophizing on how the previous generations screwed up the environment, should have done a better job (duh), how we've ruined it for your children in such a short time.... Our parents were involved in survival---putting a roof on our heads and food on the table sprinkled with some culture and hope. David & I were given a ticket and place in line to create something new. We got on board with things like: intentional marriage, intentional parenting, job security, owning a home...which gave us some rest---so that we could then gaze out the window and take note of peace & justice issues...and then have the strong foundations laid so that we could venture out and actually work on them to make a difference... I remember spending many hours in the dining halls and at Bible studies with David discussing our involvement with "saving the world"--- lots of "Big Things" (remember this was a time of political unrest, Vietnam, SLA, the Beatles, "love the one you're with", Nixon...)...but can you love your spouse, children, neighbor? Are you a "peacemaker"? Maybe it's the "Little Things" that count, that then add up to the "Big Thing". Maybe it's the conviction to move in a direction...like faith...like swimming upstream...

Moving right along, when I told David I would list the things that I had "52 More of..." he said it sounded like an "anti-Blog". He's right. The spirit of this is so important---but I have already failed in "52 Less Things". Unless, I lived on a self sustaining compound, off the grid, off somewhere...I don't believe this is possible. [By the way, I think you should all seriously pursue this---"build it and they will come"]. Sanely---can 52 Less Things really matter if the question of "what 52 Things are you acquiring" that offsets the point of 52 Less? I gave away 52 things already in 2008, but I have replaced them all and then some. Needs...wants? Some of both and somewhat relative.

Kira made the statement the other day to me something to the affect: By purchasing that I am saying that my family time comes at the expense of another family's time together since that Mom or Dad had to leave their family to go to work to make this thing so I could buy it. Wow---I hadn't thought of that exactly. I just figured it's called a job---which we should all have---since it contributes to your personal well being (food and shelter) and the well being of society (goods and services that ideally improve quality of life/health). I think we were talking about a bicycle for Pace or something. Poor kid---you could teach him to scoot around on a cardboard. We used to slide down grass hills this way---maybe he won't ever want a bike. Maybe you should sell all of your jewelry too and fund the bicycle making family for a year and they could have quality time together...and they could go out and buy a plasma screen TV... What are we talking about!? If you went to the grocery store this week, someone left their family to plant the crops, pick, pack, deliver, stock the shelves and sold it to you! Kira, we talked about this later and I used the words "torment"---although I agree apathy and resignation are not helpful, but let's not torment ourselves this is also a form of indulgence.

So, before I get to "action points" let me just mention a few of the 52 more people part of this: Joyce & Genevieve who sold Girl Scout cookies to us when we were at Kira's; Kalyan Rai the artist from Park City who is a Tibetan who grew up in India, speaks fluent Hindi and asked me to help his friend Rajdeep Moktan (also from Tibet) who lives in NY get into BYU---emails, phone calls, networking, etc.; Ilsabeth, as well as Kathrine West (Episcopal Rector) & Karen Cope---great little, but serious chats after our yoga classes; Saroj, Grandma's pharmacist who is Sikh/Thai; Linda & Sharon both service folks who wanted to talk and connect about their grandkids, husband's health, etc.; our crazy neighbor Bruce who came over yesterday to resolve a fence issue---just in the nick of time since I wanted to sue his _ _ _---all brief encounters but meaningful. I also avoided people: Margaret Hundal (Uncle Harold's widow) who calls often and must have Alzheimer's, Lash who called Sunday while I was at REI shopping and I haven't called him back yet, many others who are always asking me to attend one more meeting or volunteer for one more thing...

So here are 2 Action Points:
1-Save money, that you have obtained legally, to buy land for the family compound that incorporates the ethics and values you hope to model. In the meantime, identifying the location and what it might look like in practice are good to pursue.
2-Have a "Bloggers Retreat". Perhaps, Ruby's Inn at Bryce Canyon National Park at least 3 days in late spring or early fall weather. Hiking the hoodoos is humbling and needless to say puts all of this in perspective. If you make it down, we can help with some food and lodging. We would need to pick a date and have firm commitments.

Well I am signing off now til next time. I love and respect you all dearly, looking forward to the many new things I continue to learn. As the great Irish poet Oscar Wilde (since it was just St Paddy's Day) said "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

Here's to hope...Cheers! Lakshmi

PART 1: 52 More and 52 More and More and More

2008-03-18T18:30:00.005-06:00

Thank you all for your posts and enlightened comments these last weeks. I have been busy out shopping! But before I forget, Gabe & Dave, thanks for your great comments on the Sonoma Mountain Village response (off the Blog). Dave, it was good to hear about the Aprovecho Community and Gabe your comment: "My hope, surprise surprise, is that our family could make a more radical change, entirely throw out the whole American paradigm and not just try to paint brown shit green, that is, live exactly the same life as before but now just powered by solar energy", was priceless! Sincerely, I appreciate the dynamic conversation and sharing convictions. I have been a slacker on this Blog but have truly been inspired and provoked (also pissed) reading it at times. Let me explain. For example I have been inspired by Kira's comments to reduce egg consumption. It must have hit me at the right moment cuz I threw out the remaining (past freshness date) eggs that I had in the frig that I hardly use anyway and thought---I could do that...Baby Step... The next recipe I made "Tofu Quiche", I used flax meal and made it completely vegan. Didn't miss the eggs... Kira sharing the comment led to inspiring me to take an action that was in my comfort zone. Nothing too noble here. But provoked is just the exhaustion I feel from realizing this is a conversation David & I have led for DECADES---seriously since we were 19 years old (we are 54 now...do the math). We have been at the extremes (not like Gabe exactly) but close to it (our stories would include the shack, the housesit, the empty army barracks, the Boycott Newsletter, etc). We have intensely struggled in every phase of our relationship: to marry or not vs just living together, to have children or not since the end was coming...and during our years in Berkeley to live communally or keep renting or to buy a house or not to buy...and when the kids were little we attended all the protest marches, as well as peace rallies, trying to save ourselves and couciousness-raise for the benefit of our church, neighbors and children. So did we just "sell out", "get old and lazy", "been there, done that", "join the matrix", "compromise our ethics and values" (same as "selling out")? Yes and no...maybe and maybe not... Perhaps we are guilty as Gabe says, being just another cog in the "American paradigm" and I am fully aware and recognize that I am part of the problem...and that you are too. To be human! In India and China there are literally billions of people who are consumers and loving it. They will most surely surpass us in consumption and manage to ruin the environment long before the US of A can even decide to "limit green house gases" or before we can even finish our blogging efforts of enlightening and challenging one another to be better people. So what we do may be "too little, too late". But hey, I'm not saying I'm off the hook or I'm resigning myself to doom by "those people"... We and our fellow Americans are doing a damn good job of this all by ourselves---trouble is, as far as the 3rd world goes, we started something that is now out of our control. The smell of daily burning plastic and choking smog in India is fresh in my mind... So where does this leave the conversation---oh yeah back to being so busy since I have been out shopping. No kidding, here is what I have recently purchased in part: 4GB Pin Drive, 7 Balloons, 3 DVD + R for copies, 3 Lasagna Pans (various sizes), Popcorn Maker for Kira's Birthday, Flat Iron for my hair (not sure I will keep it), a cool and stylish top at REI, 2 Ex-Officio Shirts & 1 pants for David's Birthday (also from REI), Desk top computer with the latest greatest powerful stuff and the WINNER IS: a new Sony Bravia 40"LCD HDTV that arrived today! It is like a very nice (but bigger) computer screen and has an "Energy Star" rating to boot! I am a righteous person because I waited until my one & only 13 year old energy consuming Mitsubishi 32" TV actually died before making this purchase. I am justified because at least I didn't get a 46" or 56" or 60" etc size screen and the energy consuming home theater toys that go with it! I am holy because I'm not like those other people... My consumer religion tells me so!

[Check out cool Sierra Club site that examines "how green is my": TV, Bike, Laundry: http://www.sierraclub.org/howgreen. I scored 90% on my TV test! ]

Since this is so long I will close Part 1 and leave you with this meditation that Gabe & Kira are familiar with:

Found on www.amazon.com
Are My Hands Clean?
by Sweet Honey In The RockFrom the Album Live at Carnegie Hall

Are My Hands Clean?
Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Songtalk Publishing Co. 1985
Performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock. Sweet Honey in the Rock, Live at Carnegie Hall

I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world
35% cotton, 65% polyester, the journey begins in Central America
In the cotton fields of El Salvador
In a province soaked in blood,
Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun
Pulling cotton for two dollars a day.
Then we move on up to another rung—Cargill
A top-forty trading conglomerate, takes the cotton through the Panama Canal
Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for the first time
In South Carolina
At the Burlington mills
Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of the New Jersey petro-chemical mills of Dupont
Dupont strands of filament begin in the South American country of Venezuela Where oil
riggers bring up oil from the earth for six dollars a day
Then Exxon, largest oil company in the world,
Upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad and Tobago
Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic Seas
To the factories of Dupont
On the way to the Burlington mills
In South Carolina
To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador
In South Carolina
Burlington factories hum with the business of weaving oil and cotton into miles of fabric
for Sears
Who takes this bounty back into the Caribbean Sea
Headed for Haiti this time—May she be one day soon free—
Far from the Port-au-Prince palace
Third world women toil doing piece work to Sears specifications
For three dollars a day my sisters make my blouse
It leaves the third world for the last time
Coming back into the sea to be sealed in plastic for me
This third world sister
And I go to the Sears department store where I buy my blouse
On sale for 20% discount
Are my hands clean?

Love you all the best I can :-)
Lakshmi

The Good Earth

2008-03-04T01:46:00.006-07:00

In 2008, being a stay-at-home doesn't mean you can't spend hours window shopping. After spending the evening researching tricycles and double-strollers online at craigslist.com, kslclassifieds.com (local Utah paper), and reading reviews on amazon.com, I'm happy to say that consumerism means I don't even have to get off the couch. I wonder if I can sue the Internet for making me obese? The 50s sitcom showed the stay-at-home mom, perfectly dressed, drinking too many cocktails in the afternoon and having secret affairs with the neighbor down the street; will the 2008 sitcom show the stay-at-home mom in her bathrobe, sitting in front of her computer, buying things?

Pearl Buck explores the cyclical, revolutionary nature, of life through the generations in her 1931 novel, The Good Earth: the cycles of poverty and wealth, both materially and immaterially, the cycles of weather patterns and seasons, the cycles of political power, the cycle of children, parents, and grandparents. There is a lot that could be said on her brilliant layering of these revolutions, but for our purposes there is one revolution in particular that is particularly relevant to our purposes on this blog. She explores man's dependence on the land, both in poverty and in wealth. Two great devastations happen to Wang, Buck's protagonist, in the story. First, extreme poverty to the point of starvation. In desperation, Wang leaves the land and you see life for the poor in the city, where "there is a way in which the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor" (I don't have my copy of the book right now so I can't tell you where the quote is). The rich are so rich that they must not only protect and hoard their wealth behind great walls, they must also hide and protect themselves behind these walls, lest they lose their wealth or their lives. They are so disconnected from the land that their wealth can easily be taken from them because at least according to Pearl Buck, everything can be taken from you but not the land. Who can steal your land? And in fact there is an uprising in the city when the poor become so poor that they will do anything for food, even tear down gates and walls.

Through this uprising, Wang gets enough money to return to his land, which leads to an even worse disaster than starvation, that will ultimately destroy Wang and his family, and that is wealth. Riches take him out of the land. He has laborers to do his work, he doesn't worry anymore about feeding himself and his family, about storing harvests in good years so he's ready for the bad years. He gets bored at home. His mind begins to wander after not just power, money, sex, but PEACE. Oh, the sweetness of a life of peace, carefree, untroubled, quiet peace. A peace that is only found in a coffin, finally returned back to the land from which he came.

Wealth takes his sons completely away from the land, putting them behind walls, in fact selling the land to feed their abstract pleasures. There is a way in which the rich are too rich. The reader is left understanding that without the land, the house of Wang is headed fast toward a material poverty that will accompany its already immaterial one.

My mom recently returned from India, from the farm where my grandpa grew up. Her comment after seeing the village and the land there was, "you should be so thankful your grandfather left!" He left, went to the city so that in one generation the land could be sold and lost for better things. Now we can turn our minds toward pleasure and peace. Now his granddaughter can successfully shop and provide for her family without ever getting off of the couch. But there is a way in which the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. Even if I don't see anything as dramatic as the third-world poor rising up against my suburban walls, even if I don't see anything as dramatic as the stock-market crashing and the banks closing and my wealth being taken from me, I don't know the land and I don't feel dependent on it. So whether I know it or not I'm already impoverished.

This week we bought a bike trailer for the kids, in the grand goal of giving up using our car. So this week we'll use the bike to go do an errand we'd normally use the car for. I also have been using the microwave less and steaming veggies on the stove. They taste better. And much to Pace's delight we've been making bread again instead of buying it. We've also still been having people over for dinner, a couple we met at a Dutch-Reformed church, getting to know some of the young girls that live next door and behind us, and had a meeting the local Episcopal rector.

Like Andy mentioned in his post though, lately I haven't felt particularly stretched in the 52 lately. Actually using the bike trailer we bought instead of a car will be a good one though!!!

2008-02-24T12:46:00.005-07:00

Meeting People on the Bus... from Utah?!

I've been a magnet for people who need help navigating the bus system ever since I stopped wearing my Personal Isolation Device, otherwise known as the iPod. This is awesome because (a) I like spontaneously engaging with random people and (b) I like sharing all the bus-related knowledge that I've accumulated while riding for the past year. A few nights ago, a bus-info conversation lead into a discussion of art and photography that eventually interested a couple other bus-riders enough that they joined in. Then, last night, this group of college-aged kids looked lost, and I overheard that they wanted to go to the Space Needle, so I mentioned to them that they needed the 74 and that it would be here in the next few minutes. They then asked me if I had recommendations for what to see (of course I did), and so I said "are you guys new to town?" and they said "well, kinda - we're attending a mock-European Union meeting at UW, and we're from Utah." Utah!???! I never meet people visiting from UTAH! So, we talked a lot about Salt Lake City and the way it's changing, and one of the girls is working with the new mayor on some project to encourage neighborhood diversity. Pretty fun to meet folks from the Beehive State.

Making Room for Magic

Yesterday was one of those days in Seattle. It was so freakin gorgeous... not a cloud in the sky and you could see both the Cascades and Olympics with nary a particle of smog blocking the view. Every motorcycle rider and convertible driver was out, as well as plenty of people making their first boating excursions of the year. If it was like this all the time, the weather of Denver or something, I think the population would increase ten-fold.

I got on my bike and went for a ride. Everything I had on the to-do list meant spending time indoors, and I knew it was a day for MAGIC, not the mundane. Magic has been happening more often these days in my life... I have to say that I feel like God is prompting me, in the midst of the responsibilities I have that are ongoing, to become more childlike, to follow my instincts, to find obscure trails and then go down them. This prompting is related to memory... I've been having these weird flashbacks - like, I'm suddenly transported via my imagination to the most wonderfully memorable times of my life, times where I palpably recall delicious sensations, and overwhelming feelings of love from and for my companions - ALL THE TIME. A few times a week, I stop (I probably look frozen in place to the people surrounding me), my eyes glaze over, and there's this rushing sound inside my head, I'm somewhere else, some other time, and then I'm like "whoa". And I want to keep making these memories! So, for a magical bike ride, I biked through construction zones, down bike trails that I'd never seen before, through neighborhood streets that terminate in dead ends, into community gardens... all the places that I never have time for if I'm just trying to get from point 'a' to point 'b'. It's like neighborhood-exploring, with less emphasis on science than poetry.

So, how is this related to "one less thing?" Again for me this week, I think it's about changing habits. For some reason, as I've gotten into the routine of work and errands and life in general in our city, I've developed a deep sense of boredom and predictability. I'm bored with the people I see, bored with the buildings, the weather, the streets, the land... *blech!* Out with you, boredom! In with spontaneity, with magic!

Lately loosing flexibility

2008-02-13T22:12:00.004-07:00

Dave thanks for posting those cook books. It would be fun to start incorporating raw foods into our diet more. I think one of my short term goals will be to try the green-vegetable-lemonade recipe you mentioned. It sounds like it has yumminess potential!

I feel like I haven't been stretching myself these past couple weeks to give up some area of unneeded consumption. Part of the problem is that the thing that I am really excited about is the gardening and I have to wait for the thaw for that. So in the meantime what do I do??

First: I need to be more diligent about biking into work. I biked in today for the first time this year (it's been snowing tons and tons, which has made biking difficult, and my bike was getting repairs for a while, but excuses excuses). BUT, I don't really feel that biking into work is that much of a stretch for me anymore. It's kinda nice and I've been missing it.

Second: ... ummm .... this is where I am struggling. I guess I'll have to think about it, but it's good that we have this blog because until I started this post I hadn't even realized that I haven't been stretching myself lately!

Now, on the 52 more people side I feel like I/we have been doing better. We just had my boss over for dinner tonight which was a bit of a stretch I think and good. It's good to develop relationships with your coworkers that aren't just limited to client needs, business development, report writing, blah blah blah. I actually have *friends* from Rohm and Haas (in Philly) that I still keep in touch with even though they can't talk much about work (I'm not in the "confidentiality circle" anymore), and I like that.

Gabe gets the "stamp of a-poo-veil"

2008-02-12T19:11:00.000-07:00

So I've been whittling away at the "EB" list - the list of "Extraneous Bullshit," mostly comprised of habitually destructive (civilized) practices, I want to eliminate from my life and slowly replace with wild counterparts. This is the 52-less focus for me. Since my last entry, the 2 major projects I've been pursuing is in regard to my food source and my shelter. This is how the categories look on my "EB Flow Chart"

1) Shelter

a. In the city: Squat. Pay rent to NO ONE. Clouds don’t pay rent. Foxes don’t pay rent. Neither should I.

i. Lock: Ask locksmith friend of mine to do it

ii. DIY replace pins in lock with kit at local hardware store or Home Depot (maybe get a decal to put on side of someone’s car I borrow, iron-on vests or whatever official shit we need, with fictitious locksmith company logo on it)

b. In the country: Camp, guerrilla cabin, temporary shelter, keep moving on bike tours, squat, etc. Pay rent to NO ONE

NOTE on RENT: we’re so addicted to rent or mortgage that if we’re not paying it, we start feeling like we’re being lazy, doing something wrong, stealing, being irresponsible, feel like we need to LOOK for a place to pay rent for. The idea that we should be able to live, like the rabbit in the field, any damn place we want to, goes directly against the civilized brainwashing we’ve received since birth. The last thing the civilized mind wants you to be is wild, is living at the hands of the Gods, is crafty and creative like a coyote or fox making their den. The world doesn’t need rent. I don’t need rent. I want access to LAND. Free, like God intended it. If they deny me my God-given right, I’ll seize it back by whatever crafty means I want to. Their huge scary army doesn’t trump my right to figure out shelter for myself with my own two hands and my crafty little brain.

1) Food

a. Bushcraft: wild edible plants of my bioregion

b. Fishing.

i. How if I don’t have a fancy pole?

ii. How do I prepare it to eat? What fishes can be eaten unskinned and raw – is dressing a fish just for palatability or is it necessary for some element of safety these days?

iii. Store it? Dehydration, refrigeration, freezing

c. Hunting & Trapping.

i. How if I don’t have a fancy gun or weapon?

ii. How if I do have one (gun, bow & arrow, knife, etc.)

iii. Ethics: when I go out, maybe track and stalk the prey, spare it, then find roadkill and dress it instead.

iv. How do I use every part?

d. In Country: Seed saving

e. canning

f. In City: Food Not Bombs,

i. friday cook house is at 568 1/2
shotwell @ 20th st. the contact person there is brian 415-374-5447.
feel free to come by after 2pm on Fridays

ii. arrange pick-up at Rainbow and Potrero Whole Foods. Ashley Paulson, marketing & store rep 415.552.1155 x 260. Ashley.Paulson@wholefoods.com

g. Dumpster dive with more gusto

h. Food Pantry

i. Food Stamps

i. SF Food Assistance Center

1235 Mission St. (@8^th St.)
(415) 558.1001 food assistance center x1, 2

just walk in anytime before 3pm. Morning is the best.

j. Food buying co-op

k. Volunteer at Alemany Farm,

l. Grow food at the Pink Palace

My first major victory was successfully supplementing my food scavenging techniques with Foodstamps. The greatest part is that because I'm so poor, I qualify for $163 p. month!!! I'm still basically ecstatic about that and all the tangelos and pears it represents. I look at my monthly "Food Assistance for Active Rewilding Artists Grant" as the least amount of tax the government can pay me for systematically destroying people, air, water, soil, communities, and every other good and vibrant thing -- while I'm busy figuring out how to dismantle it in myself, and then as it exists around me...

My shelter exploration wasn't as immediately satisfying as my first food exploration, but it was a valuable learning experience. I found out about an upscale property here in the Mission District that was going to be left empty for the next 5 years (the property was rent controlled and the landlord, to get out of the rent control, evicted the tenants and then by law has to leave it vacant for the next 5 years). On one adrenaline-filled night I climbed up some fire escapes and jumped from roof to roof until I got through its 3-story back window. Before I changed the locks and moved all my stuff in I wanted to know more. I arranged a meeting with one of the chief organizers of Homes Not Jails (an SF housing activism org that started after a homeless person died of wet & cold in front of a notoriously empty office building), who took me to the City Center and showed me how to look up the deed, current owner's info, property tax status, all that stuff. He also shed a little realism on my rosy picture. He said that as a squatter you can expect to be moving every 3 days - 2 weeks, that most squats tend to not last very long unless you've really researched your spot and the landlord is dead or lives in Florida, the property taxes haven't been paid in 7 years, the place is in fabulous shape, and the neighbors love squatters...
Thinking about going on tour a couple times a year and leaving behind my important papers and things, only to come back and see it all destroyed, sobered me up a bit.
All said though, it was a great learning experience, and I feel now that, if I ever HAD to squat, I know now how to do it.

52 More: Yesterday I met Dancing Wolf and his lover Joan who're from Edmonton and who're living out of their van in the Mission. I told em about rock & roll bike touring, they told me about ecstatic Kundilini dancing. It was cool. I've also been trying to wave to my neighbors more - just to increase the overall good vibes.

Change with Kids

2008-02-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

First off, Yasi and Dave, TEACH ME HOW TO COOK RAW FOODS!!! Recipes? Foods that go together? Ideas? Books? Where do I start? With kids, soft foods is a must or it comes out looking just how it went in, and I imagine you don't just grab a handful of lentils and start crunching. :) Oh, my raw food ignorance abounds....except for trail mix. I'm great at making trail mix.

So Yasi and Dave's post really inspried me. This week I think I'll give up using the microwave for at least one day. Pathetic and small but a first step! And I totally want to claim the kid card in saying that on the one hand it's for their sake I want to live with integrity in the first place but on the other hand, its for their sake that change has to be slow and careful (as far as it goes).

Also, I have officially eliminated eggs from my diet (well almost), much to Andy's dismay. But he hasn't seem to notice too much except for the rock cookies I made the other week. Ground flax-seed is not a good egg-sub in cookies. I think I'll try applesauce/bananas next time.

We have still been having neighbors over and I got to give something away to the Browns (our neighbors on the left with three girls) when they came over - a purple amethyst necklace that I've had forever - to their nine-year-old girl.

We also had some friends of friends over last week, Jill and Seth - an Intervarsity couple, from Montana. They had some great recommendations for us on finding other Christians in Salt Lake seeking to live simply so hopefully they are a door to some bigger community here, we'll see.

Yasmin and Dave - week 5/6

2008-02-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

It seems that all of us have taken a tack on how we'll approach this project, and now the work to do is simply maintain momentum and abide by the principles we've established.

More People: I just finished my first class in a certificate course for multimedia design & development, and our final project was to make a presentation employing photos of our classmates. While working on the project at home, Yasmin looked at one of the photos and said, "Wait, is that Yoon?!" Yasmin had been at the first meeting of a bookclub a few weeks ago, hosted by our pastor's daughter, and had met a woman named Yoon. Yoon: 1. works at Seattle Art Museum, 2. has a husband who is a painter & art instructor, 3. is an Intervarsity Alum (!), and now attends a bookclub with Yasmin and a class with me! Furthermore, their family recently relocated from NYC, and spent years living in apartments similar in size to ours. It's like we found a perfect-match on e-harmony or something, the number of things we have in common. So, we'll be getting together Yoon, her husband, and their two kids as time moves forward.

Less Things: During weeks 5 & 6, which I'm conflating, Yasmin and I decided we could live without a microwave. Our diet is progressing more and more towards the "raw" end of the spectrum, so we're finding fewer occasions when we need to cook or reheat food. We'd considered ditching the microwave for awhile, and besides the occasional bowl of reheated brown rice the most useful task it performed was reading out the time to us in red digital. Besides, it was really ugly perched atop our bookshelf. So, the microwave is in our storage unit, waiting for a time when we can take it and other items to Goodwill using a Flexcar. Hooray!

Dave during Week 4

2008-01-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

1 More Person: Aster! (sounds like Esther)
Aster is a business-owner in our neighborhood, and she has been friendly to Yasmin and me since we moved in and began frequenting her establishment. However, partially because of language barriers, our conversations have never progressed past niceties. This week, however, she asked, "how is your wife?" I decided to be honest, and said, "well, she had a surgical operation on her sinuses in December, and her recovery went well, but she's had tremendous ear-aches this past week."

Aster gave me her consolations, and then went on to explain that her daughter has had horrible sinus headaches, ear infections, and respiratory problems for the past seven years, and they have visited a battery of doctors and feel like they have no options left. So she was really curious to know what procedure Yasmin underwent. I described that Yasmin had similar experiences (years of problems, feelings of concern that a solution would ever be discovered) and that we've been encouraged by a few different options. One, that part of the solution might be homeopathic and dietary (no dairy means less mucous in the respiratory system, same with soy). Two, that ENTs (Ear-nose-throat doctors) are far more qualified to deal with these situations than family practice doctors. Aster begged me to bring her the name of an ENT, and now I have something of genuine value to provide her the next time I see her.

My experience with Aster helped me reflect on what it will mean to connect with people in this neighborhood: the connection might not be obvious or immediate, but bonds of friendship grow when there is something to share in or when we can travel together around mutual concerns. We were both sharing our concerns over someone we love very deeply, and we're both in the process of dealing with challenges and maintaining hope. I'm excited to hear updates from Aster about her daughter, and to share progress of my wife's health.

1 Less Habit: iPod on the Bus?
Ignore People Onthebus, Discreetly

I'll stop listening to the iPod on the bus.

My one less habit hasn't changed yet, because I'm still thinking about it and it is genuinely challenging to me. I bought an iPod a little over a year ago when I first began daily bus commutes. At first, there were times that I took opportunities to engage others in conversation, but mostly I found that we (the busriders) just sort of zoned-out and stared out the windows. Zoning out has its place, as does staring out windows, but I was sure I could do something more exciting with this time, such as: practice french! So I bought the iPod, having since filled it with music, yoga videos... and even a few french lessons.

(I would read during travel, as others sometimes do, most notably during the rush-hour periods when the buses are filled with young professionals, but I get incredible motion-sickness within minutes of opening a book.)

I've discovered, however, that I don't necessarily have the focus, energy, or ability to mentally separate myself from the reality that I'm closely surrounded by strangers so that I can practice saying aloud, "Mademoiselle! Ou-est la rue Saint-Jacque s'il vous plait?" Further, sometimes I am so excited for the continuation of the Nas album that I'm listening to, that I don't take my earbuds out when I exit the bus, and I turn into one of "those people" that is doing his best iPod-commercial take-offs, jamming around the streetscape totally oblivious to everyone around him.

So here's the rub:
-I think the "right answer" (Q: who died for our sins? A: Jesus!) is to not only stop listening to the iPod in public, but also to give this thing away to someone else, AND to get out of the "I commute on the bus nearly every day" situation as quickly as possible, AND to use all my down-time as opportunities to make small drawings or connect with people and kneel and serve the poor that surround me.
-I wonder "does this actually make the enterprise of bus-riding more bearable / sustainable for me in a good way, the same as listening to music on trains and airplanes?"

I think I'll take time to pray about how to BE, on a daily basis, in our city... this probably isn't just about the iPod :)

(Nearly) Dreaming of Sustainability

2008-01-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

Yikes you guys write a lot! 30 minutes later I am caught up...

First off kudos to Kira for getting the structure for this conversation in place. And kudos to everyone else for jumping in with both feet.

Gabe somewhere back there you talked about giving up habits instead of things, that's a great idea. And regarding the "52 more" side, I don't think everyone we meet has to become a great friend. For Kira and me right now it definitely makes sense to be meeting our neighbors and investing in that community, but I would have no trouble "counting" a 15 minute conversation (of relative substance) with someone I have no chance of ever meeting again. How cool would our city communities be if people just talked to one another instead of staring blankly ahead or watching the levels go by in the elevator?

I feel like the general thrust is to intentionally stretch ourselves out of consumption and into community. So I for one would not be a fan of rules around what counts and what doesn't. If we want to do this we'll stretch ourselves and hopefully this blog will be accountability enough to keep us going when (in the moment) we don't want to.

Ok, I'd like to write more but I'm sleepy and keep writing stuff I don't like and deleting it. So, I'm going to stop now while I'm not too far behind.

52 New People

2008-01-20T23:42:00.000-07:00

Welcome Yasi! I really liked your comment about wanting to only invest in a small number of people but that you see the value in meeting new people each week in Seattle. I've been really struggling with the idea that just adding 52 new people to our list of acquaintances may not be the best idea, that in fact it is quintessentially American to have lots of people-clutter in your life, as Gabe said. But you argued that even if it is only a "hi" relationship later on, you will definitely feel more connected to your community by getting to know 52 more people.

We have been meeting our neighbors the last weeks and are committed to keep going as part of our 52 new people this year. Last week, we had Dave and Lisa along with their two boys (10 yrs. old and 4 yrs. old) over for dinner. It was fun getting to hear about their journey together so far, growing up in this area, going to school in L.A., being physical therapists, waiting to have kids, looking forward to empty-nest years, or the trip they're planning to take this spring. Who knows if we will become lasting friends but knowing a little more about the folks who live across the street is invaluable to us. Now when Andy and I want to start a permaculture garden in the grass that grows between our sidewalk and the street, we can ask them what they think of it, what they'd like to walk by and eat later in the summer. It can be a community project that we can get neighbor input on because we've taken the initial time to meet them. I also like to keep in the back of my head what my dad likes to say, or some variations on it, that whatever we're doing, excited about, and so on - who knows how it will be used, how it will end up lifting somebody up in an unexpected way. God multiplies our meager offerings in ways that we couldn't have foreseen.

This week Andy and I gave up our hair to Locks of Love (this is our 2nd time - hooray for fast-growing healthy hair). It's an unusual thing to give away but by having less hair, we spend less resources on water and hair-care products so it is probably a really valuable thing to give away, not just in its initial gift of hair to somebody who can't grow any.

Also as an administrative note, if you have resources to add to the resource list, please email me the details and I can add them to the sidebar, thanks!

Jumping on the Bandwagon...

2008-01-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!
This first post marks my jumping on this bandwagon and I write not because I have necessarily started yet, but so that I will have the accountability to really go for it in week 4. I have some catching up to do.

Though I did give away many things and meet new people in the last 4 weeks, so I think I'm on the right track. I feel like the challenge for 52 more people and 52 less things are specific invitations to generosity, sharing, as well as valuing friendship and community. Just by nature of where I live (a 350 sq. ft. condo with my husband, Dave) I give away things all the time. But there are things that I could share that would challenge my generosity. And this does not necessarily seem to be about simplifying my life because people are complicated and I'm an extreme introvert. I'd rather maintain close family relationships and have 5 close friends and be done with it. Acquaintances exhaust me. However, I could meet 52 new people and have a warm, mutually satisfying exchange without having to burden myself with maintain those friendships in the future. Meeting 52 new people in Seattle would undoubtedly mean I would feel more connected to my community. Perhaps I will run into those people again, but even if I don't I think my spirit will feel more connected to the collective story of those around me.

Week 1: I was exhausted to and from St. Louis so I ignored everyone on the plane. But in St. Louis I did meet Rajeev (born in Sri Lanka) who is a new rapper in LA and partnered with us in doing some theatre & dance at InterVarsity's national staff conference. And I met Vanessa who was a server at the hotel who made sure I had fabulous vegan/wheat-free lunches the whole time I was there. I made sure to let her know that she made my stay because it sucks to eat apples and peanut butter for a week. Speaking of generosity...when none of the desserts wafting across your face all week are vegan, a sweet-tooth like me gets desperate. So I've learned to keep a nice ration of organic, fair trade, dark chocolate bars with almonds in my backpack. Of course, when I break out such luscious treasures everybody wants some and the only child in me screams 'Mine!'. I count it a victory in character that I was able to divide up my precious chocolate bar to 3 meat & dairy eating friends with a smile :)

Week 2: Back in Seattle. I met two wonderful people! Michael McBride, a local make-up artist and Susan Doupe, a local photographer. In a grand example of bartering, Dave had done some graphic design work for Michael's website and he offered to give me makeup in return. Well, I don't really wear much makeup, but when I was getting my headshots taken I needed makeup and I called him up. He did a private session in my house the day of! He's is a fun new friend. And he also needs his teeth fixed, so we had an interesting conversation about Dave doing design work for a dentist, who would clean Michael's teeth, and Michael would do my make-up whenever I needed him. Dave and I also packed up a ton of stuff to sell and give away. We had to rent a Flexcar for an hour to rid of it (less stuff, less need for a stinkin' car). But we went to Goodwill, a local bookstore, and a local cd store and made some money off of things that we no longer use. It felt good. The amount of things we gave away could be enough to reach the quota, but that's not the point.

Week 3: I met Rosy Betz-Zall this week, a local vocal coach who was very helpful and encouraging. I also had a great experience on Wednesday night when my acting coach, Gin, invited me to join her for opening night of a show at Seattle Rep. She was a dialect coach for this new play about Hurricane Katrina. Free theatre? Sign me up! The energy was high and they had a party afterwards during which Gin proceeded to introduce me to many of the who's who in Seattle theatre. I particularly enjoyed meeting Amber and Andy, local actors. I think I will see more of them in the future. The thing I gave away this week was TIME. As I have been in an abnormal amount of pain (severe ear aches and some temporary hearing loss) all I have wanted to do is stay in bed. But on several occasions I have chosen to meet with students and tend to obligations in our church (who has lost her mind! by the way) and push through physical suffering trusting that certain interpersonal appointments will be worth it. And they have been.

Okay, that's all from me. It's rough to keep up with everyone's long entries even though we all have profound things to say and I'm encouraged. I am especially appreciative of Auntie Lakshmi's honesty. I'm enjoying the dialogue because of the surprising complexity of this endeavor. It will undoubtedly be a rich year.

Love you all,
Yasi

Opus Dei...not likely

2008-01-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

It's amazing and alarming reading posts written by my family. It's amazing because we all have these unique and somewhat quirky takes on the same subject. Alarming because these thought processes and actions impact me to a degree.

So Kira's going to give away the presents we get her kids...bye bye bunny :-( And have her neighbors over for dinner...

David's going to keep ordering blueberries from the repressive government of Chile for his pancakes @ Mimi's while getting to know his waiter better and give up old hurts...

Gabriel's going to "do his business" in a compost toilet somewhere in San Francisco and quit emailing us altogether...

Sounds like 2008 is going to be a challenging and exciting year afterall!

Since I am just continuing to give away the gifts I acquired in India---I've been successful doing the giving away part...and I met David's new waiter friend this past Sunday...so now he's my friend too! I did buy a hairblower this week at Costco since my old one sounded and smelled as though it might catch my hair on fire any minute, but hey I passed up those blueberries and blackberries in the produce section since they were from Chile (and I know better!)...I also tore up my Chico's coupon for $25 off if I spend $100 since one more new piece of clothing was a "want" and not a "need". Having "lost luggage" for almost 2 weeks in India, you find out fast what you can live without (but good thing Taj Palace Hotels provided bathrobes and good shampoo in the rooms)...

I am faced with thoughts of self-flagellation (ala Da Vinci Code's description of Opus Dei) since I am wracked with guilt for not having more profound visions as I participate in 52-52...or not being too impressed with how others are responding to the challenge. I think that's the problem with being a wife and mother to these bloggers.

No one's asked me to be the critique but I come back to my comment to Kira's first Post: If you give away all your stuff, it just means you'll borrow my stuff or I will have to spend more money to replace stuff so you are not destitute!

If Kira is going to give away her kids stuff I would rather know upfront so I can save my money... But then I'll feel that my grandkids are somewhat deprived while their parents are on some selective "less is more" kick. Afterall, every kid will eventually need a Mr. Potato Head toy and she may just give it away! Pace, you can give me your toys and I will hide them out until this passes...

David in the meantime is spreading his good cheer and income around in restaurants...which means he's getting to know the waiter, but not eating at home, learning to cook or inviting others to dine...like the idiom says "put your mouth where your money is"... or vice versa...

Gabriel's going to become a bit more extreme in his living than he already is...since using a compost toilet in the middle of San Francisco probably means he's constructed one illegally since no zoning ordinance would allow it---which means he may get arrested or cited which means legal fees and court dates.... If you eat less, you would poop less and you could save water that way too...think about it...

As I wonder what week 3 holds, I was provoked by Robyn Blumner's essay this past week in the Salt Lake Trib as she discussed Benjamin Barber's new book Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, "...Barber says all this material consumption is holding adulthood at bay and killing the citizen in us all. The book encapsulates what I've been thinking for a long time. By elevating acquisition to a pre-eminent life goal (President Bush's call to the nation in response to the 9/11 attacks was ''go shopping''), we have become consumers over citizens; consumers over neighbors; consumers over readers, thinkers, activists and family members". (Let me know if you want a copy of the entire essay).

52-52 can be that opportunity to "know" 52 more people and have 52 less things---but in the process let's not get shallow or legalistic or self-righteous or extreme; let's not forget we are citizens, husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, sister, parent, neighbor and friend... Let's have some balance and NOT take ourselves too lightly lest we float away on the shallow wind or seriously think "flagellation of the mind" will move this conversation forward...

Just thinking here in Orem how much I love you all...bunny too!

Bowled Over

2008-01-15T22:34:00.000-07:00

I'm so pleased with our different voices and all from one family! It makes me look forward to hearing Pace and Satya lay in their voice over ours someday. Pace can now say "bow" as in the "bow" on his cow. He can't say "cow" yet. But he and I had a good morning cleaning out clothes and toys that we could give to Family Promise Salt Lake, an organization that supports local interfaith churches/meetinghouses to use their facilities to house the homeless. Pace understood that anything that went in the bag was being given away. Seeing a bunny in the bag that he knew had originally been given to Satya, troubled him. He wanted to keep it. I showed him the two other bunnies we already had. Tonight when I was cleaning up the toys in the living room, I found the bunny back on his toy shelf. To him, that's where the bunny is supposed to go, with his toys. I'm not so different. I'm used to things filling up the spaces I live in. Clothes in drawers, shoes in closets, decorations in tubs sitting outside the storage room...I liked what Gabe talked about: the land as our home, our real home. These bunnies that sit on shelves are not what we really need. Watching Pace, watching any kid, shows how few toys/things we need to be human and in fact if you give Pace too much stuff he starts getting frantic and just wants to be hugged. We weren't made to hoard as much as we do.

But here is my dilemma. I keep getting more and more stuff. I can't seem to give away enough to make up for how much stuff I'm given or buy. 1 bathmat, 25 CDs, 1 DVD, 4 baby outfits, 4 shirts, 1 shawl, 1 bracelet, 1 purse, 2 kid shirts, 1 pair of kid slippers... It's only 15 days into the year and I've already accumulated a wardrobe! My personal goal this year with the 52-52 is to have a net zero consumption (just a crude gain one item/ give one item ratio). But I'm fighting a losing battle at this rate. Or more realistically, I'm going to turn-over my whole house with new items in and old items out. Not exactly the goal...

We got to meet our neighbors - Joseph, Karen, and Erica Nielsen - this week by having them over for dinner. Even though it was only polite conversation, perhaps that is a first step to building a more profound relationship. I don't want to clutter my life with more acquaintances I can't realistically invest time in either but I do want to begin to strengthen my community and instill a value in my kids for getting to know their neighbors. So inviting neighbors to dinner is where we'll start.

How Do Angels Fly?

2008-01-14T22:42:00.000-07:00

“How do angels fly? They take themselves so lightly.”

I accept the challenge of 52-52 as a training course in heavenly aeronautics, flying lightly, angelically. Excess baggage not only weighs us down; it hides our wings, changes our form. Junk covers our eyes so that we cannot see who we are. We are not just fat and sassy, we are blinded, stumbling past joyful scenes that would make an angel sing and dance. . .and since Pace and Satya need song and dance partners, I choose to follow the way of angels and take myself lightly.

By “excess baggage” I refer not simply to stuff. I am never heavier, unable to take wing, than when I refuse to let go and rise above a harsh word spoken against me, an unkind act done to me. Talk about being weighted down! Shedding myself of 52 physical items in the coming year is child’s play compared to ridding myself of painful grudges. Sure, I lighten my load by freeing myself of material fooey. But I cannot lift off and soar if all the while I am consuming—and being consumed by—hurtful memories and poisonous thoughts of vengeance. So, as I have given away a great pair of boots to Savers and donated legal texts to a law school in China, I have also used the time to clear out unwanted, unneeded old wounds.

52-52 has become for me, therefore, an exercise not only in giving but in forgiving. That’s how angels fly.

Which takes me to meeting 52 new stranger-friends. The more room I have freed up inside and out, within and around me, the more space I seem to have to meet new people. Ana Maria, a Latina applicant to the law school was deeply pleased by the extra time I took to answer her questions about the legal profession in general and BYU Law School in particular. Mindful of 52-52, I realized she was a stranger that I was called to befriend. I asked more questions about her background and learned she had lived through extraordinary adversity. I then helped her figure out how and where her life story ought to fit in her personal statement accompanying her application. Derrick, a waiter I have gotten to know and now ask for by name at Mimi’s Restaurant on Sunday mornings, is no longer a stranger to me (he has memorized my breakfast order exactly as I like it!). In my Community Lawyering class I have tried even more than usual to help my 10 new law students learn to trust me and each other as trusted partners.

Go 52-52! Buelo

Gabe @ 2 Weeks In

2008-01-13T22:02:00.000-07:00

Why is it so freaking hard for me to meet a stranger! I'm surrounded by them! They're everywhere. They're there on their bikes waiting for the stoplight to change, they're one of the 9 people living in my house, they've got freckles and they're selling me garlic at the grocery store... It should be as easy as tapping any one of these people on the shoulder and saying: "I'm Gabe, you're my friend and you just don't know it yet. I think this is the beginning of everlasting love, community, and a new sustainable world. Take my hand, run with me." Right?

But seriously. I thought when I began the 52-52 that meeting people would be the easiest part of the deal for me. I'm the guy on the elevator who starts the conversation with the weird-looking-beard guy in the cut-off's about his heavy metal tattoo. I'm the guy who talks the redneck with the gun into not shooting him and instead gets pumpkin pie and coffee given to him. I talk to people. I'm a talker, the woodpecker: repeatedly sticking my mouth where it doesn't belong is how I make my home.

So what gives? Why don't I have 2 bright and shining relationships to show for my 2 weeks?

I think there's a few answers to this question. 1 reason is that I thought it would come more naturally and easily, and I've realized, that to really get to KNOW a person, to be committed to a person in relationship, it's going to take deliberate effort. Like practicing an instrument - truly KNOWING somebody and creating harmony with them requires constant and conscious effort. To complicate this process is the fact that we're also super socially retarded being modern Americans. Alienated from our landbase (quick, name 10 local edible plants), our heritage, our tribe, and our own bodies, our default mode of operating is a psychotic state of profound loneliness and isolation.

Case in point:

My dad was telling me the other day that he's interested in learning primitive skills at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School with me this summer because he wants, similarly to me, "to be able to feel right at home" if all of his shit gets stolen when he's taking one of his long, trans-country walks (for me it's when I'm on my long trans-country bike rides). Not to mention, the fact that civilization is fundamentally unsustainable makes it seem even more wise to get some basic hunter-gatherer skills under the belt. Yes, it's comforting to think that if all of our "crucial" stuff got stolen, we'd feel right at home.

Suddenly it occurred to me how ridiculous it was that we used the language "feel right at home," as if what we wanted to feel "right at home" in were anything other than our truest, god-given home. What is The Land, the planet earth, the woods, the rivers, the weather, and the fields, if not our true "home?" Right? So what a wool's been pulled over our eyes! What a crookery is this! Our home's been taken from us! Why else would we not feel right at home in our own home? And even scarier: since The Land is our true home, what IS this home-costumed prison, this bizarre infrastructure, this home imposter called "STUFF," called "civilization," called "home," this Nutra-Sweet replica of the true sweetness of home, that keeps us alienated from our true home? It's like Neo waking up in "The Machine's" tubular jelly coffin, The Machine that fed off his mindlessness. It's like coming back to your body, looking around you at all the lifelessness alienation surrounding you, and saying: "Where's LIFE!!!!" It's like alcoholics or junkies who have to have their "STUFF" stolen from them, to get forcefully deprived of their "STUFF" for them to realize their humanity, their place in a family, their self worth, their HOME again.

(side note: I don't want to wait till the lights don't work, the faucet doesn't have water, the stores don't have food cause the trucks didn't haul it to them, and people are starting to get hungry, dirty, and thirsty (withdrawal) to connect with actual light, actual water, and actual food cycles)

I've also realized that there's an issue of quality vs. quantity going on inside me. I'm only one guy, with only so much time. There's people who I say "I love" who I can't even find the time to call on the telephone, let alone see in person! I don't feel anymore comfortable cluttering my life up with more rarely-attended-to people then I do with more rarely-attended to objects! "2 bright and shiny new relationships" sounds like the bright and shiny keys to two new cars that I don't want to own, drive, or have time for in the first place! Clutter sucks. Quality rules. That's another reason I think I haven't found the desire to scare up 2 new "relationships."

In regard to the "52 less" part of 52-52 I've stumbled upon another realization. First background: I live in a tent on a roof in San Francisco, dumpster dive over 50% of my food, only buy organic Vegan food when I do buy food, don't own a car and instead travel using public transpo and Xtracycle (www.Xtracycle.com), and am self-employed on a donation-only basis (www.ShakeYourPeace.com) so my income is about $3000 or less per year. The relatively few possessions that I'm a steward of, are all things that I use either frequently, or else use frequently during a certain season, like my Thermarest during the 2 month long musical bike tours I do a couple times a year.

Even so, despite my relatively (for an American) low impact and possession-lite lifestyle, I still feel like my life is cluttered with way too much civilized (read: alienating from real life) cultural habits that are just as wasteful and harmful to the environment and to the community as the accumulation of ridiculous objects. These are things that when I look around the house that's my life, I see taking up half of my living space and wonder where the hell it came from, what the hell I ever used it for, and why the hell I haven't thrown it out yet. My realization is that since I can't realistically give up 52 objects this year cause since that'd leave me with no more than my glasses and an old holey t-shirt (and which by the way, would be a state of destituteness so unacceptable to my mother that she would likely buy back everything that I'd just given away in the first place), I instead aim to give up things that fall under the broader category of what could be called "extraneous elements of bullshit in my life." Examples of what I could see being eliminated include digusting cultural habits such as shitting in 2 gallons of drinking water every time I need to do my business (alternative= humanure composting), the clothes dryer method of drying my laundry (alt= line drying), the electric stove top to cook my food (alt= raw diet, or else a solar cooker or fire), nylon-steel instrument strings for my guitar and fiddle (alt= gut strings), time reading and writing emails (alt= do what I did before that stuff existed: skate, play music, climb trees), and those kinds of things.

What do yall think about that?

The Story of Stuff or Solving for Pattern

2008-01-09T22:52:00.000-07:00

First off, if you haven't read the extensive comment my mom wrote on my last post, do that. She asks a lot of good questions that I hope will generate very good dialogue.

Second, if you haven't watched the video, "The Story of Stuff," that was just launched, do it! It's a very sobering look at what a consumption society actually is costing us. One of the most shocking statistics was that on average, 99% of what we buy ends up in the trash within 6 months! Knowing that I'm already on my 2nd iPod, that I bought a 25-pack of blank CDs tonight, means that I've got a long way to go before I can actually look my kids in the eye one day and tell them that I care about their future.

Watching the video, I wondered if the real impetus for change will have to come from the youth - jr. highers, high-schoolers, even maybe college students - kids that are so easily connected to one another thanks to blogs, facebooks, etc. Maybe they can get a stronger message out to one another then marketing execs can get at them through ad campaigns? If enough people are talking in forums like we're trying to do in this blog, then maybe riding bikes would become cool, only trading clothes with one another (or borrowing things from each other as my mom suggested) instead of buying new would be an of-course. We have to give kids something more to live for than stuff. I know my dad could wax eloquent on the subject of what happens to kids left to stuff - at best they end up obsessed with their own marketability and at worst end up in juvenile detention centers. There has to be a better option that builds community at the same time.

"The Story of Stuff" suggested that in fact spending time on the internet is not going to solve the problem. Interestingly enough, the video makes the direct connection that building community by spending face-to-face time with neighbors, friends, family, etc. is key to addressing consumption. You can't simply tell people to not buy as much stuff; you have to also involve them in their community. The message they were telling us is that we believe we are not valuable so we seek value in things. Instead, we must seek value in people, in relationships.

So maybe our project of replacing things with relationship, or community, is not a bad way to start off our new year after all. How's it going so far?

My mom brought up the issue of "what counts?" Does meeting three new people at a wedding reception count? Does writing a check to charity count? What about acquiring new items?

These are all valid questions. I think it will depend on each of us to determine what counts. In everything I'm sure we'll feel better about some weeks and our effort for less consumption/more community than other weeks. The goal in my mind is a determined stepping forward toward a goal, even if sometimes we seem to moving at snails pace. I know for me, writing a check to charity isn't a step forward. I'm already doing that. But deciding to go without things I think I need (like a set of 25 blank CDs) and giving that money to charity instead might be a further step forward for me...

So down to business. The first week of 2008 is gone. What did we give up? Who did we meet?

Andy and I got to meet Sonya Cotton, Gabe's girlfriend. Happily, this new acquaintance already is paying off! :) She sent me the link for "The Story of Stuff" AND I got to give her my purple Doc Marten boots, which fit her much better than they did me and since I haven't used them since Pace was born, it was time to give them away.

Now it's your turn. How did your week go? What did you give up? Who did you meet?

Sermon Series 2008

2008-01-01T23:20:00.000-07:00

How cool would it be to go into a church and hear the preacher say to the congregants, "this year, we will be studying a life of less things and more relationships. We will be giving away one thing every week and getting to know somebody in our community each week through this practice."!? Over the holiday, Gabe and I were wondering how, with our parents, we ended up growing up in an Evangelical church - churches stuck on theology and lacking practice in anything they claim as theological truths. We were thinking about what sermons we would have wanted to hear growing up instead. This was one idea we came up with and decided why not, let's try it. We'll give up one thing every week, meet somebody, and by the end of the year we'll have 52 less things in our lives and 52 more people.

Now, lest we totally devalue a good theological sermon, we thought a blog would be the most appropriate way to preach at each other. :) Or more precisely, to give one another good teaching and critical redefinitions of our project. In fact, maybe terms likes "giving up one thing" and "meeting somebody" are not helpful at all to our goals and as the year goes on we'll change our titles and terms entirely.

For instance, Gabe hopes to in fact be able to give away something to a new person each week. While in my situation in life, with two kids, the thing I give away will most likely be disconnected to the person I meet. This will be explained more in later posts; for now let your own initial interpretations of the project determine your actions.

Your only responsibility for now if you choose to participate is to begin this week with giving away something, getting to know someone, AND participating in this blog by posting what you gave away, who you met, and anything you'd like to share with all of us.

Here's to the stories of 2008!