sunslant

WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #37

I am much more aware these days of the cold and how it penetrates our house. It’s 2:25am and my daughter and I are both in the living room, both on mac laptops, both headphoned wearing half-gloves to keep our hands warm and our fingers free. Only she is researching evolutionary genetics and I am taking a personality test for the CIA. What super power would I most like to have?

Cold air is seeping in everywhere: my feet feel a breeze, my nose, my hands. Do I have to live without windows to have a warm house and low heating bills? Why doesn’t my big orange cat who sits in the sun all day, come over and warm up my feet, seeing as he is a natural solar panel?

Before the holiday I spent a weekend listening to Scott Pittman, Permaculture Institute founder, tell our small group how to build adobes, how to let air circulate, how to appreciate common sense.

Each new subject he tackled reminded me that I already knew what he was talking about. But not in an “I know everything” sense, more like, “Oh, yeah, I knew that” feeling of deep recognition. Some of my notes:

• every element in a system should serve several functions
• the biggest losers in the Enron scandal were the green investors
• Rome put salt into the fields of their enemies to ruin their economy
• cooperation not competition is the rule in natural systems
• ask yourself: how do I occupy space?
• ask yourself: where is the system leaking?
• Russians named our soil terms; Arabs named our desert terms
• look in the problem for a solution
• what resources increase with use? seeds, information, love

I had a bold question; I asked, Why can’t green businesses pay local providers their actual business rate in Santa Fe? Scott answered that he often ends up with a wealthy client which in turn allows him to work with needy groups within their budget.

I jumped all over that, barely giving him a chance to pause: Why are we always dependant on one wealthy client, hoping the money will trickle down? That doesn’t sound like it fits with the tenants of permaculture.

I love to discover the truth, but I was unprepared for how earth-shattering this piece of knowledge came at me. The system is B-R-O-K-E, Scott enunciated with a hint of his own frustration. But I knew that, of course I knew that. However, until that moment, I hadn’t accepted it.

I sat stunned. For a few minutes I stopped taking notes Well, that explains everything, doesn’t it? Why is the dollar worth 4 cents? Why am I always wanting to lie down with my spine touching the earth’s spine? Why do I have dreams of being a spy? Because “the ones who didn’t know better” took advantage of the natural systems and drained them, drained me, made me want to fight. So many of my actions fell into a trajectory that I had not noticed before.

Consider this blog: a year-long exercise on combining writing and nature. Or my photos: all celebrating the patterns of nature.

Another clue: the two summers I spent at Green Gulch farm where I met Fukuoka-san who talked about bombing the CA hillsides with seeds.

My first poem, written at age 14 extolled the beauty of the fairies alive in the moonlight in my humble suburban side yard.

My client list this year: a local greenhouse, a LEED architect, a compost maker, a xeriscape expert, and a landscape designer. How did that happen?

The weekend was very similar to sitting continuous Zazen: the lower back ache, nodding off after lunch, the way the world seemed so fresh and untried when you walked out the door. The sense of coming home, of being with your true family.

For two days I watched the track of the sun slant through the western window, slide up the edge of a podium made from grey barn wood, and turn the last yellow leaves of a rose bush golden before it exited the stage. As I listened, I drew the outline of the table in front of the window that held coffee pots, tea bags, doughnuts, crackers, honey.

After the long weekend of exploration, I know the path I am on, I can feel the solidity of the earth under my feet. But I don’t yet know how to name it.

fall color

into the sunset

WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #36


It’s getting harder to take my evening walk since the time changed and the sky is completely black. Last night I turned east to walk into the rising full moon, but tonight the moon will rise an hour later.

The sun is going down in a river of dark blue cloud with pink edges so I turn west to view as much of it as possible. As I walk, the sky grows more and more fantastic, a ripe display of oranges, golds, pink, salmon, red and green all folded into the undersides of rippling storm clouds. And for a graphic touch, the Cerrillos hills are silhouetted in front, black forms cutting into the bright display.

When I turn again, the light reflects off the stalks of purple asters gone white, and heavy dried sunflower heads hanging parallel to the ground.

I ponder my recent I Ching throws. In the past few weeks I have received 51, “Shock”, (above); 64, “Before Completion”, (the last hexagram); and 3, “Making a New Beginning.” I have dreamt of planes falling from the sky and a dark horse whose name I can’t speak. How much of this reflects me and how much reflects all of us? Trick question.

I think about the upcoming election tomorrow and remember 2004. How shocked I was, we all were, with that outcome. I was most shocked that there was such an eerie silence on the internet and on the phones. No one called, no one emailed. I wasn’t blog-happy then, so the quiet was unnerving.

Looking over my shoulder, the view is arresting. I decide to walk backwards so I won’t miss the silent fireworks.

Let’s not be shocked this time, no matter what the outcome. Imagine every possibility, every manifestation and let’s make one promise: let’s not let shock paralyze us. Will your greatest hopes be dashed or realized? Keep centered either way.

A shock can be a death, an injury, an unbearable loss, or it can be as small as tripping over a stone in the path. Whatever makes you aware that a problem exists, shock is the teacher that wakes you up.

In Zen, we are all enlightened, we just don’t realize it. What shock will you experience tomorrow? How will you respond? Will you collapse in despair? Will you throw yourself to the winds of celebration? The I Ching recommends maintaining balance, being centered in every event.

Rinzai Zen was practiced by the samurai and teaches an abrupt awakening, but the Soto tradition of Zen was practiced by the farmers and continues to teach “just sitting.” If you are Soto and you attain enlightenment? Just go back to the pillow and sit some more.

Ha! How stupid I am, walking backwards. I can merely step forward into the sunset and complete the other half of my journey in the full view of the changing sky, as gaudy as an opera set.

a nudge

WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #35

On the same day President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a judge in Houston revoked the late Ken Lay’s fraud and conspiracy conviction like it never happened. This double whammy hit me hard enough to finally fight back, write back. Here’s something you can do that is worthwhile, and I am asking you as a friend to participate.

Go to moveon.org and start making calls to boost voter participation on election day this Tuesday. As a marketer I know phone calls work to remind people to come to an event. The event is your country. I know all of you who read my blog, and I feel like I can perhaps nudge you a bit. Consider yourself nudged.

It’s not hard. I am not an expert at making calls. I am far from an expert at knowing what is going on politically. MoveOn has all the info ready for you, a practice page, a cheat sheet, and they encourage you to be yourself. They have chosen the most important races to call on, and are using targeted lists of people who might not vote. I know you all have computer access and a phone. And I know you have a conscience.

I am the last person in my family to go to peace rallies or volunteer for the Green party or attend a political function. So if I am calling for change, then I must be tipping the balance. I am the Hundredth Monkey.

OK, I’ll admit, calling isn’t easy either. Out of the 21 calls I made this morning on behalf of the Democratic running for senator in Missouri, Claire McCaskill, I got hung up on 4 times, got an answering machine or disconnected number 13 times, got 2 people who told me they are voting for Claire and one woman who explained her family abstains from voting because they are Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It’s not too late, either. If you are reading this on Monday, you should know that the final days before an election are the most critical.

Yes, I’m using my blog for political purposes. Yes, I believe the 2004 election was stolen. Yes, I am a Green party member calling for the Democrats. Yes, I left the background of a logo white on my sea-green page. I am full of paradoxes, and one of them is believing we can undo some of the horror the Republicans have created.

Gotta start somewhere!